Back at the Black family's mansion, Adrian asked the servant to bring a first - aid kit and personally treated the bruise on my arm that I got during the struggle. Adrián was leaning on the sofa with his eyes closed, resting.
Adrian lowered his head, dipped a cotton swab in the medicinal oil, and said in an unreadable tone, "Isabella must have troubled you more than once, right?"
I nodded honestly. "Yes."
"Humph," came a very soft snort from Adrián beside me.
Adrian's hand applying the medicine paused, and he looked up and asked, "Why didn't you call us?" His tone was usually impatient, but upon closer listening, there was a hint of tension.
I remembered the misunderstanding about the tulip specimens and the cold words they had said on the first day I entered the house. My voice became even lower. "I was afraid... of causing you trouble..."
Adrián suddenly opened his eyes, as if his anger had been ignited. "Lillian! Are you stupid?!" He took a deep breath, suppressed his anger, and said word by word, "Listen carefully to me. We two - "
Adrian continued, his voice not loud but firm. "Protect our own."
Adrián nodded. "Right. No one from the Black family can even lose a single hair outside. Got it?"
My heart skipped a beat. "A member of the Black family?" They said I was "a member of the Black family"? My nose suddenly felt sour.
In the past in the town, when I was blocked in an alley by hooligans, my mother would only tell me to endure, to hide, and not to cause trouble. But now Adrian told me that if anyone made me unhappy, I could just slap them, and they would take care of it for me.
I lowered my head. "Sorry... about the tulips that day..."
Adrian moved closer and said, "We overreacted that day. We left without explaining clearly and made you suffer. Sorry, little Lillian. We didn't want you to know about this originally." He sighed and told me a past event.
Tulips were their mother's favorite when she was alive. Their mother passed away in the Black family's tulip greenhouse. They felt sorry for their mother. Duke Black had casually picked a wild tulip in the mountains back then and had deceived their mother for a lifetime. Their mother was a daughter of a wealthy family and had seen all kinds of rare flowers, but she had fallen in love with that worthless wild tulip and had trapped herself for a lifetime. When their mother learned that their father - Duke Black had an illegitimate daughter outside, she was reluctant to leave and was depressed all day long. Eventually, she closed her eyes in the fragrance of tulips. When she died, her beloved man was on a business trip abroad and didn't even want to come back to see her for the last time.
I finally understood why the pair of tulip specimens were a taboo, and I felt even more guilty.
Adrian saw through my thoughts and patted me on the shoulder. "Little Lillian, these things have nothing to do with you. Don't take it to heart."
I was stunned. So it turned out that a brother's hand on the shoulder was warm.