Chapter 160. By Any Chance, Are You Waiting for That Person?
Meeting Jade again was exactly on the fourth day after that incident.
A long-awaited holiday.
Having stayed only inside her room all day long, a sense of stuffiness slowly rushed in starting from after lunch.
Why on earth was the weather so exceptionally bright today of all days.
The scenery of the garden visible outside the window looked uniquely green and fresh.
Agonizing for a long while, Deborah ultimately could not overcome the temptation and stood up from her place.
While also meticulously packing the sewing materials she had been holding onto all along in her hands.
Since she had heard the sound of the carriage leaving early in the morning, she thought he would return only around evening time as usual.
Even so, just in case, she said she would sit for exactly 30 minutes and then go in—
She ended up falling fast asleep without realizing it.
It was partly due to the afternoon time zone when sleep drifts in softly, but the fact that she had uniquely gained a lot of sleep lately was the biggest cause.
Yawning at the slightest thing and dozing off like a sick chicken.
Though she had heard that it was usually that way during pregnancy, whether because she originally belonged to the type without much sleep, honestly she wasn’t adapting well to such a change.
At any rate, the important thing was that completely forgetting her initial plan to go in after staying for only 30 minutes, she had a very proper sweet sleep.
Sitting on a bench inside the garden where no one might come, breathing softly.
The reason Deborah, who was sleeping like that without knowing the world, woke up was due to a noisy sound that suddenly reached above her head.
The sound of a bird that was resting in a tree fluttering up into the expanse of the sky.
At that sound, Deborah, waking up startled, looked around her surroundings with eyes where the traces of sleep still remained.
And she ended up facing it.
Someone standing and looking over this way from a quite distant gap.
“…….”
“…….”
Though she didn’t know since when on earth he had been on that spot, Jade was also an appearance that was deeply flustered.
Like a person who encountered a situation that was entirely unexpected.
Jade, who seemed to agonize for a very brief moment, as if he had ultimately made up his mind, shifted his steps toward the inside of the garden where Deborah was.
Like that, after four days, the two people came to face each other.
“On my way in…… I saw you. I was going to just pass by…….”
“…….”
“For a moment…… may I sit down?”
It was a truly strange landscape.
That he, who was the owner of the mansion, was in a form of explaining why he was there and seeking permission from a guest who would stay for a moment.
Presumably, if a person who didn’t know the before and after circumstances had heard it, it was a very absurd remark to the point that they would have immediately thought of the positions of the two people in reverse.
When Deborah nodded her head after a moment, Jade took a place at the end of the bench slightly apart from her and sat down.
And for another while, a long silence flowed again.
Jade, who was agonizing for a moment over how he should bring out the words, opened his mouth only after quite a long while had passed even after that.
“……At that time.”
“…….”
“I was sorry. I didn’t intend to confess like that…….”
It was a story she had been avoiding all along.
A story she had solely avoided ever since that day until now.
If the opponent had not been Jade, it was an affair she would not have evaded to this extent.
Even though it was a situation slightly different from this, when Robin had conveyed his mind, she had immediately clarified her intention of refusal.
But because it was Jade, she could not cut it off so coldly.
Of course, although she had harshly appended the remark that she would treat it as a story unheard at the end of that, that didn’t mean a remark that she would sever her relationship with Jade.
Deborah liked Jade from the first moment they met.
Even though that was not the emotion between a man and a woman that Jade desired, but an emotion as a friend, at any rate she didn’t want her relationship with him to go awry over this kind of matter.
Therefore, no matter how awkward and uncomfortable it was, Deborah also knew full well that they had to share this story once.
And fortunately, the past four days became a time sufficient to organize her thoughts in her own way.
“Originally, when Deborah gained a little more peace of mind…… I intended to officially confess then.”
“…….”
“I intended to do it truly properly…….”
At that appearance of him smiling while knitting his eyebrows, momentarily her heart became sore.
Because she felt sorry for Jade, who was aching his heart like this for a woman like her who wasn’t even worth such value.
And because she was so thoroughly upset that she could give nothing but pain to such a Jade in the end.
“Jade…….”
The moment Deborah’s tightly closed mouth finally opened, Jade’s shoulders flinched.
An adult man who was large to the extent that he could not even be compared with her.
Seeing such a person being heavily tense like this at a single word of hers, her heart just kept becoming heavier and heavier.
