The students and Professor Gustav traveled by train for four hours following Scarlett.
“Maybe Scarlett will l us to a pirate ship,” Kristen said to Bill.
“But the train is heading away from the sea?”
“Well… maybe after destroying the pirate ships, they turned into mountain robbers.”
“So they became thieves?
Anyway, I prefer mountains to the sea.
I’ve never been on a ship before, but I might get seasick.
I feel it now.”
Bill opened the window and stuck his head out, vomiting.
Christine patted him on the back: “Scarlett, have you seen?
No to pirate ships.”
"First, I am not ling out to you.
Second, who will buy your weak labor?"
“I didn't think about that.”
The train finally stopped in South Salantaire, at a vineyard villa that Victor had allowed to be used.
The villa was used when needed, and its profits were spent on maintaining it and buying food, as it was not very profitable.
After the extreme cold (-20°C) every day, the atmosphere in the villa (2-3°C) seemed warm.
Everyone was impressed by the spacious fields and the comfortable villa, where there was a villa caretaker and his wife, the maid who ran the household.
Scarlett said to the students: “That room is for the professor.
Christine will share my room with me, and the rest of us will share the two rooms over there.
Five in each room...”
Before she finished, the students divided the rooms and started jumping in front of the fireplace: “Fireplace!”
“I haven't felt warm in a long time!”
Even Gustave took off his coat and rolled over on his bed: “How light my body is!”
A student looking out the door said: “It's not your body, it's the weight of your coat!”
“Ah, right!”
While the students were enjoying the villa, Scarlett and Christine entered the bedroom.
The room, prepared for Princess Marina, reflected refined taste.
Christine touched the covers: “Wow, soft...”
Everything was luxurious.
Christine got into bed and snuck under the covers: “Good night, Scarlett.”
She fell asleep immediately.
Salantir College was very cold, making the students conserve energy by not moving, and they were exhausted by travel.
Scarlett didn't expect a four-hour train ride to exhaust them like this.
Scarlett lay on the opposite end of the bed, but got up because she was not sleepy.
She took a book from the shelf and left the room.
The living room was as luxurious as the bedroom.
Scarlett sat in an easy chair, put the book on her knees, and looked at the house.
She had believed that Victor Domfelt was forged based on Princess Marina's wishes, but his last words made her believe otherwise.
Maybe it was just a tool to vent anger.
The lofty goal of being royal was probably just a rope to get him to accept punishment.
I felt bad for Victor.
While everyone says he doesn't deserve pity, she sees it as such.
But now he is an adult, he must gradually deal with the emotional turmoil caused by his parents' upbringing.
But his personality, which was formed in childhood, did not change easily.
Scarlett remembered his usual expression.
Throughout their marriage, her biggest goal was to make him laugh, not a courtesy laugh, but a spontaneous laugh of joy at her proximity, moments when he would unconsciously lean toward her, or make silly mistakes out of enthusiasm.
But that was impossible for Victor.
He was a bridge between the exiled princess and an heir who gave the Domfelt family a history, a navigator who initiated the family's prosperity, and a framed figure cited as a symbol of the family's greatness.
He did not seem to object to this role, but Scarlett sometimes pitied him.
Why does it have to be a framed character?
You should have your own life, something for us to be together, to love, to laugh out loud, and to fail sometimes.
That's life, in my opinion.
Whenever she said that, Victor looked at her like she was inferior.
She liked even that look.
How much was she in love with him?
In the Crimson family, where she spent her adolescence between the burdens of work, her dreams delighted her, from collecting colorful candies as jewels to imagining the Crown Prince falling in love with her from afar.
She never imagined that the last fantasy would come true first.
In the carriage to Domfelt Palace, I thought that life was unpredictable.
During the two years of her love for him, Victor tried to mold her into an aristocratic lady, but she could not even touch his personality.
In the end, he sent her to the monastery.
Scarlett opened the door and left the villa.
After the extreme cold in the north, the weather here seemed tolerable.
Unlike the deep snow of the north, the snow here exposed the ground when stepped on.
Footsteps later, she almost screamed when a black shadow suddenly appeared.
He closed her mouth and lifted her face.
It was Victor.
Scarlett fell down in fear, but he held her waist and helped her stand up: “It seems that you did not expect me to come.”
“I didn’t know...why did you come?”
“Aren't you choosing reliable people to work on the engine?”
“True”
“Then, I have to do interviews.”
“Interviews?”
“There are a lot of spies, they need to be sifted out.
You did well to gather them here, it will be easy to sift them out.”
“Oh, right”
Scarlett nodded: “Andrey was a spy too.”
“Hiram Pitt”
"He hates being called that, he doesn't like his family.
His brother would take everything, so he sees no need to protect the name."
Victor looked at her and said: “Before going to sleep, let’s drink tea.
I came here.”
“It would be awkward if we met others.”
“Then let's drink it here.”
Victor motioned to the maid inside the glass door: “Bring tea.”
“Yes, sir.”
The maid returned with a tray.
Scarlett and Victor each took a cup.
It was a strange feeling for them to be sitting on the balcony of the villa in their coats, drinking tea.
Scarlett broke the silence: “I thought I wouldn't do that.”
“What?”
“Sending you to the monastery”
Her tone was as sad as a moonless night: “Even if you had betrayed me, I would have believed what you said.
And if I had not believed it, I would not have been able to bear being away from you for 100 days.
I would have searched for you countless times.
I would not have sent you to a place I did not know.
If I had known that I had done that...
I would not have slept a day.”
She sipped the warm tea and continued: “Do I look childish and fish?”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because, I know you, you might think like that.
You think that our marriage is just a tool to bind families.”
“Even though you know it, you're blaming me now.”
Scarlett smiled weakly: “That's right.
How can we live together for two years when we're not compatible?”
"actually."
Victor sipped his tea and remained silent.
Scarlett looked at him, and he turned to her.
She said slowly: “Anyway, you have almost achieved your goal.”
He looked at her, and she continued: “Isn’t it?
The Doomfelt family has you now.
No one can deny its greatness.”
“One day, your grandchildren will look at your portrait hanging in the finest place in Domfelt Mansion, and tell the family history to their children and grandchildren.”
Victor didn't say a word.
“Well, I'm talking alone again,” said Scarlett impatiently.
“I'll come in.”
“I'm not happy about it”
“What?”
Scarlett turned around and was about to enter.
Victor looked at the vines and continued: “Even if I imagine it, it doesn’t excite me.”