Chapter 104
The harbor was packed with people. It was the first ship officially departing for Esselwood in a long while. Swept along by the bustling crowd, Rowena was pushed back together with Damian.
She was following Cedric’s back as he walked ahead when a large hand caught her by the shoulder. The moment she turned around in shock, a strange relief and an inexplicable feeling washed over her. Cedric, not noticing the emotion that had flickered across her for that brief instant, smiled brightly.
“Rowena.”
“Mr. Cedric.”
“I’ve been looking all over for you. When did you get ahead of me?”
“I don’t know. I was following you, Mr. Cedric, and then……”
“At least we found each other. I think we can go in through that passage over there.”
Rowena nodded and adjusted her grip on Damian’s hand. Just as they headed toward the place he had pointed out, Damian caught the hem of her clothes.
“Mom.”
“Yes?”
“What about Mister?”
“……”
“Isn’t Mister getting on? Are we going by ourselves?”
Mister. It was obvious whom he meant. All the way to the harbor after changing carriages, Damian had asked the same question again and again. Rowena froze for a moment, then quickly came to herself and soothed her son.
“Later. He’s busy, so he’ll come later.”
“I wish he’d come with us……”
“Let’s get on first.”
Taking the dispirited Damian with her, she had just passed through the long passage and set foot on the deck.
Booooom!!!
“Kyaaaah!”
“Aaagh!”
A deafening roar rang through the air, loud enough to leave their eardrums numb. At the same time, people instinctively crouched down and covered both ears. Cedric also threw himself over Rowena and Damian, shielding them as he fell prone. The ear-splitting sound shook the very earth for a moment, and then the surroundings fell as silent as death. As countless people looked at one another, someone was the first to get up and point somewhere.
“Over there!”
Countless pairs of eyes turned almost simultaneously in one direction. Acrid smoke was rising from an alley between buildings not far away.
“Was it a bomb?”
“Again?”
“Hurry up and leave!”
Fear, shock, and terror swept through the crowd. As the flustered captain ordered the sails to be lowered, Cedric pulled Rowena along.
“Inside!”
Just then, something fell from the pocket of Rowena’s robe. It was an envelope. Rowena picked it up and pulled a paper from inside.
I acknowledge Damian, son of Rowena Philone, as my biological child.
The inheritance details that continued below were on a scale she had never even imagined. All the islands he owned, mining rights, ownership of the ducal residence in Rockford, and even shares in companies whose names everyone had heard at least once. The more she read, the heavier her heart sank.
Upon the death of Killian Maximilian Devonshire, all other assets besides the above shall be inherited by his biological child.
Inheritance. The strange ill omen and anxiety that had slowly wound around her ever since they had changed carriages and begun heading to the harbor started to fill her throat.
“Rowena? We don’t have time.”
“Mom.”
It felt as if a heavy weight had been tied to her ankle. Rowena looked down at her trembling hand. She should have turned around then and boarded the ship, but her feet would not move. Just as Cedric was about to urge Rowena again amid the crowd rushing into the ship—
“Is it about Mister?”
Damian asked, his hand slipping from Rowena’s.
“……
Yes.”
“Mister is my dad, isn’t he?”
She could not deny it. While Rowena only parted her lips soundlessly, Damian found the answer in her expression and murmured.
“I thought so.”
“How did you know?”
“He looks just like me.”
“……”
“You’re worried about him, aren’t you?”
She wanted to deny it, to say no, but this was Damian before her. Instead of answering, Rowena pressed her lips together and forced herself to shake her head.
“It won’t be anything serious. Let’s go.”
She spoke resolutely, but the end of her words trembled.
“Mom, let’s not get on this ship.”
“What?”
As she doubted her ears at his sudden words, Damian abruptly began running in the opposite direction.
“Damian!”
The source of the explosion was none other than the carriage they had ridden in. The moment she recognized the carriage from afar, she felt as though all the blood had drained from her body. It was as if she had been swallowed by a thick fog that hid even an inch ahead.
“Mom……”
“Mr. Cedric. Just for a moment…… please take Damian.”
Instead of answering, Cedric nodded and lifted Damian into his arms. Rowena thanked him with her eyes, then pushed past the murmuring onlookers and moved forward, one step at a time. Under the sheriff’s direction, a temporary fence had been erected around the carriage, and doctors and nurses in white were carrying someone away on a stretcher. The white sheet covering the body all the way to the head was drenched in red.
