Translator: Nox

Chapter 48

<Chapter 49> Gerald Pendleton

He sat in the chair directly across from the door, legs casually propped up on the oak desk, leisurely smoking a cigarette. He cast a cold glare at his suddenly appearing niece.

"Haven't you learned how to knock?"

Miss Pendleton approached the desk without a word. She stopped right in front of it, bending her knees slightly in a curtsy.

"Forgive my rudeness. I came to see you because I have something to ask."

"I happened to have something to say to you as well, so that's fortunate. Unless it's urgent, I'll speak first."

Miss Pendleton nodded, but Gerald seemed uninterested in her agreement, his gaze drifting to the side. He rested the cigarette on the ashtray and lowered his legs. Then, he casually draped his arms over the armrests of the chair.

"Tom Price will be attending the Lance's Ball tomorrow. Accept his proposal there."

Miss Pendleton bit her lip.

"You've refused enough times. You've maintained your dignity as a lady sufficiently. No one will say you accepted the moment a marriage offer came along. Now, marry Price and start a family."

"Uncle, I gave you my answer on that matter last time. I refused, and I have the freedom to refuse, and you have no right to force me. Even if you promised me to Mr. Price, my opinion wasn't reflected, so it can't influence my decision."

Gerald frowned.

"Did you hear that from Miss Jenson?"

"I don't think that's very important in this situation, Uncle."

His other eyebrow furrowed as well. He stubbed out his cigarette. Then, he scanned Miss Pendleton from head to toe. Miss Pendleton endured his contemptuous gaze. He clicked his tongue.

"The problem was that you grew up too pretty."

Gerald looked at Miss Pendleton with displeasure.

"I always wondered why Dolores Pendleton's daughter, who should be quite beautiful, hadn't married yet, but now I understand. You couldn't give up weighing things back and forth because of the face you see in the mirror every morning, could you? This isn't a situation to be proud of, Laura Pendleton. Know your place. Your age, your blood, your wealth. None of it is without flaws. Tom Price is the perfect match for you. You should be thanking me."

"Thanking you for what?"

"For bringing you a suitable groom. I thought you would realize that you'd have nowhere to go once your grandmother passed away and accept the proposal. I didn't realize you'd be this ignorant and vain."

Miss Pendleton bit her lip.

"I'm not weighing things based on my appearance or any other condition. I've spent my whole life trying not to forget my place. The world doesn't allow me to forget it, so I have no choice. I'm an inadequate person. In many ways, I'm inadequate."

"Then why are you refusing Tom's proposal? If you haven't forgotten your place, why? A man who's offering to save you has appeared, why? Isn't that proof that there's some pride left in you?"

"Uncle, even if I'm inadequate and flawed, do I have to sell myself to a man I don't love, a man who wants to buy me like an object? Am I not human to begin with, Uncle?"

Gerald Pendleton's jaw tightened.

"I know you're human. Disgustingly human. If you were an object, I would have thrown you away. I truly regret that you were born a human."

His words were spat out, filled with contempt.

"I know. I know how much you despise me, Uncle. I'm the shame of the family, created by my parents' scandalous union. You made me aware of that when I was very young, and I've never forgotten it since. If I were really an object, you would have thrown me away a hundred times over."

His gaze was gradually changing from contempt to murderous intent.

"I should have secretly abandoned you at an orphanage when your mother said she would raise you. No, I should have drowned you in some ditch so you couldn't function at all. If I had known you would grow up so ungrateful...!"

"Don't mention gratitude in front of me. Strictly speaking, I haven't received anything from you except mistreatment. I grew up with my grandmother's love and wealth. I don't owe you any gratitude, even if I do owe it to my grandmother."

Gerald's other eyebrow furrowed. He stared silently at his niece before him and grabbed the ashtray beside him. And threw it.

Clang!

Miss Pendleton ducked down. It was a close call. If she had been just a little slower, the ashtray would have hit her face head-on.

Her crouching body stiffened. A sudden, intense sense of déjà vu overwhelmed her. It was the past, faded over a dozen years. The memory of Gerald Pendleton, who had always been the stronger one in front of her younger self.

"You live on Grosvenor Street, in the most elegant Townhouse, dressed in silk and lace, riding in a luxurious carriage, and you think you're some kind of Countess, don't you? You're a disgrace to the Pendletons. A dirty stain on the Pendleton Estate. Everything you've enjoyed in your life so far is only thanks to your grandmother's ghost."

Miss Pendleton listened to her uncle's words, still crouching. They were the self-reproaches she had repeated countless times in her mind. The shame of the Pendleton Estate. A dirty stain. Luck obtained for free through her grandmother.

