Chapter 104
***
Isabelle’s face froze like a block of ice. For a moment, she gasped for breath, her expression suggesting she was trying to process what she’d just heard, then her face quickly flushed crimson.
“What… did you just say?”
“You must have been worried that Father left you no inheritance, but shouldn’t you be able to live out your old age in comfort?”
“You’re telling me to live in luxury on the money I got from selling my own son? You… you madman!”
Edmund remained completely unflappable, maintaining a polite demeanor.
“I’ll give Mother the townhouse in Borsa. She can live there after Rufus leaves for Rorschach.”
“You’re mad… you’re mad!”
“I’m offering this out of consideration. Since you said I’ve made you unhappy, I thought it would be best for you to distance yourself from the source of that unhappiness.”
Having finished speaking, Edmund walked over to the coffee table, picked up a cup of tea, and took a few sips. The tea, now cold, tasted unusually bitter.
“How dare you!”
Isabelle’s fingertips trembled violently.
“Are you trying to drag me out of this mansion?”
Unable to contain her intense rage, Isabelle grabbed a porcelain vase from the nearby console table and hurled it across the room. A sharp crack rang in out loud, and shards of the shattered vase scattered across the floor.
“You devilish brat! You’ve turned out to be even more vicious than your father!”
“Then I suppose I am indeed my father’s child.”
“How dare you—not content with selling Rufus off to some vulgar country, now you’re trying to insult me?”
“It is you, Mother, who is insulting the Duke of Libert right now.”
Isabelle, who had been hurling insults, suddenly let out a derisive laugh. Edmund quietly watched her as she lost her mind, tilting his teacup. She had once been such an elegant and noble duchess; watching her fall into the abyss gave him a strange feeling.
“You call yourself a duke? Don’t make me laugh. William entrusted you with the regency because he knew it wouldn’t work out. Rather than entrust the family to a filthy bastard, it would be better to simply vanish into thin air!”
“The dead are often interpreted by the living to suit their own convenience.”
Isabelle looked up at Edmund, who remained completely unmoved, and trembled violently. An expression—whether of anger or fear—flashed across her beautiful face.
“Someone like you must never have children.”
Edmund, who had been firing back without hesitation, finally fell silent. Misinterpreting his reaction, Isabelle pressed her attack even more viciously.
“You are cursed. You’re like poison, only serving to taint everything around you. Does it give you satisfaction to use Rufus to trample on his mother’s heart? If it were your child, it would grow up knowing no love, just like you. It would be better if it were never born at all!”
“It’s ridiculous how you keep emphasizing maternal love. Is that why you killed my mother?”
Isabelle paused mid-stream of her venomous tirade, even as she pointed an accusing finger. Her face, now ashen, seemed to already be acknowledging her own sin.
Edmund took a step closer to Isabelle.
“What did you do over twenty years ago, driven by that disgusting greed?”
He stopped about a foot away from her and added,
“Why don’t you answer that in front of the son of the woman you killed?”
A chilling silence settled between them. Isabelle, who had been glaring at Edmund without saying a word, raised one corner of her mouth.
“You, too, and William—you both thought of me as a petty woman consumed by jealousy. How could father and son be so alike?”
Isabelle let out a faint laugh and slowly reached out her hand. As the hand, adorned with a dazzling gem-studded ring, drew near, Edmund frowned.
“My dear. Do you really think a whore lying motionless in bed posed any threat to me? A mere replacement that William could have easily discarded whenever he pleased?”
Isabelle began to carefully smooth out the impeccable lines of Edmund’s clothing. As if handling a young boy not yet old enough for elementary school. As if bestowing a belated motherly affection.
“How old were you back then? Four? Five? You used to go up and down to that attic where she stayed quite often. And you called her ‘Mama,’ didn’t you? She’d try to give you whatever was in the attic every time her son visited. Whether it was cookies brought by the maids, or sweet honey tea—really, anything at all.”
