No!
It's not Cecilia!
Terence shook his head forcefully, trying to dispel the momentary daze.
Cecilia had brilliant golden hair, the same as Aurora, the current mistress of the Monte Territory and former heir to the Duval Territory.
Duval Territory... Monte Territory...
Terence finally remembered. The Duval Territory was now the Monte Territory.
And Cecilia was his adopted daughter, once the second-in-line heir to the Duval Territory... who had disappeared at the age of twelve.
She'd had the same air about her as the young woman before him now.
A quality that made her seem to stand apart, transcendent, even in a crowd.
A deep sadness welled up in Terence's heart.
'If Cecilia were still alive, she would have long been married with children, and her child would be about this young woman's age by now.'
He raised a withered hand, pointing toward the black-gowned young woman in the center of the square, and rasped to his old servant Leon, "Push me over there."
