Chapter 74
At the Bilton estate, an untimely storm of tears was raging. One person was Beatrice, and the other was Mary.
Beatrice had actually been pouring out tears like a monsoon starting from yesterday. It was because such an incident had occurred at the birthday banquet she had prepared.
She knew it wasn’t her fault. Who could have imagined that such a bizarre creature would appear right in the middle of the lawn, and even at the Bilton estate? Even so, it was an undeniable fact that Angela’s birthday, which she had prepared with her own hands, had been ruined.
“Stop crying now, miss.”
An elderly maid tried to soothe Beatrice, who was leaning her arms on the table and burying her face in them as she wept. It wasn’t an easy task.
“Shall I bring you some of your favorite snacks?”
“Coo… kie…”
“Cookie? Shall I bring some cookies?”
Thinking that Beatrice might finally stop crying, the maid raised her eyebrows in response. Then, lifting her tear-streaked face, Beatrice barely managed to speak with trembling lips.
“Coo… kie… star, star-shaped cookies… there were some… but they’re gone… all trampled… all crumbled…”
Wailing, Beatrice hid her face back in her folded arms. She wasn’t usually the type to cry out loud like this, but her sudden, heartbreaking sobs left the maid stamping her feet in frustration.
“Oh dear, I said stop crying.”
Still, Beatrice wouldn’t lift her head, so the maid squatted down beside her and spoke without much thought.
“You can prepare it even better next year.”
“Next year…?”
Beatrice peeked her head up slightly.
“Yes, next year! Think of this year as practice, and you can make it even grander next year, right?”
Feeling like she’d succeeded, the maid continued chattering on. Then, wiping her tears with the palm of her hand, Beatrice looked straight at the maid and asked.
“Next year… will sis entrust the banquet preparation to me again?”
Unable to say “Do you think she will?” to Beatrice’s eyes filled with expectation, her maid nodded vigorously.
Meanwhile, Mary was wiping away tears, unable to believe the situation she found herself in. Angela… her lovely miss… had left her behind at the Bilton estate and gone!
“That can’t be right?”
Standing blankly in Angela’s empty room, a servant who came in to clean the fireplace informed her that Angela had long since returned to the Florence estate with Kalian. So Mary replied like that.
There was no way Angela would leave her behind, of all people. There had been that time she was left at the empress’s palace, but that was due to circumstances, and this time there was no reason for it.
Mary wandered around the Bilton estate, searching for Angela here and there. But every response she got was that Angela had already left.
To think she’d be abandoned like this just because she’d fainted in shock from Phaelon—tears welled up uncontrollably.
She was squatting at the entrance of the estate, pouting her lips and crying, when.
“Wh-what? Are you crying? Why?”
Rita approached with a frown. Mary, haphazardly wiping her runny nose with the back of her hand, defiantly opened her mouth.
“Miss Angela left without me.”
Ha, Rita let out a scoff in disbelief.
“How could she forget me and leave? I’m always thinking only of Miss Angela, but it seems she doesn’t think of me.”
Speaking as if she’d been betrayed by a lover, Mary sniffled and then wiped the dripping tears with her sleeve. They were truly pitiful tears.
“You think so too, right, Rita? It’s just me who likes the miss, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, probably. The miss has the count as well.”
Rita sat down beside Mary, her bottom on the ground, speaking as if giving advice. At that, Mary’s face crumpled even more, on the verge of full sobs.
Finding that reaction absurd, Rita, who had been staring at Mary, soon poked her side repeatedly and spoke up.
“But did you know this?”
“What?”
Mary kept wiping her tears as she looked at Rita. Rita grinned mischievously at her.
“Miss Angela said she’d come back soon to pick you up, so don’t cause any trouble and wait quietly.”
Expecting Mary to push her away, asking why she was only saying this now, instead Mary jumped up from her seat with the most excited face in the world.
“Really? The miss didn’t forget me and leave?”
Forget you? She came to the maids’ room at the crack of dawn before leaving and stroked that curly hair several times before going.
“Yeah. So stop crying and go eat something.”
But if she added that detail, Mary, who was already bouncing around, might collapse from a heart attack, so she held back. It seemed better to tell her later when the girl had calmed down.
Rita grabbed Mary’s arm, dragging her along while telling her to stop jumping around, and headed to the servants’ dining hall.
* * *
When Kalian presented his pass and revealed his identity along with the fact that he had come to meet the lord, the castle gates opened wide as if welcoming long-awaited guests.
Kalian extended his hand toward Angela, who was draped in a gray robe with the hood pulled over her head. They walked on, holding hands just like that.
The guide walking ahead asked them to wait in front of one of the castle’s doors. When Kalian nodded briefly, he soon disappeared through the creaking door.
However, when he returned, he looked different from before. He scanned the two of them as if probing, then told them to go back.
“Go back?”
“Yes, he said he won’t meet… Eek!”
In an instant, Kalian had his sword at the man’s throat. As Kalian stepped forward one by one, the guide had no choice but to shuffle backward carefully to avoid injury.
Soon, the guide’s heel bumped against the door. Glancing around, he had no other option but to fumble behind him, turn the doorknob, and open the door.
As the space suddenly widened behind him, the guide tumbled backward onto the floor. Leaving him there, Kalian sheathed his sword and led Angela through the door into the room.
The chamber appeared to be a dining hall, with a long table lined with many seats dominating the center. At the head of that table, an elderly woman was in the midst of her meal.
