Chapter 141. I’m Sorry. Every Single Time Like This……
“Leave that there.”
Someone’s voice was heard beyond her hazy consciousness.
It was a familiar voice she seemed to have heard somewhere, and a whispering sound followed as if responding to those words; at that point, Deborah’s consciousness began to awaken.
“Then, as for the clothes, I’ll come back later and— Oh my!”
Between her slowly opening eyelids, the face of a woman she was seeing for the first time appeared.
Eyes that widened in surprise as if seeing a ghost moved quickly elsewhere.
“Master, the young lady—.”
……Young lady?
While she was chewing over that nonsensical word with a head that felt muffled as if soaked in water—
“Deborah.”
There was another face that suddenly intruded into her blinking vision.
“Are you conscious? Can you recognize me?”
A person who was pouring out questions repeatedly with a worried expression.
Deborah, who stared blankly at that familiar face for a long time, eventually nodded her head slowly.
“……Jade.”
She flinched for a moment at her voice, which had become extremely hoarse like an old woman’s, but Jade immediately let out a sigh of relief.
“Thank goodness…… I’m truly glad.”
Low words spoken as if to no one in particular.
His face, which had been completely stiff, finally began to return to the face Deborah knew.
Deborah’s gaze, which had been watching that appearance quietly, moved slowly beyond him at some point.
It was a scenery she was seeing for the first time.
An unfamiliar space that appeared to be someone’s bedroom.
Just as she was retracing her memories with a dazed head as to why on earth she was lying in such a place, a few short scenes quickly flashed through her mind.
At the moment her calm golden eyes surged like a great wave, Deborah suddenly sat up straight.
“Deborah!”
However, Jade, who was fortunately by her side, quickly caught her staggering body.
“You shouldn’t get up right away like that. You’ve been lying down for several days, so be care—”
“Several days……?”
Deborah stared blankly at Jade with a face turned deathly pale.
A face that looked as if she couldn’t possibly believe it.
Jade, who remained silent for a moment with a complicated mind, eventually propped up a pillow behind Deborah’s back and pulled a chair in front of her to sit down.
“Do you happen to remember how you got here?”
“……No, I’m not sure. I definitely…… feel like I left the inn and was walking in the rain…….”
Jade let out a long sigh as he watched Deborah shake her head in confusion.
“A few days ago, on that day when it was raining heavily—I happened to be passing by and saw you.”
Deborah noticed that those words, starting calmly, were the story of that terrible rainy day.
“At first, I thought I saw wrong, but as I got off the carriage and approached, you were exactly like someone I knew.”
“…….”
“So I approached and asked. What you were doing here, and why on earth you were walking alone in such rain.”
“…….”
While listening to those words, a faint memory came back.
A voice that was heard through that rainy road which felt as if she were isolated from the world.
The vain delusion she had while looking at those blue water-colored eyes.
That the man had come to find her again…….
“And then you lost consciousness just like that. As it was an emergency, I brought you to my house first, but the high fever was so severe for several days that you couldn’t wake up…….”
Watching his face distort slightly as he spoke those words, Deborah could vaguely guess how much he had worried because of her.
A feeling that her mouth wouldn’t open as she didn’t know what to say out of apology.
It was quite some time after that when Deborah, who had hesitated for a long while, opened her mouth.
“I’m sorry. Every single time like this…… I really don’t know what to say…….”
Why did she end up causing trouble every time?
A sense of shame rushed in at the thought that she had once again been caught in a state she didn’t want anyone to know about.
Just as she was hanging her head low, unable to lift her face, Jade’s voice finally opened again.
“That day…… can you tell me what on earth happened?”
Deborah’s body flinched at the words that were asked directly without evasion.
Deborah tightly gripped her fingertips, which began to tremble violently in an instant.
At that sight, a long sigh like the one when he first spoke flowed from Jade’s mouth.
“Deborah, I believe that Teacher Helena asked me to look after Deborah before she left for Baltheon.”
“…….”
“And I don’t know what Deborah thinks, but I…… think of Deborah as a friend.”
Deborah’s gaze wavered very slightly for a moment as she listened to those softly spoken words.
“You can think of it as being on behalf of Teacher Helena, or you can think of it as me helping just as a friend. Whichever way Deborah can feel comfortable with.”
Was it because she had no one to lean on and was pushed into a dead-end situation?
Her heart wavered helplessly at those kind words that reached out to break down her guard.
After hesitating for a long time even then, Deborah eventually lifted her gaze.
“……I ended up leaving that place.”
She couldn’t bring herself to say the words that she was kicked out.
The wedding she was forced to undergo because she couldn’t overcome the intimidation, and the situation where she was kicked out after the fact that she hid it was discovered.
In front of someone who knew nothing, she did not want to show her life that was tattered and messily patched together.
“……May I ask what the reason was?”
It would have been nice if he had just covered it up and moved on at that point, but Jade asked for the reason as if he had made up his mind.
In a way, it might have been natural.
Jade was the very person who knew about the time she had left that house once before.
On the day the Duke was away, the day she left that place carrying only a single suitcase provided by his mother.
And even after that, following the man who had come to find her and entering that mansion again—Jade was the person who knew all of that.
So naturally, he would be curious.
What was the reason she was wandering the streets this time, kicked out empty-handed without even that old suitcase?
Yet, the words would not come out.
That it was really over now, that her connection with the man had truly ended this time.
Even when she tried to voice that absolute, unchanging fact, not a single word would come out, as if a hot stone were stuck tightly in her throat.
However, instead of Deborah who was biting her lip hard, unexpected words flowed from Jade’s mouth.
“Was it…… that person? Did he tell you to leave?”
Deborah, who understood who the person he was referring to was, shook her head immediately.
“No, it’s not that. It’s not that he did that…….”
“Then, who was it? Did Deborah just leave because she wanted to this time as well?”
“…….”
Both he who was speaking and she who was silent knew that it was nonsense.
Her honest feeling was that she didn’t want to say anything anymore, but even so, she couldn’t let him have a misunderstanding toward the one who was not at fault.
Deborah eventually opened her mouth again reluctantly.
“It was because I did something wrong…… that’s why I left.”
He is not at fault. It is all because I did something wrong that this happened.
She thought that if she said that, Jade wouldn’t ask anymore.
He would be curious, but still, that was basic courtesy.
As expected, Jade remained silent for a while after hearing Deborah’s words.
So she was relieved.
Thinking that the story she didn’t want to bring up anymore had fortunately ended around here—she had let out a sigh of relief instinctively.
However—
“By any chance…… is that mistake Deborah made because of…… that incident of running away from the orphanage?”
At the words that flowed from Jade’s mouth, Deborah’s expression stiffened hard in an instant.
The incident of running away from the orphanage.
Because she knew what that significant phrase pointed to, her expression sank chillingly beyond description.
How on earth did Jade know about that? Even if he was a trustworthy person, she couldn’t believe how Teacher Helena could easily tell someone else about such a thing.
Just as she was feeling utterly humiliated by the fact that someone else knew about that shameful and terrible incident she wanted to keep from everyone.
“Don’t misunderstand. I can roughly guess…… what you’re thinking right now, but I hope you listen without misunderstanding.”
“…….”
At that cold aura, Jade immediately added words calmly.
“Back then, when that incident happened—Teacher Helena was very worried. As Deborah knows, you know that Teacher Helena cherishes Deborah like her own flesh and blood, right?”
So at those words telling her not to misunderstand, her golden eyes, which had frozen coldly, began to thaw very slightly.
Only then, from the mouth of the relieved Jade, did the stories Deborah had never known until now begin to flow out one by one.
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