Chapter 86
By coincidence, the performance starred the very same prima donna as it had some six years ago. Eyes poured toward the two people seated in a box overlooking both the audience and the stage at a glance. In the box opposite them, people were even pretending to watch the performance through opera glasses while stealing glances at them.
They were gazes that had once been familiar, and had now become strange. Rowena watched the stage expressionlessly.
The curtain, now in Act Two, was racing toward its climax. Beneath a resplendent crystal chandelier, before countless spectators, the prima donna who had been pouring out an aria lifted both hands high and ended her song in a voice steeped in hatred.
“My wrath pierces the heavens, and as waves overturn the sea, my hellfire shall come surging down. You who murdered my love shall not go unscathed!”
No sooner had the curse ended than the percussion of the orchestra below the stage drove the drama onward with grand, tension-filled music. As cymbals, horns, and oboes embodied a thunderbolt crashing down, several women in the audience fainted in fright. Rowena, too, startled by the sudden sound of lightning, squeezed her eyes shut.
“Rowena.”
A cold hand tucked the disheveled hair at her temple behind her ear, then lightly stroked the rim of her ear as if to soothe her. At that warmth as cold as a snake, Rowena replied without even turning her head.
“I’m fine.”
Killian lowered his hand, seemed about to say something, then closed his mouth again. From the meal they had shared until the moment they arrived here, she had only answered what he asked and said nothing of her own accord. The situation had been completely reversed. Rowena, who had once watched his moods, no longer tried to read his feelings or cater to his temper. It was harder than he had expected to look at a woman whose heart was elsewhere even when she sat across from him. It was even harder to think of who might be at the end of that gaze. Unlike Rowena, who was wholly focused on the play, he kept his eyes fixed only on her profile.
Meanwhile, the drama was hurtling toward catastrophe. The prima donna, trembling with madness, stabbed the groom who had murdered her lover on her wedding day. Stage blood stained the pure white wedding dress, and between the groom, now a corpse, and the horrified families and guests on both sides, the bride, completely mad, rubbed her face with both hands dyed crimson with blood.
“God! Thank you!”
It was the premiere of a play created by a famous playwright and a top actress. At the shocking scene, one by one, members of the audience rose from their seats and left the theater in silence.
“Let’s go.”
As the commotion swept through the theater in the middle of the performance, Killian saw Rowena’s pallor and took her arm. Just as before, Rowena did not even turn her head and coldly shook it.
“No. I want to keep watching.”
“Does it not offend you?”
“You’re the one it offends, I imagine.”
Instead of asking what she meant, Killian stared intently at her tightly closed profile. Lips that seemed as though they would never open did so.
“Why did you summon Cedric?”
“……”
“What did you do to him? Did you hurt him?”
At dinner, and now as well, Rowena had restrained herself from demanding answers at once and had tried to think rationally.
Today, Lauren had not said that Cedric was ill or injured. She had been startled, but she had not seemed worried. But even if nothing had happened to him physically, that did not put Rowena at ease.
Killian, the Duke of Devonshire, was a man who could drive a person to the very bottom with only a few words.
“You said you went to visit the sick, yet you met that man?”
“You know that isn’t true. Just answer what I asked.”
Her voice was calm, but her hand was clutching the hem of her dress. Is that man so precious to her? Looking at the trembling beneath her eyes, Killian twisted his lips.
“What if I did hurt him?”
“Then I’ll leave the Ludville mansion. And I will never meet you like this again.”
She had meant not to provoke him, but if he did not keep his promise, then she had no need to keep hers, either. Rowena, who had stubbornly averted her gaze, slowly turned her head.
The moment their eyes finally met, Killian felt his heart sink. Her face held not the slightest hesitation, nor any fear. Along with it came the chill and terror he had first felt when he had lost her. Emotions he had not even known existed in the world tightened around his throat and bound his entire body fast.
He recalled the time he had wandered the sea like a madman and lain in her coffin in the empty underground mausoleum. The silence that seemed eternal, the cold darkness, the sense of loss that had strangled him. That terrible helplessness.
Rage surged all the way to the top of his head, yet his strength drained away so completely he could not lift a finger.
He wanted to seize the shoulders of the woman who so brazenly spoke another man’s name before him and interrogate her.
Had they truly only pretended to be a false married couple to conceal their identities? Was that truly all?
He remembered Cedric Godwell from last night, lunging at him with ferocity. At the same time, an impatience slightly different from fear surged through him. He wanted to kill him this instant.
Reason whispered to him to brutally kill that man at once, then drag this woman away and lock her in the deepest part of the castle.
It was not too late. Even now. But if he truly killed him, Rowena would—
“Answer me. Your swollen cheek has something to do with it too, doesn’t it?”
