Episode 116
“Here is your train ticket. Please check your destination….”
“Thank you.”
Before the ticket clerk had even finished speaking, Rowena snatched the issued train ticket and hurried inside.
It was the first train, but the platform was packed with people. There was a middle-aged man sitting on a bench flipping through a newspaper, a station attendant pulling a cart and cleaning, and a group of students dragging large trunks as they waited for the train.
The moment Rowena, walking briskly, spotted Killian in the distance, the train pulled onto the tracks with a shrill whistle and a belch of acrid smoke. With a screech of brakes, the wind from the train sent Rowena’s hair fluttering.
“Killian!”
The people waiting for the first train began to board one by one.
Amid the boarding procession and the chaos of attendants and passengers, Rowena shoved through the crowd and ran to where Killian had been standing just moments before.
But by the time she finally reached it, the passengers who had been queued up to board had already all gotten on. Moreover, Killian was nowhere to be seen.
“Haa… haa….”
Having rushed over in a panic, she was panting hard, her breath catching in her throat, and her legs trembled. Wondering if he had perhaps boarded, she urgently scanned the train windows. But the curtains were all drawn, so she couldn’t see inside. Unable to bear it any longer, she tried to board, but someone blocked her.
“This is the entrance exclusively for first-class carriages. Might I check your ticket?”
An attendant, taking in her disheveled hair and rumpled clothes, held out his hand. Rowena unwittingly presented the crumpled ticket she had been clutching tightly.
“Ah, here.”
“Thank you. Then just a moment….”
With a slight bow, the attendant accepted her ticket and gave an ambiguous smile.
“I’m sorry, madam, but this is not a first-class ticket. The third-class entrance is over there. Shall I guide you?”
“Might I take a look inside the first-class carriage?”
“Pardon?”
“I think someone I know boarded here. I’ll get right off. Please.”
The surprised attendant shook his head firmly.
“That is not possible.”
His outwardly polite expression hardened completely. At that face, Rowena clasped her hands and pleaded.
“I’m not a peddler. Really. It’s because I think someone I know boarded here.”
“If it isn’t allowed, it isn’t allowed. Hey!”
Frowning at her persistence, the attendant called out to a colleague who was checking whether the train doors had closed.
“This passenger is in third-class and seems to have found the wrong entrance. Escort her.”
“Madam, please come with me.”
“Ah!”
The approaching attendant grabbed Rowena’s arm with a stern face. Just as she was about to be dragged away, a low voice stopped them.
“Let go.”
Time seemed to slow as she raised her head. In the ensuing silence, Rowena slowly lifted her gaze.
“Ugh!”
Killian, wearing exactly what he had left in, grabbed the attendant’s arm with great force and shook him off.
“She is my companion. What manner of rudeness is this?”
“B-but sir. This lady has a third-class carriage ticket….”
The attendant, stammering excuses with a flustered face, immediately cowered when his eyes met Killian’s.
“I apologize.”
“I am not the one you should apologize to.”
Killian narrowed his eyes and gestured toward Rowena. Eventually, both attendants bowed their heads.
“…We apologize.”
“It’s alright.”
* * *
In the suffocating atmosphere, Rowena boarded the train, following him. The awkward silence ended the moment the first-class compartment door closed.
“What is it? You couldn’t have mistaken the compartment again.”
Killian, who had let Rowena into the compartment first, locked the door behind him as if to block the way. The moment Rowena noticed the click of the lock, her eyes went wide.
“What are you—”
“If my guess is wrong, tell me it’s wrong.”
“Mmph!”
With the ferocity of a beast pouncing on its prey, Killian wrapped his arm around her waist, and with his other hand, he seized her chin and kissed her. She had no chance to push him away; Rowena fluttered like a snared bird against the crushing heat of his lips.
“Ah… mmph!”
His tongue drove in relentlessly, entangling hers so that she couldn’t even breathe, sucking it into his mouth. Though she tried to push his shoulder away, it felt as if all the strength in her body was flowing into him.
Meanwhile, the train blared its horn loudly and began to depart from the station. Before she could even notice the recoil from the floor, the strength gradually left her hands, and her mind grew hazy from her ragged breathing.
“Stop!”
Rowena pushed the beast off her with all her might; she had been on the verge of suffocating, unable to breathe.
“Hah… haa….”
Rubbing her swollen lips with the back of her hand, she glared at Killian with watery eyes.
“Without even telling me what your guess was, without giving me time to answer whether it’s wrong or not, where do you get off pouncing on me like that? Not to mention—”
“Not to mention?”
“The train has already left!”
“You didn’t follow me?”
“Who said I followed you?”
Eyes blazing, Rowena made him sit down.
“I came to say my piece. What was unjust is unjust, and there are things I need to settle with you.”
“Say everything. I will listen.”
Killian answered with the satisfied languor of a beast that had sated its starving hunger, grasping her waist and pulling her to sit on his lap.
