Chapter 133. Why Have You Kept Your Mouth Shut Until Now?
“Next week……?”
Inside the returning carriage, Deborah’s eyes widened at the words coming from the man’s mouth.
She was so surprised that the end of her sentence trembled slightly.
“Why, do you hate it?”
Deborah slowly shook her head at the question he asked while pulling her waist close to embrace her.
“It’s not that…… it’s just faster than I thought it would be.”
She had thought it would take at least a month, or perhaps several months.
It was because she had learned well this spring while welcoming the Duke’s family that a person of such status moving their residence was not simply a concept of moving one’s home.
She knew it was a very complex and large-scale task that involved thorough preparation and planning from several months prior.
So she was merely surprised, not that she hated it.
Rather, if anything, she felt a sense of relief at the thought of quickly leaving this place where one never knew when or what might happen.
However…….
Deborah, who hesitated for a long while about whether to speak or not, finally brought up the words that had been lingering in her mouth.
“Is it…… okay?”
At those unexpected words, Raymond’s eyebrows, which had been closed, rose slightly above his eyes.
“What is.”
“Really, leaving only the Duke like this…….”
That was the point of the words that flowed out cautiously as if hesitating.
Whether it was truly alright to leave the two family members here and depart like this.
In the very beginning, that is, when she was led by the man’s hand back to Elphengreen, these were things she hadn’t been able to think about.
Since it was a time when she had completely settled her mind on leaving the man, the rapidly changing situation felt only confusing and embarrassing.
The words to leave together, the words that he would not get engaged to another woman, and the words that he would take her as his wife.
Everything was equally hard to believe, so she could not grasp the meaning contained in those words back then.
That the man’s words about leaving with just her were, in the end, no different from saying he would leave the two people who were his only family behind.
Since realizing that fact, an unknown guilt had been weighing heavily on her heart the entire time.
It would have been nice if it were truly as the man said, that there was nothing to worry about…… but unfortunately, it didn’t turn out that way.
In a situation where the things the man has to shoulder and the things he has to lose because of her alone are clearly visible, how could she act so brazenly as if nothing were wrong?
Perhaps noticing her heart’s inability to utter the following words, Raymond, who had been watching quietly, reached out his other hand and gently held Deborah’s hand.
“There’s nothing to worry about.”
“…….”
“It’s just living apart for a little while right now. Because both of them will need time too.”
“…….”
Would everything really be okay after time passed, just as those words said?
Once this moment passes, if she just turns her eyes away and pretends not to know the anxiety that presses down heavily moment by moment…… then, could she really protect this happiness that has come to her life only once?
But why does her heart continue to feel so anxious?
Why, exactly, does she feel faint the whole time, as if she is standing over a pitch-black darkness with no end in sight?
“…….”
Instead of answering, Deborah tightly gripped the hand of the man who held hers.
As if that hand were the only one that could save her from this unknown anxiety.
And like a desperate prayer wishing that these two joined hands would never be separated.
Like that, the carriage carrying the two of them ran faster and faster toward Elphengreen.
* * *
Time passed quickly after returning from the picnic.
Being trapped all day was inevitably suffocating, but she could endure it with the thought that she could leave this place before long.
One day passed, then a few more days passed, and finally, the moment she had been waiting for was right before her eyes.
It was precisely the day before leaving Elphengreen.
Her heart, which had begun to flutter since morning, did not calm down even after he left the bedroom.
Deborah, who was restlessly pacing inside the bedroom, finally picked up a book he had brought her to calm her mind.
It was because she felt she could escape from this unstable mind, even for a moment, only if there was something to focus on.
Knock, knock.
Just as she was about to open the book, a sudden knocking sound was heard.
Naturally, she thought it was the maid bringing her meal around this time.
Because there had been no one else entering or leaving this bedroom besides her until now.
However, her gaze, which she had raised reflexively, froze stiff upon confirming the identity of the person entering through the door.
“It’s been a while.”
Ludmilla.
The person who came in holding the tray with the meal was not the usual expressionless face with curly hair, but Ludmilla.
“Ludmilla, why are you…… how…….”
“I really wanted to say goodbye before you left.”
“…….”
“So I asked to do it instead for just today.”
A goodbye? She was momentarily speechless at those absurd words.
Right now, there is so much malice in the gaze looking at her, and she calls it a goodbye?
Deborah’s expression darkened at the unpleasant premonition of what she might be up to.
