Chapter 26

Episode 26: Do I Really Deserve it?

The Grand Duke’s doctor examined me once.

“I think you are pregnant.”

After a calm examination, Kailos broke down.

Raymond laughed out loud and unilaterally told Kailos the date I would leave the mansion.  Fortunately, Kailos no longer kept me.

Maybe Kailos knows I’m lying.  Even if he knows it’s a lie, nothing changes.

Now, after one night, I can leave the Duchy, this fact gave me a little room to breathe.

“You’d better go to bed early today.”

“Thank you.”

I looked back at Raymond and smiled faintly,

“What are you going to do after you leave the Duchy?”

“……I haven’t thought deeply about it. I’m thinking of leaving the capital and going down to my hometown.”

“Hometown?”

“Yeah, I don’t really miss it though.”

The village that seemed bigger than anything else in my small eyes and the Garnet mansion that sank in flames. I wanted to go there, the starting point of my wretched life.

“Of course, I can’t go right away. It’s a place where knights from the Duchy can come in, so I’ll have to stay in the capital for a while and look for opportunities.”

“Hmm…..”

Raymond frowned and carefully looked into my face.

“Actually, there is someone who wants to take care of you.”

He spoke in a really unwilling voice.

“I don’t want to let you go, but she’s the woman who can definitely protect you the most.”

“Who is that person?”

“…….”

Raymond couldn’t answer easily. After hesitating for a long time, he replied with a sigh.

“Tomorrow, I’ll introduce you to her.”

Raymond left the room shaking his head with a very disapproving face.

It was time for me, who was left alone, to go to sleep early as he advised. Swish, the curtains by the window shook with a small wind sound.

“……?”

Suddenly, I moved my steps to the window with a strange feeling.

“Lord France?”

There was Lord France looking up at me under the window. The moment he felt our eyes meet, Lord France jumped up to the window sill at once. Startled, I stepped back, and he greeted me with a gentle smile, as if trying to reassure me..

“Good night, Lady Garnet.”

“…I was surprised.”

“I’m sorry to startle you, but…… I don’t think I’ll be able to come unless it’s today.….”

Lord France blurred the end of his words with a slightly disheveled face, unlike usual.

“What happened?”

Is it because I was surprised? Thump, Thump My heart beat hard.

“Do you really have a child of the emperor?”

I have to be careful with my words until I get out of the Grand Duchy, so I answered falsely.

“Yes, I do.”

“……I see.”

Lord France looked at my belly and slowly closed his eyes and opened them.

“Excuse me for a moment.”

With a short notice, he took a step into the room. This time, I wasn’t as surprised as before.

Instead, I called his name, “Lord France?”

“Lady Garnet.”

Standing there, he tilted his head and sat with one knee bent in front of me.

“I’ll protect you.”

“What?”

His sudden declaration brought an out of the blue embarrassment. As I looked at him with a red face, I saw Lord France looking up at me with a serious expression.

“I’ll protect Lady Garnet and the child in her womb.”

“…….”

It didn’t happen in my past life. Lord France bowed his head in front of me and stayed like that for a long time. I only had to look down at his sparkling hair.

Did something change as time reversed back? I’m a woman who’s not worth it. Lord France, why are you doing this?

It was weird, everyone was strange.

Kailos, who says he loves me now, was strange, Raymond, who asked for my happiness by saying he doesn’t love me, and Sir France, who suddenly appeared and said he would protect me, was also strange.

The strangest of them was none other than me.

It was me who was willing to accept the favors of Raymond and Sir France without hesitation.  Shamelessly, I was the one who somehow wanted to leave Kailos to live and breathe.

Do I really deserve it?

* * *

The next morning, I got up early and was ready to leave the Duchy.  As I was about to get into the carriage, Eriksson caught me.

“Lady Garnet, please go see the master just once,” the old butler knelt down in front of me and said.

In the morning, Raymond visited Kailos and exchanged words.

I heard the workers who couldn’t stand the bloody atmosphere murmuring from the morning.

“What do you want to do, Chloe?”

