Chapter 115. That He Was Investigating Her Background
It was then that she felt something was strange.
Clearly, even though the situation was one where she should be begging for forgiveness, the woman’s attitude was far too haughty.
Her behavior made it seem as if the person who had committed the wrong was Deborah, not her.
As an ominous feeling began to crawl up from beneath her feet, Deborah’s expression slowly began to harden into a stiff mask.
“……Why should I?”
At the question of why she should do as she was told, the woman twisted the corners of her mouth into a smirk.
It was a smile that looked as if she had expected exactly that response.
“I mean, actually, I don’t really have any ill will toward you. It’s not that I particularly like you, but I have no reason to hate you either.”
“…….”
“Whether you serve in the Duke’s bedroom or not has nothing to do with me.”
“……Then, why on earth did you do such a thing?”
“Well, was it because I was in a situation where I had no choice?”
“…….”
Deborah felt as if her head might explode, wondering how much longer she had to endure the behavior of this person who kept speaking in riddles.
But for some reason, the words to tell her to get out—that she didn’t want to hear any more of those strange words and that she should leave right now—would not come out.
Even though those words were clearly rising to the tip of her tongue.
“Originally, I intended to just state my business briefly and go back.”
Tsk. Clicking her tongue, the woman’s gaze suddenly flickered toward the wall clock hanging behind her before quickly returning to the front.
“Since you don’t seem to have a clue at all, I’ll give you a hint—”
She hesitated for a very brief moment after saying that, but the woman soon continued as if she had made up her mind.
“Ludmilla, she is investigating your background.”
Thump—!
In an instant, her heart dropped heavily to her feet.
“Lud……milla…… is doing…… what?”
“Ludmilla is holding a grudge against you and has been investigating your background; did you really not know?”
The woman, frowning as if it were pathetic to ask how she could not know, spoke again quickly.
“I don’t know what or how much she found out, but she said you have a past you’ve hidden. You should know better than anyone what that means.”
“…….”
“Ludmilla said so. She said if you don’t want your past exposed, you’d better keep your mouth shut about this matter—and if I say that, she won’t mention anything about me until the end.”
“…….”
“I thought it might be nonsense…… well, looking at your face now, I guess it wasn’t complete nonsense.”
The woman shook her head at the sight of Deborah, who had turned pale and was trembling.
“Anyway, I just…… need you to keep your mouth shut. I’ll cleanly erase what Ludmilla said from my memory too.”
Muttering about how she got caught by that wicked Ludmilla—Greta clicked her tongue a few times and soon opened the bedroom door and disappeared.
After the door closed, Deborah stood motionless for a long time, and a moment later, her body slumped down as if she were collapsing.
—
It was something she had completely forgotten.
No, it was something so terrible that she had been erasing it from her memory all along.
‘How on earth did Ludmilla…….’
No matter how many times she thought about it, it was incomprehensible.
The orphanage she was in was located in the outskirts, quite far from here in Denver.
It wasn’t as if there were only one or two orphanages, and most importantly, the fact was that Ludmilla had no idea where she had stayed.
She wondered if she had accidentally let something slip, but no matter how much she retraced her steps, that wasn’t it.
There was no way she would have been the first to talk about that place, which she didn’t even want to remember.
If she had told anyone, it would have been Hanna, but she didn’t want to doubt Hanna.
Even though things had turned out like this, she still didn’t think Hanna would have said such a thing to Ludmilla.
Then, what exactly does she know?
—She said you have a past you’ve hidden.
“…….”
A hidden past; that woman definitely said so.
The moment she heard those words, only one thing came to mind.
The forced wedding ceremony that took place after the orphanage director and that filthy man, Godric, colluded to drag her to a place no one knew about one day.
Until she heard those words from the woman’s mouth, it was a nightmare-like memory that even she had completely forgotten.
‘Does…… Ludmilla really know that fact? ……How on earth?’
It could just be a bluff.
She might have said such nonsense because she couldn’t handle the consequences after causing trouble to put her in a bind.
While thinking that she shouldn’t fall for a probe and talk nonsense, her heart was too anxious when she thought of the “what if.”
Deborah was so anxious that she couldn’t sit still, and she paced back and forth in the bedroom frantically.
