Chapter 90
With no guests and no ceremony to speak of, the wedding proceeded quickly and simply. The bride and groom knelt together before a low altar, received the priest’s blessing, exchanged their vows, and finally each signed the marriage registration form.
“Then I hereby declare that the two of you are joined in marriage.”
When Rowena set down her pen, the waiting priest announced it with a solemn expression.
“Groom, you may kiss the bride.”
Their eyes met, and Cedric kissed her in turn on the forehead and both cheeks. At the ticklish touch of his soft, tender lips, Rowena drew back, but his hand held her firmly by the shoulder, and she accepted the kisses as they came.
The final kiss, which stopped just before her lips, was omitted after a moment’s hesitation. When she opened the eyes she had closed, Cedric whispered with a serious face.
“I know you don’t love me as a man yet.”
“Cedric……”
“Let’s save this for when you truly love me someday.”
Instead of answering, Rowena nodded. Cedric’s words were true. When she looked at him, her heart did not race madly, nor did her mouth go dry, nor did she tremble. But when she was with him, a comfortable, gentle feeling filled her, like resting beneath a broad elm tree. Perhaps, after time passed, it was a feeling that might change into something different.
“Shall we go, then?”
Cedric smiled and took her hand, rising together with her.
The ceremony had lasted barely ten minutes. The sun was still bright, and a cool breeze scattered the leaves of the trees, the sound of them brushing against one another peaceful to the ear.
As soon as they left the chapel, Rowena removed her veil and handed it to Cedric.
“I should go now. Cecilia will be looking for me.”
“Rowena.”
Cedric caught Rowena as she was about to turn away and leave, then added,
“Please tell her thank you. If not for her, it would have been difficult for us to meet again.”
On the day he had tried to meet Rowena but had been stopped by the duke and left with no choice but to turn back, the one who had called out to him was none other than Cecilia Ludville. Though he did not know her reasons, she had offered to help if he wished to meet Rowena, and thanks to her, he had been able to see Rowena again safely, without being followed.
“I will.”
“Thank you. I’ll submit the marriage registration form today.”
Instead of replying, Rowena nodded and was about to hurry away again when she stopped. Then she held something out to Cedric.
“Cedric. This. Please give it to Damian.”
“A letter.”
If she could have followed her heart, she would have embraced him and felt that small, warm presence in her arms. But afraid Damian would be shocked, they had decided to keep the marriage a secret and agreed not to bring him. Cedric taking Damian with him was only because of the possibility that Killian might take him instead.
“Please take good care of Damian.”
“Of course. He’s my son now, too.”
Cedric answered sincerely, then hesitated for a moment and searched his pocket. He started to take something out, then steeled himself and smiled.
“Then hurry along.”
“Yes.”
With a slightly awkward farewell, as if they were not a couple who had just married, Rowena turned and walked away. When her figure had completely disappeared from sight, a man who had been watching them from a distance approached. As Cedric turned around, the man spoke first.
“Then, the carriage is ready, so let us depart at once.”
* * *
Rowena did not return to the mansion right away. Only after wandering aimlessly through a department store with Cecilia and even finishing lunch did she head back to the residence.
During the wedding, her heart had been tense, but calmer than she had expected. Yet the moment she returned to the mansion, it began to pound like mad. Like a child who had secretly committed some forbidden act, Rowena steadied her trembling breath.
The greatest reason was that Killian, who should have been absent as usual, was waiting for her in her room.
“Rowena.”
“Why are you here?”
“Because I wanted to see you.”
Killian, who had uttered words so embarrassing that she might have wondered if he had eaten something strange, strode toward her.
“Where have you been?”
“You already know, don’t you?”
Rowena stopped herself from stepping back without realizing it and answered proudly from where she stood.
“I went to the park with Miss Cecilia.”
“Is that all?”
“Why are you asking?”
When she answered sharply to the question that sounded like an interrogation, Killian’s brow narrowed for a moment.
“I’m no longer your kept woman. I don’t belong to you, so know when to stop.”
Holding back the fear that had become a habit, Rowena passed him and sat at the vanity. She removed the necklace around her neck and let down the hair she had pinned up. She acted composed, but the gaze watching her through the mirror made her back stiffen.
Killian silently looked at Rowena, then slowly sat on the couch in front of the fireplace.
