Chapter25. The Insurmountable Wall Between Them
2023.09.25.
"Where have you been?"
"...I went to see a play. I felt stifled staying cooped up at home. Were you waiting for me?"
"I thought we might have a meal together for a change, but you weren't in your room."
His voice, pitched lower than usual, seemed to suppress the very air around them.
Blair sent Lina—who was caught awkwardly between them—to go ahead and eat first, then entered the room with Herdin.
"I was worried when you left even your carriage and knights behind."
Herdin's words sounded genuinely concerned at first glance, but the look in his eyes held more suspicion than worry.
The moment she met those eyes, a voice she had once heard echoed in her mind.
'How could I possibly trust you?'
He was suspecting her again.
Realizing this, a surge of emotion welled up inside her.
This man, who hadn't shown his face for half a month, was so openly suspecting her over a single outing—it brought back memories of the past.
"Is it because you cannot trust me?"
An unmistakably sharp voice slipped out.
In the past, Blair would have gauged his mood, worrying she might have offended him, but not anymore.
Disregarding his feelings entirely, Blair continued in a cynical tone.
"Afraid of what I might be plotting behind your back?"
At that, Herdin faintly furrowed his brow. It was his first time seeing this sharp side of Blair.
Meeting her resentful violet eyes, he let out a scoff.
*For someone who knows that perfectly well, why act so suspiciously?*
The suspicions that had built up until now burst out arbitrarily like sharpened blades.
"If you know that, then take knights with you wherever you go from now on. So I won't have to be anxious anymore."
Herdin spat out every word as if crushing it between his teeth, but upon seeing the red rimming Blair's eyes, he swallowed the rest of his words.
He let out a sigh and covered his eyes with his large hand, then slowly opened them again. His Adam's apple bobbed as he forcefully swallowed and suppressed his emotions.
"I—"
Before Blair could raise her voice any further, Herdin spoke in a forcibly restrained tone and turned away.
"...Wash up and come down. You must be hungry."
Blair watched his back as he left the room, without even a moment to stop him. Over that back, memories of the past suddenly overlapped.
He had always been like this.
Raising their voices at each other, then stopping at some point and turning away. As if avoiding it before the emotional rift between them deepened further. Even though nothing in his own heart had been resolved, leaving him suffocated.
Unaware that such actions were only carving the emotional rift deeper.
Blair could do nothing but watch his retreating back. His broad shoulders growing distant, the door closing coldly.
That was the insurmountable wall between them.
Before her regression, she had averted her eyes, terrified of opening that door. She was afraid that if she opened the door, grabbed him, raged, and cried, the only thing left at the end of that clash would be their end.
So, in the end, she had never been able to open that door. But...
'I don't want to do that anymore.'
In her eyes, desperately swallowing the tears that threatened to spill at any moment, she saw the unlit fireplace. After staring at it for a moment, Blair slowly stepped toward it.
* * *
Having gone down to the dining room first, Herdin was drinking an aperitif while waiting for Blair. It was already his fifth glass.
Herdin moistened his burning throat as he recalled the situation from moments ago.
Her reddened eyes, her trembling body, her ragged breathing—the woman who looked as though she would collapse at the slightest touch.
When he wouldn't even be able to press her further for fear that she might actually break, why had he revealed his emotions like that? Stupidly.
Amidst it all, a hollow laugh escaped him at his own pathetic desire to check if she carried another man's scent.
Even if there was another man, why should it matter?
The moment that thought crossed his mind, his blood ran cold. He tossed back the aperitif like a shot of whiskey and set the empty glass down.
However, Mason, who had been waiting behind him to promptly refill his glass, showed no signs of moving.
Herdin called out to him in a voice laced with irritation.
"Mason."
Only then did Mason approach and expertly refill the glass. Worried words followed.
"If you keep drinking on an empty stomach, you will ruin your health."
At his nagging, Herdin let out a faint chuckle for the first time since entering the dining room.
"You must still see me as a foolish twelve-year-old."
"If you were twelve, you wouldn't be drinking, so I wouldn't have to worry like this."
"...You're such a dull old man."
Herdin chided Mason for taking his joke so seriously, but there was no real anger in his voice.
He remembered the dedication Mason had shown in helping a twelve-year-old orphan grow into a respectable adult and the proper head of his household.
Pushing those worries aside, he picked up the freshly filled glass. Right then, the closed dining room doors burst open without warning, and Ruth rushed in.
"Your Excellency!"
Urgency laced Ruth's voice.
