Chapter 26
The damp, transparent air of dawn filled her lungs. The lakeside at daybreak seemed like another world.
Dressed as warmly as possible, Damian was excited to be out for a walk after so long.
“Do you like it that much?”
“Yeah! I’m so happy because I’m alone with Mother.”
Damian, who had been smiling brightly as he looked out over the lake, lifted his head toward Rowena.
“But how long do we have to stay here? When are we going home?”
“That’s……”
The sudden question left Rowena momentarily at a loss for words.
Damian was a perceptive child. She had suspected that the reason he had asked to go on a walk with just the two of them, excluding Jenok, with whom he had grown quite comfortable, was to ask this very question. Rowena stopped walking, bent her knees, and lowered herself to Damian’s eye level.
“Only you can know this, Damian. Soon, Mother’s maternal uncle will come to get us. His name is Jeremy Dish.”
“Mother’s uncle?”
It was the first Damian had ever heard of it. His eyes widened, and he tilted his head.
“He’s coming to get us?”
“Yes. So… we just need to wait a little longer.”
“Really? We can really leave here?”
“Of course. I promise.”
Rowena smiled gently and stroked his soft black hair.
“Okay.”
Their brief, happy walk ended like that. After taking Damian back to his room through the servants’ back door Joan had told her about, Rowena headed for her bedroom.
She had not run into anyone on the way back, and was just opening the door in relief when an air unlike usual made a chill instinctively run down her spine. The moment she caught the scent of a cold wind, a frigid voice pierced Rowena’s ears.
“Miss Philone.”
A man was sitting on the bed that should have been empty.
“Where have you been at this hour of dawn?”
It was the moment the precarious peace shattered.
At his unreadable tone, the fine hairs on the nape of her neck stood on end. The tranquil air she had felt only moments ago froze solid in an instant. She could not move, as though caught in a spider’s web.
Swallowing, Rowena barely managed to part her lips.
“For a walk.”
Though her voice trembled with fear, she had been dragged here against her will. She was the victim, so she had every right to stand firm. But the moment Damian came to mind, the end of her sentence shook.
“I went out for a short walk. I felt stifled, so……”
Killian narrowed his eyes and stared fixedly at the frightened face of his mistress.
“Without telling anyone?”
There was no room for excuses. Rowena lowered her gaze and clasped her hands tightly together.
Killian watched her as if observing, then rose from the bed. Thinking he was coming toward her, Rowena squeezed her eyes shut, but he passed right by her.
When Rowena cautiously opened her eyes, he was sitting on the couch in front of the burning fireplace. Killian placed a cigarette between his lips, took out a match, and lit the end. After exhaling a long stream of smoke, he jerked his chin toward the couch opposite him.
At the silent command, Rowena trudged over and sat down.
“This won’t happen again.”
Even as she said it, she felt humiliated. It was unfair and infuriating that she could not enjoy even the smallest freedom. But the problem was that she had not gone out alone.
Rowena knew very well how much the man before her regarded Damian, whom he believed she had borne with another man, as a thorn in his side.
Throughout the journey to Rockford, whenever she went to the second-class carriage to see Damian, he had made it painfully clear that he wanted to seize her by the hair and drag her back down.
“…
You must be tired. I’ve caused you concern.”
Rowena spoke in a shrinking voice, staring only at her own fingertips.
Just sitting face-to-face with him, alone in the room, made her feel as if someone were tightening a hand around her throat. She thought she might freeze solid under the cold eyes fixed on her.
It was the early dawn, when even the servants would not yet be awake. The dawn light filtering through the chiffon curtains warmed her blond hair. With her head bowed, the woman had no color or life in her face, like a ghost.
Killian watched the woman who was careful even with the sound of her breathing.
All throughout the journey to Rockford, he had fallen asleep each night while breathing in the scent of this woman he had forgotten. At first, she had been uncomfortable with his sleeping habits, but Rowena had soon adjusted and slept soundly, like a baby.
He had stared at Rowena’s sleeping face for hours. Her face, worn with exhaustion. Her shadowed eyes and roughened skin. Her callused fingers and her body, so thin that he could feel her ribs when he embraced her from behind.
She had changed so much that no trace of her former self could be found. Ironically, he had never once allowed the women he had taken in before her to suffer want. He had parted with all of them amicably, and under a lawyer’s notarization had given them ample alimony and farewell gifts. He had even given enough money to buy a building in the capital.
He had learned only later that Rowena had not taken that money, but he had merely instructed Baron Sussex to find her and deliver it as he saw fit. It had not occurred to him to seek her out and hand it to her himself.
