Even if she couldn’t stop thinking about him, and he was the first man to ever look at her and see her for who she was, and he made her feel safe and comfortable and, if she dared to say it, loved.
The only thing that mattered was her father and the fact that she was about to become nobility.
If her father recognized her.
Dietrich seemed sure that it would happen. Ella was less certain, but Dietrich knew him better than she did. If he thought that her father would recognize her, who was she to argue with him?
Well, she was a lady, apparently. But that was not enough to let her argue with Dietrich over something he likely knew much better than she did.
As the carriage rolled through the gates, Ella looked out at her father’s home—the home that had been hers so many years ago. This was where she had been born, where she had lived, where she had been loved.
And she didn’t recognize it at all.
There was a lump in her throat that she tried hard to swallow as the carriage stopped. She felt the driver and Dietrich jump down.
The door opened, and a hand reached in to help her down.
She took it, but it wasn’t Dietrich’s. She knew that before she could even see the face of the man helping her down. There was a pit in her stomach as she allowed the man to help her out of the carriage. Where was Dietrich? He hadn’t shied away from helping her before, when he had been the one to help her down from her horse, his hands resting on her hips and holding her tight like she was the most precious thing in the world.
Where had he gone?
She turned to look at the castle and saw Dietrich striding into the building, walking as fast as he could without running. She held in the bitter laugh that threatened to escape. It seemed he couldn’t wait to get away from her, now that it was confirmed who she was.
She took a deep breath and surveyed the courtyard. Where did she go now? He hadn’t stopped to tell her what she should do, he’d just run away as fast as he could.
Should she go in? Should she wait? Should she knock on the front door or try to follow Dietrich through the door he’d entered?
Not knowing what to do was almost as hard as watching Dietrich leave.
She turned to ask the man who had helped her out, but he was already on the other side of the carriage.
Should she go pet the horses?
Her fingers reached into her pocket of their own accord, the wooden pumpkin familiar and soothing under her touch.
This was not how she’d expected this to go.
She took a few steps back and reached out to pet the nose of the closest horse. Beatrice had to come out at some point to take her carriage home, and she would know what to do. She would just wait for her guidance, instead of doing something she shouldn’t do.
Then there was a commotion near the castle. Ella’s head whipped around as a door opened, and a man ran out, faster than she’d seen a grown man ever run.
He seemed familiar.
Could it be?
He wore fine clothes, and his eyes were tired, but they felt so right.
He ran to her and pulled her into a rib-crushing hug, squeezing as if he would never let go again.
“It’s really you,” he said, pulling back enough to look down at her before he hastily released her and took a step back. “I’m sorry, you don’t know me—”
“You’re my father,” Ella interjected, smiling up at him.
Perhaps she didn’t know him, but she knew his face. She had seen it in her dreams many nights over the years, and while she’d never known who he was, he always made her feel safe and loved and cared for.
The nights she dreamed of him were the best of her life.
“I remember you, at least a little.”
