Adeline lay still on the bed. In the space where the cold air that had surrounded him just moments ago had vanished, an emptiness washed over her.

She slowly placed her hand over her belly. Warmth reached her palm from beneath.

She stayed like that, blank, for a long while.

She felt she should talk to the baby. Like she had to. She wanted to confirm for herself, too, that nothing was wrong.

“You’re okay, right?”

Adeline whispered, very softly.

“It’s nothing. Okay?”

No answer came, but she slowly stroked her belly with her hand. That small gesture was all she could do right now.

* * *

The morning sickness that had tormented her had ended long ago, and aside from the occasional surge of anxiety for no reason, she had clearly found her footing. Her appetite had returned to the point where she suddenly craved foods she hadn’t been able to touch before, and the hollowness in her cheeks had filled back out to a soft, healthy glow.

However, as her belly grew large, moving around became uncomfortable. Her back ached, so she couldn’t sit for long or lie flat, and she had been resting at an angle on the parlor sofa when she tried to get up.

“It seems you didn’t sleep well. The shadows under your eyes are dark.”

“Yes, a little. But I’m fine.”

Warm sunlight streamed through the window as Tanya set the table with breakfast, and Mrs. Lien walked over to Adeline, who was slowly pulling herself up.

“Ah……”

The moment she set her feet on the floor and stood, dizziness hit her. As Adeline staggered and pressed her hand to her forehead, Mrs. Lien caught her by the shoulder. Mrs. Lien’s complexion was no better than Adeline’s, who had gone completely pale.

“As I thought, you are quite unwell. This won’t do. Tanya, stay here and attend to the madam. I’ll send word to the doctor and the master.”

Mrs. Lien confirmed that Tanya had answered yes and was helping Adeline toward the bed, then turned to leave the bedroom. It was at that moment.

“Ah! M, Madam!”

Tanya, her face drained of all color, fussed and sobbed.

“Madam, why, why are you doing this……”

It was because Adeline, who had been walking without making a single sound, had crumpled to the floor.

“Ah…… ah……”

Looking closely, Adeline’s skirt was soaking wet. Like she had urinated standing up. Mrs. Lien, who had been staring blankly at the wet floor, pulled her scattered wits back together at Tanya’s scream.

She rang the call bell urgently and rushed to Adeline, gathering her up from where she had collapsed on the floor.

“Ugh…… ah, it hurts……”

Adeline clutched her belly, eyes unable to open, and kept murmuring without pause that her stomach hurt. Mrs. Lien had been stroking her face, drenched in cold sweat like she had been caught in the rain, when she called out firmly.

“Pull yourself together, Tanya!”

At Mrs. Lien’s sharp shout, her face flushed red, Tanya looked up.

“Go quickly and fetch the head butler! We need to transfer the madam to the hospital right now. Tell them to send word to the master as well.”

Hurry! At the head housekeeper’s thundering shout, Tanya barely got to her feet and bolted out of the bedroom.

“Head butler!”

Listening to Tanya calling for the head butler as she practically tumbled down the stairs, Mrs. Lien stroked the forehead and face of Adeline, who was begging to be saved.

“Madam, don’t worry. It’s all right. You’ll both be fine. You need to steel yourself and hold on. Nothing is going to happen.”

They just needed to get to the hospital. Mrs. Lien kept repeating that it would be all right as she soothed Adeline. Because she had to be all right. For her own sake. For the sake of this estate’s master as well. She had to be.

Mrs. Lien prayed like she was reciting an incantation.

“P, please save me…… Please…… No. The baby…… my baby……”

But with a murmur faint like fading smoke, Adeline’s eyelids closed.

* * *

Kailen took one last look at his wife sleeping peacefully through the narrowing gap as he closed the door to the hospital room.

“……”

He glanced at the two people standing in the sitting room attached to the private suite, then moved to stand before the window, through which the clear sky stretched wide and bright. His voice was calm as he held Dr. Lemon accountable for the miscarriage.

“You said she would be fine. That six months was the turning point.”

Dr. Lemon and the colleague physician beside him could not lift their heads. Six months while maintaining the pregnancy. They had genuinely believed that once she got past the critical point, nothing serious would happen to Adeline.

