Episode 111
As he groped through the darkness with his eyes and sat down on the couch, Killian, seated across from him, lit a cigarette with a click. In the pitch-black room, the glowing tip of the filter tugged at his nerves like a lighthouse on a night sea. After the silence stretched on, the other man was the first to open his mouth. “What are you trembling so much for?” “……”
“Is it that obvious?” “Your breathing is rigid.”
It felt like facing a wild beast sniffing for prey in acrid fog. “There’s no need to worry. If I had intended to do something, you would already be dead.”
A chill running down his spine, Cedric clenched and unclenched his fist a few times, then relaxed. “I know. That’s why I came. Get to the point.” “How are Rowena and Damian doing?” “That’s unexpected. I thought you’d already had your men look into it.”
The proud way he asked, as if inquiring after his own wife and son, made words slip out before he knew it, laced with sarcasm. But the man Cedric had expected to kick his seat back and press a gun to his head at any moment answered with unexpected composure. “Such methods lack reliability.” “……”
Had he flared up, he would have been ready to fight back at once, but the calm response instead made him feel as though he had acted childishly. Embarrassed, Cedric cleared his throat internally. “They’re doing well. Very peacefully……”
He had been about to add “and happily,” but for some reason the words would not leave his tongue. It was true that Rowena’s face looked much more stable and calm than it had in the capital. At least in the countryside, no one openly gossiped about them; rather, the locals were appropriately indifferent yet appropriately kind to the unfamiliar mother and child.
But he had never seen her smile brightly. Though she wore a smile, she was like a wooden doll with some crucial part missing. Something was absent, yet because the exterior was so perfect, she never realized what that part was, nor was she conscious of it—a wooden doll unaware and unperceiving.
Facing Killian, who waited patiently for his next words, Cedric finished. “Peacefully, and stably.”
A relieved smile briefly flitted across Killian’s lips. Only once his eyes had finally adjusted to the darkness could Cedric make out the change in expression. It was at that moment, sensing an inexplicable disharmony, that Cedric narrowed his brow. “You.” “Now, tell me your business.”
Killian cut off his words and gestured with his eyes toward the table. Even at a glance, a thick envelope lay there. “Open it.”
Inside the envelope were none other than land deeds and building deeds of this country. Cedric drew in a surprised breath upon discovering even the purchase certificate for the most expensive commercial building in the capital. “I was going to prepare cash, but I thought this would be better.” “Why… this?” “It’s for you.”
It was the exact opposite of the answer he had expected—naturally assuming it would be a gift for Rowena or Damian. Cedric, momentarily dazed, quickly came to his senses and set the envelope down. “Why are you giving this to me?” “Because you are her guardian now.”
At those words, Cedric doubted his ears for a moment. To the point that he wondered whether some other person was sitting across from him wearing the Duke’s mask. “Just take it. You never know what might happen.” “I appreciate the sentiment, but I cannot accept it. I look after her and Damian not for your sake, but for my own.” “Take it. Unless you want to see it left on the table in your bedroom.”
He was about to stand up. Before his refusal could even fully leave his lips, a voice one degree colder strangled his throat. Silence fell, and Cedric, sitting back down, revealed the real reason he had come all this way. “Are you leaving this place?”
Instead of answering, Killian nodded. “When?” “Soon.”
He had already been away from his seat for a long time. Even if he received and handled important matters directly through couriers, there were many lands, islands, and companies he had to manage. Work had piled up accordingly, and the longer he remained absent, the more enemies there were lying in wait behind him. “You intend to leave in secret.”
In the ensuing silence, Cedric muttered, reading his intention. Killian, neither denying nor affirming, slowly broached the main subject. “I have a favor to ask of you.”
At those words, Cedric ultimately could not refuse. It was not because he had been practically forced to accept the land and building deeds, but because of a certain sense of debt—of having taken the other’s place. He also had some expectation that once the Duke returned to his homeland, he would have no reason to come here again.
He returned weighed down by that discomfort, but when he met the green eyes looking down at him, his conscience pricked sharply.
What roused him from his thoughts was a welcome voice.
“You’re back early, Cedric.”
“Sister.”
Lauren smiled at him in her nightclothes. Cedric smiled back and approached her.
“Why are you still awake?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking of having a glass of wine in the dining room.”
“I see.”
As if escorting a lady at a banquet, Cedric playfully offered her his arm and led her to the dining room.
