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***

The old priest gave them an apologetic smile. "Duchess Escalante, forgive the delay. The archbishop remains in the prayer room, deep in his devotions."

"There is nothing to forgive. You need not apologize to a mere believer, Father," Isabella replied with noble courtesy.

Inés lowered her head in acknowledgment when the priest's gaze met hers. The elderly man nodded his farewell and offered the same gesture to Isabella's lady-in-waiting and Juana, who were standing a few steps away from the two ladies. Then he excused himself and slowly exited the room.

Isabella shifted her gaze to Inés. "All this waiting must be tiresome for you so early in the morning," she said, her voice tinged with apology. "You need not have troubled yourself to come with me."

Inés shook her head. "Do not fret, Isabella. I was worried I would grow restless all alone at the manor."

"You and Cárcel do not have much time left together. You ought to spend it with him."

Inés allowed herself a faint smile. "I see no need to be at his side when duty called him to the palace."

Isabella's gaze lingered on her before she placed a hand on Inés's and patted the back of her hand. "But he will return soon enough. His Majesty's attendant assured me the matter would not last beyond noon."

It seemed that the duchess had been nervously glancing at the clock because she was thinking about when her son would return home. She seemed weighed down in concern, as if she had wrongfully separated him from his wife. Isabella was concerned only for the two.

"If he wishes to see me, he will wait patiently at the manor instead of going elsewhere," Inés said, turning over her hand to give Isabella's a reassuring squeeze before letting go.

Isabella chuckled knowingly. "I'm all right, my dear."

"I am aware."

Inés knew full well that the duchess was anything but all right, but at times it was necessary to say the opposite of the truth. She had been keeping an eye on Isabella, who had kept her thoughts to herself ever since her two sons had fought each other in the dining room, her heart growing heavier and heavier. As Inés was very concerned for Isabella's waning health, she insisted on accompanying her mother-in-law whenever she left the manor.

Isabella did not speak as much as she used to. This was perhaps inevitable, seeing that nobles could never really speak their mind, even to their spouses or their children, but venting wasn't going to fix all of the misfortunes upon House Escalante either. The pain Isabella was suffering was due to her feeling like she was powerless.

After injuring his brother, Miguel had gone back to locking himself in his room and speaking to no one. Duke Escalante really was not as unsympathetic to his wife as he seemed, but even as he appeared to act soft at times, his nature was tough and hard, as befitting of Admiral Calderon's only son. And his son Cárcel, in turn, was also not the type to be sweet and kind to his mother. As strong as his sense of responsibility was toward his family, he was anything but friendly and amiable. This seemed to have been the case ever since he was a very young child. That was why Inés felt obligated to be at Isabella's side herself.

Luciano had chuckled at Inés's seemingly obsessive concern for her mother-in-law, seeing that she wasn't taking care of herself very much, but Inés felt indebted to the duchess. She felt guilty toward the younger Isabella who had to stand by and simply smile as her young son was tormented by his noble cousin as a child. And yet, Isabella had never blamed Inés.

Though Inés still could not fully remember her first life, she could tell from the hazy bits of memory that she had been terrible to both Cárcel and Isabella. In other words, she felt that she had no right to show any signs of pain or suffering before her mother-in-law. In front of Isabella, she had to be completely fine, no matter what, in order to look out for the woman who was clearly not all right even now.

"I cannot imagine how I would have managed without you," Isabella murmured as she drew her hands over the long box on her lap. It contained the ceremonial baton she had reluctantly acquired in honor of her son's promotion. The only reason she had asked for an audience with the archbishop of Mendoza was to have him bless this baton for Cárcel.

If Cárcel were to hear of this, he would grumble about how his mother had gone through such unnecessary effort when there were perfectly capable priests in Calztela as well. But Inés understood Isabella's wish to do something for her son. Her gesture was born of a mother's love. Cárcel, of course, would only make such an unfeeling comment out of concern for his mother's health, not out of disregard for her devotion.

"A much better woman would be at your side, I imagine," Inés replied with a smile. The words, though laced with jest, carried an undercurrent of sincerity. Deep down, she believed Cárcel deserved someone much better than herself in this life.

The mere thought of this imaginary woman made her blood boil with a jealousy so fierce it left her breathless. Yet, when she thought about it rationally, it did occur to her that it would have been better for him. She knew she had no right to such feelings and dismissed her errant thoughts.

"He might not have been with anyone at all if not for you," Isabella deliberated aloud.

"Well... he has a strong sense of duty, so if you had made him a better match, he would have managed fine..."

"But his feelings for you go beyond mere duty," Isabella said, her tone turning firm. "So please, do not entertain such thoughts, even for a moment. And do not undervalue yourself. It would wound him deeply to know you think so little of what you bring to his life."

Inés gave her an awkward smile and reassured her, "I did not mean it that way."

"Where is the Inés who once pointed at my son with such unshakable confidence?"

"I... was very young then."

"Strangely enough, you sometimes speak as though you are lacking in any way. You speak of kind-hearted women as though you weren't one...as though Cárcel deserves more than what he already has in you. I have always thought you're the sort to bask in your own grandeur. Was I mistaken?" Isabella added playfully.

Inés's ears went red. "I daresay I am still an arrogant wife to your son, Isabella."

"I once felt the same about Juan," Isabella said, her voice softening. "I did not care when I merely thought of him as a suitable match, but when I realized my love for him, I began to feel inadequate in every way. The more I came to cherish him, the more I doubted myself. Love has a way of humbling us. For a long time, I believed I was not enough for him." Isabella paused and added with a bitter smile, "This was back when I could love him without feeling ashamed of myself, of course."

