Chapter 33
“By the way, have you gotten close to that woman? I feel like I’ve been seeing her a lot lately.”
“Ah. Mother said she was a friend who helped her a lot in the past, too. Sir, why do you dislike Melissa so much?”
“It’s not that I dislike her, exactly…”
Jeremy, momentarily startled by the unexpectedly sharp observation, scratched the back of his head.
“Do you know what a hunch is?”
“A hunch…
you mean?”
“Yeah. It’s like an intuitive feeling that comes to you… And that feeling isn’t very good, I suppose. Something feels off…”
“Off?”
Even when he tried to explain it as plainly as possible, Damian’s reaction was nothing but bewilderment. Jeremy gave an awkward laugh and subtly changed the subject.
“Anyway, did you finish all the homework I told you to do yesterday?”
“Ah. Well…”
Startled by the sudden question, Damian pursed his lips as if gauging his mood.
“You didn’t, did you?”
“It’s not class time yet… I-I only have to do it before then, don’t I?”
The way he stammered was suspicious somehow. Narrowing his eyes, Jeremy reached behind Damian, who had hidden both hands behind his back.
“Let’s see how much you did.”
“N-no, you can’t!”
* * *
“All done, Lady Rowena.”
Behind her, Melissa spoke politely after tidying the set of Rowena’s clothes.
“The snow has melted and it’s gotten much warmer, but it will be a cold night by the time you arrive in the capital, so it would be best to wear a warm sable scarf and a fox-fur coat over this.”
“Yes. That would be best. Thank you, Melissa.”
Standing before the full-length mirror, Rowena fastened the button at her throat and smiled. Melissa, whose eyes met hers through the mirror, smiled back.
“Then I’ll bring them right away.”
“Go on.”
Joanne, who had likewise been arranging Rowena’s hair, saw Melissa off with her eyes. Once Melissa left the room to fetch the scarf and coat, Joanne checked the closed door and quietly spoke to Rowena.
“Lady Rowena. Don’t you think Melissa has been a little different lately?”
“Different?”
At the sudden topic, Rowena widened her eyes and turned around.
“Well…”
Joanne pulled over a console, seated Rowena, and sat down on another console herself. Then, as though sharing an entertaining secret, she lowered her voice.
“I think Melissa may be in love.”
“In love?”
“Yes. And the other person is none other than…”
As if deliberately making Rowena, who was looking at her with interest, wait, Joanne paused for a moment before continuing.
“Lord Xenok, one of Lord Killian’s close aides.”
“My goodness! Truly?”
It was news she had never imagined. As a rule, there was nothing in the world more entertaining than someone else’s romance. Rowena, whose spirits had been low at the thought of going up to the capital away from Damian later, brightened and listened closely to Joanne’s story.
“You know I use the room next to Melissa’s. That’s how I know—lately, late at night, Melissa isn’t in her room.”
“Couldn’t she simply be taking a walk because she feels stifled? Or wanting a drink of water.”
“Oh, that would be one thing if it happened once or twice. But she leaves her room at night about every other day.”
“And?”
“Yesterday, I followed her right away. And goodness. There she was, alone with Lord Xenok in the servants’ dining room.”
“Is that true?”
Rowena, who had raised her voice without realizing it, belatedly covered her mouth.
“I saw it clearly with my own two eyes. The two of them were spending time together, just the two of them.”
“If it’s true that the two of them are seeing each other… why would they meet in secret?”
“There are many things in the way, after all. Since Lord Xenok is His Highness’s closest aide, his position is somewhat distant from Melissa’s, and His Highness has also forbidden relationships between servants within the ducal residence…”
While Joanne was calmly explaining the reasons, a knock sounded from outside the door. Thinking it might be Melissa, Rowena was about to tell her to come in when the person outside spoke first.
“Rowena.”
There was only one person here who could call her by name without any honorific. The cheerful atmosphere instantly drew taut, like a string pulled tight. Joanne sprang to her feet, helped Rowena stand, and went to the door. She was about to open it when it opened first from the other side.
“No answer, I see.”
“Your Highness.”
As soon as Joanne stepped back, Killian entered and looked Rowena up and down. It was only a gaze, yet under that secret scrutiny, as if it swept even into the depths beyond the thick satin dress, heat rose to Rowena’s face as though she had been burned.
“W-what brings you here so suddenly?”
Rowena, flustered by his unannounced arrival, was about to step back when Killian strode forward and seized her arm as nimbly as a hawk snatching its prey.
