Chapter 105. Rosalyn’s Child
“I didn’t know…… that you were waiting.”
Raymond’s lips curved softly at the blush that seeped into those white cheeks that had been slightly lowered in shyness.
“I thought you weren’t coming because you were still angry. Or that all your affection for me had completely faded-.”
At the absurd words coming from the man’s mouth, Deborah hurriedly raised her head and shook it vigorously.
“No, that’s not it.”
“It’s not?”
“Yes, just…….”
“Just?”
“I wasn’t sure…… if I was allowed to come…….”
That was truly the reason.
On that night when the heat shared in the study still lingered in every corner of her body, Deborah tossed and turned until past midnight deep into the dawn, unable to fall asleep for a long time.
She even went so far as to kick off the blanket several times and grasp the doorknob, but in the end, she couldn’t cross that final threshold and returned to bed.
Why had she come here in the first place, or fearing that the man might look at her with cold eyes.
The incident in the study had merely been an impulsive mistake of the moment, fearing she might see his back turning away coldly, telling her to go back.
So she hesitated and hesitated again.
Did the man know that with each such night piling up day after day, her heart was burning black…….
No, it was only natural that he didn’t know.
He couldn’t possibly know this tender affection directed toward one person to the point where it made her unable to do anything, to the point of bringing tears to her eyes.
The man who had been watching the brilliant golden glass beads gradually lose their light gently cupped Deborah’s falling chin.
“That day.”
“…….”
“The day I blurted out whatever came out of my mouth.”
A low voice.
Deborah could tell that the day the man was referring to was the day he had seen her with Jade.
“Even on that day when I was so uncontrollably angry, I think I was waiting for you.”
“…….”
Perhaps. The man’s eyebrows furrowed slightly as he added that.
Then, seeing Deborah staring intently at his face, her ears fully attuned to the words coming from his mouth, he calmly continued.
“It will be the same in the future.”
“…….”
The man’s lips slowly lowered and gently settled over Deborah’s lips.
Deborah remained motionless, as if frozen in place, until the touching lips parted again.
“As long as you don’t deceive or betray me.”
“…….”
“I will always wait for you to come.”
“…….”
So don’t hesitate, don’t waver, and come to me anytime—the transparent streams began to overflow over the golden eyes at those words.
The man’s lips gently stole away the tears flowing sorrowfully down the white cheeks.
Embracing the small shoulders trembling pitifully, finally their lips met again.
With her eyes closed at the man’s scent probing into her mouth and brushing her nose tip, Deborah thought.
If it was now, if it was this moment of happiness right now, she wouldn’t be afraid at all even if her breath stopped just like this.
* * *
Tap- tap-
A regular sound echoing in the quiet study.
It was the sound of Samuel de Constant’s fingers tapping on the desk.
An action he would never normally do.
He was the one who couldn’t overlook even his beloved daughter Olivia occasionally flicking her nails as a habit, sharply scolding her for lacking dignity.
That he had started showing such abnormal behavior wasn’t that long ago.
Right after the day he met Delma.
Since the day he visited that foul-smelling slum, the marquess had locked himself in the study all day without moving an inch.
To the extent that even his wife, who had never commented on her husband’s external affairs, asked if something had happened.
That’s how abnormal his condition was.
-Y-Young master. Roz… The child that Rosalyn gave birth to…… was a girl. Exactly like the young master’s golden eyes and Roz’s beautiful brown hair…… A very pretty girl.
The words from Delma’s mouth as she trembled all over and shed tears.
As the memory of that moment resurfaced, the marquess’s golden eyes instantly sank into a murky color.
Although it was a political marriage decided by the family, the marquess truly cherished and valued his wife.
She was a good woman.
Unlike the immature and arrogant noble ladies of her age, she had warmth in her heart and consideration for others ingrained in her.
She was an excellent match, more than anyone, to be the wife of the Constant marquess, with dignity overflowing enough for the servants to genuinely respect and follow her, and a kind and gentle personality.
But unfortunately, it was something like a comrade-like bond sharing the same fate.
He knew it was a cruel thing to say, but human feelings, affection, don’t go as one plans—
Samuel de Constant had no choice but to admit that fact in the year approaching exactly one year of marriage.
It was only natural.
Since his heart had already been entirely given to someone else, what flowers could take root in an empty, barren land.
Rosalyn Coleman.
The woman he had given his heart to but ultimately had to abandon with his own hands.
Several years after marriage, one day.
Unable to overcome the aching longing, the marquess regretted and regretted thousands of times the day he finally went to find Rosalyn.
He didn’t clearly remember the expression of the woman who had been cruelly abandoned twice by the same man on that morning when he coldly turned away, vowing never to seek her again.
