Chapter 45
Her married life with Cedric had been a happy one.
However, she did not believe that the beginning of that marriage had been founded on pure love without any calculation.
At the very least, her father had intended for House Greenwood to produce not only an Empress Consort, but also the Duchess of Angel.
Then what about Duke Angel?
House Greenwood had nothing to offer him,
but neither was there any reason to make an enemy of them.
Within the shifting balance of political power, House Greenwood was one of the greatest variables.
For generations, the heads of House Angel had always made the best choice for the sake of the kingdom and their family.
Even if it meant sacrificing themselves to some extent.
Of course, if they were fortunate, the person they loved also happened to fit those requirements.
Unfortunately,
Ines knew all too well that she had never been one of those fortunate cases.
“Ha…”
Cedric took a step closer to Ines.
Then he gently took hold of her reddened, freezing hands.
Startled by Cedric’s sudden action, Ines tried to pull her hand away,
but it was difficult to escape his grasp.
“Let go.”
“Please let go.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I never imagined my actions would leave you feeling so confused, Miss Ines.”
He had simply believed that expressing his affection would make her happy.
Only now did Cedric feel that he was beginning to understand her behavior, at least a little.
“But my feelings didn’t suddenly change…”
“They didn’t waver…”
“From the very beginning, I…”
I loved you.
Yet those final words refused to leave his lips.
This would have been the first time he confessed his love to Ines.
He did not want it to happen in such a pitiful way.
Cedric took a slow breath.
He needed to calm himself,
to regain his usual composure,
so that he could persuade her rationally.
“What were you about to say?”
“It’s nothing.”
“I simply wanted to tell you that my feelings haven’t changed.”
“But…”
“Yes.”
“I admit that my attitude may have changed a little.”
“But I hope you won’t doubt every kindness I’ve shown you simply because my attitude has changed.”
Looking bewildered, Ines asked him,
“What’s the difference between your attitude changing and your feelings changing?”
“Isn’t it the same thing, just expressed differently?”
However, Cedric answered firmly.
“There is a difference.”
“Just as your feelings haven’t changed, yet your attitude toward me has.”
His sharp observation left Ines’s lips tightly sealed.
Cedric was right.
The love she felt for him had never changed,
not then,
and not now.
“…The reason I remained distant from you all this time was because I thought that was what you wanted.”
“If I had known otherwise…”
“…it probably wouldn’t have taken us this long before we danced together for the first time.”
“What do you mean…?”
Watching Ines deny his words, Cedric felt somewhat wronged.
Of course,
he had been at fault.
He had failed to notice her feelings at all,
and had selfishly sought her affection instead.
Hearing her words had struck him like a blow to the head.
But that did not mean he alone was responsible for everything that had happened between them.
“Weren’t you the one who always ran away whenever I even tried to get close to you?”
“How was I supposed to approach someone like that?”
“I could clearly see how uncomfortable you were.”
Though it was somewhat childish,
Cedric did his best to show that he had not been indifferent toward her.
Last year’s charity ball.
Her debutante.
The celebration for the opening of the new museum.
As Cedric recalled every small interaction between them one by one,
Ines found herself troubled for an entirely different reason.
She had never heard any of these things,
not even in her previous life.
“That’s impossible.”
“You’ve never told me any of this before.”
“I wouldn’t have told you if we weren’t in a situation like this.”
“But even if that’s what you believed, it’s still strange.”
“Why…”
“Why did your attitude suddenly change?”
“If that’s truly how you felt all this time, then shouldn’t you still be keeping your distance from me even now?”
Hearing the panic in her voice,
Cedric fell into thought for a moment.
Listening to Ines,
even he suddenly found his own behavior difficult to understand.
The moment he heard she had been injured,
an overwhelming impulse had suddenly seized him.
Until just before attending the Council of Nobles,
he had planned to approach her slowly,
gradually,
so that she would not feel pressured.
But before he knew it,
he was standing at the Count’s estate with an armful of pink tulips,
knocking on the front door.
‘I suppose that really must have been bewildering for her.’
Cedric sighed inwardly.
Now that he thought about it,
from her perspective,
it must have been an utterly confusing change.
Someone who had never even exchanged a single proper conversation with her had suddenly come to visit her while she was ill, and even asked her out on a date.
Cedric’s neck and face gradually flushed bright red.
Even so,
he carefully searched for the reason why such a change had happened to him.
Then,
before long,
he remembered one small trigger that he himself had nearly forgotten.
