“Aack!”

A sharp scream came from behind Roderick. The person moaning and curled up on the bed in the room was a woman. A heavily pregnant woman.

“A young couple checked into the room downstairs last night……”

Couple?

There was no other man in this room.

Then Roderick was that woman’s…?

Erica’s face turned deathly pale. She turned an accusatory gaze toward Roderick, but his equally pale eyes were fixed on Erica’s swollen belly.

“Erica, my God……”

Just as Roderick reached out as if to embrace the dazed Erica—

“Roderick!”

The woman suffering from labor pains on the bed called him with a terrified voice, almost screaming, somehow finding such strength. His hand froze in mid-air.

The fact that Roderick listened to that woman rather than embracing her woke Erica’s mind like cold water. She asked as if nothing was wrong.

“You called for a midwife?”

“Y-yes.”

The woman answered instead of the silent Roderick.

“I’ll prepare the necessary items. Sir, please ask the innkeeper to prepare hot water and clean cloths.”

Erica counted to three. She blatantly gave him a chance, but Roderick didn’t say he wasn’t that woman’s husband.

It was as good as confirmation. She felt as if the ground beneath her feet was crumbling.

Erica returned to her room on trembling legs and gathered her tools and medicines.

“What’s wrong with me.”

This was work she had been doing for years. Though her body moved mechanically, she kept forgetting things, packing items she had already packed, and forgetting what she was trying to pack when she turned around, over and over.

Erica stopped in the middle of the room and buried her face in her hands. Only after taking several deep breaths could she lift her head again.

“Whew……”

Erica fanned herself. Her face was getting hot, and so were her eyes.

What’s wrong with me?

What do you think is wrong?

She had just encountered the father of her child, whom she thought was dead. With a woman more pregnant than herself.

He had another woman? No, that’s not right.

If she was full-term, it meant he had made a child with her before Erica, so perhaps Erica was the “other woman.”

Come to think of it, even her shabby clothes couldn’t hide the woman’s noble air. Erica used to have that same aura when she was a wealthy family’s daughter. If so, the woman was undoubtedly a noble lady.

“You called for a midwife?”

“Y-yes.”

The way she spoke down to Erica, a stranger, was telling enough.

‘Did he fall in love with his master’s daughter and run away with her in the night? What is this? Was all that talk about the palace guards and everything just lies?’

Perhaps he really had been a guard of the Winterborns. Maybe that lady was from that family, and they fled together because they were about to be massacred.

Whatever the story, the facts remained unchanged. Roderick had chosen another woman, and Erica had been abandoned.

How cruel to cause someone such pain by not even letting them know he was alive. Then again, the suffering of someone he just played with for one night probably wasn’t his concern.

She had been deceived by people all her life and had decided to trust no one, but she had made an exception for Roderick…..

Roderick, even you!

“Ha, this is ridiculous.”

She could only laugh bitterly.

After packing her sack and basket, she went downstairs and met Roderick pacing in front of the stairs. He took her luggage from her and led her somewhere. It was in the opposite direction from the room.

What is he doing now?

As soon as they reached a secluded corner of the corridor where no one could see them, Roderick embraced Erica.

“Erica, I thought I would go crazy missing you. That you’re here, and……”

His hand arbitrarily caressed her swollen belly where it touched.

“I still can’t believe it.”

She had desperately dreamed of this moment. To be in Roderick’s arms again, to savor his feeling and warmth once more.

But now that the moment had actually arrived, she felt nothing, as if she had turned to stone. Roderick couldn’t help but notice.

“Erica.”

He lifted his head from where it was buried in her neck and looked into her eyes.

“I don’t know where to begin, but listen to me……”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t have that kind of leisure right now.”

Just then, a scream filled with the agony of labor pains came from around the corner of the corridor. Erica coldly pushed Roderick away and entered the room alone.

The woman said it was her first childbirth. Perhaps that was why progress was slow. Moreover, the woman had narrow hips and weak physical strength, making it a difficult delivery.

“Ah, ugh…… please, s-save me……”

“Just a little, hold on just a little longer.”

It was dangerous, but Erica wondered if she should attempt a cesarean section. However, the woman finally gave birth to the child with her own strength.

It was a baby girl with platinum blonde hair, perhaps taking after her mother.

The labor that began at sunset only ended after sunrise. But Erica’s work was not over.

The woman couldn’t even hold her child, let alone breastfeed her, and curled up on the bed, trembling.

“Cold……”

The woman was as pale and cold as a piece of ice. She had kept fainting during childbirth, and now her eyelids seemed heavy as she repeatedly closed her eyes.

“You mustn’t fall asleep!”

These were symptoms of excessive bleeding. The woman had lost too much blood during childbirth, and the bleeding still hadn’t stopped. At this rate, the woman would surely die.

“This is bad.”

No midwife in the world wants a mother to die, but Erica especially didn’t want this woman to die. As a competent midwife, she detested the idea of being suspected of letting a mother die out of jealousy. Erica used all the medicines she had and all the methods Grandma Greta had taught her.

Despite trying harder than ever to save the mother, there were limits to what an ordinary person could do in a place where human medical skills were inadequate.

“It seems I was wrong after all.”

The woman, sensing she would soon breathe her last, stopped Erica who was sweating profusely trying to stop the bleeding, and asked to be raised up. She even requested to be made presentable so as not to look shameful to others.

As Erica brought out clean new clothes and dressed the woman who could barely hold herself up, sweat ran down her cheek. She wasn’t sure if it was sweat or tears, so salty and hot.

It felt like preparing a funeral for someone who’s still alive, and while the person helping with the final moments was devastated, the person facing death remained calm. However, her breath, precariously continuing as if it might break at any moment, was not calm.

“Baby.”

When the preparations were complete, the woman gathered the last of her strength in her thin arms and held her child. Tears welled up in her eyes as she looked at her daughter, just born and unable to open her eyes yet.

“My beloved child, I’m truly sorry I couldn’t protect you until the end.”

This was the woman and child of the man who had betrayed her. She couldn’t feel good about it, but Erica was only human, and her eyes grew hot as her heart sank heavily.

Unable to bear it any longer, she tried to leave, but the woman grabbed her with a weak hand.

“Would you call him for me?”

Roderick was guarding the door like a sentinel. Without meeting his eyes, Erica delivered the news he was most anxious to hear.

“The baby was born safely. But the mother is in critical condition.”

His face, which had shown obvious relief at the first statement, turned visibly pale again. He held Erica’s shoulders with both hands and pleaded.

“No. She must live. Erica, please, isn’t there any way?”

How shameless. Begging the woman he had played with to save the woman he loved.

“I did my best.”

Even though I hate you.

Erica shook off his hands and took a step to the side. Then she nodded toward the open door.

“She says she has something to say to you one last time, so go quickly.”

He told Erica twice not to go anywhere and to wait, then went inside. The door closed behind him. Erica had no reason to heed his request.

* * *

The room reeked of blood. Though no blood was visible, the woman sitting against the bed, pale as a corpse, had clearly shed it.

“Come here.”

The woman stretched out her hand, thin as a dry branch. When Roderick approached and sat down, that powerless hand rested on his left chest. The coldness penetrated to his heart.

“Sir Roderick, my last……”

As soon as she struggled to finish her last will, her hand fell away.

The baby, cradled in the arms of her mother who had maintained a dignified posture until the very end, slept soundly, unaware of her fate.

* * *

Erica packed her things and left immediately. Before going to the stable to find her tethered mule, she briefly stopped by the “young couple’s” room.