“Why are you running away?”
“I was just startled.”
“It isn’t because you’re hiding something?”
His sharp blue pupils looked down at her pale face as though they would devour her. Rowena, looking up at him until her neck felt as if it might break, barely managed to lift the corners of her mouth.
“How could I dare?”
“For someone who wouldn’t, you skipped breakfast this morning as well.”
At the ominous atmosphere, Joanne swallowed dryly and left the room before she could intervene. Rowena watched the door close over Killian’s shoulder and bit her lip.
“I felt uneasy leaving Damian behind.”
“…”
“I kept thinking of the child, and so… I’m sorry.”
Rather than clumsily lying that she felt unwell or that her stomach was off, it was better to confess honestly. Rowena lowered her eyes and stubbornly bowed her head despite his intense gaze. Killian swept his hair back and reminded her in a low voice of their promise.
“I said I would bring him in half a month.”
“I’m grateful for that.”
Rowena obediently nodded. In truth, even that much was a remarkable concession. Whenever she recalled the look in his eyes when he had glared at the door behind which Damian was hiding when they first met again, a chill still ran down Rowena’s spine.
He was a man who thoroughly ignored anything outside the range of his interest, whether person or object. But Damian was the son she had given birth to, and her lifeline, so he was an ambiguous existence Killian could neither completely ignore nor take an interest in.
And yet now, though only briefly at night, he was tacitly allowing her to spend time with Damian, and even though it would be two days later, he had permitted Damian to follow her to the capital. It was behavior unlike him.
“I’m sorry if my behavior this morning displeased you.”
Since he had shown her that much tolerance, it was only natural that she should prostrate herself and express gratitude for his generosity.
While Rowena found his successive acts of leniency strange, she did not think more deeply about it. It was bound to be a whim anyway. Once was enough to be betrayed and abandoned by the person she had loved with both body and soul. Whenever her resolve wavered little by little, she steeled herself.
“By the way, why are you here…”
“Look in the mirror.”
Rowena, clenching and unclenching her fist in the uncomfortable air, tried to change the subject, but a large hand covered her shoulder. As he said, she turned sideways to look in the mirror, and something cold touched her throat. Around her neck hung a long necklace that draped down twice. Between thin, delicate strands of gold, diamonds cut into round pendant-like shapes were set here and there.
“This is…”
As Rowena stared blankly down at the necklace resting on her neck, warm breath touched the nape of her neck. Rowena stiffened her back.
“Rowena.”
Killian lowered his head and pressed a brief kiss to the exposed nape of her neck, then hooked his index finger through the clasp and pulled it toward himself. The necklace tightened around her throat in an instant, and at the sensation of wearing a collar, a shadow fell over Rowena’s complexion. Killian, quickly reading her expression, immediately raised an eyebrow.
“Do you not like it?”
“No. It’s truly beautiful. Thank you.”
At his lowered voice, Rowena quickly shook her head and smiled at the face she met beyond the mirror.
“Then why that expression?”
When Killian released the clasp and pressed her, Rowena hesitated before answering.
“It’s so beautiful… It’s just that it seems a little too much for me.”
She had already received enough dresses, shoes, bags, and jewels to fill her dressing room. Having developed a certain eye from seeing luxuries every day, Rowena could tell that the necklace she now wore was a rare treasure. She had seen a necklace of this quality only once before. It had been worn by the queen, whom she had seen from afar rather than during a formal audience.
“Could this… possibly belong to the royal castle?”
At the sudden thought, Rowena’s face turned blue and she asked abruptly. When no answer came back, she grew anxious.
“If that’s the case, I don’t need anything beyond my station…”
“You wore a treasure from the royal castle before. Why object now?”
Unlike the anxious Rowena, Killian asked back with a calm face. At his answer, Rowena clenched her fists and avoided his gaze.
“That was then.”
It had been a time when she had been innocent and ignorant of the world. A time when she had not known what was permitted to her, nor the line this man allowed. So she had simply worn what Killian gave her and eaten what he gave her. No matter how powerful a ducal house might be, a woman in the position of mistress could never be dignified. She had not known that it was an act that would invite pointing fingers behind her back for “a woman who cannot stand beside him before God” to wear something belonging to the most sacred and noble person in this country.
Killian stared quietly at her clouded face in the mirror, then wrapped one hand around her throat as if encircling it. And he whispered in her ear.