Her hair, shining like threads of gold, fell over the nape of her neck that had been seductively exposed, and a cotton pad touched her white, smooth skin like a bisque doll’s.
Rowena’s bare face, once she had slowly removed her makeup, was pure and still beautiful. After finally wiping away her lipstick, Rowena could no longer bear it and turned to look at him.
“How long are you going to sit there like that?”
“Until you look at me.”
“Then I’ve looked at you now, so you can leave.”
“Liar.”
Killian smiled crookedly and slowly rose, placing his hands on Rowena’s shoulders. Startled by the heat of his body, unlike his usual cold touch, Rowena looked at him through the mirror. But only for a moment; wiping the sweat on her palms secretly against the hem of her dress, she lifted her chin.
“What do you want? Don’t tell me it’s another courtship……”
“I thought about what you said.”
“……
What I said?”
“That if someone is precious, then crawling on the floor and being miserable is fine.”
Killian raised his fingertips and pressed them against her secretly tense skin.
“It might be difficult to make myself miserable, but I think I can be your kept man.”
“……
What are you talking about?”
Had he found out about what happened today? Swallowing her trembling breath, Rowena instinctively bit the inside of her mouth.
“But only that far. If you go any further, I think even I will find it hard to endure.”
His voice had no rise or fall, yet a chilling cold traveled from the crown of her head, where his breath reached, down her spine. Only after a long moment did Rowena calm herself enough to barely move her lips.
“I truly don’t know what you’re talking about. I need to change into my nightgown, so please leave.”
“No.”
Refusing at once, Killian withdrew the two hands that had been pressing on her shoulders.
“Don’t change into your nightgown. I have something prepared for you.”
Before she could ask what that meant, a beautiful melody flowed in through the slightly open window. Rowena’s eyes widened. Ignoring the hand he held out, she rose and went out to the balcony, where a small ensemble of five or six musicians was playing in the courtyard, amid flowers in full bloom. It was a piece she liked.
“It’s a gift.”
Killian approached Rowena from behind as she stared blankly down at the ensemble, and naturally braced his hands on the railing as if enclosing her.
After listening quietly to the performance for a while, Rowena turned her head.
“Do you think I’ll be swayed by this? Do you think I’ll go back to you?”
She dismissed the thought that Killian might know she had married Cedric. If he had known, he was the sort of man who would have stopped it even if he had to shoot Cedric dead halfway through. There was no way he would be acting like this while maintaining his composure. At her accusing words, Killian looked down at Rowena in his arms with an unreadable gaze, then shook his head.
“No.”
“Then why are you doing this?”
It was an event she had never expected, but her mind was already made up, and she was now formally married.
“Tell them I listened gratefully to the performance, and to go back.”
As Rowena tried to escape his arms, Killian embraced her and rested his forehead on her shoulder.
“I’m not doing this because I want something.”
“Then what is it?”
“Think of it as the fawning of a kept man.”
It was an answer that left her speechless. That he could so casually call himself a kept man, and the hands that wrapped around her waist as if clinging to her, unable to put strength into them. Even his slow voice, as though he were tense.
Rowena was about to coldly shake off his hands, but instead, she let her raised shoulders fall.
It was unfamiliar. After reuniting with him in that distant foreign country, everything had felt unfamiliar. For a while at first, she had thought he was exactly the same arrogant man from before, but lately she was confused as to whether he was truly the Killian Devonshire she had known, or someone else wearing the exact same shell.
“Do you know that?”
“……”
“A kept lover is abandoned in the end. Because they’re merely the partner of a deviation. A toy, a plaything, nothing more and nothing less.”
Her voice sounded as though it were trampling a heart beneath its feet. The muzzle was aimed at him, but in a way, it was also aimed at her past self. Instead of answering, Killian buried his face deeper into the nape of her neck, and Rowena continued speaking clearly to him.
“When I was young, I didn’t know that. And I was immature. I ate and slept and lived in your house, enjoyed wealth and luxury with your money, yet I thought of myself not as your kept woman, but as your lover.”
“……
Rowena.”
“In a way, the blame was also with me, ignorant and unaware of the ways of the world as I was. Innocence can be a sin too, and I was stupid enough not to even know my own place.”
“I was the bastard. It wasn’t your fault.”
In the end, unable to listen any longer, Killian lifted his head and denied her words.