The First Female Duke

Chapter 25

Edith's pleasant mood made her sleep so well that she woke up in the morning a little earlier than she usually did.

She opened her eyes and looked up at the domed top of the bed, the creamy ivory of which was carved into an intricate pattern, and the muslin had been lowered around it so that the morning light did not cause her eyes to sting.

Her awakening was quickly noticed by Lexi, the dark-haired maid who stood outside the veil and asked softly, "Are you getting up?"

Edith cleared her throat and hmmmed.

Lexi lifted the muslin, smiled at her and said, "Good morning, miss."

"Good morning, Lexi." Edith said briskly.

Mary brought her the dress for the day just in time, "Good morning, miss, you're up a bit today!"

"Because I slept so well last night."

By the time she'd packed everything up and come downstairs, Mrs. Clark was a little surprised to see her, and she soon cheered up.

"Honey, you're up, but it's not breakfast time."

"Good morning Aunt Jolene." Edith shouted sweetly.

Mrs. Clark lovingly pulled her to her side and said, "If you're hungry go ahead and let the kitchen make you a little something to eat."

Edith shook her head, "I'm not hungry."

Duke Clarke was sitting on a soft woven satin sofa, legs folded, a sheaf of parchment in his hands, not sure if it was official papers or what, when he heard Mrs. Clarke talking to Edith and looked up and said mildly:

"What brings you up so early, Edith?"

"Good morning, Uncle Fielder." Edith's eyes rolled, "Probably because of something that amuses me."

Mrs. Clark asked with interest, "Oh, what is it?"

"It's a secret." She said playfully.

Another thing Edith was surprised to see was no sign of Bridges at the breakfast table.

Wiping her mouth gently and gracefully with a napkin, Edith said curiously:

"How come we haven't seen Bridges?"

Mrs. Clark said, "Oh, he's practicing his sword by the lawn in the garden."

"Sword practicing?"

"Yeah, baby wanna go check it out?" Mrs. Clark was literally making opportunities for her son and Edith to spend time together all the time.

Go watch Bridges practice with his sword? Edith thought for a moment, then nodded.

It was as if Edith had gotten a good night's sleep because she was happy, then comparatively, Young Master Clark hadn't gotten a good night's sleep because he wasn't happy, which had caused him to get up late this morning - to the point where he needed to postpone his own breakfast because of sword practice.

When Edith arrived on this side of the lawn, she saw a figure from a distance, and instead of walking over to it, she stopped where she was and watched.

Young Master Clarke had inherited his figure from Duke Clarke - tall and thin, which led to, he was a natural dresser.

Edith saw that he was wearing a white slim-fitting riding suit, and because of his sword practice, he didn't have a vest on the outside, and his collar wasn't buttoned up to the top button like usual, but instead revealed a section of white and greasy skin, which made the black finger ring hanging on his neck very conspicuous.

Edith narrowed her eyes, the black ring inexplicably reminded her of the ring that Uncle Field wore on his thumb.

This was a completely different Master Clark than his usual appearance.

Usually he is arrogant, seems to see no one has a good face, see anyone with his lazy accent to mock two sentences, bad temper to death, the slightest wrong he can directly give you face, in the words of Edith, he just owes a beating.

But now, his eyes are sharp, his whole face reveals a kind of concentration that Edith has never seen before, monotonous swinging, countless times of repetition, with his patience, according to logic should have been impatient - but no, every time he moves, Edith can not see a little slack.

She saw in him a rare word called seriousness.

Edith couldn't help but think in the back of her mind that maybe Bridges wasn't as childish as she thought.

However, not long after such a thought had arisen, Edith was tragically slapped in the face.

Young Master Clarke seemed to have finished practicing a whole set of movements, he stopped, sword in hand, the seriousness of a moment ago seemed to be a dream, and the great master hung on to his usual careless look, only to see him turn his head in the direction of Edith, and lazily shout:

"Do you think I can't see you when you hide behind a wall of flowers, Edith?"

Edith stepped out from behind the wall of flowers expressionlessly, thinking in her heart, was she out of her mind just now to think that this young master wasn't childish?

When she approached, Bridges said:

"Why the peek?"

"Who peeked?"

"...... you."

"No, I'm not."

"You did." Bridges narrowed her eyes and countered her with precision.

Edith made a gesture to stop, "I was looking squarely at it."

Bridges raised one eyebrow, you could tell by his expression that he didn't believe a word of it, but he clearly had no intention of continuing on this topic, "What are you doing in the garden?"

Because of his sword practice, Master Clarke was sweating a bit, which had caused his bangs to be a bit messy on his forehead - and he looked a bit handsome.

Edith swept a glance away and looked away, she said rightly:

"Can't I come for a walk in the garden?"

Exercise had sapped so much of Bridges' strength that he was less than thrilled to tussle with Edith, only to nod and say faintly, "Of course you can."

Edith had a surprisingly uncomfortable feeling looking at such a well-spoken Bridges, and her gaze swept over to the sword in his hand - the blade was slender and sharp, with an ancient and intricate pattern engraved at the hilt, which Edith vaguely recognized as the Clarke family crest.

An odd thought suddenly came to her mind, and Edith looked up, suddenly saying:

"Let's fight, Bridges."

Master Clark, apparently not understanding Edith's context for a moment, frowned in connection with his earlier question and said, "You came to the garden in the middle of the morning just to ask me for a fight?"

