Chapter 51. Engagement?
Rowena looked down at her hand, which had fallen limply. Her eyes fell on the large hand wrapped firmly around her waist. What on earth was happening, how things had come to this—everything in her head felt tangled and turned upside down.
She had imagined all sorts of situations, but never a scene like this.
“Rowena.”
Killian, who had seized Rowena’s shoulder with his other hand as she stood frozen like a doll, lowered his head and whispered in her ear.
“Smile.”
Instead of answering, Rowena slowly turned her head. Their noses brushed side by side, and their hot breaths mingled.
Her long lashes trembling, Rowena asked in a low voice.
“Why are you suddenly doing this?”
“What’s the problem? It’s what you wanted.”
Answering calmly, Killian turned her body toward him. With his index finger, he lifted Rowena’s chin. Paying no heed to the gazes of those around them, the two of them locked eyes in a fierce tug-of-war in midair.
A wave of shock, bewilderment, anger, and emptiness swept over Rowena once. Dazed, she glared up at the man looking down at her.
Engagement? Marriage? Yes. She had certainly wanted it once. She had wanted to stand proudly by his side, bear his child, and live as his wife. But all of that was an old story now. It was a wish from the past that had vanished without a trace, like a sandcastle built on the shore.
It was a hope she had let go of the moment she realized that the love of his she had believed existed had all been an illusion, a mirage.
“Rowena.”
A crack appeared in the man’s face, which had been as expressionless and hard as a solid mask as he looked at her dazed, blank face. A somewhat anxious expression—one she had never seen since coming to know him. It vanished before she could even wonder at it, and Rowena concluded that she must have seen wrong. Barely gathering herself, she shook her head.
“There’s no way.”
Rowena placed her hands on his shoulders and buried her forehead against him. Now that their engagement had been made all but certain, there was one thing she had to do as well.
“Then I have a wish.”
“Tell me.”
At his ready answer, Rowena smiled brightly and opened her mouth. The moment permission was given, she pulled away from his arms and turned around. She called out to the people who had been watching them with bated breath.
“The engagement ceremony will be held on Ropes Island in three months. I will invite every one of you here. You’ll come, won’t you?”
Her tone was thoroughly theatrical. Rowena looked around at the people who stood speechless at the sudden declaration.
Just as Killian had intended, they would become witnesses. Only, what they would testify to would not be an engagement ceremony, but her death.
Amid all the sudden developments, someone swallowed dryly. The people, unsure what to do, merely exchanged glances.
The first to react was Countess Rachel.
“Oh my! Miss Philo… no, Rowena. Is that true? Of course I’ll go. Congratulations!”
“Congratulations! Thank you for inviting us!”
Starting with the countess, the people gradually relaxed their stiff expressions and approached them to offer congratulations. Meanwhile, unable to contain her rage, Veronica left. The countess glanced at her retreating figure, then pushed through the crowd and approached Rowena, but before she could greet her, Rowena spoke first.
“Thank you. But I’m tired right now.”
“Of course you are. Go in and rest. Miss… no, Lady Rowena.”
“Then I will see you tomorrow morning, Your Highness.”
A form of address that had been little better than an insult changed in an instant. Facing the people who saw them off with pleased expressions, Rowena barely forced down the nausea rising within her.
* * *
The precarious air, like walking on thin ice, shattered the moment they entered the tent.
No sooner had they stepped inside than Rowena brushed past him, and Killian followed after her. It felt as though a grim reaper were chasing her from behind. Under the familiar pressure she could feel even without a word from him, Rowena felt as if her throat were being squeezed shut.
“Why did you do that?”
“I just answered that.”
“Yes. It was what I wanted. Something I had wished for.”
In the past. Swallowing the rest of the words, Rowena touched the clasp of the necklace she was wearing. It felt as stifling as if she had a collar around her neck, and she wanted to take it off, but she could not see it, and in her agitated state, her hands only fumbled uselessly. In the end, Killian approached and removed the necklace for her. Breathing hard as she tried to steady herself, Rowena turned around.
“But even so, you shouldn’t have deceived me like this and announced it in public as if striking me from behind. You should have told me beforehand when you gave me this necklace!”
