Episode 14
The approaching ship slowly docked at the small harbor. A sailor who had lowered the anchor onto the deck set down the gangplank.
Rowena, who had run there out of breath, pushed through the murmuring crowd and moved forward. Beyond the workers unloading the luggage, she saw Killian.
He somehow looked a little thinner than when she had seen him at the townhouse in the capital, but his chiseled features, handsome enough to draw a gasp of admiration, remained unchanged.
It was when the regent standing at the very front turned around that she noticed the strange atmosphere. The regent looked at Rowena with an odd expression, opening and closing his mouth. Before she had time to understand what it meant, Rowena shifted her gaze past his shoulder again.
“Killi……”
“Your Grace.”
Before she could call the name he had permitted her to use, a smooth and elegant voice called to him first. At the same time, the people who had come to see the duke off dropped their jaws in an instant.
The woman he had brought with him bore an astonishing resemblance to Rowena. Brilliant golden hair like the sun, green eyes. Even her height and build. Her features were a little sharper, but if the two stood side by side, anyone would believe they were sisters.
While everyone’s eyes darted about, unable to grasp what was happening, Killian escorted the woman down from the ship with familiarity and belatedly cast his gaze at Rowena.
She stood still, staring at the two of them like a deer suddenly shot by a bullet. After briefly glancing at her trembling eyes, which seemed unable to believe what they were seeing, he introduced Rowena to the woman accompanying him.
“Chloe. This is Rowena Philone.”
“Ah. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m delighted.”
Chloe smiled brightly and offered Rowena her hand. Instead of taking it, Rowena stared at Killian standing beside her.
The conversation of the maids, which she had pushed to the back of her memory, rang loudly in her head.
The dead fiancée promised to him before birth. Herself, who resembled that woman. And the woman who resembled her……
In a world that had stopped in an instant, she desperately ignored the ominous premonition.
Could she be a distant relative? An old friend? So, before the wedding, he had brought her here to invite her……
“Miss Philone.”
His voice was as toneless as ever. Instead of answering, Rowena blinked with a deathly pale face. When Killian narrowed his brows as if looking at an ill-mannered child, Chloe awkwardly withdrew her hand and reproached him.
“Don’t be too harsh, Your Highness. Miss Philone must be terribly shocked as well.”
Every last bit of that composed expression and tone stabbed into the left side of Rowena’s chest like a dagger. With an expressionless face, Killian introduced Chloe.
“Miss Philone. This is Miss Chloe Aberdeen, the woman who will become my wife.”
It was a final nail driven in, leaving her no room to insist she had misheard or look away. As if mocking the ring he had personally placed on her right hand.
The woman who would become his wife.
It felt as though a sharp sword had pierced through her heart. Rowena’s face went pale as all life and strength drained out of her.
“My lady!”
Melissa, who had followed after her, caught her wavering body from behind.
“Are you all right?”
Instead of answering, Rowena nodded. Around her, she saw people frozen in shock amid the tension. Rowena swept her eyes over the surroundings, then slowly looked back at Killian.
Shock, anger, sorrow, resentment.
All sorts of emotions swirled in her chest, yet the only word that came out was one.
“Whe…
n?”
She wanted to know just when it had begun.
Since when had he, without her knowledge, openly become engaged to another woman and even prepared for marriage?
But no answer came back. Killian, who had been looking at the pallid Rowena, gave Melissa an order instead of answering.
“Miss Philone appears to be unwell. Take her inside.”
“…
Yes, sir.”
Melissa answered with her lips pressed tightly together and supported one of Rowena’s arms.
“My lady. Let’s get away from here first.”
“No… I can’t…….”
She could not accept it. It was a sight she had never seen even in nightmares. Rowena shook her head with a dazed expression, as if she had seen a ghost.
“No, no…….”
“My lady, please…….”
Melissa pleaded in a tearful voice.
“Let’s leave here for now. Please……?”
Contempt, anger, pity. Melissa felt the surrounding gazes stabbing down like thorns. The eyes that had been filled only with goodwill and curiosity had changed the moment they realized Rowena was a “mistress.”
The person in question seemed so out of her mind that she did not notice, but that only made it more miserable and heartbreaking. Above all, the fact that she herself had been complicit in all of this pressed down on her chest.
“No…….”
“Let’s go. My lady. I’ll take you back to your room…….”