“So, did you take care of your business?”
“Yes.”
“What about the ring?”
“……Pardon?”
Cedric stopped dead at the sudden question. Lauren tilted her head and murmured.
“I thought you’d gone to buy a ring. Was I wrong?”
She was asking whether he intended to formally propose to Rowena again. Lauren had more or less sensed the ambiguous atmosphere between them and was nudging Cedric along.
“No.”
“That’s a shame.”
“……”
“You love her.”
At her voice full of conviction, Cedric did not answer. Instead, he sat down beside Lauren on the couch and buried his cheek against her shoulder. Lauren silently patted her younger brother’s back, then spoke gently.
“There’s something holding you back, isn’t there?”
Cedric quietly nodded. It was Rowena’s heart, and the Duke’s heart toward her. He could clearly see the two looking at each other, yet somehow squeezing between them felt like a burden on his conscience.
“I’m troubled over whether to choose my conscience or my heart.”
When he closed his eyes, the lingering discomfort weighed on his mind, yet he simply could not bring himself to bring the two back together. He couldn’t even grasp what tightly knotted bond lay between them.
“I don’t know what to do. Not at all.”
“Cedric.”
A gentle hand stroked his head. Lauren smiled quietly, her eyes crinkling.
“Do as you wish. Whatever choice it is, no one will blame you.”
* * *
Cedric sat Damian on the saddle and then climbed up behind him. Rowena was busy writing, and the tutor was off today.
Damian loved observing animals and insects in the estate’s forest. When Cedric suggested they go look around together today, he immediately grabbed his telescope.
The horse, which had been galloping swiftly for some time with the two of them on its back, gradually slowed to a halt once they reached the middle of the forest. Keeping a slight distance from the trickling stream, Cedric loosely tied the reins and lifted Damian down by the waist.
“Is there a baby deer here?”
“Yeah. If we wait, it’ll come out. It always drinks water here.”
“How do you know that?”
“From droppings or footprints.”
“Show me how to look for them too.”
“Alright. I’ll show you from a book when we get back home.”
“Promise!”
Damian’s eyes were full of curiosity, and even though they shared not a drop of blood, they looked exactly like Cedric’s when he was young—so much so that he imagined impossible things.
“If only…… you were my son.”
“What did you say, Brother?”
At the barely audible murmur, Damian, who had been scanning the surroundings with his eyes, whipped his head around.
“It’s nothing. Do you see something?”
Cedric shrugged and shook his head, changing the subject. Damian quickly shifted his attention and began peering intently through the dense trees. It was the next moment that they saw a rustling movement in the bushes.
“Huh?”
Damian’s expectant eyes sparkled as he pointed the bush out to Cedric.
“I think something’s there. What is it?”
“Shh.”
Cedric held up his index finger and led Damian behind a large tree. He explained to the puzzled face.
“Remember, small animals are timid and run away when they see people.”
“Ah……”
The moment Damian nodded in understanding, a white object shot out of the bushes and charged at them. Before they could step back, the object barreled straight toward Damian. Damian fell onto a patch of overgrown grass with a thud, freezing at the hot tongue licking his cheek before opening his eyes wide.
“Bobo!”
It was the dog they had raised back in Ethelwood. As if to ask when it had grown so big, the dog—now reaching Damian’s waist—seemed to recognize Damian by scent and excitedly ran about this way and that.
“Haha! That tickles!”
No matter how he looked at it, it was definitely Bobo. Damian pushed the dog away as it frantically licked his cheek, giggling and covering his face. As if to say that wouldn’t do, Bobo licked the back of his hand too.
“Hehehe! I said it tickles!”
The emotional reunion settled down after about ten minutes. The two spread out a mat and sat down. Bobo sat next to Damian, staring intently at the snack box they had brought.
Damian gave Bobo a corner of the sandwich they had brought for lunch, then turned his flushed face toward Cedric.
“But why is Bobo here all of a sudden? Did you bring him, Brother?”
“Who knows. Maybe Bobo missed you so much he swam all the way here?”
“Really? No way.”
“You never know. Dogs have a keen sense of smell and swim well too.”
At those words, Damian tilted his head, uncertain. Seeing his serious face as if pondering something deeply, Cedric pinched his soft cheek.
“Since he’s here, shall we go a bit deeper?”
“A bit deeper?”
“There’s a hunter’s cabin inside.”