Chapter 046. Forgotten Memory
Last night, Deborah, who had run out of the garden as if fleeing, ran straight ahead all the way to the servants’ hall.
She had run without stopping, so when she arrived at the servants’ hall, it was to the point where breathing was difficult, as if her heart would burst.
Only after leaning against the wall and catching her breath for a long time could she barely enter the servants’ hall.
Throughout the time she sat at the table and busily moved her hands, her mind was entirely directed elsewhere.
The arm that wrapped around her waist.
The hand that stroked her head.
And…… .
Her thoughts always stopped there.
She had to shake her head several times to shake off that sensation that felt so vividly in her mouth.
‘What are you doing?’
To the extent that the maid sitting across from her looked at her with extremely strange eyes.
That was the same even when all tasks were finished and she returned to the attic room.
She covered herself with the blanket, kept tossing and turning, and eventually sat up in bed and shook her head.
No matter what she did, her mind kept repeatedly recalling the same scene over and over.
She considered wandering the corridors to exhaust her body, but recalling who had discovered her wandering unconsciously in that corridor, she soon gave up even that.
It was because if she encountered that person on the corridor again, somehow something irreversible would happen this time.
After tossing and turning all night like that, she finally fell asleep one or two hours before dawn.
Perhaps she only slept for about an hour.
So all day, her mind was in a hazy state.
It was like the feeling of her head being empty and floating in the air.
Even in such a state, the story of the person who would become the Duke’s fiancée was somehow sticking perfectly in her ears.
She could only lament at her own foolishness.
The insecure mind that had been wandering like a dream all last night seemed to become clear in an instant.
That last night’s incident was nothing, just a coincidental accident.
Something like a mistake caused by being drunk…… .
“Watching the two of you standing side by side, really, there was no pair that matched so well.”.
Just then, a sigh came from the table.
Yes. Her words were right.
The Duke of Cheister already had someone who matched him well.
The beautiful and noble Lady Constant Marquis.
A noble person incomparable to an ‘orphan’ born from a poor unmarried working-class mother.
To have such a woman, and yet…… .
The fact that she had been excited alone last night and tossed all night was so shameful and miserable.
That person might have already cleanly forgotten last night’s incident as a mistake made in a drunken stupor.
No, it must have been that way…… .
A chuckle, it was the moment when a self-mocking laugh escaped her unwittingly.
Thud-!
Startled by the sudden sound, Deborah’s shoulders flinched.
“Hurry up and eat and come, this is just!”
“……”
When she turned her head toward where the sound came from, there stood three people she had been seeing every day lately.
Ludmilla, Molly, and one more person.
At Molly’s action of slamming the table with a fierce expression, the nearby maids glanced over with anxious expressions.
Feeling like she was causing unnecessary trouble because of that, Deborah picked up her tray and stood up from her seat.
“I’m done eating. I’ll go now.”
“Move quickly! With that slowness, can you even finish today’s quota?”
At Molly’s scolding words, Deborah clenched her fists tightly.
The two people standing behind her just giggled repeatedly while watching Deborah’s appearance.
After her duties were changed to chamber maid, Ludmilla’s gang’s bullying had intensified more and more.
Because she was aware that no one would step forward due to having to watch out for the brutish Molly with her large build, the intensity of the bullying had become even more persistent and malicious.
Not only did they dump their own cleaning areas on Deborah, but they also didn’t hesitate to hurl insulting words like orphan bitch at the slightest provocation.
At least they weren’t resorting to direct violence like at the very beginning, probably because Deborah kept her mouth shut and didn’t resist.
She thought that if she just endured it a few times, it would stop eventually, but with their determined bullying, it had been quite a while since she couldn’t even eat lunch peacefully.
How much longer could she endure it?
She was enduring it to avoid causing any more disturbance, but she felt her patience gradually reaching its bottom.
“Anyway, that’s why you shouldn’t accept rootless orphans carelessly.”
The words that flowed from Ludmilla’s mouth as she turned her back and left.