Her legs gave way, and her mind went blank. As she stood there helplessly, unable to do anything, she saw a familiar man. Rowena cried out with all her strength.
“Mr. Jenok!”
“……
Lady Rowena?”
He, too, seemed to have rushed over at the sound of the explosion and was out of breath. His disheveled hair and startled face came into view. Rowena practically lunged over the fence and approached him, clutching his collar.
“That person just now—it’s n-not him, is it?”
Jenok flinched at her wild eyes and shook his head.
“No, it isn’t.”
“Then that carriage……”
She hoped he would say it was merely a coincidence, or that it had happened after he got out of that carriage. But the answer that came back was avoidance. Goosebumps rose over her body from an unknown chill. She was about to demand an explanation when another stretcher emerged from the carriage. A hand was sticking out. At the same time, time stopped. Her gaze slowly traveled up over the long, neat fingers. She saw a sleeve. One with the button she had once given him.
* * *
Fortunately, amid misfortune, the assailant’s homemade bomb was defective, with only about half its intended force. The corpse of the man who had come into direct contact with the bomb was horrific, but in Killian’s case, his limbs were intact. However, the aftershock of the bomb had caved in the floor of the carriage, and along with the impact to his head, shards of shattered glass had grazed a perilous spot near his carotid artery. As soon as he was taken to the hospital, emergency surgery went on for a full fourteen hours.
“There was severe bleeding, but fortunately, the surgery barely went well, and we were able to stop it.”
“Th-then you’re saying his life isn’t in danger?”
It had been fourteen hours of hell. Rowena, who had been praying outside the operating room without even daring to breathe, sprang up from her chair.
“That is true, but……”
The doctor, trailing off, sent a look toward Jenok standing behind her. Understanding the meaning of that glance, Jenok cut in.
“You must be very tired. Why don’t you go sleep for a while? The young master has just gone to sleep as well.”
It sounded as though she was not supposed to hear it. Rowena shook her head firmly and looked straight at the doctor.
“I’ll hear it too. I have the right.”
Killian was the biological father of her son. Therefore, Rowena had a duty to tell Damian what condition he was in. Though she justified herself that way, her heart was pounding like mad. In the end, Jenok and the doctor raised the white flag.
“It’s just that…… the impact to his head…… was severe.”
“What do you mean……”
“It appears there is brain damage. So perhaps……”
The doctor paused for a moment, then finished gravely.
“He may never wake up like this.”
A silence as heavy as rock settled over the hospital corridor. Shaking his head as if he could not believe it, Jenok seized the doctor’s gown as if grabbing him by the collar.
“Tell me it’s a lie.”
“……”
“I said tell me it’s a lie!”
It was a desperate, agonized cry. Rowena, her face deathly pale, walked past them. She wanted to get out of this place at once. She placed a hand against the wall and, leaning on it, barely managed to move one foot after the other. Hospital staff who had come running at Jenok’s shouting quickly brushed past her. As her head rang until it throbbed, countless scenes unfolded before her eyes.
Killian reading a newspaper on the train. Killian teaching her how to hold a knife when she had fumbled in the dining car, not knowing how to use the tableware. Killian extending a hand to her and draping his coat over her when she had been deceived by a friend, chased by creditors, and wandering the streets. The moments when he had accepted her becoming his mistress, and the times when he had been kind as if on some whim. Even the night he had knelt without a care before her as she provoked him, carefully examining her foot, and obediently offered up his neck.
It was strange. She tried to recall him being cruel enough to make her teeth chatter, but oddly, she could not bring it to mind at all.
It felt as though she were being dragged into infinitely deep water. A tremendous buoyancy seized her legs and arms, pulling her farther down, down.
“Ha……”
The moment she passed the corner of the wall, the legs she had been moving with all her strength gave out. Rowena collapsed to the floor and covered her mouth with both hands. Her stomach churned, and the ground swam as it pleased. A retch burst from her. It hurt as if her insides had turned over, and as if someone were squeezing her heart, she could not breathe properly. Something hot flowed down over the hands covering her mouth.
“Are you all right? Are you in a lot of pain?”
A passing nurse stopped. And the next moment, her eyes widened in shock.
“Madam!”
Her body swayed, then her precarious form toppled forward. Just before she hit the ground, the nurse barely caught her forehead and shouted something to those around her. But it grew fainter and fainter.