“I am deeply sorry. I have no words.”

Dr. Lemon was a distinguished physician with more than a decade of experience. He was broadly skilled in medicine, but obstetrics and gynecology were not his primary specialty. 

That was why, a few months prior, he had introduced Kailen to a colleague and student of his who was well-versed in gynecology, proposing that they care for Adeline together. He had been afraid to look after Adeline alone.

Early in Adeline’s pregnancy, the doctor had drawn Adeline’s blood at Kailen’s instruction. And in the blood test results he received about two weeks later, the doctor had found something puzzling.

He had set all eight pages of the test results in front of Kailen and asked him to take a look.

Kailen was fluent in foreign languages, but from the standpoint of someone with no medical knowledge whatsoever, it was nothing but an incomprehensible string of symbols and numbers, and irritation crept into his expression as he looked at the doctor.

〈I can’t make sense of any of this, and I have no interest in a long-winded explanation. I just want the key point.〉

The doctor spoke calmly. As he had suspected, a reaction to a drug he had not prescribed had shown up. He said it appeared the madam had been taking medication separately, and asked that Kailen look into it.

〈As far as I know, she’s not the type to do that on her own. Mrs. Lien, do you happen to know anything?〉

Mrs. Lien, another party involved, had also been present.

〈No. I have never once seen the madam take any other medication. If she had been taking something in secret, the cleaning staff would have found at least one medicine bottle by now. …… But I have heard nothing at all about any medication.〉

〈Then there’s only one thing left. Someone secretly gave my wife medication…….〉

Even now, he couldn’t forget the killing intent that had settled in those sharply gleaming blue eyes that day. A drop of cold sweat fell from the doctor’s forehead as he kept his head bowed.

〈So. What was the medication.〉

〈It is a type of fertility drug.〉

The fertility drug itself was not a harmful substance like the contraceptive the doctor had prescribed. It was even used as a tonic at times. However, Adeline’s constitution was frail, and she could not withstand two drugs being administered simultaneously. The drugs conflicted with each other, producing side effects, and strangely enough, the peculiar result of a pregnancy had also come about.

〈Understood. It was an unexpected outcome, but it is no one’s fault. Let us end it here.〉

Then, let’s bury it here. Even as the sharpness of his anger settled while he listened to the explanation, Kailen’s composed reaction left the doctor unable to open his mouth carelessly.

〈Please, both of you, take good care of her so that nothing goes wrong.〉

Please look after my wife and child well. But the moment he heard Kailen’s polite and gentle request, the doctor had no choice but to come clean, to prepare for the possibility that things might go wrong. He couldn’t shoulder everything alone.

〈I’m afraid my skill may not be enough to guarantee the safety of the unborn child.〉

The drugs remaining in her body made it difficult to guarantee the safety of the unborn child. He had added a slight exaggeration out of defensiveness and evasion, but it was true. In his estimation, the odds were fifty-fifty.

〈Then…… what about her? Is she all right?〉

His voice carried weight as he asked after his wife’s safety rather than the child’s.

The doctor had answered that it was also difficult to say, given that she too had a frail constitution, and that there was no telling how the side effects of the drug would manifest.

Damned mess. The color of Kailen’s face as he muttered darkly had made the doctor’s knees go weak.

And then, this morning, when Adeline had been brought to the hospital, the amniotic fl*id had already fully expelled, and the stillborn fetus was lodged in the birth canal. She had likely suffered absolutely terrible pain throughout the entire transfer to the hospital.

It wasn’t entirely the doctor’s fault, but regardless, he had failed to protect the child, and the wife had yet to wake, so the doctor feared, wildly, that Kailen’s fury would be even greater than it had been that day, not lesser.

The doctor, who had squeezed his eyes shut at the memory of that day, opened them with a trembling shudder. The lengthening silence was agonizing, and he slowly raised his eyes.

“……”

The doctor cautiously studied Kailen’s profile as he stared into the air without a word, and his eyes went wide.

The lips that followed the line of his nose, which extended with an almost arrogant straightness, were visibly trembling. It was an expression the doctor had never once seen in the years he had followed Kailen. He, Kailen, was afraid.

That was what frightened the doctor.