Chapter 8

“Madame!”

“Oh my goodness!”

The wet nurse jumped in shock at the sight of the Marquis barging in and flinging the door open. Breathing roughly, the Marquis looked down at Viviana, who was crying loudly in Celia’s arms. Her mouth was smeared with milk that had flowed from Celia’s br*ast.

“…Our daughter.”

“Yes, dear. Our daughter has finally started eating.”

At Celia’s bright smile, the Marquis, his face filled with emotion, rushed forward and wrapped both of them tightly in his arms.

“My dear! Via is having a hard time!”

“Ah, that… I am sorry, Little One.”

Perhaps startled by the sudden intrusion of this figure called father, Viviana stopped crying and looked up at the Marquis with the same dried-rose-colored eyes as his.

The moment the Marquis saw those eyes, he could not help falling in love with her all over again.

“Viviana, my daughter. Thank you.”

After pressing kiss after kiss to Celia’s face and Viviana’s face, the Marquis smiled brightly. He was truly grateful that she had kept him from giving up on her, and that she had stopped hurting Celia any longer.

In that warm atmosphere, Viviana thought,

‘In this life… I will live for you, Mother.’

Since love had saved her when she had been exhausted by love and trying to die, she decided to devote this life to her.

She vowed not to let the smile leave that face looking down at her so gently.

* * *

Viviana, who had been lost in thoughts of the past, was brought out of them by the clink of a teacup being set before her.

“Ah…. I am sorry.”

At the sight of Skyler apologizing, his face faintly flushed as though ashamed of his mistake, Viviana naturally shook her head.

It is alright. There were several meanings contained in those words. ‘That your small mistake means nothing to me, so it is alright.’ ‘That I had already guessed someone raised as preciously as you would not be used to doing this, so it is alright.’ ‘And that you can never become anything to me, so it is alright.’

Her heart began to beat foolishly again at the sight of him personally serving her tea by doing what an attendant should have done. Even though he was in a position where he could simply order that tea be poured for her, he personally attended to her as though she were the more noble one and placed it before her with his own hands, just as he always did.

‘Always gentle, always kind….’

And so always cruel.

Intoxicated by that gentleness and kindness, she had been tortured by hope, thinking this time it would work, this time it would work, only to have her heart broken in the end and die.

‘What happened to you, I wonder.’

In her final memory, she had died by drowning. Unlike a medieval city like this, Korea was a place where breaking news appeared at once, so when the news came that one of the bridges spanning the Han River had collapsed, and that it was the bridge near the home where she lived, and when among the dead her own full name had been clearly printed there, what had he thought?

Had he felt relieved that a woman like a leech had died? Or perhaps, still kind as ever, he might even have shed tears over her death.

As she swallowed that question inwardly, a question no one could answer, Skyler, seeing the darkness in her face, hesitantly opened his mouth.

“Is the tea… not to your liking?”

She shook her head. It was a sweet tea, not too hot, prepared for children. Seeing her shake her head, Skyler asked again.

“Then…. Are you uncomfortable here?”

“…A little.”

At those words, Skyler tightly clenched his fist where her gaze could not reach.

What he truly wanted to ask was something else.

He wanted to ask whether she disliked him.

When she took his hand, he had felt rejection in her hesitant touch and in the way her face darkened. The rejection had been so clear that it could hardly be called his imagination, and it made him a little sad.

‘Does she really dislike me?’

It was embarrassing to say it himself, but objectively and subjectively, he was rather handsome.

The beauty inherited from his beautiful mother and father was the kind of material that would come out lovely even if shaped carelessly.

Thanks to that, he had been born beautiful, and with the added advantage of the power he possessed, he had been raised surrounded by affection.

Skyler, having grown up as a child who knew love, was a little sharp in some ways, but broadly speaking, he was kind.

Because of the gentleness ingrained in his face and body, everyone thought well of him and felt favor toward him, so why was she alone reluctant around him? That was what kept weighing on his mind.

“It is because I am not used to a place like this. Once I become accustomed to it, it will be fine, so please do not worry.”

What she meant was only that if her own heart could be controlled as she wished, then she would be able to pretend to be ordinary, but Skyler, unable to know that meaning, brightened at once.

‘Right. Vi… Miss Orhan and I are engaged.’

Thinking that even if she was shy around strangers, if she saw Skyler often and met him often, then she would become used to him and stop rejecting him, his face flushed slightly with joy. The way he awkwardly pressed his lips together to hide his smile was so cute and lovable that one wanted to bite him, but Viviana, sitting across from him, did not see it because her eyes were cast downward.

As an awkward atmosphere lingered, Skyler spoke to her, perhaps trying to turn the mood around.

“My Lady…. If you do not mind, may I call you by your name?”

