SGC 24

CHAPTER 24

Translator: Rae

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

By the time she returned to the bedchamber after finishing her meal, a dim dusk had already settled over the room.

When Rozella emerged from the dressing room after changing her clothes, the maids who had just finished arranging the bedding bowed deeply.

“My lady, we wish you a restful night. We shall take our leave.”

As the maids withdrew in unison, Rozella, left alone, sank heavily onto the edge of the bed.

Her troubled gaze drifted to the shadowed window. The memory of their lips brushing faintly against each other made her ears burn hot.

She inadvertently fiddled with her lower lip. When I remembered the moment when each other's lips were vaguely touched, my ears heated up brightly. 

Perhaps he had merely been carried away by the mood. Come to think of it, had not last night grown heavier than what was required to leave proof of their wedding night?

Edmund was a grown man, after all, and desire must dwell within him, perhaps urging that fleeting impulse.

In that case, perhaps it would not have mattered who stood in front of him.

…Yes, a mere four years of absence could not possibly erase hatred without a trace.

As her thoughts reached that point, Rozella felt her heart throb with a familiar self-loathing.

Nothing had ever occurred between them to resolve their feelings. Edmund had left as though severing all ties with the ducal house, and Rozella had fled to the academy.

They had drifted onto separate paths, with no thread left to inform them of each other’s lives.

Time could dull emotions, certainly, but only when the one who stirred them remained out of sight.

Just as Rozella, upon reuniting with Edmund, had been struck through her whole being by the guilt she had long buried and avoided, surely he also must have felt the hatred he believed forgotten flare up the moment he saw her again.

For a fleeting moment, she had fallen into the illusion that they had returned to what they once were. Yet the only reason she could harbor such comfort now was because Edmund remained, as ever, a man generous and kind to all.

Seized by a tangle of thoughts, Rozella rose from the bed and walked toward the balcony. She needed the cold air.

As she opened the glass doors, the cool night air seeped into her lungs. Meeting the chill head on seemed to clear her mind a little.

Through the faintly drifting haze of smoke, a woman’s silhouette moved now and then.

Unaware of the unseen observer watching her from the opposite balcony, Roze lingered restlessly in her spot.

As if lost in thought, she paced from side to side, brushing against the vase set upon a small table, and at last leaned her head against the railing, gazing blankly into the courtyard.

Edmund quietly lowered the hand holding his cigar and watched Roze’s movements.

Though her eyes were veiled by darkness, he could easily imagine their color.

Eyes like a single ray of sunlight resting upon a rose garden. Those radiant golden eyes that had always captured his heart with ease and rendered his limbs powerless.

Feeling the familiar resonance of his heart, Edmund stroked the length of his cigar. Roze still drew forth his response with such effortless ease.

Merely seeing her figure buried in the dark made every nerve in him spring to life, like a loyal hound that had found its master.

There had been a time when he wished to cut this sensation out of himself. Or perhaps that was still true even now.

With his lids half lowered, Edmund traced her outline with darkened pupils. Part of him wished for Roze to lift her head and find him, yet another part wanted only to remain as he was, holding his breath and watching.

At least in moments like this, Roze could not run away.

Soon the clouds scattered in all directions. As moonlight slanted down over the estate, Roze lifted her head from the railing.

Even from a considerable distance, he could see the woman’s face flush with bewilderment as she looked ahead. At last, upon discovering Edmund, her lips parted slightly.

Recalling the pale pink of those lips, he offered, out of habit and by design, a smile shaped with deliberate gentleness.

Whenever he smiled that way, Roze loosened her guard ever so slightly and searched him for traces of the past. He found a certain satisfaction in the cautious way her eyes examined him.

Roze, who had been staring at him with wide eyes, soon lowered her chin a little. The feet that had wandered at ease stiffened and seemed rooted to the spot.

Quietly lifting her head once more to look at him, she moved her lips and conveyed a few words.

“Have a peaceful night.”

After whispering those words beneath the moonlight, Roze gave a silent bow and turned away. Shortly after, only the faint remnants of moonlight lingered where she had stood.

Only then did Edmund bring the concealed cigar back to his lips and draw in a deep breath.