“Were we…… in a relationship to exchange goodbyes?”
At the coldly snapping words, a low laugh was heard from between Ludmilla’s teeth.
“Still, we can at least exchange a final greeting, can’t we?”
“A final…… greeting? After what you did to me, you came to say goodbye?”
On the day of the Crown Prince’s welcome banquet, the person who called her to the smoking room and made her encounter Count Cheister was Ludmilla.
Because of that, she suffered such an ordeal, and yet now she says she came to brazenly say goodbye, causing a flame to surge inside her for a moment.
“What I did? What on earth is that.”
“You’re asking because you don’t know?”
“Yes, I’m really asking because I don’t know. Just what on earth I’m supposed to have done to you.”
Ha, a hollow laugh burst out of its own accord at the sight of her feigning ignorance until the end, even though the maid who was bribed by her had already confessed everything.
“That you had a person named Greta call me to the smoking room that day, do you really think I wouldn’t know?”
“Really? Then you should have reported it like that.”
“……What?”
“According to what you said, it was me who put you in that state, so it would have been right to tell the Duke so, wouldn’t it? Then, there would have been no reason for us to face each other like this.”
“…….”
“But, why have you kept your mouth shut until now?”
She was momentarily speechless at the question asked while twisting the corner of her mouth mockingly.
The feeling of her mind going blank, not knowing what on earth to say.
The shape of Ludmilla’s mouth, watching that sight right in front of her, instantly curved even more sinisterly.
“I was truly impressed. When I first found out that you were entering and leaving the Duke’s bedroom.”
At the suddenly changed topic, Ludmilla strode right up to the front of Deborah before she knew it.
“There wasn’t just one or two girls who made a fuss to get into the Duke’s eyes, you know? Among them, there was even a girl who snuck into the bedroom naked.”
“…….”
“But they say he dragged them out without even blinking an eye. Every single one of them without exception. So at one point, there was even a rumor circulating among the maids asking if the Duke had some kind of physical defect—how on earth did you seduce him? Do you really have some extraordinary talent in that area?”
Ludmilla, who opened her eyes round as if she were truly curious, suddenly began to giggle.
Then, not long after, she glared at Deborah again with fierce eyes.
“Not knowing such things, only Robin has become pitiful. Being stupid enough not to know that the woman he confessed to is entering and leaving the master’s bedroom every night.”
At the sound of her clicking her tongue, Deborah tightly clenched her fists.
It was difficult to endure the behavior of Ludmilla, who continued to spout nonsensical bullshit.
She wanted to scream right now for her to get out of this bedroom, but the reason she couldn’t nonetheless…….
Ludmilla’s incomprehensible behavior of acting so confidently made it impossible to do so.
Had she thought too naively? If…… she really knows something.
Then, why had she kept her mouth shut until now? Why on earth.
At the time when that previous question was spinning dizzily in her head, Deborah finally brought those words out of her mouth.
“You…… what on earth do you know?”
Ludmilla stared blankly for a while with a strange gaze at Deborah’s face, who asked calmly, with an expression as indifferent as possible.
“Are you asking me that now?”
“…….”
As if it were fun, Ludmilla laughed with her eyes wide open.
“Wouldn’t you know that better than I would? What it is that I know.”
“……Stop playing word games, and if you have something to say, say it now.”
“I’d like to do that too, but unfortunately now is not the time.”
“……The time? The time, what does that mean?”
“Well, that’s none of your business. But if I were to give you one hint, it would be that you’ll find out soon even if you don’t pester me like that? Just what, and how much, I know about you.”
As if saying she didn’t need to be so curious, Ludmilla changed the subject again.
“Everyone is saying that? That you might soon become the Duchess. Then people were making such a fuss, wondering if the first commoner-born Duchess would come from Ruvake—how naive, we’ll have to wait and see if it really turns out that way.”
“…….”
“Anyway, this will be our last time, won’t it? How fortunate. Of course you feel the same, but I also find it so horrible I shudder just looking at your face.”
The face of Ludmilla, who had been snapping viciously as if looking at a sworn enemy, however, quickly changed into a smiling face.
“Then, goodbye. I’ll pray that you can hopefully leave here safely tomorrow.”
A final greeting delivered with a smirk.
With those meaningful words as the end, Ludmilla finally turned around and leisurely slipped out of the bedroom.
Until the moment the sound of the bedroom door closing was heard, Deborah stood there blankly as if frozen.
For a long time even after that.
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