In an instant, Deborah’s face stiffened rigidly.
It goes without saying that Ludmilla’s lips curved in satisfaction upon seeing that expression.
* * *
“So, when do they say would be good for the engagement ceremony?”
“……”
“Darling?”
The Marchioness called her husband again with a puzzled expression.
The Samuel de Constant who didn’t respond even when called, as if absorbed in some thought.
But when there was still no reaction this time, the Marchioness simply approached his side and placed her hand on her husband’s arm.
“Darling.”
When she shook him lightly, only then did the Marquis of Constant’s face snap out of his reverie.
“Ah, my dear.”
“……What on earth have you been thinking about since earlier.”
At his wife’s face staring at him with worried eyes, the Marquis of Constant soon shook his head.
“……No, I just had something to think about. What did you say.”
“The engagement ceremony. I’m curious how it’s progressing.”
At the words engagement ceremony, the Marquis’s pupils shook once again, but he soon quickly returned to his original calm face.
“We’ve decided to set the date through an agent soon. The exact schedule will be discussed once more with the Duchess Dowager before that.”
“It seems the Duchess Dowager really likes our Olivia. Lady Cecilia too.”
Right? Recalling the ball at the Cheister family a few days ago, the Marchioness smiled softly at the corners of her mouth.
The Marquis of Constant stared fixedly at his wife’s face like that.
She was a person who had been full of worries and concerns for a while at the thought of marrying off her only beloved daughter, Olivia.
Well, it wasn’t something he couldn’t understand.
After all, wasn’t she a precious child they had barely obtained after five years of marriage.
Since they were the people who would become one family with the daughter they had raised with utmost care, she must have been worried if there might be someone who would mistreat her.
Fortunately, the Duchess Dowager and the Duke’s daughter liked Olivia very much, so only then did she seem to heave a sigh of relief like that.
It was a good thing.
But…… .
The Marquis tilted his head at the smile that had disappeared from her face before he knew it.
“Why is that?”
“……Somehow, it doesn’t seem like the Duke of Cheister likes our Olivia that much.”
“Why do you say that.”
“Just a feeling. He smiles once in a while, but it looks like he’s doing it reluctantly…… and he has a somewhat cold side.”
With a serious face as if it were some big deal, the Marquis of Constant burst into loud laughter.
“My dear, really. The Duke of Cheister is a famous person even in high society. Known as a cold and ruthless man.”
“Hmm…… I have some reservations about that. I wanted to send our Olivia to someone a bit warmer.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ve never seen a man as clean regarding women as the Duke of Cheister.”
“Really?”
At the face asking back as if puzzled, the Marquis of Constant nodded.
Even if it was a political marriage for the family’s sake, he couldn’t send his precious daughter Olivia to some awful man.
Well, as his wife said, the cold aspect bothered him a bit too, but thinking differently, that could be an advantage as a man and not a disadvantageous matter.
And above all.
According to the information obtained from the information broker in high society, Raymond von Cheister was a man with excessive mysophobia when it came to relationships with women.
Well, he had overheard that he met women occasionally once or twice, but that wasn’t comparable to other noble men.
Even he himself, in his youth, had met-
It was when his thoughts flowed around there.
For a moment, the Marquis of Constant’s brows twitched fiercely.
‘Right, I wondered who it was…… it was that woman right away.’
The moment the forgotten memory resurfaced, the past time he had buried in his mind came flooding back like a deluge.
Why had he forgotten it until now? That maid back then.
Even if he had buried it in his memories, she was the woman he had fallen for so deeply that he even forgot the name of the Constant family for the first time in his life.
It was a naive time when he believed that youthful love would last forever.
‘Sam, I love you…… please, don’t abandon us.’
A voice so vivid as if heard just yesterday echoed in his ears.
‘Why didn’t I recall it right away, it was Rosalyn…… The maid I saw at the Cheister Duke’s residence.’
In an instant, the Marquis of Constant’s eyes began to shine sharply.
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By Anna 💓