Through the acrid smoke that seeped into his nose and spread outward, her whispered wish for a peaceful night seemed to settle briefly. Yet the stillness, as always, did not last.

Bang!

Suddenly, a sharp gunshot rang out. The short explosive sound, as if to rupture his eardrums, echoed repeatedly in his ears.

It was the auditory hallucination that unfailingly came whenever silence fell. Yet that familiar echo could no longer so much as stir his eyelids.

Without the slightest change in expression, Edmund fixated stubbornly on the place where Roze had vanished.

Recalling the sensation of crushing those delicate lips, he pressed the end of the cigar with his thumb. The burning heat bit into his skin with a sharp sting before dying out. And with that pain, the phantom gunshot that had mercilessly burrowed into his ears slowly faded away.

Slowly withdrawing his hand, he rubbed his reddened thumb. Upon the scar where his fingerprints had long since vanished, yet another mark was laid over the old.

The pain was proof that he was still alive and breathing. It was also a brand declaring that after everything, he had returned to the very beginning.

Then he would turn it back. To the time when nothing had yet changed. He had endured betrayal more than enough, and now he was prepared to willingly cloak himself even in baseness.

The trace of a smile that had deliberately lingered upon Edmund’s lips vanished completely. Clouds swallowed the moon, and deep night fell once more.

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

It was exactly one week after the wedding when a multitude of invitations began arriving at the ducal residence.

Arriving at the bedchamber in time with Rozella’s waking hour, Cynthia neatly placed the invitations that had come for her upon the table.

Even at a glance, there appeared to be no fewer than ten.

“Most of these do not require your consideration for attendance, my lady. You may regard them as gestures of courtesy.”

Saying so, Cynthia took up a letter opener. Without hesitation she broke the seals impressed with various crests and handed the contents to Rozella one by one.

As Rozella read through the letters, written in assorted hands yet bearing largely similar contents, she asked.

“Then must I send replies to each of them?”

“It is courteous to send brief replies, but there is no need for you to write them yourself, my lady. You may appoint a representative and simply decide the wording.”

Rozella nodded in understanding. Still, thinking she ought at least to know the names and houses of the senders, she examined them one by one, when Cynthia drew out a letter she had kept separately in her bosom.

The splendid pale green envelope embroidered with gold thread stood in stark contrast to the rest. As the seal was broken with the letter opener, a heavy perfume wafted out, so strong it nearly made her dizzy.

“This is a letter from Princess Vanessa Glister. It would be best if you composed the reply yourself, my lady.”

At the unexpected name, Rozella’s hand stiffened as she took the letter. Princess Vanessa Glister. She had seen that name not long ago in a newspaper article, the very woman who had once been Edmund’s betrothed.

「Hayden’s New Head and the Bride Behind the Veil, Conflict with the Royal House Rises to the Surface.」

Beginning with a retrospective on the wedding, the article went on to summarize the political climate of the capital.

Fortunately, most of what it reported about the ceremony was speculative, thanks to the quiet proceedings attended by only a small number of guests.

Rozella’s identity had also been wrapped in the phrase “a bride behind the veil,” with no concrete details revealed.

Yet before she could take comfort in that, the very next paragraph seized her attention.

「...Meanwhile, regarding the annulment of the anticipated marriage to Princess Vanessa, a representative of the ducal house has remained silent. As discord between the royal family and the Duke of Hayden is being raised, attention turns to how the balance of power within the council may shift.」

Rozella had known since childhood that Edmund was destined to be engaged to the princess.

Had nothing unforeseen occurred, they would have become engaged around the time he graduated from the military academy and returned to the duchy.

But at that time, a variable arose that could only be called misfortune: the death of the duchess.

Afterward, Edmund left the capital unilaterally, and no one knew precisely how the betrothal to the princess had been deferred.

Judging by what was written in the article, however, it seemed that discussions had continued until fairly recently.

***

Hello, thank you for reading! If you wish to support me and get extra chapter, please visit my kofi page: https://ko-fi.com/raewintersss and check out advance chapters at my Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cw/raewinters or donate directly to my Paypal Account: @SeniaListya or [email protected]. Your supports are greatly appreciated!