Raymond asked with his arms crossed, tilted from the side.  I shook my head quietly.

“I’ll just go.”

I didn’t want to see his face one more time before I left.

Even if he ran around like a crazy person, broke his furniture, and refused treatment with wounds all over his body, it had nothing to do with me anymore. I wanted it to be like this and be unrelated forever.

“Okay.”

Raymond smiled slowly as if satisfied and climbed into the carriage first, I followed after him. Eriksson looked at me with a desperate look, but I only thought of myself.

As we sat down, the carriage began to move slowly. I closed my eyes as I watched the castle moving away from the window.

The Grand Duchy of Ludwig, I was twelve years old when I stepped there by holding Kailos’ hand. It was a day when white snow piled up over my head.

Burying all the memories of that day, I left the Duchy.

????

Only silent silence flowed in the carriage that shook and rattled.

Looking out of the window the whole time, I glanced at Raymond. He, like me, was staring out the window without saying anything.

Even before going back in time, there was a time when the two of us rode the carriage like this. That day I took him to the Duchy for Kailos and on that day the innocent Raymond, who believed in me, lost everything because of me.

‘Do you like it that much, Chloe?’

I remembered Raymond, who didn’t even know he was going to die and smiled at me while the carriage was moving.

“What’s wrong?”

Raymond, who suddenly turned his head, frowned when he made eye contact with me. I smiled calmly and shook my head as if nothing had happened.

Raymond sighed lightly, “It’ll take more time to arrive, so keep your eyes on it.”

“I, Your Majesty….”

After finishing his speech, he looked out the window again and I carefully called him.

“I really wanted to say thank you.”

“…….”

Raymond stared at me with a strange look for a moment. Heat rose in the red eyes staring at me.

“It’s not like I want to hear you say thank you.”

Raymond replied in a blunt voice.

“It was just to fulfill my responsibilities.”

What a sweet person. He was different from the man who pretended to be friendly on the outside. Raymond had a commanding appearance and a crude voice, but he was sweeter than anyone else.

The moment I realized it, my eyes heated up.

“Why are you crying again?”

Raymond, who noticed my change like a ghost, frowned his eyes once more and asked.

“No, this is…….”

“Damn it.”

He muttered, sweeping his hair over his forehead.

“Really, you drive me crazy every time.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin Your Majesty’s feelings…….”

“Don’t apologize.”

He spoke firmly.

“It’s not your fault.”

“But…”

“It’s not your fault that you cry. It’s my fault for feeling weird seeing that.”

“…….”

After going back in time, when I stand in front of Raymond, I can’t speak properly and just swallow tears. I’m the one who’s so pathetic, but Raymond says even that’s not my fault.

“I don’t want Your Majesty to get involved with me.”

“I feel the same way, Chloe.”

It was strange. The fact that he doesn’t want to be involved with me, that he doesn’t love me, is what I long for so much. The tip of my nose was somewhat sore when I said that I didn’t want him to get involved with me.

I looked at him, holding onto my heart that was sinking. His eyes looking at me were no longer smiling.

“I don’t know anything about you. I don’t know how you grew up and what kind of heart you came to me with. However, I know that your life has been twisted by me and my brother.”

I was a woman raised to destroy him, and Raymond was saying it wasn’t my fault.

Come to think of it, it was like that then, too. Raymond didn’t get mad at me until the end, even though he was caught and killed by Kailos because of me.

“But you’ve already been tied up with me once, so I just hope you won’t be tied up anymore in the future.”

I couldn’t understand Raymond. Why didn’t he get mad at me? I was the perpetrator who killed him, and he was the victim who died because of me.

Even so, the man who said he loved me and cared for me until the end……. Now, he is a man who makes even my faults into nothing……

And Kailos…… Even the man who brought me out of hell couldn’t do it.

I gave everything for Kailos who saved me, but in the end it was all my fault.

My sin of having compassion for his political opponent, my sin of cherishing another man’s child with uneducated feelings, for daring to embrace him…… my sins. All those sins have combined making me breathless.