Chapter 116.1
After waking up in this body, Grace recalled the day she had said she didn’t know much about flowers because she had lost her memories.
“Then… do you have a favorite flower?”
“I do like flowers, but I don’t really know the types. Since I don’t know their names, I can’t tell them apart.”
……
“I see. I hadn’t considered that.”
After that, small plaques with flower names were placed in front of the garden bushes.
“…Ah.”
She remembered the day they had visited Young Marchioness Charles’s glass garden.
He had naturally explained countless kinds of flowers to her—acting as though he had known all of this from the beginning, as though it had always been familiar to him.
Grace squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. Dizziness washed over her.
‘That wasn’t it.’
Benjamin hadn’t been knowledgeable about flowers. The one who had known them well was Grace.
No, more precisely, Grace had been interested not just in flowers, but in plants as a whole.
Most people assumed she cared only about flowers, yet when Benjamin was with her, he spoke more often about plants than blooms.
Benjamin knew Grace better than the family she had grown up with.
‘Did he keep a promise that didn’t even need keeping—by himself?’
Thinking of Benjamin patiently explaining everything to a version of her who remembered nothing, Grace found herself unable to put any words to her feelings toward him.
“I studied.”
“I studied because I wanted to talk with you someday, Wife. I didn’t expect to be found out, though.”
That day, when Benjamin spoke of studying, he hadn’t meant just the flowers in Young Marchioness Charles’s greenhouse.
Her heart ached with a cold, hollow pain. She felt suffocated, unable to forgive herself. Yet, at the same time, she felt selfishly, unbearably happy.
It was as though a sharp, prickling fullness pierced and filled her entire body.
“…I’m going to step out for a bit. Please clean up here.”
“Yes! I’ll make sure everything’s perfect.”
Grace gathered all the pressed flowers she had recently made and ran toward the main building. Her heart pounded violently, leaving her breathless. But her body felt lighter than ever.
“Your Excellency!”
It wasn’t the usual time for his walks, so Benjamin shouldn’t have been in the garden.
And yet, he was always there.
“Wife? What’s wrong? Why are you in such a hurry?”
“Take these—take all of them.”
“…Pardon?”
“Forget about their meaning. I’m giving you all of them. They’re made from the bouquet you gave me before. Every last one.”
“……”
Grace placed the armful of pressed flowers into Benjamin’s hands. Flattened thin, the dried petals scattered even in the faintest breeze.
“Ah.”
She reached out to catch them, but there was no way. The brittle, dried petals shattered and scattered, carried away by the wind.
“I—I’ll pick them up.”
“It’s all right, Wife. Truly. More importantly… you remembered, didn’t you?”
“…What?”
“I told you before. That bouquet was made entirely of flowers suitable for pressing. I said it was my scheme to receive even one thing from you, didn’t I?”
Amid the scattering petals, he smiled.
‘…Idiot.’
Who would be happy over remembering a recent conversation, while standing before someone who remembered none of their shared past?
No—perhaps the reason she couldn’t remember those past memories was because the current Grace was a different person altogether.
That realization made her chest throb painfully.
Each time memories of Grace and Benjamin surfaced, her emotions grew more vivid. Yet she was still someone who had stolen another woman’s fate.
‘Why does no one notice?’
Not Grace’s family, whom she met again after so long—not even Benjamin, who might have known her better than anyone.
After happiness comes anxiety.
It always did. Because this happiness had never been meant for her.
“…Yes. I remembered.”
Even so, this was all Grace could do for now. She hadn’t chosen to possess this body.
She didn’t know how to return, and even if she spoke the truth, no one would believe her.
‘Honestly… I don’t even want to go back.’
She had inherited Grace’s emotions and memories—wasn’t it acceptable to call herself Grace, then?
But the more she learned how deeply Benjamin had loved Grace, and how cherished she had been by those around her—unlike in the original story—the more she hesitated.
‘…But I can’t just take Grace’s life.’
As she herself grew happier, was it really right that Grace Felton’s life should have ended so miserably in the annex?
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