SGC 37

CHAPTER 37

Translator: Rae

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

Listening to the pleasant crackle of firewood burning away, Rozella drifted into a deep sleep.

The flames in the fireplace quietly warmed the chilly night of early winter. In her dream, young Rozella was looking up at a beautiful woman with light brown hair.

The duchess’s gently drooping eyes curved softly.

“So you’re Rozella? My goodness, how can you look so exactly like Cassie?”

The hand that lightly poked the cheek of the grimy Rozella, fresh from exploring the forest, was utterly unreserved. Her bony fingers were cold, but at that moment, the duchess’s smile was so very warm.

Looking at that smile, Rozella naturally thought of a certain boy. The sunlit boy who had smiled as he held her tightly beneath the radiant summer trees.

“Will you come visit my bedroom from time to time from now on as well? It’s terribly boring, lying in bed all day.”

The duchess let out a deep sigh and leaned back against the bed.

“I think hearing an adorable child like you chatter away would clear my head.”

The sickly duchess spent most of her days in bed. They said her illness was incurable, and that treatment had shown no improvement for a long time.

Even so, warmth filled the duchess’s pale face.

Rozella nodded with all her might. She wanted to help with all her strength so that such a beautiful and kind duchess might recover.

Rozella visited her bedroom almost every day. The duchess, who had cherished Catherine like a sister, adored Rozella, Catherine’s daughter, as well.

She especially liked the scent of grass and earth that clung to Rozella. Even when Rozella came in with her hair full of leaves, she did not scold her for being messy, but only laughed as if delighted.

So every day, Rozella brought her gifts—pretty fallen leaves from the forest, fresh flowers, feathers from birds, and the like. The duchess accepted those humble things with joy.

“The garden in the forest originally belonged to me. Now I’ve passed it on to Ed. That child is… so mature and dependable. Though I worry he became an adult far too early.”

From time to time, she would sit Rozella down and softly tell her stories about her son.

“And yet, when Ed is with you, he seems like a boy his age. It’s been such a long time since I’ve seen him smile so comfortably.”

 

The duchess did not oppose Rozella spending time with her son. Rather, she welcomed it, and at times was even grateful for it.

Unlike Catherine, who sometimes watched free-spirited Rozella with anxious eyes.

“I’m so jealous of Cassie. Truth be told, I also wanted to have a lovely daughter like you. Ah, but keep this a secret from Ed, all right?”

Whenever Rozella saw the duchess wearing such a playful expression, her own heart would swell warmly too. As though joining in on the duchess’s secret, Rozella sometimes wanted to reveal the deepest thoughts in her own heart.

I’m jealous of Ed too. He has such a kind mother. The truth is… I don’t think my mother loves me.

In the end, she never said it, because the moment she spoke that truth aloud, it felt as though it would become real.

So Rozella smiled all the brighter. At the very least, Catherine had not abandoned her, and had brought her to such a beautiful place. That alone was enough for Rozella to dream sweet dreams.

That was, until one day, the duchess’s health suddenly deteorirated.

From that point on, Rozella was forbidden from entering the duchess’s bedroom. She had no way of knowing what was happening inside. At that time, the only person allowed to come and go from the duchess’s room freely was the maid, Catherine.

Catherine attended to the duchess with utmost devotion, caring for her tirelessly. If anyone other than Catherine entered, the duchess’s hysteria would grow severe.

One winter, when heavy snow was falling in rare abundance, Rozella wandered around the villa with hands gone red from the cold. She wanted to show the duchess the little snowman she had worked so hard to make.

It was nothing more than a lump of snow that would soon melt away, but the duchess would surely be delighted. She had always gladly accepted the odd things Rozella brought back from the forest.

But that day, when Rozella gathered her courage and entered through the back door of the manor, she came face-to-face with a truth she never wanted to know.

“Are you really saying we should just stand by and watch this? Do you even know what kind of medicine that is? Madam’s condition is getting stranger and stranger.”

“Keep your voice down. Do you want to be thrown out too? You know full well that no matter what anyone says, Madam always takes Catherine’s side.”

“But this still isn’t right! Why does she keep throwing away the medicine the doctor leaves behind every single time? Frankly, who knows whether Catherine is trying to harm my lady or not?”

“Don’t. It would be better to tell the duke directly when he comes…”

Rozella fled the manor just as she was, clutching at her pounding chest as she gasped for breath.

…It’s a lie. The maids must have been mistaken.

Catherine had certainly been a cold and indifferent mother to her, but when it came to the duchess, she had always been sincere.

The two women Rozella had watched had truly seemed like sisters. At times they laughed and chattered loudly together, and they embraced one another and offered comfort at times, to the point that their roles as mistress and maid seemed meaningless.