“That morning.”
Running a hand through his hair,
Cedric spoke.
“I don’t usually dream.”
“But that day, I had an unusually vivid dream.”
A dream?
It was a completely unexpected word.
“A dream?”
“Yes.”
Then Cedric smiled faintly.
“In that dream…”
“I was married to you.”
At that instant,
Ines felt as though her heart had stopped beating.
Seeing Ines’s startled expression,
Cedric simply assumed she was shocked by the absurdity of what he had just said.
“Yes.”
“I never imagined I’d actually say something like this either.”
“I don’t usually believe in dreams.”
“But perhaps it was because it was the day after our engagement had been decided.”
“It was so vivid that I couldn’t forget it.”
“So I couldn’t stop thinking about you for the entire day.”
Even though he had dreamed it quite some time ago,
the moment the memory resurfaced,
the fragments of that dream became vividly clear once again.
People often said that moments of overwhelming happiness felt like a dream.
That description fit the scene he had witnessed in his dream perfectly.
“It was only a dream.”
“But yes.”
“Now that you mention it, Miss Ines, I suppose there really was something that triggered it.”
Cedric smiled awkwardly,
trying to hide his embarrassment.
A dream.
He wasn’t some young girl, after all.
“Please forget I said that.”
“I spoke carelessly.”
He wanted Ines to see only the best side of him.
What he had just confessed did nothing to help that wish.
Rubbing the back of his neck,
Cedric asked her to forget it.
But Ines could not.
A dream.
She had dreamed as well.
A very,
very old dream.
In that dream,
she had married Cedric.
They had a child.
Then,
caught in a web involving her father,
her aunt,
the Empress,
and countless others,
she lost the two people more precious to her than her own life.
And in the end,
she herself had also been killed.
Whether it had truly been a *dream*,
or whether it had really been a previous life as she believed,
even Ines herself could not say for certain.
But one thing was certain.
Ordinary dreams did not remain so vividly engraved in one’s memory for so many years.
It could be different.
But it could also be the same.
At the end of the path she had once walked,
there had been nothing but destruction woven from thorns.
Everyone had been killed.
And now,
reality was faithfully retracing that very same road.
‘If Cedric dreamed the same dream that I did…’
If he also knew that a miserable downfall awaited them…
‘It might be easier to persuade him.’
Instead of piling one lie upon another like this,
perhaps she could finally tell him the unbelievable truth—
that their engagement had to be broken,
not because she wished it,
but because she wanted to save his life.
Ines tightly gripped the hem of her skirt.
It was to hide the trembling of her hands.
“In that dream…”
“Didn’t you see anything else?”
Contrary to what she had hoped,
her voice trembled terribly.
Had Cedric seen the same things she had?
If so,
perhaps persuading him would become much easier.
After all,
having one’s head severed on the guillotine was a fate no one wished to suffer.
Perhaps he would even lose interest in her,
thinking she was a foolish woman who believed in dreams.
With desperate eyes,
Ines looked up at Cedric.
Seeing her expression,
as though she would burst into tears if someone merely touched her,
Cedric became flustered.
Could admitting that he had dreamed really carry such significance?
“Please tell me, Duke Angel.”
“What did you see in your dream?”
Asked once again,
Cedric slowly opened his mouth.
He only hoped she would not be disappointed,
because the story itself was rather ordinary.
“In that dream…”
“…you smiled a great deal.”
“You looked so happy.”
“You whispered into my ear that you had something to tell me.”
“Ah…”
Ines felt her heart plummet.
Why…
Why did the dream have to stop at *that* moment?
The day she had whispered that she had something to tell him…
It was a day Ines could never forget for the rest of her life.
“W-What…”
“What did I say?”
Biting her trembling lip,
Ines barely managed to force out the question before lowering her head.
A moment later,
Cedric’s quiet voice reached her ears.
“You told me you were carrying our child.”
“Unfortunately…”
“…I woke up right there.”
The instant he finished speaking,
dizziness overwhelmed Ines,
and she staggered.
Cedric hurriedly caught her in his arms.
Held against his chest,
tears streamed silently down Ines’s face.
This wasn’t right.
She would look like a strange woman.
But unable even to make a sound,
Ines wept like a wounded animal.
“Miss Ines, why all of a sudden…?”
Unable to answer his question,
she only trembled violently as sobs shook her shoulders.
Standing beside her,
Cedric could do nothing except hold her tightly in his arms.