Edith re-explained with some annoyance, "It's just a contest! A proper contest!"

Bridges looks at Edith oddly for a few moments before retorting with an expressionless face:

"No!"

Edith's eyes widened, "Why?"

"Because I don't want to fight you." He stepped around Edith and tried to head in the direction of the main castle.

Edith stood still and didn't move, her face changed and her voice sounded a little sad as she said:

"Could it be that you still think I'm a weak magician and don't care to fight me?"

Young Master Clark stopped dead in his tracks because of this raw statement.

Edith, seeing that he didn't turn around, picked up where he left off, her tone even more aggrieved than it had been a moment before:

"Alright, I'll never ask you for a match again, you're right, it's true that a magician can't compete with a knight, I'm not worthy."

"I should just go to Connor, he's also a light magician, he's the best person for me to practice in real combat."

Edith struck with precision, poking Young Master Clark's lungs with each sentence.

Sure enough, two seconds later, Young Master Clark turned around with a brush, his brow furrowed so much that he could pinch a fly, and he shouted at Edith with a you're annoying me look:

"All right, all right! How do you want to compare?"

Edith giggled out.

Edith pulled out her white wand and distanced herself from him, but before she started, Master Clark still stunk up the place and checked with Edith.

"I'll accompany you in the match, but you can't go to Connor."

Edith rolled her eyes in her mind, this man was beyond childish, "Got it, got it," she said perfunctorily.

Once it was confirmed to start, she quickly cast a blast at Bridges, with a little control over the force, as the spell was more lethal.

But the other young master Clark obviously thought she was childish and dodged it lightly, only to see him holding his sword at an extremely fast speed towards Edith's side, Edith was slightly flustered, the gap between her and Bridges could be seen in that one hit just now.

She no longer stayed her hand, what explosive spells fireball spells were used faster than once, all of them were thrown in Bridges' direction.

But it was as if he had an extra eye, none of those spells hit.

Edith's brain was spinning rapidly, rationally analyzing the situation in front of her, Bridges was moving fast, she should use a spell with a larger sweeping area in order to hit him, while she was thinking about what kind of spell she could use to achieve such an effect, Bridges had actually arrived in front of her.

For a magician, this was beyond a safe distance, and Edith saw him swing his sword and sidestepped.

How do you know that Bridges was just making a fake move, his real purpose was to let Edith dodge, this dodge, Edith happened to be even closer to him, he backhandedly caught Edith's hand and twisted it behind his back, and his sharp sword was already on the edge of Edith's neck.

"You lose." Bridges said faintly.

Of course Edith knew she had lost, and had lost utterly without a fight.

At the beginning of the fight Edith knew she wouldn't win, but she thought she could at least go a few rounds, but she didn't realize that none of her spells would hit, which was a huge blow to her.

Probably girls are such strange and twisted creatures, obviously at the beginning the first person to propose a match is themselves, but when they really get beaten up badly, they are angry and sad in their hearts.

At the same time angry at their own vegetables, at the same time blame the other side of the hand merciless.

How could Young Master Clark understand the tangled mind of a girl's nine-track mind, putting down his sword, he still frowned in disgust:

"Your practical combat ability is too poor."

His intention was to remind Edith to strengthen her practice in practical combat in the future, how did he know that Edith had secretly reddened her eyes just now, and when she heard these words at this moment, her eyes blinked, and she actually fell into tears in aggravation.

Young Master Clark was so frightened by these tears that he almost failed to hold his sword steady, and immediately panicked:

"You, what are you crying for!"

"No, wasn't it you who asked me to compete with you?"

As it turned out, it was fine if he didn't speak, but when he did Edith actually crouched down and huffed even louder.

Young Master Clark had grown up so smoothly, and had never encountered a scene where a girl cried in front of him, and it was as if his cleverness and wit had gone out the window, and none of the books he had read had taught him how to coax a girl.

He could only squat in front of Edith and say mechanically:

"You ...... you don't cry."

"Count me wrong okay?"

"Why don't we do it again and I'll let you win?"

If she wasn't busy crying, Edith was practically laughing at him, and letting her win? What a thing to say.

When she got tired of crying, Edith reacted to what had just happened, oh my god, she was so angry that she cried because she couldn't beat someone else, this, this was something she could do? Edith now wanted to dig a hole and bury herself.

But she couldn't dig a hole, she could only bury her face deeply and ball up her whole body into a ball.

As a result, someone half-eyed, he pounded Edith worriedly and kept asking:

"Hey, hey ...... are you still crying?"

"Why is there no sound?"

"Can you lift your face up so I can see it?"

"......"

Spherical Edith didn't move a muscle.

Neither of them knew that the scene on this side of the garden had even been seen by the servants, who saw the picture of the young master and Miss Edith fighting, and rushed to report the matter to her ladyship.

When Mrs. Clarke heard about it, she rushed to the garden in a hurry, only to see such a scene - Edith buried her face in her knees, while her son circled around Edith like ants in a hot pot.

Mrs. Clark looked pointedly at her son and asked sternly:

"Bridges, are you bullying Edith?"

Young Master Clark's entire being was in an anxious and irritable situation right now, and when he heard that his mother had wronged him, he couldn't stand it, and immediately retorted in a loud voice:

"No! I didn't!"

He simply didn't understand how Edith was crying properly.