Episode 21
“Why did you call my name?”
“My name?”
Looking up at Carlyle, who gazed down at me with ink-dark eyes, I searched my memory of just before I had fallen asleep. I had been sitting on a bench, organizing my thoughts, before I dozed off. My limp body had tilted to the side, and through my heavy eyelids, I had seen Carlyle.
“Carlyle….”
And I had called his name. Our acquaintance consisted of a single night in Heksilov, a night at the Imperial Palace, and now. Even then, it had been a very brief time; though we had exchanged a few words, we had not grown close enough to call each other by name.
“How did you…?”
My lips had barely parted. They had opened so slightly that it would have been a miracle for any sound to escape. No matter how quiet the room was, he should not have been able to hear.
“I saw. I have better eyesight than I appear to.”
“….”
“You called my name as though you were accustomed to it. I am curious as to why.”
“…Why does that curiosity matter?”
“Oh my. Answering a question with a new question instead of a reply.”
A smirk curved the corner of Carlyle’s lips. Without hesitation, he answered the question Helen had thrown back in lieu of a response.
“Because someone unaccustomed to me regards me as though I am familiar.”
Counting this night, it was a total of three times. One night in Heksilov, the Imperial Palace where the celebration for the successful monster subjugation expedition had been held, and now. Only three meetings in total.
During those three meetings, they had saved each other’s lives once. However, there had been no proper exchange. So there was no reason those meetings should have been special.
“The day you first saw me, you shed tears.”
“…It was beautiful. I cried because the moon was beautiful.”
Her eyelids had been far too red to claim she had cried over the moon. How beautiful could a round moon that came every month be?
“At our second meeting, you were startled out of your wits to see me. Were you not?”
At that time, Helen had been shocked as though she had seen a ghost. Sitting on the bench, she had nearly fallen backward upon seeing Carlyle place his hand on her shoulder.
Helen could not nod. His words were true, but she did not want to admit it to the extent of nodding or agreeing. The moment she acknowledged his words, it would establish as fact that she regarded him as familiar.
“What is it you wish to hear from me?”
“I merely wish to hear the truth.”
“And what will you do if I lie?”
“I will have no choice but to believe it is the truth.”
Helen did not know exactly what answer Carlyle wanted. Whether he wanted to hear that she regarded him as familiar, or whether he wanted help realizing that he was mistaken.
“As Your Grace said, we have only met three times. How could I possibly regard you as familiar?”
For Helen, she had truly only met Carlyle three times. Heksilov, the Imperial Palace, and here at Everett Mansion.
“Rather, is it not Your Grace who regards me as familiar?”
“That may be so.”
Carlyle exhaled heavily and swept his hair back. A sprout of doubt—that he might indeed be feeling a sense of familiarity toward her, just as Helen had said—slowly began to grow.
If that were the case, what about her was it that he found familiar?
This woman did not resemble her—the one he could no longer see—in any single way. Her appearance was different, and he had never seen her smile as though she were the happiest person in the world. Though they had met only three times at most, judging by everything he had seen and felt until now, Helen Platini was not Violet.
It was absurd.
Unless God had descended and had the dead Violet’s soul possess a living person’s body, how could a dead person come back to life? He had truly gone mad.
Carlyle decided to stop thinking at this point.
“I have been rude.”
“I am glad you realize it.”
Helen knew these words were sarcastic toward the Duke, but she did not want to hide her displeasure either. Moreover, Carlyle was not someone who would get angry at such slight sarcasm. Besides, he had started it first. Thus, this much sarcasm was justified.
“I truly must take my leave now.”
Since Carlyle, who was blocking her path, did not step aside, Helen chose to go around him. And as she passed by his side, she made a shallow resolve to never run into him again.
She did not know the real reason why she had made such a resolve. She simply felt she had to. She also wondered how long this shallow resolve would last.
Helen grasped the ring-shaped handle. If she pulled the handle down and toward her, the door would open. She knew well which direction to head next to exit the mansion without needing to ask Carlyle.
Yet the reason she had decided to ask him was because today was the first time Helen Platini had visited this place.
“Your Grace!”
“Young Lady!”
The two called out to each other simultaneously. They also turned toward each other simultaneously. And so, they met each other’s eyes at the same time.
“Ah, please speak first, Your Grace.”
She did not mind if he did not answer about something as simple as the way out of the mansion.
Helen waited for Carlyle to speak, adjusting the front of her coat. Not knowing what he would say, she felt a confidence that she could easily answer any question he might ask. Yet she did not know this was a firm delusion.
“Do you love His Majesty?”
It was an excessively direct question. They say when people are too bewildered, they cannot even laugh. That was exactly how she looked now. Helen could neither laugh nor cry, and accepted Carlyle’s gaze blankly.
The Emperor, Lucas—was she asking if she loved him? How could he ask her such a thing? Of course she loved Lucas. But the love she felt for him was composed solely of familial affection.
The one I love is not him. The one I loved, the one I love, and the one I will continue to love while enduring the heart-tearing pain of being unable to forget is not him!
It was not Carlyle’s fault. Helen recognized that clearly as well. The reason he had asked about her feelings toward the Emperor was likely because he had heard that Lucas had proposed to Helen.
Carlyle was not the only one curious about the matter. Rumors had begun to circulate that Lucas’s feelings toward Helen were firm, regarding his consecutive two-day visits to Count Platini’s household.
Since it was currently the most popular gossip in the Empire, it was by no means Carlyle’s fault for asking such a question.
But it seemed her heart could not help but ache. To hear from the person she could not forget and thus could not help but love, asking if she loved someone else.
