Chapter 13
Even if I were a woman, I would run away.
Klaud pressed hard on the dark circles under his eyes and pulled the blanket over himself.
It was because of the uninvited guest who had barged in from the morning.
A cheerful voice poured over his back as he turned away.
"Your dark circles are pitch black. Did you have a nightmare or something?"
Yes, I did.
A damn nightmare.
Klaud ruffled his disheveled blonde hair and turned his back even further.
"This is troublesome. You knew I was coming to visit today."
"Get lost."
The blanket that could have given him even a short nap was snatched away in an instant.
Klaud, who had been frowning with his eyes closed, suddenly opened them wide.
"...Lancelot Lev."
"What is it, Klaud Euphris? What's with calling someone over and acting like this?"
Lancelot, the second son of Marquis Lev and Klaud's maternal cousin, smirked with his characteristic sly face.
Klaud turned his annoyed gaze and glared at Lancelot.
He always wanted to punch that slick face of his, but seeing it after suffering from nightmares all night and lacking sleep made him want to punch it a couple more times.
"I didn't call you. Don't come and go as you please without permission."
"If you've taken a new wife, you should have known Eddie would send me. I'm always cleaning up after you."
Lancelot rolled up the blanket he had taken from Klaud, threw it on a chaise lounge, and half-reclined on it.
Lancelot, with his long arms propped behind his head, reminisced and explained.
"Father's reaction isn't great. He said she looks weaker than the eighth Deposed Empress. Not to mention Eddie."
"What's it to you if the reaction isn't great?"
A callous reaction as always.
Lancelot shrugged as if used to Klaud's sensitive attitude.
"There's talk of looking for the tenth Deposed Empress from our Lev Marquess family, your maternal relatives, instead of the Imperial Family. So, I came to ask for your opinion, but what do you know? The ninth Deposed Empress is still standing tall in the mansion?"
"Don't talk about Deposed Empress."
Klaud muttered coldly and got up to sit in the rocking chair.
His cousin, who had been watching his lifeless movements intently,'s eyes sparkled.
"Besides, I took a peek through the door and saw she's a stunning beauty? How should I interpret this?"
"I just didn't want to see anyone die in my house. I saved someone who was on the verge of death and just stuck her in a corner. I'll be sending her out soon."
"What? That's a waste. I should have tried to seduce her before you two hit it off."
Lancelot, smiling so much that one of his dimples deepened, probed for a reaction, and Klaud, who had been closing his eyes, chuckled.
"A waste? You can have her. A woman like a sick crow."
"Really?"
Lancelot raised his eyebrows and grinned.
"Should I, then?"
"She'll probably die before that, though."
"..."
"She'll probably die. Again. In my house."
"She's still alive, though. And she's not running away. The servants seem to be enjoying doing some real work for the first time in a while. Eddie's worried sick, though."
Lancelot shuddered, recalling his brother, who had become sensitive just from the news that Klaud had brought a woman into the house himself.
Klaud scoffed.
"As if he's in any position to worry about anyone."
"That woman who's there now, she's a sister, right? The eighth Deposed Empress's sister. A living sacrifice offered to you after her dead sister. Can she stay here with a good heart? Unlike her sister, it seems Pellieresse didn't want to send the younger sister. They readily sent the older sister, but this time they made a fuss and even lied about not sending her. Eddie has reason to worry."
"Tell them to just take her away, then."
"I heard that her family is grinding their teeth, waiting for a chance to take her back. They're not very coordinated, are they? The Imperial Family is desperate to attach a woman to you. And Geret Pellieze, who's their lackey, is making a fuss about not sending her... Well, in fact, the Pellieresse Count family could have been involved with a pretty decent family in the capital. How much your Deposed Empress must have hated marrying you. What can she expect from you, who treats even your close friends like this?"
It was an unfiltered criticism of Klaud, who was just riding the rocking chair with his eyes closed.
"Even if I were a woman, I would run away."
Every word was true, but Klaud's lips twisted mercilessly.
He frowned, recalling the day he brought the woman, still with his eyes closed.
"Hated marrying me? She begged me not to send her back to her family. Don't talk about things you don't know."
"What-. So, that rumor that she didn't run away even after seeing you was true? Then, the rumor that you went out of your way to bring her into the house yourself is also an unvarnished truth?"
"If you're going to imagine weird things, get out. If possible, disappear from my house with that woman. She's a woman who'll hold out until she dies rather than go home, so you'd be perfect to take her."
"How cold!"
Lancelot scolded Klaud, but he wore a suitable smile on his face and surrendered.
He was just saying those things out of spite because Klaud wouldn't even open his eyes to look at him, even while spitting those words out.
"Well, anyway. If you think about it positively, isn't it like you've got a better caregiver than your new doctor, who's always sick? I think so positively. Anyway, just the fact that you went outside for the first time in a long time. Eddie's worried that the Imperial Family brought a Pellieresse person under the pretext that you need someone to take care of you."
Klaud had been replacing his attending physician every few months. Continuously for the past 10 years.
Since they were people sent by the Imperial Family, Klaud naturally couldn't trust them and didn't want to trust them.
Because they would report to the Emperor every night about what kind of pain he was in, how he writhed, and how miserable and pathetic he looked.
And in the meantime, the decent doctors in this area had dried up.
"What's so different about that woman from the doctors the Imperial Family sent?"
She was just one of the people the Imperial Family had picked and sent anyway.
Just one of the people who would convey his miserable and disgusting appearance to the Emperor without missing a single word.
"I don't know."
"Still, it's different from before, isn't it? Everyone else sent by the Imperial Family either ran away or died. That woman faced you from the first day and stayed here. And she hasn't died yet."
Lancelot said in a refreshing voice, as if to lighten the sinking atmosphere.
"Eddie has a tendency to buy worries, so that's the problem. I'll do what Eddie did this morning."
The half-joking voice finally made Klaud open his eyes.
Lancelot, who had been looking into the annoyed purple eyes, smiled brightly.
"You don't even know if she's infiltrated to take revenge for killing her sister, so what's with the connection! Don't be nice to her for no reason! She's just someone who'll run away again if she gets scared!"
Lancelot imitated his brother Eddie, who would become the future Marquis Lev, recalling him.
Klaud had no answer.
It wasn't wrong.
Whether she committed suicide or was assassinated, his former Deposed Empress would have died in the end because she was his wife.
"Revenge?"
If it was revenge, it felt like he had already been subjected to it.
Klaud curled his lips obliquely and let out a hollow laugh.
Because of that crow-like woman, Klaud had been having the same nightmare for days.
Because of what that crow, with a face as pale as a dead person, had said while clutching the hem of Klaud's clothes as if they were her lifeline.
'Please don't abandon me.'
A headache that felt like splitting his head in half struck him in an instant.
Lancelot, seeing his brow furrow, ran to the console as if he was used to it and handed him medicine.
Klaud, making the hastily offered glass of water meaningless, shoved several days' worth of medicine into his mouth at once and swallowed it whole.
Because of that one insignificant word that reminded him of a terrible memory, he was being ravaged by pain and nightmares every night.
So, if that crow's revenge, who was stuck in a corner room, was this much, then it was enough.
A damn nightmare.
Klaud rubbed his throbbing head and forced his eyes shut.
Beyond Lancelot's chattering voice, the voices of the servants, chattering with a temperature quite different from before, tapped at Klaud's ears.
A slightly excited voice.
A voice expecting a new wind to blow in the mansion.
'How ridiculous.'
It was all useless.
Eddie Lev's excessive worries.
Lancelot Lev's excitement.
The servants' expectations.
Klaud covered his eyes with his arm and smiled bitterly.
All he needed was rest.
Rest without any pain or expectations.
A comfortable night that others took for granted.
A night that was not allowed for him.
***
The mansion's doctor, Hille, was quite skilled.
Yuan was able to move without support just one day after sleeping in the mansion, and after the second night, she was only treating the wounds that had broken out here and there.
It would take a little time for her energy to recover, but Yuan was already enjoying her own peace of mind with just a few nights spent without great pain.
Compared to the days when she had to save firewood that was only lacking for Yuan every winter, stoking the fire and taking care of her meals with her tired body, it was like heaven.
Butler Gustav told her that Louise's coffin had been temporarily entrusted to a small chapel beyond the white forest.
To bury Louise well in a sunny place, not in the Pellieresse mansion.
And for herself, to live peacefully with kind people in a corner room of the mansion, just like now...
Since Klaud rarely left his bedroom or looked for anyone, wouldn't it be possible to live in their respective rooms as if they didn't exist?
It had been three days since she came to this house.
Klaud had not only not shown his face, but he was like a non-existent person.
'It would be nice if I could continue to live like this.'
Yuan rolled her eyes around, smelling the ointment that Hille had carefully made.
Except for Henna, there were only two or so maids who came and went here.
Even when she looked outside, there were only two or so attendants besides the butler.
In short, it meant that there was a severe shortage of manpower compared to the size of the huge mansion.
'Let's do something.'
In her childhood.
The words that her sister Louise had firmly whispered to Yuan, who was shocked by the absurd attitude of her uncle's family, flashed through her head like lightning.