Coaxing and soothing Rowena, who kept shaking her head, Melissa led her toward the villa.
The islanders, who opened a path without a word, quietly watched them move away.
The one responsible was no different, unable to take his eyes off her shrinking back. Only after watching her disappear behind the high walls did Killian turn his head toward the regent.
“I’m tired from the long journey. Miss Aberdeen’s room?”
“Ah… yes. Of course, it has been prepared.”
The regent, who had been standing there blankly amid the commotion, answered quickly. At the same time, he shuddered at the face before him.
Contrary to his voice, which was as smooth as if carved by a chisel, the man before him now resembled a tautly drawn string. He looked so precarious that if touched even slightly the wrong way, he might snap without mercy.
It was unexpected for someone who had trampled on a person’s heart with such an indifferent face.
While the regent secretly harbored his doubts, Killian turned his head to Chloe and spoke gently.
“My mistress is uneducated and has behaved rudely.”
It was an indirect apology, but it meant she should let it pass quietly. Chloe, understanding his intent, smiled and shook her head.
“Not at all. Rude? Hardly.”
Killian Maximilian Devonshire. With this man, it had never been a relationship in which she had expected something like love from the start. Rather, it was closer to a business union in which they had joined hands for their mutual benefit.
“As a fellow woman, I understand. She must be heartbroken.”
Yes. A business union. A political marriage.
That was what she had thought when they exchanged dry letters through their close aides. But after meeting him in person, her mind had changed.
From the beginning, she had never failed to obtain anything. Whatever she wanted, she had to possess it.
Her father’s business as well. And this man as well.
“By the way, before we go to the villa, I’d like to take a look around the island. Would you guide me?”
Chloe smiled coquettishly and gently placed her hand on his firm arm.
She recalled the face of the woman who had turned pale at a single word from him. To reveal her emotions so completely in front of her rival in love. How naive and foolish. The tension she had felt, fearing she might be a formidable opponent as rumored, drained away.
To be abandoned so cruelly. It was enough to make one feel pity.
The uneasiness that had remained in one corner of her heart vanished as if washed clean, leaving her feeling light enough to fly.
* * *
By the time Killian returned to the villa after showing his fiancée around the island, evening had fallen.
Rowena, who had been lying on the bed like someone whose soul had left her body, opened her eyes sharply at the sound of the door opening. The light entering through the open door illuminated the dark room. The figure who had opened the door without a sound approached the bed. The moment the shadow was one step away from the bed, her cracked lips moved.
“Don’t come near me.”
“…….”
Clutching the sheet, Rowena took a deep breath.
A fire flared inside her. Her mind filled with the memory of being dragged away as though she were a criminal who had committed some shameful sin. She wanted to scream. She wanted to clutch at her hair. She wanted to grab him by the collar, cling to him, lunge at him, and demand answers. She wanted to slap him across the face.
But in the face of the intimidation she had learned to submit to, all of it was useless. The helplessness repeated over and over pressed down on her entire body and choked off her breath.
What angered her most was his leisurely gait. She was on the verge of drowning in water that had risen to the tip of her nose, yet the very man who had thrown her into the depths was perfectly calm.
“Don’t come near you?”
Killian gave a short sneer and loosened his tie.
“Acting insolent was enough for this afternoon, Miss Philone.”
“…….”
“Considering you’re wearing the clothes I gave you, eating the food I gave you, and lying in my bedroom.”
“I don’t need any of it!”
Rowena shot up convulsively and threw a cushion at him. Unfortunately, the cushion that flew through the air struck his chest rather than his face.
Killian’s brow twitched as he glanced down at the fallen cushion.
With bloodshot eyes, Rowena staggered to her feet and headed somewhere. Killian, crossing his arms as if watching some ridiculous tantrum, sat on the edge of the bed and observed her. Rowena strode into the dressing room and pulled out her suitcase.
“I’m leaving.”
“Leaving?”
The suitcase she held in both hands was light enough to feel hollow. It was the luggage she had packed as soon as she had recovered from the shock.
Once she removed everything he had given her, all that remained were two modest sets of clothes and a little money. Even that was barely enough to get her off this island.
“Never again. I can’t stay with a devil like you, with you who deceived me……”
The more she spoke, the more her throat closed up. Even as she stammered, Rowena tried to finish her words to the end.