She must be the Duchess of Dawson. Kalian had heard the rumors well enough: a year ago, the duke himself had collapsed from old age and taken to his bed, leaving her to manage all the affairs of the domain in his stead.
Kalian and Angela strode purposefully toward her. Spotting the intruders’ approach, the Duchess of Dawson immediately set down her utensils and dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. The gesture was sharp with irritation.
“Florence Count? I already told you I wouldn’t see…”
The Duchess of Dawson cut herself off, her eyes frozen on a single point, unblinking. She was staring at Angela, who had flung back the hood that had covered her head. Shock welled up in eyes that had long since lost their youth.
“You, you…”
A trembling fingertip pointed at Angela.
“How could you…!”
It was one of the two fingers she had left.
* * *
The table had been cleared spotless. Just moments ago, at the duchess’s command, the maids had swiftly removed the remnants of her unfinished meal.
One might have expected teacups to take their place, but the table where the three of them now sat bore nothing at all. It was her way of making it clear that Angela and Kalian were unwelcome guests.
Yet they hadn’t come here for tea in any case, so Angela spoke up in a tone of utter nonchalance.
“Was it that woman’s doing, to your hand?”
There was no beating around the bush.
“…I didn’t know it at the time, but as the years passed, it became clear enough.”
The Duchess of Dawson still couldn’t tear her gaze away from Angela’s face, which so eerily mirrored Grace’s features, and so she spoke without ever looking directly at her.
“I just thought she was a child with a bit of an unusual streak… Never imagined she could do something like that…”
Grace had always been peculiar, even as a girl. While other children recoiled from insects that made everyone else squeamish, she insisted on cupping them in her palms. She preferred the moment of snipping a garden flower at the stem with scissors, watching it wither, to the bloom itself.
She was the sort who had to try everything for herself, which naturally led to no small number of mishaps. Even so… She could never have dreamed that the child she had carried in her womb could be something so monstrous.
“What did you mean by the Dawson family’s ‘secretary’?”
This time, it was Kalian who asked.
“It was an old tome passed down through the ages. Or rather, we’d all but forgotten it even existed in the house. It had been classified as forbidden reading in the secret library, and books like that just gather dust anyway, don’t they? Who would think to pull it out…”
Seeing it was one thing, but the very notion of attempting to enact it—that alone was beyond the comprehension of any ordinary mind. The spells for harming others, the ingredients they required… every last one defied common sense. And yet Grace had plunged ahead without a moment’s hesitation.
Her maid had been injured, her sister had died, and she herself, the girl’s mother, had lost fingers. It wasn’t until long after Grace had married that she learned the reason why.
The Duchess of Dawson glanced sidelong at Angela, who bore such a horrifying resemblance to her daughter.
Yes, that child. It was only after that child had taken root in her belly that she began to sense Grace’s viciousness.
The noblewomen of Phaelon generally returned to their family homes to await the birth, spending their time there until they delivered and recovered their strength before finally going back to their husbands’ houses. It was a custom born of the belief that the body and mind of one carrying new life must be kept in the utmost peace.
To her, who had lost Wendy, Grace was her one and only daughter. With tender anticipation, she had tidied the empty room that had once been her girl’s, awaiting her return from her husband’s home after conceiving. Little did she know it would be the spark.
What she discovered in her daughter’s hidden chamber was a sight she wished she could unsee, crammed full of horrors.
Curses scrawled densely across the floor—among them, the very spell that had taken her fingers.
It happened while the Duke of Dawson was away. Overwhelmed with terror, she couldn’t bear to face it alone. After agonizing over what to do, she first summoned Dominic.
Upon learning the truth, Dominic staggered off to confront Grace. But the duke, informed too late, flew into a rage and demanded only that his daughter’s shame be buried.
Dominic had sought a divorce after the child was born, but it was refused time and again.
That refusal had festered into the present day, where whispers called the Bilton duke the true master of the empire—and it had become one of the reasons Dawson Castle now crumbled in decay.
“Is that book here now?”
Angela, who had been listening to the tale, spoke up. The Duchess of Dawson, her throat parched perhaps, finally raised a hand to signal a distant maid to bring water.
As they waited for the water, the duchess confirmed it was. After Grace’s death, it had been found in her room; Dominic had hurled it aside and stormed out.
“May I see it?”
There was no reply to Angela’s follow-up question until the duchess had drained the glass the maid brought. Only then did she speak.
“On what grounds?”
A chill wave of suspicion lanced toward Angela.
“Grace, dead, is alive? Well, that girl might have managed it. But I’ve heard rumors you died and came back to life as well. And you expect me to show that book to someone like you?”
To her, Angela seemed no different from Grace in the slightest. Kalian tensed, his sharp gaze ready to counter, but Angela raised a hand to stop him and began casually unfastening the buttons of her dress. Kalian, catching on to her intent, turned his head aside.
“Look closely. This is what that woman did.”
Revealing the spiderweb of scars etched across her porcelain skin, Angela spoke with the calm detachment of recounting a stranger’s misfortune. It was a voice that burrowed all the deeper for its steadiness. A taut vein rose along Kalian’s jaw.
“I’m not asking for anything grand. I just want to live.”
The woman’s startled eyes, fixed on the grotesque scars that rivaled her own mangled fingers, darted away as if burned. Only then did Angela methodically refasten her dress.
It was some time later, after the woman’s gaze had lingered anxiously on the table as if she’d witnessed something forbidden, that she finally rose to her feet.
“Follow me.”
For the first time, she met Angela’s eyes squarely.
