Chapter 11

Two weeks ago, as usual, Ethan was enjoying card games at the club until early dawn and was more thoroughly drunk than usual.

As the rain grew heavier, he walked through an alley toward the car waiting at the back entrance instead of the front. There, he saw a woman crouched in the corner, soaked by the cold rain.

He thought she was a beggar or a woman selling herself for a night’s shelter and was about to pass by, but through the rain he heard a faint moan.

Uncharacteristically, he turned back, and saw the woman shivering in the cold rain, clutching her stomach and groaning in pain.

“Ha, could you please help me?”

Ethan, who normally never cared about others, turned around because the delicate plea that reached his ears through the rain was so plaintive, and because her tone felt oddly out of place for a back-alley woman.

Eventually, he approached her and recognized her face immediately, pale and soaked by the rain.

Yvonne Polshared.

She was unmistakably the Duchess Polshared, Carlisle’s wife.

With a delicate, lily-like appearance and mysterious beauty, she had quickly risen to become the most sought-after bride even with her late debut in society, and the following year, she became Duke Polshared’s wife.

He also remembered seeing her a few times at parties after the much-talked-about wedding.

The woman, her body thin and frail, was quietly sobbing. She had grown up so sheltered, knowing nothing of filth, so why was she collapsed in a dirty alley? Just that fact startled him, and when he knelt to examine her, her condition was alarming.

He gently brushed aside the platinum hair that had fallen over her wet cheek, revealing a pale face with furrowed brows and lips bitten in pain.

“Where does it hurt?”

“My stomach… It hurts so much, I can’t move.”

“I’ll call someone. You need to go to the royal hospital right away.”

He looked toward the building to call for help, but felt her tugging at his pant leg.

Looking down, she shook her head.

“No, not the royal hospital. Somewhere else… I just need a place to rest for a while.”

“What are you saying? I should notify the Polshared family right away….”

“Please, don’t contact them. Don’t let that man know…”

She stubbornly refused any contact with the ducal residence, and as he clicked his tongue, her body slumped to the side. He managed to catch her in time, but then a sharp metallic smell hit his nose.

Under her soaked skirt, red blood was pooling in the rain.

* * *

The fierce rain battered the window relentlessly.

Ethan lay on a small but cozy bed, looking down at the woman whose breathing was faint. He had carried her to the home of a doctor he personally knew.

The doctor, retired from practice due to certain circumstances but with unquestioned skill, was someone Ethan sought out only for confidential matters.

Yvonne had refused both the royal hospital and any contact with the ducal residence, so Ethan guessed she was hiding some trouble, especially with her injuries, and instinctively realized she wanted to keep it secret.

What was going on?

He’d lent a helping hand, but now the place was exposed. As he wondered how to keep her quiet when she woke, he went outside to smoke, watching the falling rain and exhaling a long stream of smoke.

Since things had come to this, he wondered what to demand from Carlisle. Just then, the doctor finished treating her and came out.

“Is she alive?”

“Yes, but the child couldn’t be saved.”

Ethan, who was about to take another drag from his cigarette, paused.

“She was pregnant?”

“Yes. It seems she suffered a sudden miscarriage.”

So that was what the blood was. Realizing she hadn’t been assaulted but had lost her child, Ethan’s expression darkened.

Why did she miscarry on the street?

He felt a pang of pity, but soon his straight lips twisted.

“This won’t be settled with just an ordinary debt.”

Even in the face of sad news, Ethan showed little emotion, taking a long drag from his cigarette.

“A duchess miscarrying in the street at night… Could she have been attacked?”

“I suspected that too, but it wasn’t an ass*ult. The bruises suggest she fell somewhere, or it could have been a natural miscarriage.”

“I’ll go in. She should be awake by now.”

He dropped his cigarette, crushing it under his shoe, when the doctor said something unexpected.

“By the way, the Madame didn’t seem to know she was pregnant.”