Whenever Catherine was with the duchess, she wore an expression Rozella had never seen elsewhere—peaceful and gentle. Rozella liked seeing Catherine that way.

It’s all right if you don’t love me. I just want you to be happy, Mother.

Therefore, Rozella overlooked the maids’ words again and again. She whispered to herself over and over that they must have been mistaken, that it could not be true.

But when Catherine drove those maids out, and even had the other maids who grew suspicious accused and expelled, Rozella gradually realized that the truth she had denied was becoming reality.

And the last thread of hope she had left shattered to pieces the moment she witnessed the relationship between the duke and Catherine one day.

The sounds drifting out from Catherine’s room in the dead of dawn, the two bodies tangled together, the whispered words of love… and Duke of Hayden leaving that place secretly before daybreak.

Watching all of those dreadful sights in secret, Rozella clapped both hands over her mouth and trembled all over. It was a shock too severe for the young Rozella to bear.

If she had told the truth to anyone back then—if she had secretly entered the duchess’s bedroom and revealed the truth—would anything have changed?

At the very least, if she had told Edmund everything she had seen when he returned early the following year after hearing news of his mother’s confinement…

But Rozella did none of those things. No—she chose not to.

She was afraid. What would become of her if the truth came to light? Ed would no longer want to see the daughter of a woman who was trying to harm his mother. He would think her filthy—the daughter of the woman who had seduced his father. And if Ed came to hate her, to despise her…

Consumed by a possibility she did not even want to imagine, she lost her chance to tell him everything. Simply because she was afraid that the beautiful summer before her would come to an end, she took upon herself a lifetime of sin.

Even if it meant betraying Edmund, the one who had given her that beautiful summer.

The neglect born of that ugly greed had brought about tragedy. In the end, it left Edmund with a wound that could never be erased.

It was Rozella Everett who had caused the duchess’s death.

“Ugh, hn…”

“...”

Rozella opened her eyes with a pained groan and looked blearily around the bedroom, where the darkness had not yet fully lifted.

Edmund’s figure came dimly into view. He stood still, looking down at her, but his face was obscured by darkness, making it impossible to read his expression.

This must be a dream too. If so, then there were words she absolutely had to tell him. Blinking her half-open eyes, Rozella murmured his name softly.

"...Ed." 

A meaningless apology, a hideous confession, feelings she could never speak aloud.

But the moment she tried to pour all of it out, her throat closed tight. She knew how selfish it would be to unload such ugly feelings onto dream-Ed just to ease her own heart.

Rozella eventually closed her lips and shut her eyes. As she steadied her breathing, turning away from her guilt, an inescapable wave of drowsiness swept over her. At some point, a tear that had pooled in her eyes slid silently down her cheek.

*** 

Even after confirming that Rose’s eyes had fallen shut, Edmund remained standing there for a long while, as if rooted to the spot.

As though she were a daydream that would vanish if he stepped any closer, he merely gazed at her form with still, silent eyes.

The moonlight dimmed and brightened by turns, until at last it cast a pale glow over her face.

It was only when Rose stirred faintly in her sleep that Edmund, who had not moved for a long time, quietly took a step forward.

A long shadow fell over her sleeping form. The dark green of his eyes deepened as he looked at her soft face, veiled in darkness.

Soon, the familiar ringing began to bore into his ears. Though he frowned faintly, he did not move any further.

He only focused all his attention on the small, steady sound of her breathing.

Soon, over Rose’s shadowed face, there was superimposed an old afterimage he had desperately tried to forget.

The image of the beautiful woman who had always stood beside Jasper Lawton like a doll.

“…My heartfelt congratulations on your engagement, young duke.”

That familiar voice had whispered softly, her golden eyes lowered without strength. The very voice he had once found loathsome seemed to turn real again as it slipped between the ringing in his ears.

The year he halted his service at the borderlands and returned to the capital had been the spring one year before the present.

His long-promised engagement to the royal princess had ironically begun in the summer he had come to despise.

Every member of the ducal household attended that year’s engagement ceremony. Duke of Hayden and his new duchess, along with her daughter and Jasper Lawton, were no exception.

“What a heartless elder brother you are. You never even came to your younger sister’s wedding, and now you won’t even accept words of congratulations?”

Jasper Lawton, with his arm around his wife’s shoulders, comforted her in a most affectionate manner. Rozella lowered her head without a word and never once looked at Edmund.

It was their reunion after five years. She was no longer Rozella Everett, but Countess of Lawton and the stepdaughter of late  Duke of Hayden.

Ironically, that identity, from which every trace of the “Rose” he knew had vanished, made it impossible for them to become complete strangers.

That relationship, unable to break cleanly apart, always gnawed at Edmund with cruel persistence.

***

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