Thinking he had changed had, as expected, been a delusion. Just because his attitude had grown a little gentler did not mean this man’s essence had changed from the roots. He was still self-righteous, still arrogant, and still selfish.
When he notified her of their separation, when he came looking for her again, and even now.
Her will, as the person concerned, had not been reflected in the slightest. As if it did not matter at all.
“Do you know how flustered I was earlier?”
Anger overcame reason. Unable to master her fury, Rowena struck Killian’s chest with her fist and panted. As she tried to calm her ragged breathing, a large hand covered hers.
“If I had given it to you?”
Killian gripped her small hand tightly as she tried to pull away, threading his fingers between hers, and pressed it against the left side of his chest.
“Would you have accepted?”
Strangely, she could feel his heartbeat racing beneath the smooth suit. Or perhaps it was her own heartbeat. Glaring at the man who was trying to possess and wield her without leaving the slightest opening, Rowena thought they were playing a dangerous game. They were taking turns aiming the muzzle of a six-shot revolver loaded with a single bullet. It was a vicious game that would never end until one of them died.
Silence flowed for a long while. Their excited breathing gradually returned to normal.
Instead of answering, Rowena deftly changed the subject.
“Before that, tell me why you decided to propose.”
At her now compliant tone, Killian released her hand, passed by her, and sat down on the couch.
“Five years ago, I misunderstood one thing.”
“What… misunderstanding?”
“William Zenon.”
At the unexpected name, Rowena’s pupils shook. Watching her, Killian crossed his long legs.
“I was told that man was your lover.”
“He wasn’t! Why on earth would you misunderstand that?”
Shaking her head as if in revulsion, Rowena approached him. Killian jerked his chin, indicating that she should sit across from him, then rummaged in his breast pocket. And for the first time in a long while, he put a cigarette between his lips.
“Then why did you meet him?”
“I was writing… a book, just to pass the time. I sent him the manuscript, and he contacted me. That was the only reason I met him.”
“Why did you keep it a secret from me?”
“Because you wouldn’t have liked it!”
She was dumbfounded. This was the moment the reason he had treated her so cruelly five years ago was revealed. Rowena sank onto the couch and rubbed her face with dry hands, swallowing a damp breath.
“Then… who slandered me like that?”
“Baron Benedict Sussex.”
Until not long ago, he had suspected Xenoc, who had concealed Damian’s identity, but the further he investigated behind the scenes, the clearer the culprit became.
“Ah!”
Rowena, turning pale, let out a short scream. Killian waited until she calmed down, then spoke heavily.
“Shockingly, the first informant was Gertrude.”
“Madam Gertrude… Is that why you drove her out that night?”
Instead of answering, Killian nodded.
“But why do you say Baron Sussex was behind it?”
“At first, I thought Gertrude had orchestrated everything. Even after I threw her out and deliberately had her followed without arresting her, even when she was driven to the brink, she went to no one. And Baron Sussex had usually tended to defend you.”
“And then?”
“Gertrude, who had insisted to the very end throughout the interrogation after she was captured that it had been her own plan, disappeared not long after she was released. At the time, I didn’t think much of it, but when I looked into it recently, I found that she had been strangled to death. And…”
It was a far more serious story than she had expected. Rowena bit the inside of her mouth and listened intently.
“A woman named Anna, who was your coworker.”
“I heard she ran away.”
“She was murdered. In the same manner.”
A murder disguised as suicide. It was chillingly identical to the end Gertrude had met, which he had investigated after Melissa’s confession. It was proof that the same culprit had murdered both women.
“Did you… find the culprit?”
“He was a hired killer. Under interrogation, he named Benedict Sussex.”
He had discovered that fact the night just before coming here. Keeping in mind the possibility that Damian had been the target, he had only then informed Xenoc, whom he had been subtly testing just in case, of the whole truth.
There were many other things to say as well, such as Melissa’s identity, but he did not bother putting them into words. He could not inflict an even greater sense of betrayal on a woman who already looked as though she might collapse from shock.
“My God.”
Rowena lowered her head with a sigh at the unbearable truth.
Killian silently watched her and reached toward her slumped shoulders, but before his hand could touch her, Rowena lifted her head again.