✧After a Long Time✧Leyla stepped out of the mansion just as the sky began turning a rose-tinted colour and was welcomed by a soothing wind as she exited the rose garden entrance.Leyla walked confidently, clutching a gold coin in her right hand. Her bold steps, however, didn’t last too long when she saw Claudine sitting under the pergola near the full-bloom flower roses. The brunette-haired girl was having a fun conversation with her cousins, and she gave a vague smile when her gaze fell on Leyla’s.“Goodbye, Leyla.”Claudine was the one who greeted her first. The young men sitting next to Claudine all looked at Leyla with their gazes drawn to her. But thankfully, Duke Herhardt wasn’t among them. So Leyla quickly replied with a single bow to her farewell, but Claudine remained silent.After she was out of their sight, Leyla began to run. She couldn’t wait to escape from the weird and unknown world and get back to Uncle Bill’s cottage as soon as she could. But it seemed her worst misfortune came at the very last moment.Leyla tripped at the crosswalk of the garden and the forest path. Her gold coin mockingly rolled down the paving stone and landed on the tip of a man’s shoe. She frowned at the spinning gold coin, and the man lightly stepped on the coin with the tip of his shoe to quell its tinkling sounds.Leyla moved her eyes slowly to the well-polished shoes, up to the long legs, and finally to the man’s face that loomed upon her.It was Duke Herhardt.Leyla startled and immediately sprang to her feet. Her white dress had blood and dust stains from her scratched knee. With a composed expression on his face, the Duke clearly stared at Leyla with his red lips, which seemed to be slightly curved to one side.Leyla pressed her lips together and brushed the dust from her clothes. Meanwhile, Duke Herhardt took a leisurely step back, then the coin under his foot shone brightly, reflecting the sunshine.Leyla hunkered down her body in front of the Duke, even though she wanted to leave the place right away. Just as she was about to stretch out her arms to take the coin, She remembered what she had been told by Claudine.‘No better than a dog.’Those words had scratched a deep wound in Leyla’s heart. She took the coin and politely bowed to Duke Herhardt.Leyla didn’t dare to lift her head. So all she could do was stoop her head as low as she could and hold her breath. As she bowed, surprisingly, the pain she felt when she fell was no longer there.