Chapter 55
The Bilton mansion was hushed.
It had always been a place far removed from clamor, since its ruling young mistress preferred quiet above all else, but today the silence was especially profound.
Even the faint breaths drawn by those gathered there rang out sharp as noise in the stillness. And yet, not a whisper of Angela’s breathing could be heard.
Why?
Ah, because it’s distant. Yes, that’s it—she’s still too far away.
Answering his own solitary question, Kalian drew closer to Angela’s side, where she lay gracefully upon the bed.
Her eyes were softly closed, as if she were lost in a deep, peaceful slumber, but there was no rise or fall at her chest. Puzzled by this, Kalian knelt beside the bed.
“Angela…?”
Kalian called her name softly, tentatively. There was no reply. In that instant, a choked sob escaped from behind him—uh-huh, a sound too raw to swallow back.
It was Yvonne. And beside her, Beatrice let out a similar noise, stifling her whimpers as best she could, though they spilled forth relentlessly, unswallowed and unending.
Why were they dissolving into such a sea of tears before Angela, who was merely sleeping? It was all so strange.
“Angela?”
Kalian called her name once more, to the woman whose eyes remained shut. Still, she gave no sign of response.
She must have sunk into a profound sleep. It had to be that deep—a sleep so heavy his voice couldn’t reach her.
Something like this had happened before. She had sealed her eyes tight and slept just like this. How many days had she lain there before waking? If he waited a few days, would Angela stir from her slumber?
Kalian began to count in his mind, calculating the hours until he could gaze once more into those lovely eyes of hers.
Ah, right. Just like last time, he should summon her personal physician for an examination. That way, she might awaken all the sooner.
They had always said her pulse was weaker than that of ordinary folk, hadn’t they? So this utter stillness in her breathing, this absence of any stir—it had to be because of that. Surely, it was…
“Uh-huh, hngh…”
“…You’re making too much noise.”
Interrupted in his thoughts of Angela, Kalian turned his head slightly toward the rear, his voice edged with sharpness.
Yvonne and Beatrice gazed at his profile with eyes swollen and soaked in tears. Meanwhile, Kalian turned back toward Angela and continued.
“Angela doesn’t like commotion around her. If she wakes to the sound of weeping, she’ll be displeased. Please, be quiet. I beg you.”
His words sliced through the air like a blade, ragged and unrelenting, before fading into nothing.
Drawing in the very air he had rent apart, Kalian felt a faint ache in his throat. Yet the gaze he fixed on Angela was tender beyond measure.
He intended to wait there until she awoke, just like this.
And then.
“Count Florence…”
Yvonne took a couple of hesitant steps closer and called out to his back. Kalian did not turn. He had no wish to hear.
All he wanted was to focus on Angela. But Yvonne persisted, casting herself once more in the role of unwelcome intruder.
“…The young mistress… she…”
…won’t wake again.
Yvonne finished in a voice frayed to the brink of breaking.
She had held Angela cradled in her arms for hours on end. She had stood vigil by the fireplace, enduring, fighting to keep the chill from claiming her.
But in the end, Angela had grown cold all the same.
Only now, at last, had Yvonne accepted her death and laid her upon the bed. Even knowing the pain it would cause Kalian, she had no choice but to speak the words.
Yet Kalian did not listen. Like a man with his ears sealed shut, he remained kneeling in silence, his eyes fixed solely on Angela. Only then did Yvonne realize that Kalian, too, needed time—just as she had clung to Angela, unwilling to let go.
With her face still streaked in tears, Yvonne said she would step out. She led Beatrice from the room, leaving it empty.
Kalian did not so much as flinch at the sound of the door opening and closing. He held his rigid posture, unmoving. He could endure like this for hours, for days.
Last time, he had not been there when Angela’s eyes finally fluttered open. But this time, he would stay until those delicately closed lids parted once more.
She would be overjoyed then. She would smile at him with that radiant expression, as if to prove just how deeply she cherished him.
Kalian knew the truth.
The problem was that no one but him did.
* * *
“Please, Your Excellency, don’t do this. We must hold the funeral for the young mistress. It’s time to let go…”
It was the day after Kalian had kept vigil at Angela’s side through an entire night and day. Servants of the Bilton household approached him with apologetic faces, imploring him to release her at last.
When he ignored them and held firm, the knights of the Bilton estate arrived next. Kalian had no desire for this, but he had no choice—he drew his sword against them. And now here they were.
The Bilton knights, faced with his aggressive stance, drew their own blades in response. Kalian lashed out at them with fierce reproach.
“A funeral? How dare you speak of such a thing for the living.”
At his words, the knights exchanged uneasy glances among themselves. Then the one standing at their center spoke with resolute firmness.
“She is not among the living. The young mistress has already passed. What lies behind you, Your Excellency, is not a living soul but the body of the departed. Please, accept it. We beg you.”
“Body? Corpse!”
It was then that Kalian unleashed a roar like a lion’s.
“Do not insult Angela! She is not dead!”
With a bellow that shook the air, Kalian lunged forward. Forsaking the edge of his blade, he wielded the hilt as a weapon, striking at the vital points of the Bilton knights.
In an instant, he felled four or five able-bodied men. His eyes swept the room—strewn with the fallen—with a merciless gaze utterly unlike his own. At last, he sheathed his sword and turned toward the bed where Angela lay.
“This won’t do, Angela. They’ve all lost their minds. Let’s go somewhere safe.”
Kalian scooped the sleeping Angela into his arms with effortless strength. It was the motion of one preparing to flee the mansion.