Edmund simply watched the movements of those wrinkled hands. Even though the tear hadn’t reached his eyes yet, he felt a growing tightness in his throat.
“It seems that woman was quite fond of you. Even though her health was so poor she could barely move. Perhaps she saw you as a stepping stone to higher status? It’s none of my business. I don’t even know why she put that in her mouth just that one day.”
Faded memories surged back like a wave. The attic where faint light would occasionally stream in through the slanted skylight; his biological mother, lying on the bed placed alone in the center of the room, silently offering him snacks as she welcomed her young son; and the shadow of death that had begun to cast a deep gloom over that place from a certain day onward… All of it remained vivid in his memory.
“It was you I wanted to disappear.”
Isabelle smiled faintly.
“You are a being who should never have been born in the first place.”
Edmund’s heart raced uncontrollably. Though he had heard these harsh words from Isabelle countless times, in this moment, they struck him entirely differently.
“Well? Does making up a story like this hurt you too?”
“…Are you admitting your sins?”
“It might have sounded like a confession. But well, no.”
Isabelle, having deftly sidestepped the question, removed her hand from the collar of Edmund’s jacket she had been smoothing out.
“I suppose I’ve said all I needed to say, so I’ll be on my way.”
With that, she brushed her shoulder lightly against Edmund’s arm and left the conference room, her heels clicking on the floor. Left alone in the spacious room, Edmund stood motionless for a long moment. Like someone who had forgotten how to move, he stood still, staring at the spot where Isabelle had been. The scent of her heavy perfume still lingered there.
***
“Come in.”
Hearing a knock at the door, Blair granted permission to enter. The man who soon stepped into the bedroom was the Duke’s personal physician, Benjamin Jensen.
“Good afternoon, Duchess.”
“It’s been a while, Mr. Jensen.”
“I returned straight from the academic conference as soon as I received His Excellency’s telegram. Though I suppose it would be better for you if you didn’t see my face too often.”
Benjamin flashed a gentle smile across his typically scholarly face.
“Of course, things might be a little different from now on.”
“…Then, please proceed with the examination.”
Blair folded her hands demurely in her lap. After setting down his medical bag, Benjamin took out various medical instruments and asked a few routine questions. They were questions about her menstrual cycle, any unusual symptoms, and her recent physical condition.
Then he carefully placed the stethoscope against her chest. To prevent the lady from being startled by the cold metal plate, he cupped it in his palm to warm it before use—a gesture that revealed his tender consideration.
“Hmm…”
“What do you think?”
As the diagnosis was slow in coming, Blair asked, unable to hide her impatience. Benjamin continued to feel her pulse for quite some time before removing the stethoscope with a troubled expression.
“It’s still too early to say for certain that you’re pregnant.”
“…Oh.”
“However, since it’s the very early stages, it’s possible that the pregnancy pulse is extremely faint. Since you’ve experienced morning sickness, a common early symptom of pregnancy, and you have a slight fever, I should come back to do another checkup after some time has passed.”
Fearing Blair might be disappointed, Benjamin added gently,
“Still, in my experience, cases like this usually lead to good news. Since you’re planning to have a child, I’ll prepare some herbal tea that might help. For the time being, it would be best if you took extra care of yourself.”
“What if we weren’t planning to have a child?”
“…Huh?”
Startled, Benjamin stopped tidying up his medical instruments and whipped his head around. At his reaction, Blair stammered for a moment. Come to think of it, while Benjamin was the Duke’s personal physician, he was also one of Edmund’s closest aides.
“Well, since it wasn’t something we’d fully planned… I was just a little… anxious.”
The affable doctor still couldn’t find the words to respond. Blair fidgeted with her fingers, seemingly nervous, then hurriedly brought the conversation to a close.
“No, never mind. Please pretend you didn’t hear that.”
At that moment, a knock sounded at the bedroom door. Without a word, both of their gazes turned toward it. The voice of a man they knew well followed shortly after.
“If the consultation is over, may I come in?”
***
Write a comment