I Don’t Need Your Regret After Deceiving Me

Kyla had just finished teaching Riona the piano when Mrs Gerald entered the study.

She had a message from the Duke for Miss Feiling, saying that she was also invited to dinner that evening. This was apparently because Jayden was visiting.

“Teacher, are you going to have dinner today with Mother, my brother, and that prince-like gentleman?”

Riona asked, her large eyes sparkling.

‘A prince?’

She had called him that earlier too.

Kyla couldn’t help laughing out loud.

To Riona, Jayden—with his blond hair and green eyes—must have looked like a prince.

“Yes, it seems so, Miss.”

“Then… are you going to marry that prince?”

Riona’s wide eyes grew even rounder.

“Ah, haha. No, not at all. He’s my brother.”

Kyla chuckled, her shoulders shaking slightly.

“Your brother? A prince is your brother… Ah, that’s so nice. I wish I could eat in the dining room with a prince-like teacher’s brother too…”

“Just be patient for a little while. Once you become an adult, you’ll have to attend formal dinners—even when you don’t feel like it.”

“Teacher, are there times when you don’t want to eat together with everyone?”

Riona’s eyes widened as though she couldn’t understand.

“It’s not that I dislike eating together… it’s just that formal dinners have stricter etiquette. There are many things you have to be careful about.”

Kyla smiled gently.

“I see… Oh, right! That means you have to wear an evening dress too!”

Riona looked Kyla up and down and frowned slightly.

To Riona’s eyes, the dress Kyla was wearing probably looked no different from the one she had once compared to Cinderella’s rags.

“Don’t worry, Miss. I won’t be wearing this dress to dinner.”

“Phew… that’s such a relief.”

Riona placed a hand over her chest, puckering her lips as she sighed with relief. Kyla found this so adorable that she couldn’t stop smiling.

She found it amusing how much more interested Riona was in dresses than in the piano.

Perhaps that was simply natural for a young lady of her age. Still, thanks to Mary, she had at least brought one evening dress with her.

That alone was a great relief.

‘I wonder how Mary is doing…’

‘She must be well, right?’

Suddenly, Kyla felt her chest tighten. She considered asking Jayden about Mary for a moment, but quickly dismissed the idea.

She had decided to simply believe that Mary was doing well and not ask about her. However, when she bumped into Jayden outside the dining room, she found herself asking about Mary.

“Brother… how is Mary doing?”

“I’m not entirely sure. I arrived in Orland and came here the very next day… but she looked healthy.”

Jayden answered with a faint smile.

“That’s a relief.”

It was nothing serious, yet Kyla suddenly felt tears sting her eyes.

Jayden’s smile gradually faded as he looked at her.

He couldn’t bring himself to tell her that Mary had become emotional while expressing her concern about whether Kyla would manage on her own without her.

If he mentioned it, Kyla might burst into tears.

If he saw her cry, he feared he would lose his composure entirely.

“Let’s go in, Kyla.”

“Yes, Brother.”

Kyla smiled brightly at him.

When Jayden first arrived at Chatsworth, he had been too happy to see her to notice. But now he realized she had grown thinner than before.

‘Is she even eating properly?’

‘And why is she wearing a dress like that?’

Her skin had always been pale, but the dark evening dress made her look almost ghostly.

Her slender waist appeared so fragile that it seemed as though it might break if he embraced her too firmly.

Jayden felt resentful towards his mother for allowing her to be reduced to such a state and towards his father for not preventing it.

The soup bowls were cleared from the table and the first course of roast chicken was served.

As the servant carved the chicken and placed neat slices in front of each guest, Silas sat in silence, listening to the conversation between his mother and Jayden.

“So, Mr. Jayden Feiling, you will be staying in Orland this summer?”

Lady Lester asked as she cut the chicken on her plate into smaller pieces. Jayden hesitated for a moment while looking at Kyla before answering.

“That was the original plan… but I believe it will change.”

‘Idiot.’

Silas nearly scoffed.

Did he mean that he had no intention of staying in Orland if Kyla wasn’t there?

“I see. It seems you have made other plans.”

At Lady Lester’s words, Jayden’s gaze once again drifted toward Kyla.

Kyla met his eyes and lifted the corner of her lips slightly.

Silas raised his wine glass and drained it in a single swallow.

‘Who chose such a tasteless wine?’

Thinking he should have another bottle brought instead, Silas set the glass down.

“That’s not exactly it.”

“Oh? Then you should come visit Chatsworth. Not just for a short stay like this—why not remain for a while? I’m planning to host a banquet soon. Miss Feiling would enjoy it as well.”

Lady Lester’s eyes curved warmly as she looked between Jayden and Kyla.

“As a matter of fact, I’ve invited Miss Rothermere this summer. You’ve met her before, haven’t you?”