Herdin paused the glass he was about to raise, furrowing his brow as he looked at the man. A sense of ominous premonition washed over him.
"My Lady... she has collapsed."
And his premonition was spot on.
* * *
Meli waited in the bathroom to assist her lady with her bath, taking over for Lina who had gone to change out of her outdoor attire. Blair had told her that she could manage changing by herself and to wait in the bathroom.
But after quite some time, Blair still hadn't come.
'Is she perhaps struggling with a difficult dress?'
Driven by concern, she left the bathroom and headed back toward the bedroom. On the way, the memory of Herdin's expression as he left Blair's room flashed through her mind.
Even on normal days, Herdin exuded a frigid aura that made him hard to approach despite his handsome face, but moments ago, he had radiated a chill so intense it was freezing. It was as if the very air around him had held its breath.
And when Meli had entered to assist Blair, Blair had kept her back turned, refusing to show her face. Yet, her silhouette had looked terribly fragile. Her voice telling Meli to wait in the bathroom had sounded shaky, too.
A belated sense of unease quickened Meli's pace.
Practically running, Meli arrived at Blair's room and knocked on the door, but there was no answer from within.
Unable to wait any longer, she opened the door and stepped inside, where a wave of warm air brushed against her skin. The fireplace, which had been unlit when Meli left, was now blazing fiercely. And in front of it...
"Heavens, My Lady!"
Blair had collapsed in front of the hearth, unconscious.
Hearing the news, Herdin rushed up immediately, and the personal physician arrived shortly after.
"It appears she momentarily lost consciousness due to emotional shock. There are no other abnormalities, so she should recover with adequate rest."
After the physician finished his examination and left, silence fell over the room. It was Lina's sobbing that broke the silence.
"Your Highness..."
Lina couldn't bring herself to approach Blair, where Herdin sat propping her up, and instead stood there crying, her tears and runny nose a mess.
Herdin's expression hardened at the title that slipped from Lina's mouth.
It had already been over a month since Blair became his wife, yet she was still calling him 'Your Highness.' Even her sniffling grating on his nerves.
Without looking back, Herdin ordered,
"...Ruth. Take them out."
Sensing Herdin's foul mood, Ruth swiftly escorted Lina and Meli out of the room. Finally, only the two of them remained.
Perhaps it was just his imagination, but Blair's pale face looked even more ashen than usual. Yet, her expression was serene.
Seeing this woman sleeping with such a peaceful face after turning the entire mansion upside down fueled his anger.
He couldn't comprehend it. A woman who was so terrified of fire that she wouldn't even go near a fireplace—why on earth had she collapsed right in front of one?
'Could it be...'
Just as Herdin was trying to gauge the reason, Blair's gently closed eyelids fluttered, and then she opened her eyes.
Blinking slowly, Blair's eyes shifted toward Herdin, who was beside her.
The moment their eyes met, the very first emotion he felt was relief. How ironic, considering the anger that had been boiling inside him just moments ago.
Staring blankly at him, Blair opened her mouth.
"...Did I faint?"
"Did you approach the fireplace on purpose, knowing this would happen?"
"I wanted to recover my memories. It's not something I can just bury and pretend doesn't exist forever..."
The moment the word 'memories' left her lips, his heart plummeted.
A woman who was terrified even of lighting a fireplace in the dead of winter had lit it with her own hands.
Because of that memory.
Because he had suspected and cornered her.
Her voice was calm, devoid of any resentment. Or perhaps, she was simply too exhausted from her recent collapse to muster any anger.
Herdin clenched his fists so tightly that the veins on the back of his hands bulged, grinding his teeth.
"Even so, there's no need to seek them out in such a reckless manner. So, don't ever do something like this again."
Over his icy voice, memories of her past life overlapped.
It had been the same in her past life.
When she discovered that he had feigned love to extract the truth from her, and when she realized he was distancing himself because it seemed like a lost cause.
Back then, too, Blair had recklessly undergone hypnosis and fallen ill from the aftereffects, and upon waking, Herdin had reprimanded her. Just like now.
'Don't do anything anymore. Just stay quiet. Just as you always have.'
The memory of the day she had stopped clashing with him, terrified of their end.
But now, she didn't want to do that anymore.
"...What if I never recover my memories in my entire life?"
"There will be other methods. Lady Laureline is making an effort, isn't she?"
"You want me to believe that memories that haven't returned in ten years will suddenly come back from a few conversations, while I continue to endure your suspicion in the meantime?"
Blair's previously calm voice grew strangely sharper. At the same time, her breathing quickened.