Chapter 46
* * *
It should be that way… She had a clear reason for behaving as she did, one that was undoubtedly her absolution…
For the first time, Yvonne felt regret. What if she had just taken Angela and Beatrice and run away back then?
To anywhere, even if not the Philion Empire—to some distant place far away.
Then she wouldn’t have had to see Angela saying she wanted to live inside her belly. She wouldn’t have raised Angela into an adult who, despite the abuse she’d endured, confessed such things while hoping for forgiveness.
Yvonne realized at some point that she was crying. Small puddles of water had formed here and there on the table.
She wiped them roughly with her sleeve, moving her hands as if to erase the tears from her face as well. It was shameless. She’d made it so Angela couldn’t even cry, yet here she was, weeping like this.
There was nothing she could set right. Grace was dead, Angela had grown up that way, and she herself had already become a devil.
Even so, she wanted to turn it all back. If only she could, she’d go back in time. She’d take the two children and flee far, far away from Grace’s clutches, where she’d demanded she choose one or the other.
Even if they were caught and all ended up dying together, that would have been better. Better than seeing that expression on the face of the young lady she’d raised with her own hands.
* * *
After meeting with Yvonne, Angela waited in her room for night to fall. She intended to remain Kalian’s fiancée until the very last moment.
Still, learning about the relationship between Yvonne and Kalian had erased any lingering attachments.
Kalian, who adored Yvonne so terribly even now—if by some chance he learned that she was his real mother, he would never forgive Angela.
If she was going to be jilted by Kalian in the end anyway, concluding things like this wasn’t so bad. At least this choice could save Kalian.
Through the wide window, a pale moon rose into view. Angela gazed at it for a moment before beginning to walk.
The third floor of the mansion: Dominic’s study. There, Dominic would be sitting, pretending to offer her a choice even though he knew full well that Angela had no option but one.
Angela gripped the stair railing tightly as she laboriously climbed to the third floor. Standing before Dominic’s study, she let out a dry sigh.
Knock, knock. Permission to enter came from within.
She opened the door and stepped inside, where Dominic’s face entered her view—far too composed, regardless of Angela’s emotions. It was the face of someone who already knew her decision.
Angela approached his desk. Then, striving not to waver herself, she stated calmly:
“I’ll break off the engagement with Kalian.”
Dominic smirked as if he’d known all along. His expression said that holding out for a day had been a waste of time. This man would likely never understand what that brief day had meant to Angela.
“Very well. I’ll draw up the document stating you desire the annulment and send it to the Florenche family. You needn’t concern yourself with it any further.”
“…Yes, I understand.”
She forced out the response she hated more than death itself. Afterward, Dominic glanced at her as if wondering why she wasn’t leaving. Angela bit her lip and spoke.
“What about Kalian? When can he be released?”
“That’s no longer your concern.”
“It was part of the condition. Am I not allowed to verify if the other party is fulfilling the agreement properly?”
At her sharp retort, Dominic let out a scoffing laugh and said he would get Kalian out within a week.
Once Kalian was free, rumors would spread, so she could grab any maid in the mansion and ask to learn the situation.
“I’ll be counting on that.”
“There’s no need to look so aggrieved.”
As Angela turned to leave, Dominic’s voice reached her from behind. She turned her body back to face him. He was smiling, but at the same time, his expression was colder than ever before.
“How could I not feel aggrieved when I’m suddenly being forced into an annulment?”
At Angela’s words, Dominic rose from his seat. He came around the desk and approached right in front of her.
Even in his advancing years, he was a man who still roamed the battlefields. It was only natural that his solid presence exerted a pressure that overwhelmed people. Not wanting to be crushed, Angela straightened her shoulders and met his gaze.
“Shall I tell you one thing?”
“What is it?”
“I originally planned to tell you after your birthday, once you turned twenty-four, but seeing you like this makes me itch to say it right now.”
Angela simply stared up at Dominic, unable to comprehend what he meant.
He was a man who had never once played the role of a father. There was no way he’d have some story he was dying to share with his daughter. That’s why it felt ominous. What on earth was he about to say?
“Listen carefully.”
As if obeying Dominic’s command, Angela inclined her ear.
“You are.”
Her fists clenched tight in anxiety.
“The child borne by Grace—that nasty, arrogant woman.”
Her teeth ground together.
“A girl whose father is unknown.”
Ah…
Strength drained from every part of her where she’d been holding tension. Angela couldn’t even process whether the words she was hearing were truly coming from Dominic’s mouth.
Yet Dominic enunciated each word precisely, his voice pressed low, as if insisting she hear him clearly. He seemed worried that Angela might miss even a sliver of the truth he’d been holding back, enduring and enduring before finally spitting it out.
“That vulgar bloodline you always went on about? It’s actually you yourself. Do you understand?”
It wasn’t a response to Dominic’s question, but Angela shook her head and stepped back.
It couldn’t be. Angela was Dominic’s daughter. She’d lived her entire life that way. But suddenly—how, why…
“In any case, the position of Countess Florenche was never fitting for you, who aren’t my daughter. So don’t regret it. The seat you’ve enjoyed until now will be filled admirably by my precious daughter, Beatrice.”
“Don’t… don’t lie.”
Staring at Dominic, Angela barely managed to utter those words. They were pitiful words. Words without any power. Before this man who was looking at her as if she were an insect.
More than any of Dominic’s words, it was his gaze that proved what he said was no lie. It was evidence in itself.
That was why. The gaze that was kind when looking at Beatrice, but turned utterly indifferent only when directed at Angela—it was because she wasn’t his daughter…
Angela suddenly looked down at her own hands. The one thing she’d possessed had been stolen away, leaving her palms empty and bare.