‘Should I…… try visiting Ludmilla once?’
A thought that occurred suddenly.
To ask what on earth she knows about me, and to tell her to go ahead and say what that past of mine she claims to know is.
“…….”
However, the thought ended there.
If those words really did flow out of Ludmilla’s mouth, then she couldn’t think of what she should do next or how.
The more she struggled, the deeper she sank; it felt like falling into a sandpit.
Click.
At the sound suddenly heard from behind, Deborah’s body flinched.
Soon, turning her vision slowly, she saw the master of this bedroom approaching.
“Why are you acting like that?”
“…….”
Looking at that face smiling toward her, her heart sank for a moment without her realizing it.
The thing she feared so much.
It was the fact that that face, the face of the man looking at her, might return to how it was before.
No, perhaps it might change to something even more cold and chilly.
“Surely you weren’t waiting until I came.”
Before she knew it, he had stepped close and pulled Deborah’s body into an embrace.
Deborah stiffened for a very brief moment, then soon leaned her face quietly against that broad chest.
“……You’re here.”
At that simple greeting, a small, airy chuckle escaped the man’s mouth.
“I know it’s frustrating being confined.”
“…….”
“Just bear with it a little longer.”
At those meaningful words, the head that had been leaning against the Baron’s chest slowly lifted up.
As if asking what that meant, the man quietly stroked Deborah’s brown hair as her eyes blinked.
“Tomorrow morning, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince will return to the palace.”
At those quietly uttered words, a short moan of “Ah” escaped Deborah’s mouth.
She thought he would stay for a few more days, so her face showed a bit of surprise at the earlier-than-expected return to the palace.
“Well, the atmosphere is as it is, and he is someone who can’t stay in one place for long anyway.”
“…….”
“So, I will be away for a few days.”
“……A few days?”
This time, she was truly and properly surprised.
To be away for several days.
In the past, it would have just been a feeling of emptiness, but now it was a bit different.
She was afraid of being left alone in Elfengreen without him.
Everyone’s sharp gazes, and also…….
Raymond couldn’t have been unaware of the shadow that appeared over Deborah’s darkened expression.
Raymond pulled Deborah into his arms again and whispered quietly in her ear.
“I’ll make sure everything is settled so nothing happens until I return.”
So, those were words telling her not to worry at all.
But even so, the anxiety and nervousness floating in her heart did not fade easily.
Even until the moment the hand that was stroking her hair cupped her face, and his hot lips fell on her cheeks, her lips, and then dotting her entire body.
—
At dawn, when the moonlight seeped in.
On the large bed, Deborah, who had been lying motionless, slowly sat up.
The few hours that had swept by frantically.
Gazing blankly at the bare back of the man sleeping soundly beside her, Deborah pulled the sheet and covered him with it.
The heart that had been fluttering all along could be forgotten for a while while being held in the man’s arms.
But that was only for that moment.
Once that moment of passion passed, as if it had been waiting, the anxiety that had been submerged beneath the surface quickly poked its head out.
For a very brief moment, she had such a thought.
Would it be better to just confess everything honestly?
She thought that if she confessed with her own mouth before he heard it from someone else, perhaps the shock would be a little less.
But the thought that followed immediately was that there was absolutely no way that would be the case.
Even if it was something she had forgotten, the man would never forgive her upon learning that she had kept such a massive fact hidden and stayed silent until now.
—It will be the same in the future.
—As long as you don’t deceive or betray me.
—I will always be waiting for you to come.
When the words the man had said in the carriage returning from the villa came to mind, that thought vanished even further.
……She couldn’t do it.
No matter how much it was a forced marriage she didn’t know about or want, it would be difficult for the man who heard that fact to understand.
No, it was certain he would not be able to accept it.
He was a man who had constantly doubted and been wary of those accidental encounters that had been repeated enough to be hard to understand from the beginning.
So, it would be easier for him to think that she had approached him intentionally and deceived him.
How could one forget such a thing?
Just like what Hanna had said, he might say that everything was planned from the start.
In this moment where nothing was certain, that one thing was certain.
That the man, the moment he knew that fact, would never forgive her.
A stream of water resembling the moonlight that seeped through the crack in the window was already flowing down Deborah’s white cheeks.
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