Because if he saw her again, he thought he really would strangle her to death then and there.
What if she had been living well? If she had, would he have felt nothing?
He entertained the supposition, but no answer came. The longer he looked at the woman, the more an unknowable energy rose from deep within his chest.
It felt as if one of the holes that had been empty for the past five years was being filled. When he fell asleep holding her thin body, the image of the woman sobbing beneath him as she confessed shimmered before his eyes.
—I was always sincere. I… you……
—I… loved you.
The moment he recalled those green eyes like a summer forest, it felt as though he had woken from a deep sleep. And he realized one clear truth.
He had never truly abandoned Rowena Philone. He had thought he had abandoned her, thought he had simply forgotten her and gone on living, but that was not it. Chloe Aberdeen’s words had not been the fuse; they had merely been dry firewood tossed into a brazier where embers still remained.
There would be no abandoning Rowena Philone again. Because he would never marry in the future.
He decided to bury the past and focus on what lay ahead.
But what stood in his way was none other than the child he had taken hostage.
In the past five years, Rowena Philone had borne a child. They had always used contraception, so the likelihood that it was his child was small. Whether it was William Zenon’s child or whether there had been another man, he did not know.
Only, whenever he recalled the fact that the woman before him had carried another man’s child, fire boiled within him.
That was why he had needed to stay away from this woman. From a distance, he had to look again at the part of himself that could not cast her aside and objectively design the future. For that reason, he had left the castle without even taking time to recover from the journey. While handling the countless matters that had come crashing in, he reached a conclusion.
“Rowena.”
At hearing her name called after so long, Rowena slowly lifted her bowed head.
Killian crushed out his cigarette and leaned deeply against the back of the couch. With his elbows resting on the armrests and his two fingers interlaced, he looked languid and at ease.
“I’ve decided to leave the past buried as the past.”
“What do you mean……”
“You may see the child during the day. If you wish, you may also walk around the castle grounds. Of course, there will be set times, and you’ll have an escort.”
They had yet to identify the person who had killed Anna Eden. Moreover, since he had brought her here by force, there was also the risk that she would flee.
“You mean……”
He thought he had made a rather generous offer, but Rowena’s complexion grew paler and paler. Seeing her thoughts written plainly on her face, Killian asked quietly,
“Did you think I didn’t know you went to your son every night?”
Then did he know that Damian was his son?
In truth, if he decided to look at Damian, it was only a matter of time before he noticed he was his biological son.
If that happened… just imagining it made her feel as though even her bones were freezing. Hiding her trembling hands in her skirt, Rowena asked as if testing him.
“Are you truly… all right with it?”
She remembered his eyes, which had flashed sharply at even the mention of the child.
She wondered what on earth had brought about this change of heart. If he had not truly discovered the truth, then she would rather he become furious or behave as he had before. The man before her now, whose thoughts she could not grasp, frightened her more than the taciturn and terrifying man he originally was.
“You hated him so much……”
“As long as he doesn’t loiter in front of my eyes, it’s fine.”
Killian replied softly and tilted his head back, his neck stiff from long hours of paperwork.
Yes. This woman was important to him.
Now that his confused emotions had been sorted out, even the throbbing headache seemed to ease little by little.
He would bury the infidelity of five years ago. He would also tolerate the existence of the child.
It was the greatest generosity he had ever shown in his life. From the beginning, the woman named Rowena Philone had always been an “exception” to him.
Of course, it was not some childish emotion like love. He had no intention, now or then, of dressing up this strange obsession and desire with such a plausible word. But what did it matter if it was desire? In his life, he had never desired any woman like this.
“Tomorrow, I’ll establish a trust fund in your name. Listen carefully to the lawyer’s explanation and sign. From now on, if there is anything you want, tell me directly at night or inform me through a maid.”
It was unexpected. Contrary to her expectation that, having bestowed mercy, he would demand repayment by forcing himself upon her in bed, his attitude was matter-of-fact, and Rowena could only widen her eyes.
The more he spoke, the more she wondered whether the man before her was truly the Killian Devonshire she knew.
“Why are you doing these things for me? I don’t need a trust. What you’re already giving me is……”
“Because I need you.”
“……”
Cutting off her stumbling refusal, Killian straightened the head he had tilted back. Then he quietly rose and made a suggestion to Rowena, who doubted her own ears.
“I didn’t know you liked the lake. When the weather improves, we’ll go boating. Though today will be difficult.”
The moment she met those cold, ice-like eyes, Rowena looked away.
It was the smile she had engraved upon her retina when she first saw him on the train. She no longer believed in that smile.