He could no longer leave her in such a place. This damned house was united in branding Angela a corpse.
If he left her here any longer, she would be slipped into a coffin unnoticed and buried in the earth. Absurd—unthinkable.
Kalian hoisted Angela over his shoulder and escaped the Bilton mansion. He mounted a horse and rode straight for the Florence estate. From there, he transferred her directly into a carriage.
“To Bildeum.”
With that final command, Kalian shut the carriage door himself and pulled Angela into his arms. It was as if he meant to hide her away from the world, lest someone steal her from him.
The flustered faces of the Florence estate servants, at a loss for what to do, didn’t even register in Kalian’s eyes. He saw only Angela.
All the way to Bilton, Kalian never set her down from his embrace. He strained to catch even the faintest breath from her, fixed his gaze so intently that he might detect the slightest flutter of her eyelids.
If he showed even the hint of pulling away, wouldn’t she sense his absence and refuse to wake? He clung to her with desperate resolve, enduring as best he could. It was the most he could do.
* * *
“The lord has arrived, but…!”
Bilton was thrown into utter chaos by Kalian’s sudden appearance. The liege could visit his castle anytime he wished, of course—but for him to descend without warning like this was utterly unprecedented.
What stunned the people even more, amid the uproar, was the woman Kalian had brought with him. She was pale in a way that chilled the air, unconscious in his arms.
When the castle steward came rushing at the news, Kalian issued his order without so much as a glance in the man’s direction.
“Light a fire in the hearth. Angela is freezing.”
With that, he kicked open the door to his chambers and gently laid the woman he carried atop the grand bed. The violence of that door-splintering kick stood in stark contrast to the tenderness of his hands as he settled her beneath the covers.
Only then, hearing the name fall from Kalian’s lips, did the steward realize this was the lord’s fiancée he held so close. He sprang into action, barking orders at the maids and manservants.
“Hurry and get that fire going in the hearth. And you lot—fetch plenty of firewood from the stores.”
The manservant who approached the hearth to carry out the command began stacking logs inside. Soon, crimson flames leaped up, and a warm glow poured from the fireplace. Before long, the bedchamber filled with cozy air. In that enveloping warmth, Kalian issued his next command, his voice cold as iron.
“Summon the physician. We need to examine Angela’s condition.”
He had thought she looked pallid even on the journey here—clearly, there was some grave issue with her health.
“Yes, my lord. Just a moment.”
The steward replied swiftly and dashed from the room. Up to that point, no one had suspected a thing. No one grasped what Kalian had truly brought with him.
It was only after the physician came and went that the people of Bilton Castle learned the truth: he had carried in the corpse of a dead woman.
“The lord… he doesn’t seem quite right in the head.”
The physician, having finished his examination of Angela, emerged pale as death and muttered under his breath. The servants waiting outside shot him sharp, disbelieving glares—what was this nonsense?
In response, he pointed a trembling finger at the door to Kalian’s bedchamber, as if he had beheld something utterly horrifying.
“That woman… her heart isn’t beating.”
He had told Kalian the same: her breath had already ceased. There was no bringing her back. She had passed beyond this world, and all the warmth in the world meant nothing now.
*Get out. Now.*
That was Kalian’s reply—a curt dismissal that chased the man from the room like an unwelcome guest.
“She’s already dead.”
And so he broke the news to the servants. Their eyes widened in unison as they stared toward Kalian’s bedchamber, one and all.
What on earth was unfolding in the once-peaceful halls of Bilton Castle? None of them could say.
* * *
“Just leave it be.”
“Pardon?”
“I said, leave it be.”
“You mean… we’re simply to let the Earl of Florence go? Just like that?”
The knight had come to Dominic to report that Kalian had attacked them and fled with Angela’s body. One of the knights who had fallen to him had regained his senses and raced back with the dire news.
To have the corpse of the young lady they were sworn to protect stolen away—it was a mortal sin for Kalian, and for them as well. Head bowed in shame, the knight delivered his account. Yet Dominic’s response was so flatly indifferent it beggared belief.
A father who, not even a full day after losing his daughter, had her body snatched away—such a man should have been wild with grief. But here he was, calm as a still pond.
Just leave it be. Even after hearing the words twice, the knight couldn’t help but press for confirmation. Not that it changed the reply, which came back as steady as before.
“He must want time alone with his dead fiancée, to savor their farewell in peace. So let him have it.”
One might almost call it a compassionate answer, if looked at in a certain light.
But words aren’t judged by their letters alone. The true weight lies in the speaker’s expression as they form them, the subtle gestures that accompany them, the tone that clings like shadow. These are the threads that weave the real meaning.
And right now, Dominic bore no trace of a grieving father. He looked nothing like a man generously granting solace to his daughter and her betrothed.
“Yes, understood. We’ll do as you say,” the knight replied, withdrawing from Dominic’s presence. But the chill of that reaction left him dazed, unsteady on his feet.
It was common knowledge that Dominic held little affection for his eldest daughter, Angela. Yet no one had ever imagined outright hatred… until now. What the knight had just felt radiating from Dominic was pure, unadulterated loathing.
He despised her so utterly that her death stirred not a flicker of sorrow in him. The venom seeped into the knight’s very skin, raw and unrelenting.
“Wait—one moment, if I may…”
It was then, as the knight trudged slowly across the floor, his stomach churning with unease, that someone called out to halt him. He looked up to see Yvonne, the other mistress of the house, standing there.
The knight bowed at once in deference.
