Episode 143. Leah Parker
“Ah, it’s happening again….”
It was while she was sitting under the porch as usual, looking out at the garden.
At the sudden feeling of her stomach churning, Deborah pressed the pit of her stomach firmly with her fingertips.
In fact, experiencing these symptoms was not a matter of a day or two.
The feeling of her stomach suddenly turning nauseous and her head spinning for no reason—when it was truly severe, it had even led to vomiting several times.
Though it was mostly dry heaving since she had so little in her stomach.
Anyway, the problem was that what she had brushed off as something that would eventually pass had recently become more frequent and severe.
“Is something really wrong with me….”
-Something really bad will happen at this rate.
In the middle of her quiet muttering, the nagging Jade had given her came to mind, and a hollow laugh escaped her lips unconsciously.
Well, her recent life had been a mess to the point that such words were bound to be said.
If it weren’t for Jade, who strictly checked her diet, she might have reached a state where taking even a few steps was a struggle by now.
Thinking about it, she was full of gratitude and apologies toward Jade.
Deborah knew well that even if it was a request from Teacher Helena, being able to go this far was by no means an easy task.
So while she was grateful, her heart was also heavy.
Because she couldn’t continue leaning on his kindness like this forever.
One month.
Already a month had passed since she began staying at his mansion.
While she was newly surprised that the time she spent helplessly doing nothing had already become that long, her thoughts suddenly sprang in a completely different direction.
Something she had tightly sealed in her mind until now, trying not to recall it.
-Take that filthy girl and get out of my house right now.
“…….”
Every time that image of him turning away after a cold glance came to mind, terrible pain followed without fail.
A pain as if her heart were being ruthlessly gouged by a red-hot iron skewer.
Despite not having the courage to go back and seek forgiveness before him, she was still foolishly curious about the man’s well-being.
How he had been doing since then.
If perhaps he, like her, was unable to achieve sleep….
If he was eating properly….
Even though she knew it was all a foolish endeavor, the thoughts once started did not know how to end until the day was fully over.
Just like right now.
It was when she had been seized by various thoughts for a long time.
Rustle.
At a suspicious presence heard from right behind her, Deborah’s body flinched for a moment.
Naturally, her head turned toward the direction of the sound, and her eyes met those of a strange woman standing there.
The woman, wearing a dark green dress with chocolate-colored hair tied up high, was a face she was seeing for the first time.
While they stood facing each other like that for a long time, the woman who had been stopped slowly moved her steps and approached close to Deborah.
“I’m sorry for interrupting.”
“…….”
The woman’s face as she smiled with the corners of her mouth turned up was somehow reminiscent of a seductive cat.
It was a bit different in style from the Cheister lady who captured one’s gaze at once, but her subtly upturned eyes made her face look haughty.
Looking at those green eyes that perfectly matched the dress she was wearing, Deborah was momentarily at a loss for words.
Fortunately, as if noticing that awkwardness, the woman nodded lightly and delivered the next words.
“I am Lea Parker. I am an old friend of Jade, the owner of this mansion.”
At the familiar name that came from her mouth, only then did Deborah begin to lower her guard.
“……I am Deborah Coleman.”
An expensive dress and accessories, and above all, an elegant and confident attitude.
At that appearance which looked upper-class at a glance, Deborah stood up and bowed her head.
At that action, the woman, with an uncharacteristically flustered face, waved her hand and dissuaded her.
“Oh my, don’t do this.”
“…….”
“I think there’s been some misunderstanding, but I am not a noble. My father is just an ordinary merchant.”
So there’s no need to be so formal, the woman said with a wink, but Deborah knew well.
That it was just something said out of politeness.
Of course, the statement that she wasn’t a noble might not be a lie, as she said with a laugh, but looking at her luxurious appearance that invited such a misconception, she was clearly a daughter of a family equivalent to that.
One from a wealthy merchant family, or the kind for whom treating lower-class people like herself as servants was as natural as breathing from the moment they were born.
The woman, who stared for a moment at Deborah who remained silent, tilted her head slightly and said.
“Can I sit here for just a moment?”
