Chapter 84. Rowena Is at the Ludville Mansion?
Cedric quietly set his mind to work. It was strange. The objective had already been achieved, and Rowena had no reason to stay at Owen’s mansion. Even if she had stayed, she would have written a letter. The fact that she had packed her things and gone there without a single word of notice felt ominous. For some reason, a chilling premonition seeped in through the tips of his toes.
Damian, who stood there without understanding what was going on, tugged at Cedric’s clothes.
“Brother? Where did you say Mom is?”
“It seems she’s at a friend’s house.”
“Did she decide to stay there because she was lonely without us?”
“Yes. That could be it.”
Cedric smiled faintly and ruffled Damian’s hair.
“Anyway, you should wash up first. You’re far too grubby right now, Damian.”
“Really? Am I very dirty?”
“Yes. So much that if Mom saw you, she might not know whether you were a crow or her son.”
At the mischievous addition, Damian’s face turned pale.
“That can’t happen!”
“Exactly.”
Cedric gave the maid a look and pushed Damian’s back toward the bathroom.
“Then go wash and come out. After that, we’ll go see Mom together.”
“Okay.”
As soon as Damian nodded and went up to the second floor with the maid, where the bathroom was, Cedric turned sharply. He opened the door he had just closed and called back the carriage that was about to leave. The coachman turned around.
“Where shall we go?”
“Please take me to the Ludville mansion.”
After answering, Cedric straightened the collar of his coat. He had to see her face himself and hear what had happened.
* * *
But what awaited Cedric was none other than being turned away at the gate. The firmly closed doors did not open, as though he had never once come and gone from the mansion, and the gatekeeper only said that uninvited guests had to leave.
“I’m telling you, the guest staying here is my wife.”
“That circumstance is none of my concern. The master has ordered that no one who has not been invited be allowed in. Please leave.”
The gatekeeper repeated the same words coldly in a blunt tone. Cedric swept back his hair, took a deep breath to suppress his anger, then spoke in a low voice.
“Then go inside and give them my name. Cedric Godwell.”
“As I said—”
“Do as I say, unless you want to regret it. Tell them I am Cedric Godwell, and that I’ve come to take my wife home.”
His voice was quiet, but each word sounded as if it had been chewed up and spat out. The gatekeeper had looked down on him for a moment, but sensing an air about him that made him difficult to ignore, he scratched the back of his head and turned toward the mansion.
Gripping the iron bars, Cedric glared at the gatekeeper’s retreating back.
Only after quite some time had passed did the gatekeeper return. Whatever he had been told, his attitude had become far more polite as he opened the gate.
“I apologize for my rudeness. Please come in.”
“……
Thank you.”
Cedric nodded and followed the gatekeeper toward the mansion.
At first, Cedric thought they were heading to the main building, but the gatekeeper changed direction toward the annex. Cedric, who had naturally assumed they would go to the main building where there were many guest rooms, followed in puzzlement when he felt a stinging gaze from somewhere. He stopped walking and turned around, but a figure slipped away.
“Sir?”
“……”
“Is there something there?”
“No. I must have seen wrong.”
Cedric shook his head and followed the gatekeeper into the annex. But the one waiting for him was not Rowena, as he had expected, but a strange man.
“You’re Mr. Cedric Godwell, correct?”
“……
Yes.”
“Pleased to meet you. I am Jenok Gillitus.”
The man smiled and offered his hand. Cedric took the outstretched hand with wary eyes and immediately got to the point.
“Where is Diana?”
“Mr. Godwell.”
“Where is my wife? And where is Mr. Ludville?”
The man who greeted him as though he were the owner of this mansion seemed suspicious. As Cedric pressed him like an interrogation, the sound of light footsteps came from above. When he raised his head, a man was descending the stairs.
“Wife, is it.”
The man, of whom only his legs had been visible in the darkness, gradually revealed himself. By the time the man had nearly come all the way down the stairs, Cedric saw his face and his eyes blazed.
“You!”
It was the moment his dreadful suspicion proved horribly correct. Cedric shoved past Jenok, who tried to block him, strode up to the man, and seized him by the collar.
“Where did you hide her?”
“You have no manners.”
Tsk. Killian clicked his tongue and forcefully shook off Cedric, who had grabbed his collar.
“Manners? You abducted someone, and you dare speak of manners!”
“Is that what Rowena said?”