“Oh. She must be terribly upset.”

How dull must she be, not even realizing she was pregnant and wandering in such dangerous places?

The more he heard, the more absurd it sounded, but it was none of his concern.

At the time, he thought her reckless behavior, not knowing the dangers of the world, had led to her miscarriage, and dismissed it as foolish.

He just wanted to ask why she was there. As he opened the door and entered, the rain had eased, and the room was strangely quiet. Yvonne was already sitting up.

He was about to approach when his steps stopped.

“Hnn…”

She was clutching her stomach, crying bitterly. The small lamp barely illuminated the edge of the bed, but he could clearly see her tears falling onto the blanket.

Her sorrowful appearance instantly drained his energy. No, it made his heart ache.

He had seen women cry countless times in his life.

Women he met casually and parted with always ended up crying as they said goodbye.

So, seeing a woman cry should have meant nothing to him. But her tears made even his indifferent heart ache.

“I’m sorry…baby…I didn’t know…”

She apologized over and over to someone who was now gone.

He remembered scoffing when the doctor said she didn’t know she was pregnant.

Seeing her sobbing over her lost child suddenly reminded him of his cold mother.

A woman who smiled and said it was a relief to miscarry.

His mother’s cruel smile, saying she was glad not to feel the horror of giving birth again, was the only smile she ever showed him.

But the woman before him was nothing like his mother, crying endlessly.

“I’m sorry……I didn’t know.”

Watching her blame herself for not knowing she was pregnant, the unpleasant shards of memory faded.

Ethan ended up closing the door and leaving.

Even after that, she continued to cry so sadly and mournfully.

People always blame others.

Whether it was their own doing or their choice, blaming others is easy.

He himself did, and so did countless people he’d seen, so her reaction felt different to him.

‘It’s not my fault! If your father had just let me go, that man wouldn’t have died!’

Like his mother, who said such things.

‘Look at me, a laughingstock because of your mother.’

Like his father, who blamed others and helplessly fell into alcoholism.

But she was different.

‘It’s my fault. I didn’t know.’

‘It’s because I didn’t know that you left, Baby.’

Who in the world notices their first pregnancy right away?

Even knowing that seven weeks is hard for a woman to realize, she blamed herself, not the people who caused her miscarriage.

He couldn’t even offer her the usual comfort that it wasn’t her fault.

He didn’t care that she lost that man’s child, but he did feel sorry for her losing her own child.

That night’s unlikely act of kindness was the start of his connection with a woman he’d never had reason to cross paths with before.

The next day, despite the doctor’s advice to rest, she insisted she had something to do and left. That night, she returned with a small bag and a maid.

He learned it was after submitting divorce papers and leaving the ducal residence only when he read the newspaper that afternoon.

For a week, she recovered not at a hospital, but at the doctor’s house he’d introduced.

In daylight, she was just as beautiful as the rumors said. Her limbs were slender, and sitting for the doctor’s checkup, she looked like a deer. Her big eyes, unusually blue, were as clear as drops of water on a flower.

She seemed to have overcome it, but for a while, she alternated between being dazed and crying.

Then, after the article about her miscarriage due to her husband’s violence stirred up Aerondo for a week, she calmly moved into Lisian House.

Around that time, Ethan came up with a brilliant plan to use her.

He hoped she would act as he wished, but never expected her to actually make such a request.

Meanwhile, the car entered Luna Street, lined with clubs and hotels, and stopped on the broad avenue.

Entering the top-floor office of the club, Ethan sat and crossed his legs, spinning the chair. Soon, the club manager came in and bowed.

“Was the relationship between Duke Polshared and his wife really that bad?”

“There were rumors that it completely broke down six months ago. They were never a particularly loving couple, but after that incident, they became worse than strangers.”

“What incident?”

“Don’t you remember? The time Lady Polshared ruined the deal with the military department of the Dugol Kingdom. She barged into the meeting hall drunk and caused a scandal.”