In fact, there was no need to even ask.
There was no reason for someone who was an old friend of Jade, the owner of this mansion, to ask for permission from her, who was merely staying there for a while.
Deborah moved aside to one part of the bench without a word.
Watching her settle in and sit down, Deborah deliberated for a moment.
Whether to say goodbye and return to her room, or to sit beside her for a moment before going in.
However, that deliberation was not very long.
Because she thought that leaving immediately after being introduced to someone who said they were Jade’s friend would be a very rude act.
In the end, Deborah sat down quietly beside her, and the woman struck up a conversation as if she had been waiting.
“Actually, the reason I came here today was for Deborah—oh right, I can call you Deborah, right?”
She was slightly surprised by the casual use of her name, but since there was no particular reason to refuse, she nodded.
At that act of permission, the woman smiled thinly and continued her words.
“The reason I came here today was because I wanted to meet Deborah.”
“……Me?”
“Well, naturally Deborah wouldn’t know me, but I’ve known about you from quite a while back.”
The statement that someone she had only seen for the first time today came looking for her was one thing, but the statement that she had known her from before sounded even more bizarre.
How on earth could she, Jade’s friend, know her?
At the expression where her puzzlement was revealed, the woman nodded her head lightly as if understanding.
“Teacher Helena.”
At the unexpected words that came from her mouth, Deborah’s golden eyes wavered greatly.
“Do you know…… Teacher?”
It was the first question to come out of Deborah’s mouth.
If until now it had been a reluctant answer to the other person’s words, this time it was a question asked out of genuine curiosity.
At the emotion that surfaced over the face that had been devoid of vitality like a dried old tree, the woman’s—that is, Leah Parker’s—eyes narrowed thinly for a moment.
“Of course, it’s already been several years since we’ve known each other. Rather, in a way, I can be seen as having a closer relationship with Teacher Helena than Jade does.”
She, who threw out words that stimulated curiosity to the fullest, smiled while slightly pulling up the corners of her mouth.
That appearance somehow looked like a hunter setting a trap and waiting.
“How about it, are you curious?”
The prey, who cautiously took step after step forward, had merely nodded her head foolishly.
* * *
“So right now.”
At the voice that echoed inside the quiet study, a man with snake-like eyes slowly opened his mouth.
“I have heard that she still has not taken a single step out of Jade Wilkins’s mansion.”
At the words flowing from the aide’s mouth, Marquess Constant’s face instantly distorted into a grimace.
Just when he thought he had finally separated her from Raymond von Cheister’s side, a completely unexpected illegitimate son of the Cheister family appeared and took that nuisance to his own mansion.
“Stupid fools, they couldn’t even handle one girl and created this mess.”
The Marquess’s gaze, as he clicked his tongue as if it were pathetic, scratched past the aide’s face.
The aide bowed his head deeply before him like a criminal with a heavily sunken face.
At the same time, he did feel wronged deep down.
On that rainy day, he had clearly confirmed with his own two eyes that the man called Godric dragged the girl out and got into the carriage.
He had stayed in that spot until the carriage had definitely disappeared and only turned back a long time later…… who on earth could have imagined that such a thing would happen after that?
He had truly never dreamed that the stupid old man would stop by an inn on the way and lose the girl there.
And that the person who snatched the escaping girl in the middle was none other than Jade Wilkins, the illegitimate son of the Cheister family.
The plan that had been meticulously set up by co-opting the maid of the Cheister family and the old man all went to waste.
The Marquess, who had been glaring fiercely for a long time as if displeased, spoke again at some point.
“Tell those who are guarding to watch closely without taking their eyes off for a second.”
“Yes, Marquess.”
Only after hearing the words that he would do it absolutely without mistake did the Marquess turn his gaze to look out the window.
In the garden seen down through the window were his wife and daughter Olivia, who were smiling brightly.
Watching the two of them, the Marquess’s face hardened even more firmly.
“Yes, until the wedding is held…… until that time our Olivia becomes the Duchess of Cheister, that girl must never appear before that man Raymond.”
Those eyes, which were narrowing thinly, felt extremely desolate.
☆▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎☆
