Chapter 9
Please Don't Abandon Me
Yuan felt her tongue stiffen as she looked up at the 'monster' Deposed Emperor.
His face was as grotesque and disturbing to look at as the rumors said.
Biting her tongue to suppress a scream, Yuan wriggled, checking if her hands and feet had frozen or if her body was rotting away, and finally fully looked at his face.
Once she faced him directly like that, she was able to notice things other than his grotesque half-face.
Tangled blond hair. Eyes that shone like expensive amethysts beneath languidly raised eyelids. Dark shadows under his eyes and pale skin.
A sharply defined nose and lips pressed tightly into a straight line.
Although there was a sensitive air about him, the other half of his face was not only intact but even beautiful.
It was then that Yuan noticed the gaze, not the man's appearance.
A gaze that was impossible not to feel, piercing her like needles.
It was the first time she had felt such a hostile gaze since her rude cousins.
Yuan immediately understood the meaning of that gaze.
'There is no place for you here.'
It was a very familiar gaze that she had been receiving for about ten years.
"I-I'm pleased to meet you for the first time. I am Yuan Pellieresse."
After an eternity of silence, Yuan cleared her stiff mouth and barely managed to utter the words.
Her voice trembled terribly, her fingertips seemed about to break, and she couldn't even adjust her posture.
The man, as if not caring what Yuan said, simply stepped further into the carriage.
As if he was trying to show her more of his face.
Yuan was momentarily startled, but she didn't flinch or frown.
Was this the man's test? To see if she could endure him?
Was he trying to intimidate her with a mere half-grotesque face, after she had lived face to face with demons for ten long years?
Yuan steeled her heart in the face of the gaze that clearly signaled her to get lost.
She couldn't go back to hell like this.
"Please let me go inside, it's too... cold."
She meant it.
With her frozen body, all she could do was dwell on the terrible memories of the Pellieresse mansion and the memories of Louise.
She didn't want to do that.
She wanted to ask how and why Louise had died.
If Louise had died because of this man, she wanted to curse him, and if not, she wanted to live without suffering in her new home.
The man didn't answer.
His cold, indifferent face showed no emotion, only continuing to send a cruel gaze.
He would never utter words like 'come in' or 'aren't you cold?'
In the suffocating and cold silence that followed.
Two, three lips, well-shaped but roughly dry, began to appear.
It was fortunate. Since she couldn't see anything, the words she had been muttering like prayers all night came out well.
"I'm not going back home."
Did you kill Louise?
Did you kill my sister?
Are you my enemy, or my family?
The words she had vowed to say when she met him began to crumble in the face of the warmth of a person she had met after several days.
The desire to not displease the man and to get into a warm place first pushed past her reason and moved her tongue as it pleased.
"Please... don't abandon me like this."
A voice close to pleading spilled out.
The instinct to live, rather than the stiff face that seemed ready to reject her at any moment, dug into and clung to the man's eyes, which flickered ever so slightly as she reached out.
"Please... don't abandon me."
In the end, her body, pushed to its limit, begged for her own well-being through her lips instead of asking about Louise's death.
Her hand, on the verge of freezing and breaking, didn't blame her cowardly thoughts, but rather clung to the warmth in front of her.
Yuan instinctively reached out more desperately.
The man didn't give her an answer or a hand.
It didn't matter.
As long as he was in front of her, there would be plenty of places to reach out and grab.
The hand that had tightly grasped the Deposed Emperor's unwrinkled clothes was soon dropped after a few seconds.
***
The sensation of terrible cold and heat sweeping over her body continued for a long time.
Yuan opened her eyes abruptly, as if escaping from the sensation of the roof of her mouth drying up and cracking. Intense light fell directly onto her retina and settled there.
"Hot..."
Yuan blinked her dim eyes several times, trying to adjust them to the light of the antique chandelier hanging from the ceiling.
After being dazed for a long time, Yuan realized that this was not a carriage and turned her head in surprise.
"You're awake?"
A young maid was tidying up the firewood next to the fireplace.
The maid was a short child with dark brown hair and faint freckles on the bridge of her nose.
The maid called out loudly to someone outside, then shoved a few dry pieces of firewood into the fireplace and approached Yuan.
As Yuan blinked and looked around, the maid carefully helped her sit up.
The maid quickly put a glass of water that was at the head of the bed to her mouth, and Yuan drank it sweetly. The terrible thirst was quickly quenched, and she felt as if her vision was clearing up.
Yuan was lying on a bed.
A bed with warm cotton bedding.
It had been a long time since she had felt such a soft and warm sensation, and she tried to feel the texture under her palm, but her hand was bandaged.
As she blankly held up her hand, which was neatly bandaged, the maid quickly explained.
"You almost died in the middle of winter! I was supposed to tell Hille-nim as soon as you woke up, but why isn't that person coming!"
"Is this... the Black Manor?"
"Ah."
A deeply sunken voice floated in the air.
While Yuan felt that her voice was strange and cleared her throat, the maid rolled her eyes.
"Don't you remember? We don't know the details! Our master never comes out of his bedroom, except in very special circumstances. Even then, we have to be in our rooms whenever he comes out of his bedroom. But this morning, there was such a situation! Of course, I thought Her Ninth Highness... I mean, Madam, was going back to her parents' house, but the butler and guards brought Madam back."
"...Madam?"
"Oh, right. The servants here call the new mistress 'Madam' when she comes. The title of 'Deposed' Empress is a bit embarrassing, isn't it?"
The young maid, who introduced herself as Henna, began to speak as if pouring out words.
"His Deposed Highness doesn't like to be called 'Your Highness,' but he doesn't like to be called by any other name either, so we keep calling him 'Your Highness.' Does our master even like anything in the world? Sometimes I don't even know if he exists!"
The maid, like a great storyteller, began to talk without taking a breath about what had happened after Yuan lost consciousness, as well as how worried the servants had been about Yuan's carriage.
Yuan tried to absorb all the information pouring out from the young maid.
And within it, she tried to find out if the Deposed Emperor Claude Euphris, who was like a ghost in this Black Manor, had said anything about her future.
Yuan paused for a moment to rewind the maid's words and answered.
"...Where is His Highness now?"
"Our master has locked himself in his bedroom again, what else."
"Then can I live here now?"
"Ah, that-."
Henna rolled her eyes again. And without being able to make eye contact, she lowered her gaze to Yuan's hand, which was temporarily bandaged, and mumbled.
"Once the treatment is over and you've recovered, you'll be going back to your parents' house... But I only heard that! It's the butler's guess, so it might not be His Highness's intention!"
Henna was a young but kind maid.
Her face clearly showed that she didn't want to tell the Deposed Emperor's wife, who had survived a near-death experience, the cruel truth.
Yuan silently listened to the maid's voice as she poured out excuses again.
Henna's voice stopped abruptly because of a man who came in through the urgently opened door.
"Are you awake!"
The man, who appeared wearing dizzying glasses, had khaki-colored hair that was frizzy and sticking up as if he had been hit by a bomb on the battlefield.
He was not very tall and had a gaunt figure.
Yuan recognized at once that he was the chief physician Hille, whom Henna had mentioned in her many pieces of information, from the huge medical bag in his hand.
"How can you be so late! I called you a long time ago!"
Hille, who quickly became sullen at the young maid's scolding, approached Yuan very carefully and sat down, staring blankly at her.
Judging by the way his sparse beard was trembling, he was clearly frightened.
"Yo, your hands and feet especially! Were very damaged, so I applied medicine. But this is only a temporary measure, and you will need to gradually warm your body in warm water. Are you cold?"
Hille, unable to make eye contact with Yuan, only looked at the bandaged hand in a flustered manner, and as soon as he glanced up at her, he made a 'hiek-' sound and held his breath before lowering his gaze again.
Henna, who had been watching the scene from the side with a tut-tut, finally said something.
"Hille-nim. Madam is a completely different person from our master."
Yuan then remembered the story that Henna had chattered about among the recent events of the mansion, that the new chief physician Hille had wet his pants and collapsed after seeing the Deposed Emperor, and had been sick for several days.
It was clear that this poor doctor was frightened and cautious just because Yuan was the Deposed Emperor's wife. Yuan introduced herself in a soft voice to reassure him.
"I'm Yuan Pellieresse. You are the benefactor who healed me."
"Pe, Pellieresse?"
"Is the medicine on my hand made from Aucuba japonica? Or Ulmus?"
"Are you really a member of the Pellieresse family?"
Hille's eyes widened as soon as he heard the name Pellieresse, and he raised his voice.
