“It’s late. You should rest first.”

“My lady…”

Catherine heard the concerned voice trying to say something, but she turned away deliberately refusing to listen. For a moment, she sensed someone lingering behind her. Ignoring this presence, Catherine returned to the table and picked up Saul’s letter that David had left behind.

She sat down and gestured with her hand. Eventually, the hesitant servant cleared away the tea set from the table, bowed deeply, and departed.

Catherine waited a long while after the servant closed the door. Only when she confirmed no sound remained except the sharp whistling of the wind did she open the envelope. As she tried to remove the letter from what had originally been sealed with wax, she paused.

It seemed too small to be a letter. Without any fold marks and just large enough to cover one hand, it looked more like a card than a letter. Catherine pushed it out with her fingertips. On the paper, written in what appeared to be a sharply scratched handwriting, were the words:

[Do not covet what belongs to others.]

Catherine frowned. Then, noticing something faintly written on the back when held against the candlelight, she turned the paper over.

* * *

RUMBLE.

The sound of heaven collapsing echoed through the air. Catherine stopped walking and lifted her head. For an instant, a flash of lightning turned her vision white before darkness enveloped everything again.

Skeletal tree branches swayed threateningly like whips as another flash illuminated the scene. Catherine stared intently at the chapel that had briefly appeared between the flashes.

Due to the foul weather, her husband’s body remained there, still unburied. Saul… Catherine silently mouthed her husband’s name as she crossed the corridor with quick steps. Another flash of light shone from the side.

Before she could complete a step, shadow bars fell across her feet and quickly disappeared. Catherine walked on, trampling these traces.

Behind her, a long shadow followed, cast by the single candle she carried. Catherine’s footsteps quickened as she passed the end of the corridor and entered a windowless hallway.

There was something she needed to verify before daybreak. Like someone being pursued, Catherine crossed the hallway with an almost running pace until she stood before a firmly closed door.

In one hand, she held a candlestick and Saul’s letter; in the other, a key.

These were the keys given to the mistress of Cavendish. Catherine felt the cold metal with her fingertips and selected one. The key slid in silently. Click. With that brief sound, the firmly locked door opened.

She entered immediately, closed the door behind her, lowered all the curtains, and transferred the flame to a lamp. Only then did the complete scene reveal itself.

Catherine briefly glanced at the large mahogany desk, the bookcase occupying the wall, and the low table with a long chair near the entrance before lowering her gaze.

From then on, Catherine moved without hesitation. She placed the candlestick, letter, and key bundle on the neatly organized desk and began opening the drawers one by one. Most were locked, and among those that opened, she couldn’t find what she sought.

After closing a drawer containing organized ink, paper, and pen nibs, Catherine proceeded without delay to the bookcase and began opening the storage compartments at the bottom. Fortunately, she found what she wanted before having to search the entire room. Catherine discovered Saul’s letter box in the section closest to the desk.

It wasn’t separately locked, suggesting it contained letters from personal relationships. She had occasionally seen it during the past few months while Saul stayed in his bedroom.

Catherine took the box back to the desk and began examining its contents from the innermost section. Searching through the letter box didn’t take long.

Due to his health condition, Saul’s social circle had been extremely narrow. Even within this limited network, David’s name was nowhere to be found.

Having half-expected this, Catherine wasn’t particularly disappointed. Since they appeared to have been estranged for a long time, finding nothing was natural.

She had merely hoped for a quicker way to confirm whether David truly carried Cavendish blood…

Catherine knew she didn’t need to go to such lengths. If she waited for daybreak and for the rain to subside, time would resolve everything. However… Catherine fingered the edge of the letter she had placed on the desk and thought.

‘It wasn’t Saul’s handwriting…’

That was why she felt so anxious.

The letter David claimed to have received a week ago—the handwriting inside wasn’t Saul’s. No, it was Saul’s handwriting, but precisely the style from when he was relatively healthy and could hold a pen. When Catherine first saw the letter, she mindlessly overlooked this fact.

Looking back, there were numerous strange points. Not just the handwriting, but the timing David mentioned receiving the letter was odd. David said he received Saul’s letter “a week ago.” But even being generous, Saul couldn’t have written letters during his final two weeks.

This was inevitable. When Saul first began harming himself, he had nearly stabbed through his right hand with a paper knife.

For this reason, Catherine had spent almost all her time in his bedroom to prevent him from holding any sharp objects. Nevertheless, whenever Catherine left even briefly, Saul would invariably find something sharp and injure himself.

Moreover, around that time, Saul had grown increasingly irritable and neurotic, forcing Catherine to keep most people away from his sight except for the butler and the doctor. Even if this letter had been written long ago, having someone deliver it secretly would have been difficult.

Rubbing her throbbing eyelids a couple of times, Catherine unconsciously exhaled a long breath. Though Saul had died only recently, she felt exhausted like three or four days had passed.

She wanted to run to the chapel right now, grab Saul’s shoulders as he lay there, and shake him awake.

She knew well that Saul wasn’t kind enough to explain many things. She also knew he only wanted one thing from Catherine—a child with Cavendish blood. But there were simply too many incomprehensible elements for this to end with such a simple explanation.

Until she saw the letter, Catherine had thought David might truly be Saul’s half-brother. Saul’s will to Catherine could only be fulfilled if there were arrangements for a child with Cavendish blood to be born. But there were too many questionable points for this to make sense.

[Do not covet what belongs to others.]

The message in the letter was strange.

[You are sin.]

Both what was written on the front and back were odd. The person who wrote and sent such a letter was strange, and so was David who showed it to Catherine without hesitation. Setting aside the letter writer, Catherine couldn’t understand David’s attitude.

If David truly was Saul’s brother and firmly believed this was a letter sent by Saul… showing such a letter that hinted at a relationship his widowed sister-in-law didn’t even know existed wasn’t a particularly good decision for David. If Catherine were in David’s position, she would have proven her bloodline differently and hidden the letter. That would have been better for winning over the widowed sister-in-law.

But David didn’t do that… To Catherine, this was truly strange.

Thoughts about Saul and David repeatedly surfaced and submerged in Catherine’s mind as she returned the letter box to its place and restored the opened drawers and scattered items to their original positions. These thoughts continued even after Catherine left Saul’s study.

Catherine awakened from her reverie when she reached the door of Saul’s bedroom. She unconsciously grabbed the doorknob, then blinked in surprise at its cool touch. Ah… A realization like a sigh brushed her lips.

“Saul is no longer here…”

Habits were frightening things. The time spent with Saul was merely three months, and they had been close for only two weeks, yet somehow…

Catherine stood absently fiddling with the doorknob of the now-ownerless bedroom, when she suddenly remembered that just hours ago, she had attended Saul’s funeral.

This was the room where Saul had drawn his last breath. Though his death wasn’t unexpected, death is always sudden, and Saul’s untouched traces would still remain intact inside.

Half-impulsively, Catherine applied pressure to the doorknob. A small gap appeared, gradually widening until the interior became fully visible… Catherine recalled Saul’s touch, which had been as cold as the doorknob’s temperature. Those hands, skeletal like dry branches, yet strangely perceived as powerful.

And at that moment, ridiculously, Catherine realized.

“Remember, Catherine. One child is enough. A child who carries on the Cavendish bloodline.”

She had depended on Saul more than she thought—quite a lot, in fact. How could she have relied on such a selfish, weak man who left behind such an absurd will? Despite these thoughts, as Catherine took in the now-empty, neatly arranged bedding, her shoulders slumped in dejection.

It truly wasn’t funny at all.