As she listened to those words again through Gerald, she could clearly see. The beginning of her long self-reproach came from the things that came out of Gerald Pendleton's mouth. When she was very young, he said the same things to her young self, and her young heart remembered it and repeated it to herself for the rest of her life.

She stood up. Her body, remembering Gerald's violence, was trembling uncontrollably, but instead of running away, she opened her mouth.

"I once thought that I had tarnished the family, as you said, Uncle. People said. Children must live to atone for their parents' sins. I lived with my parents' mistakes as my burden. But now, I don't know what my parents' mistakes are."

"What?"

Gerald Pendleton gritted his teeth.

"Are you daring to say that there's no sin in that vagrant bastard who seduced the Pendleton Estate's young lady and ran away, and your lewd mother who gave birth to a child out of wedlock? You're as morally corrupt as your parents, aren't you?"

"My parents had a wedding ceremony with just the two of them in front of a priest and witnesses. And they had to stop on their way to Gretna Green to register their marriage because of my mother's severe morning sickness. They tried to get married, but they couldn't. Before my father left me with the Pendletons, he gave me a necklace and told me everything. That your mother loved him sincerely. That our marriage was without shame before God."

"Like father, like son. So, let's say that's how your mother was, but what about your father? Are you even going to defend that damned bastard who dared to seduce a noble young lady whom I couldn't even look at and tried to change his fate with a secret marriage?"

Miss Pendleton looked at Gerald, who was seething in front of her, and poured out the truth that she had carefully hidden inside.

"The reason you insult my father isn't because he ran away with my mother. If he had run away with a Duke, you wouldn't be so angry. It's not because he's from America either. If you were so angry because he's from America, you wouldn't be catering to and watching the mood of your American daughter-in-law."

Gerald Pendleton's complexion turned white with anger. Miss Pendleton delivered the final blow.

"You just hate my father because he was poor. You talk about honor, but all you have in your head is money. You've only ever known money from beginning to end. The reason you never forgave my mother was probably because you couldn't sell her for a good price. Just like you're trying to sell me now, because you couldn't get a good price. It's not my parents who tarnished the Pendleton Estate, it's your miserly nature."

Silence filled the study. Gerald Pendleton froze, staring at his niece Laura Pendleton.

That brat. That insignificant worm, what did she just say to me? What did she say? Miser?

He repeated his niece's words and soon fully understood. She had called him a miser. Gerald Pendleton felt anew how much his niece had grown.

The last time he saw her, she was a brat who would turn pale and tremble at the mere sight of him, but now she was standing in front of him, holding her head high and acting insolent.

Environment is such a scary thing. If the environment changes, you forget your place and your situation. Gerald Pendleton thought. He had to retrain his niece.

"I'll say it one last time. Laura Pendleton. Accept Tom Price's proposal tomorrow."

Miss Pendleton shook her head.

"I cannot accept Mr. Price's proposal, Uncle."

Gerald Pendleton grabbed his niece's slender arm. And threw her to the floor.

Bang!

Miss Pendleton fell into the corner of the study. Her body ached from hitting the floor. Miss Pendleton tried hard to lift her body, but she couldn't move naturally because of the tightly laced corset.

A shiny shoe tip approached her sprawled form. Gerald Pendleton had already approached and was standing in front of her. Miss Pendleton looked up at him.

"Say it. Say you'll return the Pendleton name and take Price's hand. And quickly get out of here to your father's hometown in America."

"You have no right to do this."

She gritted her teeth.

"I'll leave with nothing when my grandmother passes away. I won't receive a penny. I'll abandon the name too. I'll live with my father's name. Forcing me to marry is an unreasonable measure... Ah!"

He pressed down on Miss Pendleton's fingers with his shoe. Miss Pendleton screamed and instinctively grabbed her uncle's leg.

"You dirty, horrible worm. You learned that insolent tongue from rolling around in high society, didn't you?"

He pressed down on Miss Pendleton's fingers even harder, as if disgusted.

"Ah, Uncle, please...!"

Miss Pendleton grabbed her uncle's leg.

"You've been living off the wealth that my son will inherit, nibbling away at it, and you dare to be insolent? Apologize now. Apologize with the tongue that dared to insult the head of the family."

Miss Pendleton burst into tears. Her fingers felt like they were about to be crushed. She desperately shouted to live.

"Uncle! St, stop...!"

But the foot crushing her fingers did not weaken at all. He looked down at his niece, trembling under his feet, with contempt.

"Accept Price's proposal."

Miss Pendleton looked up at her uncle. Her uncle was looking at her as if she were a bug that needed to be crushed to death. His eyes wanted to crush not only her fingers but her whole body.