Because he deliberately averted his eyes so as not to see.
Returning to the mansion, the marquess saw his wife warmly welcoming him and vowed to himself never to do such a foolish thing again.
Several more months passed after that, and he thought everything was cleanly forgotten.
But cruel fate gave him yet another trial.
Whether it was some joke of fate, exactly five years into the marriage, on the day he learned his wife was pregnant, Rosalyn came to find him.
When the entire mansion was in a festive mood over the heir, Delma, who had been inseparable friends with Rosalyn, approached him with a face full of fear.
-Y-Young mas— No, Marquess.
The moment he saw her trembling and not knowing what to do, an unknown ominous feeling gripped his entire body.
Should he not have listened then. Or, when he drove Rosalyn away, should he have driven Delma away as well.
-Go back and tell her to leave. And convey that she should never come again.
-S-She said she absolutely has something to tell you, that because of that night’s…… matter, she must meet the marquess and…… tell you.
‘That night’s matter.’
At the secretive words from Delma’s mouth, the marquess had no choice but to go out to the garden where Rosalyn was waiting.
And there, he had to see it.
The moment Rosalyn, wrapped tightly in a robe all over her body, turned around, the heavily swollen belly beneath it.
She said it was the child conceived that night.
Rosalyn and his child.
The moment his mind went completely blank at the sight of her caressing the swollen belly with a happy expression, saying it was the fruit of their love.
But after regaining his senses, there was only one thing he had to do.
To cruelly and harshly sever that persistent connection.
When he fiercely drove her away, asking how dare she come knowing her place and spouting such nonsense, the woman’s face immediately turned pale.
Looking straight at the opponent trembling, who looked like she might faint at any moment, what else did he say.
Ah, he also said how could he believe that the child in that belly was his when there must have been more than one or two men she had been with while living alone outside.
The sight of those mysterious green eyes gradually dyeing with horror is still vividly drawn in his mind even now, years later.
-For the sake of past affection, I’ll let you go quietly this time, but if that mad talk reaches my ears again, neither you nor the child in that belly will remain safe.
He left the garden, leaving behind the woman’s desperate screams begging him not to abandon her and the child, saying he loved her.
That was the last.
Of seeing Rosalyn.
After that, she gave birth to the child alone, he heard.
After two full days of labor pains, barely giving birth to a daughter in a near-death state.
-Delma, look. These eyes that look exactly like that person’s…… If someday you see our child…… then you’ll believe, right?
Holding the blood-covered bundle in her arms, the first thing Rosalyn said in an exhausted voice, according to her.
Relieved that the child was not the product of denial but the fruit of love.
In that horrific moment, she cried so sorrowfully looking at the child of the man she loved.
-Even after giving birth for a while…… I thought I had forgotten everything and was okay…… I was busy living too…… I couldn’t visit often…….
The tears flowing endlessly over the rough, wrinkled skin were filled with guilty feelings toward her friend who had passed away lonely and alone.
-Then one day, contact…… came. That Roz…… died…….
Perhaps recalling the shock of that day, Delma couldn’t continue speaking for a long time.
When he finally urged her, unable to bear it, asking what on earth happened, only then did Delma open her mouth again.
-When I went, it had already been…… quite a while since Roz died. Living alone without family, people said they just buried her in the back mountain…….
-……Then, the child.
-The child…… was said to have gone to an orphanage. However, which one exactly, even I don’t really…….
-You don’t know where it went…… What on earth does that mean.
-That…… At that time, there happened to be a stranger staying in the village, and since that person’s sister was the director of an orphanage, they said they sent her there…… I only heard that. Even if I tried to find out which one, I didn’t know enough.
The more he chewed on it, the more outrageous it was.
Sending the child into the hands of a stranger whose identity was not even certain.
How all the things done by the ignorant and lowly are so uniformly the same regardless of the era.
Tsk, after lowly clicking his tongue, something suddenly flashed through the marquess’s mind.
The marquess asked again toward Delma, who still couldn’t control her sadness.
-By any chance, do you know the child’s name.
-……The child’s name?
-Yes, if she was five or six, there would have been a name to call her by. The child’s name!
The moment an angry roar burst out unable to hold back, the old woman’s body flinched.
The marquess recalled again in his mind the few words that had faintly flowed from that mouth full of fear.
-D-De, Deborah…… I think it was probably Deborah.
“……Deborah.”
The marquess’s golden eyes, quietly savoring the name, gradually began to emit an eerie light.
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Aghhh I HATE THE BIOLOGICAL FATHER ” Samuel” 🙂🙂