“If you mean Miss Penelope Rothermere, then yes, I’ve met her several times.”

Jayden nodded.

“That’s wonderful. My son can be rather taciturn, so I was worried Miss Rothermere might grow bored. But if Mr. Feiling stays as well, I’ll feel much more reassured.”

Silas frowned slightly as he glanced at his mother, who smiled so gently.

‘She invited Penelope?’

This was the first time he had heard of it.

His mother hadn’t mentioned it beforehand. Then again, if she had asked him, he would have questioned the need to invite her in the first place.

Clearly, his mother hoped that he would spend more time with Penelope, his prospective fiancée.

Perhaps she believed that they might grow to love each other if they spent more time together.

However, the reason she had not rushed the engagement, even after deciding that Penelope would make a suitable daughter-in-law, was probably because she did not want her son to experience the same unhappy marriage that she had endured.

His father had been an indifferent husband. His mother had once been quite beautiful, but beauty alone had not won his father’s heart.

He kept several mistresses.

The greatest tragedy of his mother’s life was that she loved him.

The emotional ab*se she suffered at the hands of the man she loved left her with years of nervous illness, and her beauty gradually withered away.

Silas could not understand either of them. Not his father, who pursued desire in the name of love until the day he died, neglecting his family in the process nor could he understand his mother, who longed so desperately for her husband’s love that she drove herself to illness.

After all, what was love, that it could make people lose themselves in emotion, squander their youth, and cause pain to others?

The childhood he remembered had always been lonely.

At the time, he had never realized that this was what loneliness felt like.

His mother had always been unwell. And when she wasn’t ill, she was melancholy. She was kind, but those moments were like unexpected gifts, disappearing just as quickly as they came.

Meanwhile, his father spent most of his time in Ashton with his mistresses. He only came to Chatsworth when there was something important to attend to.

One day, he gave ten-year-old Silas a foal as a gift.

Silas named the jet-black foal Black.

Whenever he felt stifled or lonely, he would go to the stables to see it. Galloping across the hills and fields of Chatsworth on horseback was the only happiness he knew.

However, whenever he thought of Black, he could not help but remember that day as well, the day Black had to be put down after breaking his leg during a polo match.

That was the day his world had collapsed. The sob that had risen in his chest had been trapped there so tightly that it never escaped.

If he closed his eyes quietly, he could still see the image of a young girl shouting at him through her tears.

And then, one day—

— even without closing his eyes, the girl appeared before him again.

It was right in front of him.

Not a memory. Not a hallucination.

The real her.

At some point, that girl had stopped being a child.

The woman she had become no longer cried.

Now she stood before him, smiling.

Silas hated seeing her like that. Because that smile was directed at another man, not him.

It looked as though her smile might turn into tears at any moment. Her delicate, sorrowful hands made him want to take them and hold them tightly.

Silas disliked this situation intensely.

Kyla Feiling was undoubtedly the person irritating him the most at that moment.

Every time their eyes met, she threw his thoughts into disarray.

Her blue eyes smiled as they looked at Jayden.

Jayden’s face was filled with aching concern as he looked back at her.

They both stirred something inside Silas, churning his insides mercilessly.

“Thank you for inviting me, Lady Lester. To be honest, I’ve been quite worried since Kyla came here. It’s her first time living without a maid.”

Jayden spoke with a smile, subtly revealing Kyla’s circumstances.

“Oh my, I hadn’t realized.”

Adelaide looked at Kyla with visible surprise.

“Miss Feiling, if there’s anything uncomfortable, please tell us anytime.”

“Yes, thank you….”

Kyla nearly added My Lady out of habit, but stopped herself.

If Jayden heard that, it might only make him feel worse.

She swallowed the words that had risen to her throat.

“Everyone here has been very kind to me. I haven’t felt uncomfortable at all.”

“That’s good to hear.”

When Kyla saw Lady Lester smiling brightly at her, she lifted the corners of her lips slightly in return.

Jayden was planning to stay at Chatsworth for the summer.

Kyla could easily guess one of the reasons why.

It was because of her.

She was grateful to him. However, the prospect of being near him again did not simply make her happy.

He still refused to accept that she was now a servant, not a guest, in this house. He refused to accept that the girl he had once called his sister was no longer a lady of high society.

Kyla did not know how to make him understand.

‘I’ll think about that later.’

‘There’s no point worrying about something that has no answer.’

‘For now, I’ll just do what I can.’

That was the conclusion she came to.

For now, the only thing she could do was to eat well and keep up her strength.

After all, the dishes in front of her had been prepared by the head chef of the Duke of Lester.

More importantly, she didn’t want Jayden, who kept glancing at her, to worry.

She wanted to show him that she was doing well.

That there was nothing to worry about.

So she had to eat.

If she did, perhaps he would feel reassured enough to return to Orlando.