As much as Cárcel and Inés's displays of affection in public had given rise to a change in Mendoza's social circles, the norm had always been that love between married couples was rather uncouth. This was just as true for the young Isabella when she married Juan Escalante.

Cárcel's grandmother and Admiral Calderon's wife, the former Duchess Escalante, was notorious for her strict and cold demeanor just as much as her husband was for his steely temperament. It was clear that she would not have gotten along with Isabella, who was sweet and amiable, and back when Isabella was naïve and far from the "well-molded" duchess she was today, she must have been criticized for every little thing day in and out. And as she was chiseled and polished to fit her new position as the future duchess, she must have lost parts of her old self. So much so that she thought of her love for her husband as something from "once upon a time."

Inés tried to imagine Cárcel's parents, who were now so exemplary, as a young married couple twenty, thirty years ago. At times, Duke and Duchess Escalante appeared to be entirely unfeeling toward each other, but at other times, there were familiar habits they fell into that made them seem as though they were in a world of their own. Unlike the typical married couple in Mendoza, they treated each other with mild decency, though there was not enough warmth to consider them very affectionate. Inés was finally beginning to understand the cause of this strange gap.

"There was love between you when you were married," she said.

"There was, back when we knew nothing of dignity or misery," Isabella answered. She paused for a moment before continuing. "Inés. I do not wish for you two to become like me, yearning for the past. It is much more difficult to maintain love than it is to obtain. In order for you to not regret the many years that have passed one day, in your old age... to not stew in remorse about the things you should and should not have said, it is important to guard what you have now. You only live once, and you must treasure that life."

You only live once. Inés mused over this statement for a moment.

Isabella was right. As much as Inés had repeated parts of her life, she had never lived the same exact life. Even those who could not die and were reborn in the past without their knowledge according to God's will, even those who volunteered to punished themselves by remembering such as the foolish and good-hearted Emiliano, their lives were never the same. There was no such thing as a life lived twice the exact same way. As God intended, no one had ever died twice in the same way in this world.

"As happy as you are with Cárcel, he is more than happy with you. When you think about the two of you, all that matters is how you two feel." Isabella gripped the baton box on her lap tightly for a moment before letting go. "Even the crown prince will never find justification."

Inés now knew that her mother-in-law grew pale whenever she thought of the crown prince. Nothing good came of thinking of him. "Speaking of Cárcel, I need your help for something, Isabella." Inés put on a bright smile and waved Juana over to her.

There wasn't much left anyway. But this was something she had hesitated to show Isabella despite bringing it with her.

Juana looked conflicted as she slowly rummaged through her pockets. As Inés nodded for her to hurry, Juana let out a small sigh and procured a small embroidery frame.

"Oh my."

"As you know, there isn't much time, so..."

Before Inés had the chance to explain, Juana held up the mangled handkerchief for Isabella to see and explained, "Her Ladyship always said that it was an outdated custom, but she must have been thinking about His Lordship these days, because she has been spending all her free time on this."

It was unclear whether Isabella was horrified by Inés embroidering something for her husband or by the result as she stared back and forth between the small embroidery frame and her daughter-in-law.

"Good heavens... Inés..."

"The women of Perez tend to change completely when they are in love. As you can see, Lady Inés is proof."

"I never thought you would do something so sweet, Inés."

Inés bitterly eyed her work that had been derisively labeled as "sweet." She had simply wanted to make something to wish her husband good luck on his warpath. But all she had managed after about six failed attempts, without Juana's knowledge, were the first four letters of his very long name messily embroidered onto the cloth.

Inés still believed this to be a useless custom. It was clear that someone had come up with it to calm down a woman suffering from paranoia in the face of sending her husband off to war with the idea of giving her something to spend her time on instead of focusing on negative thoughts. This was exactly the effect Inés had experienced, in fact.

She had spent most of her life thinking that embroidering the name of a man whose health the woman wished to preserve onto a handkerchief was nothing but ridiculous superstition. But with Cárcel about to leave for war, Inés had thought it was best to try it instead of regretting it later, and though she had done her best in the short time she had, she really had no talent for embroidery, so that she had thrown down the frame with a frustrated sigh in the end, labeling the custom useless once again. Of course, when no one was watching, she had tried her very best to go along with this useless custom.

"What kind of arrogant wife believes in such sweet superstition? Hmm?" Isabella asked playfully.

"Please do not tease me... I simply tried to copy what you do in your spare time, Isabella," said Inés.

"He'll cry when he sees this. He'll think he has died and gone to heaven."

"Died and gone to heaven? You cannot say such things, Isabella."

"Just look at this." Isabella smiled as she looked at the handkerchief again, some color finally returning to her pale face.

As much as Inés was happy to see that her plan to distract the duchess from her woes had worked, she wondered whether her work really was ridiculous enough to make someone so downcast smile at the sight.

"Give it here. I will fix it for you," said Isabella.

"Perhaps you ought to start fresh..." Juana suggested carefully.

"That would defeat the point. You could give this to him now, and your husband would fall to his knees with gratitude. I hear that the fool even framed a hastily written note of yours. Once he returns from battle, I am sure he will frame this and display it somewhere for all to see as well. We might see it as a sweet sign of affection, but anyone else would only take it to be a strange piece of cloth, so I will fix it a little just to make it more recognizable. For your dignity's sake, Inés."