Translator: Nox

Chapter 69

The rain fell in a torrential downpour, so fierce that one could not see an inch ahead. A thick fog had risen since morning, blanketing the surroundings, and the sky was so overcast it seemed as dark as midnight. Finding a woman in the midst of it should have been nearly impossible—had he not been standing in the doorway at that exact moment.

The instant the slender silhouette of the woman staggering along the path wavered, he was already out in the rain. In that fleeting second, he felt a flicker of anger—at her recklessness for collapsing so carelessly in the freezing rain despite her frail health.

“What on earth are you doing?”

He grabbed her limp, slender arms with force and pulled her up. As he took hold of her, a faint light flickered in her eyes, which had been as dark as the dead. She looked up at him with a gentle gaze as if recognizing him, but her features soon crumpled like a child’s.

“Uncle is…”

With that single, sorrowful cry, he understood everything. Her small hands were already clutching his shirt desperately, as if it were the last thread connecting her to the world.

He took Vanessa’s cold cheeks in both hands and lifted her face. He brought his head close, as if to kiss her, and felt her breath. The breath scattering over his cheeks was incredibly fragile, faint enough to be extinguished by a mere breeze.

“River.”

Vanessa’s face, drenched in rain, was pathetic yet breathtakingly beautiful. Like the most brilliant rose bloomed in a summer garden, or a siren luring men into the deep.

He could see the bluish veins standing out against her pale, sallow skin. And her lips, chilled to a purplish hue.

The woman, who had been still as if feeling his warmth, lifted her gaze. Her unstable, trembling eyes brimmed with tears.

“What… what do I do now?”

“Vanessa.”

“Everything is… so overwhelming and hard…”

“…Let’s go inside first. Your body temperature has dropped too much.”

She leaned her forehead against his chest like a wounded young animal. A tear fell onto her trembling lips as she tried to catch her breath.

“Come to think of it… you’ve always come for me whenever I was struggling.”

“…….”

“At least you… never once… deceived me.”

He fell silent, his breath hitching. Not knowing what to do, he gripped her thin shoulders. A strange sense of discomfort made his vision blur.

“So, River, please… can’t you stay… by my side?”

Her lips, wet with a mixture of rain and tears, trembled pitifully. His fingers, gripping her, were loosely wrapped in her damp clothes. The soft skin and hot body temperature felt through the fabric seemed distant. He exhaled slowly.

“Don’t leave… even after summer passes, forever…”

Vanessa stood on her tiptoes and wrapped her arms desperately around his neck. Her outstretched arms, looking as though they might snap at a touch, were as fragile and fresh as newly grown vines—the stems of tender young shoots. He let her wind herself around him as much as she pleased. He feared that if he tried to hold her back, he might accidentally hurt her with his strength. That he was worried about such a thing, even now.

Through the heat rising into the air like steam, he saw Vanessa trembling helplessly. He slowly pulled her thin body into an embrace, as if to protect her from the mercilessly lashing rain.

It was a joke. Who was protecting whom from what? He had already deceived this woman.

“If it’s Theo, is it Theodore?”

There had been many moments when he could have confessed.

“The maids said a gentleman is moving into the abandoned mansion.”

He was the one who had let all those moments slip away. A minor lie that had been nothing at first had grown in volume. The price of postponing a tedious emotional tax was this exhausting.

“Because now, I think you’re taking our relationship seriously…”

He had known for a long time that her feelings were deepening. How could he not notice? How her head would snap away when their eyes met, how her cheeks would flush crimson when he drew near, and how her heart would beat breathlessly when he held her in his arms.

Confronting such blind emotion, there were times when his chest felt tight with a sense of satisfied possessiveness. Even while his head knew he should end things before they developed into something more.

“…Vanessa, I.”

Sometimes he thought about it. The moment when this wonderful summer would end, and he would stand before her again to confess the truth. On some days, he felt a slight regret that this season—this strangely equal relationship—was a moment that would never return, while on other days, it felt like something that didn’t matter. Their summer hadn’t ended yet, and she was beautiful.

Perhaps it would be a better decision to tell the truth right now. But how…

How could he dare tell the truth to that face, when the world she believed in had completely crumbled?