“Are you c-crazy?”
“It’s true that I am crazy for you, so let’s just say I am.”
A strange smile tugging at his lips, Killian twirled her slender blonde hair around his index finger.
He had noticed the disturbance the moment he entered his compartment, set down his luggage, and raised the curtain. Hearing a familiar voice from somewhere, he had dashed out instinctively toward the entrance. The faint possibility he had hardly dared to entertain had turned out to be exactly right. It was a miracle. A situation he hadn’t even dared to wish for in his dreams was unfolding before him.
“So, what did you want to say?”
“….”
She tried to escape his embrace, but his large hands showed no sign of letting go. Eventually, Rowena sighed in resignation and instead grabbed both his cheeks.
“I really hate you.”
“….”
“You remember what you did to me, don’t you? If you don’t, you aren’t even human.”
At the unexpected reproach, a faint shadow fell over Killian’s triumphant face.
“You treated me like a toy and ignored me. And after misunderstanding me as you pleased, you threw me away in a terrible way.”
The shadow grew deeper. Rowena put more strength into her hands so he couldn’t avert his gaze, urging an answer.
“Tell me. Do you regret it?”
“…I regret it.”
At his honest admission, she pressed him again.
“How much?”
“Enough that if I could turn back time by offering my entire fortune, I would.”
“Killian!”
Smack—her two hands lightly struck his cheeks as if to bring him to his senses.
“What I want isn’t your fortune. I don’t care how many islands, how much land, or how many buildings you have.”
“Then?”
“Compensate me the way I want. Not arrogantly in whatever way you please!”
Rowena put the envelope she had received from Loren into his jacket pocket and pressed her forehead to his.
“Love me for the rest of your life, and love my son. Treat me as you would a queen, and support me in whatever I do from beside me….”
“That is difficult.”
“What?”
“I cannot treat you like a queen. I do not revere or respect queens in the slightest.”
Killian smiled at Rowena’s sharp glare and gently combed through her disheveled blonde hair with one hand.
“Instead, I will treat you like a goddess.”
“Killian….”
“I am an atheist, but you alone I will treat as my faith, my doctrine. At times as my life, as my soul.”
Finally, he tucked her side hair behind her ear, took her hand, and kissed her fingertips.
His blue eyes were brimming with hunger, as though he would devour her at any second. He lightly bit the earlobe of Rowena, whose cheeks had flushed a deep red.
“Ah…!”
“However, there is one exception: in bed. Then, you are entirely my woman, and you must submit to me. If that is the condition, I accept.”
As if to ask when he had ever been submissive to her, Killian whispered, laying bare his hidden thoughts. A fierce possessiveness and desire to monopolize, so intense she could barely breathe, enveloped and bound her.
“If you accept, I swear it. Until the moment you close your eyes, you are my woman, and I am your man.”
A sensual voice, like the serpent from the Bible enticing her, tempted Rowena. His provocative gaze swept over her trembling eyelashes and lightly bitten red lips.
“…Very well.”
At this rate, she felt she would be devoured whole, leaving not even bones behind. Rowena, who had barely regained her composure, sprang to her feet. The moment she pulled away from him, Killian reached for her again; she shook off his hand and commanded.
“Then… greet me anew.”
“What?”
“Our relationship is starting anew, so we must greet each other anew. So greet me again. With respect.”
It was the same place, the same time as their first meeting. The first train, shrouded in twilight. First-class. But many things had changed since then. She was no longer a naive twenty-year-old girl, and Killian was no longer merely the wicked yet charming man he had been then. He was a man wicked to the point of being diabolical, but she would not be helplessly swayed by him.
Killian, silent for a moment as if trying to grasp her intention, slowly closed and opened his eyes. Then he followed her lead and stood up. And he placed his hand over his heart and greeted her courteously.
“It is a pleasure to meet you. I am Killian Maximilian Devonshire, Duke of Rockford. Miss….”
“Philone. It is a pleasure to meet you, Lord Devonshire.”
It was a moment she had wanted to turn back to time and again. A day she had chewed over and over, thinking, if she could go back, she would do it like this. Rowena’s voice trembled with nervousness and anticipation.
“Excuse me, Miss Philone. I believe you have found your way to the wrong compartment.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I was planning to get off at the next station.”
“Then, would you permit me to get off with you?”
“…Why?”
Rowena averted her gaze and asked in an innocent tone. Killian shrugged his shoulders and answered as if it were obvious.
“Because I have fallen for you at first sight.”
“Then….”
Her heart felt as though it would burst through her chest. Swallowing hard, Rowena turned her head.
“I permit it.”
The moment she answered, she reached out. This time, she was the first to wrap her arms around his neck and press her lips to his. At the same time, strong arms embraced her shoulders, her waist. As if they would never let her go again.
After a long and winding road, it was a fate that had finally faced one another.