“Please do as you wish.”

At that permission, which sounded like do whatever you want if you wish it, Skyler was delighted and softly repeated her name. Viviana. Even her name was beautiful. Since all of his family were handsome or beautiful, Skyler usually did not react much to ordinary appearances, but the moment his gaze had been stolen once in that crowded banquet hall, she had been the only one he could see in that wide space. If someone were to ask him in the future who his first love had been, he would say it was her. She was his precocious first love.

“Viviana, please call me Skyler.”

“Yes.”

He had waited, heart pounding, for his name to come from her lips, but she merely said that she would and never actually spoke it. Growing a little downcast, Skyler spoke to her again.

“Viviana… what do you like?”

He said that he had been learning swordsmanship lately, and that it was very enjoyable. Even at his clumsy but proper attempt to draw out some liking between them by talking about each other’s tastes and preferences, Viviana replied calmly.

“I like philosophy. Why people live, and where death leads.”

“I-I see….”

Skyler’s eyes trembled faintly. It was a difficult hobby for a young noble lady to have. But seeing how seriously she spoke, it seemed she truly liked it, and though Skyler did not care for philosophy, which to him felt like vague wordplay chasing clouds, he decided he would try taking an interest in it. He only did so because he wanted to share something in common with Viviana, but in truth, Viviana was simply spouting nonsense as it came to mind.

‘One lives because one cannot die, and when one dies, one reincarnates.’

That was something she knew very well from experience. Not wanting to have a deeper conversation with Skyler and wear herself out emotionally any further, Viviana simply let out nonsense as it occurred to her, and Skyler, deceived by that nonsense, was impressed.

For a while, the two spent time learning each other’s preferences and hobbies ― in reality it was a conversation where one side was serious and the other was merely talking nonsense, but even these small exchanges felt truly pleasant to Skyler.

‘When we marry… it will be even more enjoyable than this, will it not?’

Skyler’s cheeks flushed red once again. He wanted to look at her face, but he was too embarrassed to do so directly, so he only stole glances at her from time to time.

At the sight of her, faded as though she might vanish into mist, Skyler’s heart grew restless. She looked as if she might disappear unless he held on tightly, and that made him anxious.

“Um!”

“Please speak.”

“Well…. I… I will do well.”

For some reason, he had felt that he should say something like ‘I will do well, so please do not disappear’, but somehow even saying those words frightened him, and instead he ended up blurting out something strange. Skyler’s face burned red in embarrassment, but Viviana did not laugh at him or look dumbfounded. She merely sat there quietly, absentmindedly touching her teacup. A brief silence passed, and Viviana asked,

“I do not really understand what you mean.”

“…We are going to marry, are we not?”

Like his parents, he wanted them to become the sort of people who cherished and loved one another. The kind of bond that was part friendship, part companionship, part love. He wanted to have that kind of relationship with her, and so he wanted to treat her well. At those words, Viviana’s indifferent expression broke. Her face twisted slightly, and biting down hard on her lips, she glared fiercely at him. Skyler’s face was colored with bewilderment at her hostility.

‘The more I hear, the more….’

Love? It was laughable. The person speaking of love before her now was Skyler, and that was nothing but absurd. It was far too late to talk of love between the two of them. At the very least, he should have said such words in a previous life, before her heart had been broken. It was he who had pushed away her who had thrown away everything and begged so miserably just to be allowed to remain by his side. It was he who had remained gentle even in the moment he pushed her away, making her let down her guard.

That n*ked hostility slashed through Skyler’s heart. He turned over his words in his mind, wondering what he had done wrong, but he could not understand. Viviana, who had seemed as if she might burst with anger, soon returned to that emotionless expression and lowered her eyes.

“…You do not need to do that.”

“…Why not…?”

Skyler’s bewilderment deepened at her saying that he did not need to be kind to her. To him, Viviana answered that it was only a political marriage, so he did not need to trouble himself.

“As long as we simply keep to the line of not bringing shame upon each other, like other people do, that will be enough.”

That was how the families in her previous life had been too. They had cursed him for running away, but they had never called her a fool for failing to hold on to one man. Even his family had cursed their own son while trying to comfort her in her heartbreak. The Viviana of that previous life, still unable to let go of him, had cursed herself that way out of inferiority, and unable to be comforted even by their words, had run out and died in an accident on the way home.

Sometimes Viviana thought of them and felt sorry.

‘What was one man worth, really.’

She possessed many things. As she had just said, she had a kind family, and she had money. Because of her family’s wealth, she had gone on to a prestigious university and had an education. She also had the skills and career she had built over the course of her life. The disappearance of one man she had been prenatally engaged to had not erased all of that, and yet she had behaved as though losing that single thing meant losing everything.

She truly had been a fool.