“Hold me, River Ross.”

He closed his eyes with a sigh. The name whispered by her lips felt horrific for the first time.

---

I want you to make it hurt. Just make it hurt today.

At that plea, which was closer to a sob, River Ross laughed fiercely with sunken eyes. His parched face almost looked like a collapsed ruin.

Whenever the man’s supple body moved leisurely above her, her heightened ears twitched. She liked the sharp digging into each other’s tenderest flesh, the sharing of rough breaths while softly pressed together, and even the sensation of crumbling while rubbing and crashing against his hard muscles.

She wanted to be shattered to pieces in his arms. She wanted him to take her completely, leaving no gaps.

---

The chair supporting the weight of the two creaked thinly whenever it moved. Vanessa buried her lips in his slick neck and caught her breath.

“Ah…”

She blinked her heat-blurred eyes slowly and looked at him. She felt as though she were drunk. Her entire body was exceptionally sensitive today. The fulfillment of leaning their heated bodies against each other and the sensation of being deeply intertwined always made her spirits soar.

“Hold… my neck.”

Vanessa obediently wrapped her arms around his neck, which was as tough as a beast’s muscle. Within her slowly sinking consciousness, fantasies rose dizzily again. A storm, the sea, an old ship, and the two of them…

To her, imagination was always a means to forget reality. While imagination faithfully reflected reality and desire, it could never hurt her.

Nurturing an affection that might not be returned always carried a great fear. It was even more so after being trampled upon several times by her only blood relative. That fear lay at the base of why she had tried so hard to suppress her feelings for River Ross.

Because he was someone who would leave one day, because it was a relationship that would eventually end, because it was a relationship where they would become each other’s weakness…

Worrying about moments that hadn’t even arrived, she had been busy hiding, fearful of the wounds she might one day receive. Without even thinking of fully cherishing the heart she had finally managed to sprout for someone.

‘Why didn’t I know?’

A person’s heart cannot be hidden just because one tries to hide it, nor can it be cut off at once with a knife. In some ways, emotions boasted a sickeningly fresh vitality. Like the first leaf finally sprouted by a tree that had endured a long winter and looked dead.

Perhaps she had been caught helplessly. From that first moment her eyes met River Ross’s beneath the window, to the moment they first pressed their lips together and felt each other under the summer sun.

From the moment he ran through the rain without hesitation to hold her tight, to the moment they stood together in the mud, drenched by the heavy rain…

Finally, her mind was made up. To hold him with all her might with her vulnerable skin, having cast off all defensive walls. That she would no longer hesitate or waver in loving him. Him, River Ross, who had unhesitatingly offered her warmth in her most miserable moment.

“Ah…”

Vanessa tilted her head back, seized by a distant ecstasy. She closed her eyes amidst the brilliantly scattering afterglow.

---

— It’s a ship departing tomorrow at noon. I’ve only returned home briefly. I’ll have to stay abroad for about two more weeks to monitor the situation. If things don’t go well, I might really have to liquidate the company.

The voice of the Marquis coming through the receiver was soaked in terrible fatigue. Blair remained silent for a moment before speaking.

“Is the situation that bad?”

— Now that I’m out here, the way the tide is turning is unusual. A war might actually break out. Dammit, do you know how much gold I’ve fed those Amiens bastards to establish a foothold… The losses are truly immense. I don’t know if I can even recoup what I put in, even if I sell the company now.

The faint sound of footsteps pacing anxiously in a room could be heard, just as it always was when things weren’t going well. After a long sigh, Henry raised his voice as if turning the subject away from the headache-inducing matter.

— Anyway, is everything alright at home?

Blair froze, momentarily speechless, before slowly bringing the mouthpiece to her lips.

“I plan to proceed with the marriage to Cissy as scheduled. Other than that, nothing… particular has happened.”

— Now that is something particular. After you insisted so much that you wouldn’t marry.

“I am preparing so that the ceremony can be held as soon as you return. We’ve agreed to invite the minimum number of guests and keep it modest. Cissy has agreed as well.”

— Cissy likes you far too much. I agree with hurrying the marriage given the times, but it would be better to have a grand ceremony. That way, it will be less embarrassing for me when I see Earl Bronte.