But if it was not her intention to accept his mind, it was a matter that must be gone through at least once.
Deborah inhaled a long breath as if hardening her resolve.
“I’m sorry.”
“…….”
A remark that came out quietly but calmly.
What the meaning contained within that short remark was, Jade also seemed to have understood all of it.
Since as soon as the words fell, his expression froze fearsomely.
After a short silence flowed, Jade’s mouth opened again.
“By any chance…… am I, is my emotion burden……some, or do you dislike—”
“No, it’s not that. Jade.”
A voice that was low and submerged.
Even before the words he was bringing out with difficulty word by word were fully finished, Deborah shook her head violently to the left and right.
Disliking it, it was not such a thing.
Merely that she had already given her heart completely to someone else.
Therefore, now, how on earth could she explain that not a single piece of heart to give away to another person remained left over…….
“Then, it’s not that you dislike me very…… much, right.”
“…….”
“Just, it’s because you have no such peace of mind right now, later, when a little more time passes and you gain peace of mind, then—”
Watching Jade, who was bringing out words incoherently and without coherence, Deborah realized that her halfway answer was rather tormenting him.
“No, Jade.”
Therefore, she chopped away his words with words even more resolute than before.
“Do not wait.”
“…….”
“Even if time passes, I will still be just the same.”
“…….”
The blue glass beads that were shaking frantically stood at a dead halt on one spot in an instant.
Deborah looked intently without avoiding the gaze that met slowly and straightly.
“……Why?”
“…….”
“Why…… even if time passes, are you the sa…… By any chance, is it because of that man? Duke Cheister, is it because of that person?”
Watching the expression that was gradually distorting, Deborah did not give any answer whatsoever.
How he had thought of that silence, Jade’s face crumpled even more intensely.
“Are you by any chance waiting for that person? Thinking that if you give birth to the child and wait, he might look for you again someday?”
It wasn’t that she didn’t understand his heart that was twisted from being hurt, but at the blatant denunciation, momentarily Deborah’s face turned pale.
But Jade, who had already crossed the borderline of reason, as if such an expression of Deborah did not enter his eyes, continuously poured out sharp words.
“Do not harbor futile expectations, Deborah.”
His expression as he spoke while twisting the corners of his mouth was a very bizarre expression that was neither smiling nor, for that matter, throwing a tantrum.
“Duke Cheister, that fellow will absolutely never look for Deborah. That is something I can guarantee.”
“Stop…… it.”
She didn’t want to hear any more.
At that absurd nonsense that came out of the mouth of the opponent who lost his reason, she didn’t even want to retort that she had never harbored such an expectation.
But…….
But, momentarily her heart felt a pang.
Really, had she never harbored such a mind?
Really, that that person would look for me again…….
That if there is a child, even so, once he finds out that a child exists, he might look for me at least once again someday…….
Had she really never thought that way?
At the questions that surfaced in succession inside her head, she could not bring herself to give an answer saying no.
“That man is a person who doesn’t even treat people of our status as human beings. A person who looks at a woman who is an orphan and of humble status as if looking at a bug at the thought that he was robbed of his father, there’s no way such a person would look for Deborah again.”
“Stop…… it…….”
“If he finds out that a child exists, he will only snatch the child away and won’t even look for Deborah. What on earth is so good about such a man who even engaged another woman in the meantime—”
“Stop it! Stop!!”
Although she knew that what he was saying right now was not intended to wound her, even while knowing all of it, her inside throbbed as if cut by a sharp blade.
Making her recall again the man she was exerting effort not to think about, at those painful and bitter words, the wound she had barely patched together loosely ended up bursting open again in the end.
“……Because I know all of it, stop…… it. Please…….”
“…….”
Only after seeing that the hands gripping her skirt over her knees, that those small shoulders were trembling violently, did the dark blue flame hovering in Jade’s eyes finally begin to subside slowly.
Onto that spot where intense emotions had been poured out to the full, before long a cool wind passed by as if brushing through.
In the garden where the afternoon sunlight was shimmering, only the rustling sound of leaves was full.
At the end of that, finally, Jade opened his mouth.
“Marry me, Deborah.”
The voice echoing low was a very calm voice, as if all that rough wave that was rising until just a moment ago had been washed away all at once.
Watching the small body that flinched and trembled, Jade brought out the words he had wanted to say so much before her.
“I, will become the father of that child.”
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