Angela stood there in a daze, not knowing what to do, while Dominic placed her on the chopping block without pause and continued to carve her apart.
“How could I possibly love you? It was horrifying enough that you resembled Grace from head to toe, but on top of that, you’re not even my blood. Every time you called me ‘Father,’ I barely restrained myself from wringing your neck.”
Dominic’s hand groped at Angela’s nape. It seemed as if he might squeeze with force. But he merely held her neck in his rough, sword-calloused grip, as if issuing a warning that he could do so at any moment.
Even that was enough to make Angela feel like she was suffocating. It was as though she’d been lifted off the ground, her airway blocked.
“Every time I see you, Grace comes to mind. It’s like that wicked woman is alive right in front of me. So I’ve been thinking about it all along. That I should ruin you, make you the most miserable person in the world, let you die drowning in your own tears.”
Angela felt a bone-deep hatred in Dominic’s eyes. What on earth had Grace done to him? She wondered what that woman had done to provoke such a reaction. Had she inflicted the same horrific things on him that she’d done to her? Was that why he was being so cruel to her now?
“Please explain it so I can understand.”
She couldn’t help but ask. The loss she’d suddenly suffered felt so immense that she had to know the reason.
Dominic released her neck as if flinging it away. Angela staggered back and, unable to support herself on her aching leg, collapsed to the ground. Dominic’s voice came from above her head.
It felt like an arrow striking without a shield in place.
* * *
Wendy Dawson.
That name belonged to the eldest daughter of the Dawson ducal family, now retired from the front lines, and it was the name of the woman Dominic could never erase from his heart for his entire life.
She had been his fiancée. It had been decided that way since they were very young.
But unlike typical arranged marriages, Wendy would feel her heart flutter uncontrollably whenever she saw the young lord of the Bilton family, and Dominic felt the same.
Whenever Wendy visited the Bilton ducal estate with her father, Dominic would be too distracted stealing glances at her to focus on anything else. Even at his own awkward behavior, Wendy would smile kindly.
“Young master, were you looking at Miss Wendy again?”
“Ah, no. I just thought I saw an unfamiliar bird over there, so I glanced that way.”
“Ah, your bluebird, young master?”
“Well, ah, no, that’s not it!”
“Isn’t it? I kept making eye contact, so I thought we were looking at each other.”
“Th-that… Ah, no, it’s not! Yes, I was looking at Lady Dawson…”
Even when she caught him in the act of peeking at her and getting into a squabble with the butler, Wendy would smile adorably and invite him for a walk together.
The two, who would naturally become husband and wife in the distant future, were fortunate enough to love each other.
The problems began when Dominic became the Duke of Bilton at a young age due to the early death of the Bilton ducal couple.
Around that time, Wendy started falling ill frequently for no apparent reason. Dominic, thrust into the dukedom without any preparation, was so overwhelmingly busy that he didn’t have the mental capacity to look after Wendy as well. But whenever he squeezed out time to visit her, she always seemed a little more withered away. Even after seeing physicians, they could only say they didn’t know the cause, which was frustrating.
Then, when Dominic finally returned after fighting a long war.
“Wendy…?”
What greeted him was her cold, lifeless body. At the words that if he’d arrived just one day earlier, they could have exchanged greetings, Dominic laughed through his tears.
What did exchanging greetings matter? She’d left forever, gone to a place where he could never see her again.
“Don’t go like this… Don’t leave me alone like this…”
Knowing it was already over but unable to accept it, Dominic held Wendy in his arms and begged her to come back. But it was a futile wish. Wendy vanished eternally into the cold earth.
Dominic, having lost his parents and then his lover, fell into fear that there might be something else he could lose. Clenching his fists became a habit. He didn’t want anything more taken from him.
Yet no one understood Dominic’s sense of loss. With the sudden death of the ducal couple, their only heir, and even that heir’s fiancée tragically passing away, the Bilton family pressured their head, Dominic, to produce an heir for the household. They were calculating for after his departure.
Feeling the cruelty of it all, Dominic had no choice but to be pushed along. At the time, he was nothing more than a young boy who’d just ascended to the dukedom, with little to show for it.
Pushed like that into the wedding hall, the girl standing beside Dominic was Grace Dawson. Wendy’s younger sister.
Had they committed this horrific act to constantly remind him of Wendy? Dominic couldn’t fathom the thoughts of these mad adults. So it was hard for him to give his heart to Grace.
“Don’t think too hastily.”
But Grace comforted him, saying that she, who had lost her sister, and he, who had lost his lover, could make it work.
He thought she was a good woman. He respected her as a wife and cherished her as family.
When Grace became pregnant, Dominic thought that this form of a completed family wasn’t so bad. He tried his best to fold away the lingering thoughts of his past lover in a corner of his heart, along with the guilt of finding happiness alone.
However, he came to learn that everything about Grace Dawson, that woman, was a lie. Dominic could never forget the devastation of the day he first realized it.
It started with a letter from the Duchess of Dawson. It was a secret missive asking him to visit the Dawson estate without Grace knowing.
Unable to understand the reason, Dominic packed his uneasy feelings like a disguise and went to their territory.
The scene he witnessed there was one Dominic would never forget for the rest of his life. It was a moment that tore his entire existence apart, showing just how ugly human greed could be.
A hidden secret room was discovered in Grace’s chamber.
It was a room reeking of foul odors. Bloodstains splattered everywhere, chunks of animal flesh and bone fragments rolling about, human hair, and even curses inscribed on the floor.
They were traces of black magic. And all of it was directed toward Wendy’s death.