Killian twisted the corners of his mouth and stared into Cedric’s violet eyes as though trying to see through his thoughts. His hand was trembling. From the very fact that Cedric so easily called Rowena his wife, an urge surged up in him to shoot the man dead. The greatest restraint he could show was not drawing the pistol in his coat.
In the end, Cedric, his vision gone red, lunged again. With a dull smack, Killian’s head turned to the side.
“Your Highness!”
“Shut up and tell me.”
Jenok, aghast, tried to approach, but Killian raised a hand to stop him and touched his stinging cheek.
“Let’s consider the debt repaid with this.”
“What?”
“The debt for looking after her all this time.”
Diana Godwell. When he recalled the false name Rowena had used, rage boiled up in him so fiercely his teeth nearly ground together. It was a violent emotion even he had not known existed within himself. No matter that they were a disguised couple under a false name, the fact that another man had openly stayed by her side made his teeth clench.
If it had been before, he would have buried the man without anyone knowing, but now he could not do things that way. A single sentence lodged in his mind was binding him like a powerful curse.
—If you take me by force, I will pull this trigger. And I will do the same if you harm the people around me.
Their razor-sharp gazes clashed precariously, like balancing on a wire. The one to break the silence was Cedric. He let out an incredulous laugh and bared his teeth.
“Stop spouting bullshit and let her go, Your Highness.”
He had added the honorific, but his tone and expression were closer to an insult. Cedric sneered at Killian, who did not so much as twitch an eyebrow.
“Return to your own country, forget her and me cleanly, and live happily with some noble lady at your side. Ngh!”
No sooner had he finished speaking than his jaw was seized. At the sudden attack that came while his guard was down, Cedric was thrown into confusion, and Killian growled at him.
“You had better watch your mouth a little. A mere scholar should be aware of whose presence he is running his mouth in.”
His glittering eyes were more like those of a predator. Cedric flinched for only a moment before regaining his senses and wrenching himself free of Killian’s grip.
“She’s the woman you abandoned. She’s finally trying to step out of your shadow and start over, and you’re going to toy with her again only to throw her away miserably— Urgh!”
He could not finish his words. In an instant, Cedric was seized by the collar and bent at the waist. Then a blunt pain struck his solar plexus.
“Huk.”
While Cedric could not breathe from the pain that reached all the way to his ribs, Killian shook out his hand and gave Jenok a look.
“Take him outside.”
“Yes.”
Jenok bowed his head, took Cedric by the arm as if supporting him, and headed outside. Cedric, dragged out of the annex as if being thrown out, came to his senses and shook off Jenok’s arm.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? As if dragging someone here by force weren’t enough, you’re locking her up like this!”
“Lady Rowena was never dragged here by force.”
“What did you say?”
At Jenok’s calm reply, Cedric raised his eyebrows and pressed him.
“There’s no way Rowena would do that. You’re lying.”
“It’s true. You must have already heard it from the maid. She packed her things herself and came here. She walked in of her own accord.”
Cedric’s sharp gaze bored into him, but Jenok remained composed. Realizing from that calm demeanor that his words were true, Cedric clenched and unclenched his fist.
“Even if that’s true, you must have threatened her with something. For instance—”
Cedric stopped speaking as the situation flashed through his mind like lightning. Owen’s mansion. Lauren’s medicine. And Rowena and the duke.
A series of things connected into a single relationship and moved toward one conclusion.
“The medicine.”
“……”
Lauren’s medicine was none other than a drug that came from Ethelwood. And Killian Devonshire was a duke with influence in Ethelwood. According to rumor, he now possessed enormous influence even in the underworld.
Instead of agreeing, Jenok called over the gatekeeper standing at a distance and had him escort Cedric out. Standing firm, Cedric glared past Jenok’s shoulder at the annex. More precisely, at the man who would be inside it.
“Let me ask one thing. Is she in the annex?”
At the sudden question, Jenok shook his head instead of answering. Cedric closed his eyes and opened them, seeming somewhat relieved, then declared,
“I will come back, no matter what. And I will take Rowena with me.”
Jenok hesitated at his resolute face, then slowly turned away. At the same time, the gatekeeper urged Cedric on.
“Then let us go.”
Why had he not noticed? Why had he, of all times, let down his guard and left her side now? His own powerlessness felt pathetic, and anger surged at this situation. He had to find a way. A way to keep Lauren safe and to free Rowena as well. Taking a deep breath to suppress his emotions, Cedric murmured a name quietly inside his mouth.
“……
Rowena.”
The distance from the annex to the main gate was long. He was trudging out when someone called him to a stop.
“Mr. Godwell?”