As her bewildered heart calmed slightly, this time the corners of her eyes grew moist with tears. The gradually welling tears soon blurred Helen’s vision. Carlyle’s face slowly grew hazy, and soon it became like a painting.
Helen took a step back. She did not want to show the tears that had welled up to the point of falling at any moment. Even if the room was dark, the flickering candlelight—the single source of light—would be enough to reveal shimmering tears.
Since she was already standing before the door, her back touched the hard door. Now there was nowhere left to retreat.
“Did you ask if I love him?”
When Helen saw Carlyle nod, she felt he was different from usual. He must have noticed that she was at a loss. Normally, he would have spoken in a way that suggested she did not need to answer, but he did not back down now.
The world was wrong. Yes, the world was at fault. Trapped with nowhere to run, Helen thought this inwardly. She had repeated it countless times, but all she could do was blame the world that had abandoned her.
The person I love is not the Emperor, but Duke Everett. The truth that it is Carlyle, not Lucas—that one sentence was her true feeling and the answer Carlyle wanted.
Though she knew why he asked such a thing, she did not know why he had to ask it. So if he truly wanted only the truth, there was only one thing Helen could answer.
“I am displeased.”
In the end, the tears fell, rolling down her cold cheeks. Helen did not wipe away the tear tracks. There was no need, for as she closed her eyes, another stream of tears flowed.
I love you. Because she could not utter these words, she could not look at him straight with her false heart.
“No matter what I feel for His Majesty the Emperor, I do not believe I have any obligation to tell Your Grace of that heart.”
“Is that your answer, Young Lady?”
“Yes. This is the answer I give to Your Grace.”
She could not reveal the whole truth to him. So she hid her heart, hoping that no more wounds would form in his chest.
Before Carlyle could open his lips, Helen hurriedly turned around, pulled the handle, and opened the door. She had briefly considered bidding him farewell, but neither of them seemed composed enough to exchange such pleasantries.
Helen nodded in lieu of a greeting and stepped outside, leaving the door open. She had not forgotten to close it. It was simply that if she closed this door as well, it felt as though everything with Carlyle would end here. So this was a lingering attachment to the past.
However, she failed to consider the consequences the action born from that attachment would bring.
Helen, having stepped outside the door, immediately turned left. Passing the three rooms in the direction she had turned and then turning left again, she would find the door leading outside the mansion after walking a short distance. Helen did not hesitate in her steps.
All that remained after she departed were the dull footsteps walking down the corridor and the black shadow that had crossed upon leaving the room.
Carlyle did not take his eyes off her until she pulled the handle and disappeared outside the door. He noted where her shadow headed and from where the sound of her footsteps came.
“She went left. Without hesitation.”
It was a detail that led him to think Helen Platini must know the structure of Everett Mansion.
“How on earth….”
How did she know the layout of a mansion she had never been to? As if she were someone who came and went frequently.
Once Helen’s footsteps had completely faded, Carlyle sat down on the edge of the bed. He placed his hand on the white bedding and crumpled it. A lingering warmth remained.
Carlyle removed his hand from the bedding and covered his face with both hands. His distraught and complicated feelings turned into hot breaths.
“It’s strange. Ever since I met her, something feels wrong.”
He kept recalling her. Not often, but occasionally. At first, it was associated with the thought that he had to repay the favor received in Heksilov. Even if it was a one-night favor, that one night had saved twenty lives, so it was natural.
“Was it after we met at the Imperial Palace?”
Her deep green eyes and red hair—rare among nobles—reminded him so much of someone. Someone who looked nothing like her.
Her face, her height, and her voice were all different, so how could he think of that person? Carlyle believed he had gone mad.
“Carlyle Everett. That person is gone now. There is no one I love.”
Knowing this, he muttered it again. Throughout the winter that was now coming to an end, he had spoken to himself every day.
She had left without leaving anything behind except the words to live happily. Her clear laughter, her jet-black hair, her eyes that had always seemed they would remain blue, the voice that whispered love, and even the warmth that burrowed into his embrace.
“I want to be happy, but I cannot forget you.”
That day, if she had rather asked him to forget her, would things have been different? If she had told him to live happily by forgetting, would he have forgotten her by now? Would he have even forgotten her name?
“Violet.”
He had merely called her name once. Thick tears fell continuously from Carlyle’s eyes. If she had seen his tears, if she had seen him grieving like this, she would have run to him in a single breath and embraced him tightly.
Because she was such a warm person.
Carlyle could not stop the tears from streaming down. He had forgotten how to swallow his sobs long ago. After losing her, whenever tears began to flow, he would lock himself in his room and cry until his tears ran dry.
Back then, he had thought he had truly gone mad. He had been too afraid to even visit her memorial. It was partly because it would bring back the memories of that day, but more than anything, he felt he would completely collapse if he stood before her. He had resolved not to show such a sight.
Seeing him not come out of the mansion, even the people of the world worried whether Duke Everett had gone mad with grief.
Strangely, from one day, he stopped crying. As if his tears had truly run dry.
But why were tears flowing now? It was not merely because he had uttered her name. If that were the reason, he should have cried yesterday, or a week ago.
Carlyle thought no more about the reason. The more he pondered, the more he missed her.
“I miss you. I miss you so much, Violet.”
Carlyle, having lain down on the bed while crying, gently closed his eyes. Hot tears traveled down, making his ears their destination.
“Please appear before me just once… so that you may tell me to forget you. So that this love may wither away. And so that I may become happy as you wished.”