At that moment, her cold voice cooled his fevering mind. As if being dragged up from the depths of the deep sea to the surface, a single realization struck Killian’s mind.
The intense emotion now boiling inside him was jealousy. Jealousy.
“How kind of you to notice.”
Rowena raised her brows, thinking it sarcasm, but his voice had no strength.
“I’m not an idiot.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I won’t harm a useful hostage with my own hands.”
Rowena narrowed her eyes, as if gauging whether he was telling the truth. Her gaze was full of distrust and wariness.
“Shall I swear it?”
“I don’t believe your oaths. I’m not an idiot either.”
“……”
“And the same goes for your apologies.”
At the cold, piercing words, Killian clenched his teeth.
“You don’t truly repent, nor are you sorry to me. To the very end, your own greed comes first, and I’m no different from one of your possessions.”
Rowena ended her words icily and turned her gaze back to the play. Several scenes had passed, and before the sparsely emptied audience seats, the actors were giving their all.
There was a twist in the play. The lover they had thought dead had, in fact, been alive. The woman, now on the guillotine for the crime of murdering her husband on her wedding day, discovers her lover running toward her from among the crowd.
Amid the throng of people who had come out to watch the execution, her lover, half-mad, shouted something loudly as he ran toward her, but both his voice and his steps were blocked by the spectators. The instant the woman smiled radiantly, the blue blade fell, and the stage went dark. Then the heavy curtain closed.
The remaining audience, who had been holding their breath as they watched the play, belatedly showered thunderous applause upon the tragedy whose curtain had fallen.
The curtain call followed. Together with the playwright, the leading actors bowed deeply toward the audience who had remained.
Amid the long applause, there was only one person who did not clap.
* * *
“It was so bright just a moment ago, but now it’s suddenly gotten cloudy. Don’t you think?”
Rowena, who had been lost in thought, belatedly looked at Cecilia.
“What are you thinking about so deeply?”
“Nothing.”
“For nothing, you looked rather deep in thought.”
“……”
“Did something happen yesterday, by any chance?”
A gaze full of suspicion turned toward Rowena. Sharp as ever, her words were true. Last night, for whatever change of heart had come over him, Killian had not opened his mouth from the end of the performance until they returned to the mansion. Though the silence had actually been welcome, Rowena had strongly sensed that, starting from yesterday, something about him would change.
Avoiding her gaze, Rowena changed the subject.
“In any case, as you said, it looks like it’ll rain soon. It feels chilly. Wouldn’t it be better to go in?”
No sooner had she finished speaking than one raindrop after another began to fall.
“You’re right. Let’s take shelter from the rain first.”
For some reason, Cecilia agreed and led her to the gazebo. It was a small resting space where four pillars supported a round roof.
They stood for a while amid the lush greenery, silently watching the rain, before Cecilia, who had been sitting on the bench, rose first.
“Wait here a moment. I’ll bring the carriage.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No. Wait here.”
Cecilia firmly refused Rowena, who was about to follow, and walked away, opening her parasol in place of an umbrella.
As Rowena, left alone, stared blankly at the quietly falling rain, someone entered the gazebo. The moment she turned around, an affectionate voice pierced her ears.
“Rowena.”
“……”
“Rowena.”
“…
Cedric?”
The face she had scarcely dared hope for was looking at her. Covering her mouth, Rowena froze, her eyes widening. Cedric took a step closer, reached out, and drew Rowena into his arms.
“I missed you.”
“Cedric.”
In that warm, steady embrace, Rowena let out a sigh of relief. When she remained silent in his arms for a long while, Cedric released her and examined her face.
“Are you all right? You’re not hurt anywhere, are you?”
“No. More importantly, what about Damian?”
“He’s doing well. I told him you were staying at a friend’s house.”
“I see.”
Relieved, Rowena belatedly looked him over here and there.
“I heard you came to the mansion the night before last. What happened? What did he say to you—”
“Nothing happened.”
After confirming that he was unhurt, Rowena let her raised shoulders droop.
As if to reassure her, Cedric answered gently and swept back his wet hair.
“I’m sorry. And thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being away and letting you get taken by that man as though dragged off.”
It was not his fault. Killian was no different from a disaster. One that could neither be predicted nor stopped. Rowena shook her head and asked next.
“And why are you thanking me?”
“Thank you for staying safe like this.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. While Rowena was at a loss for words, Cedric cupped both her cheeks and began in a low voice.
“And about what happened the night before last. Thanks to that man, I actually found hope. I have a clever plan as well.”
“……
A clever plan?”
Cedric smiled softly and whispered.
“Let’s get married.”
“What?”
Rowena’s mouth fell open, unable to believe her ears.