A week had passed since the so-called disappearance incident of the Duchess. Though no one spoke of it aloud, everyone knew that what happened that day was Evelyn’s runaway.

To ensure such an incident would never happen again, Evelyn received even more attentive treatment. Especially under strict orders never to upset the woman carrying the family’s heir, the servants attended to Evelyn with even greater devotion.

“How is the water temperature?”

“Well… it’s fine.”

The moment she woke, Penny brought warm water in a wide basin and was carefully washing Evelyn’s feet. Her legs, swollen overnight, quickly relaxed under the gentle touch.

Evelyn, comfortably letting her legs be tended to, answered primly and looked around the room with fresh eyes.

She’d only been away from home for a few days, yet it felt like returning to her hometown after a long absence.

‘When did I start thinking of this place as home?’

Even when she went to the Count’s estate, rather than feeling like she’d come home, she’d only felt uncomfortable. But the ducal estate—just setting foot here put her mind at ease. 

Thanks to that, her temporarily lost appetite had returned, which was good. Still, she didn’t feel good enough to want to go out and play around like before.

‘But there’s really a baby in here?’

Evelyn carefully placed her hand on her flat stomach and tilted her head. No matter how much she looked, she couldn’t feel anything.

Now she understood the sudden loss of appetite and the occasional headaches that had been visiting her.

A few days ago, Evelyn couldn’t help but be shocked when she overheard what the physician said to Elkas.

<Am I pregnant?>

<Evelyn, sit down first.>

Elkas, belatedly looking uncomfortable, approached to support her, but Evelyn ignored him completely and stared only at the physician. The physician, caught between them both, hesitated with a troubled face before finally opening his mouth.

<Tell me. Am I pregnant?>

<Seven weeks… you are.>

She couldn’t describe how shocked she was hearing the physician’s words. For a while, Evelyn couldn’t close her gaping mouth. She simply couldn’t believe it.

That’s when Evelyn turned her head, asking what this meant, and Elkas’s expression came into view.

Come to think of it, when the physician had delivered the news to him moments earlier, Elkas hadn’t looked particularly surprised. From that, she could deduce one fact: he’d known all along that she was carrying a child.

Though she’d felt relieved upon seeing Elkas’s face, like meeting a solid savior, once she came to her senses, she felt bitter toward him again.

<Elkas, have you been deceiving me this whole time?>

<Evelyn, let me explain…>

<Tell me. You knew I was pregnant and didn’t tell me?>

At her tearful question, he nodded without a moment’s hesitation.

The sense of betrayal when she learned that fact was immense. Her mood had already been swinging to extremes lately, where even trivial matters snowballed and felt like major issues. His admission sparked uncontrollable anger.

How could he hide the fact of her pregnancy from her alone?

Even the maids all knew—everyone except her, the person it concerned most.

<Please leave my room.>

<But Evelyn, there were reasons for all of it. I’ll explain everything.>

<Please leave. I want to be alone right now.>

And so she drove Elkas, who clearly had more to say, out of her room.

After that, Evelyn refused to allow him any visits. She told him to sleep elsewhere, wouldn’t even open the door for him, and wouldn’t speak to him.

A week had passed that way, but Evelyn still felt hurt, and on top of that, the man who’d even hidden the fact that she was carrying a child didn’t look good to her at all.

Perhaps in the past, she wouldn’t have gotten so worked up and would have just let it go. But what made her so upset was the fact that he’d deceived her again.

After all, it was still true that she resented the man who married her while loving her sister.

She wasn’t mature enough as a woman to forgive a man who’d deceived her about not just one or two things.

‘After how hard I worked to cure his illness…’

Though she hadn’t shown her capabilities as an excellent mistress, she’d done her best for him in her own way, which made it all the more upsetting.

If he’d at least apologized, she wouldn’t have been this angry.

Evelyn, emerging from her memories, looked at Penny massaging her calves with resentful eyes. Though she now understood the maids’ reactions from before, that didn’t mean she was completely fine with it.

They said it was all for her sake, but that was that and this was this.

She understood Penny’s subtly overbearing behavior before she left the estate, but that was that and this was this.

“You can go now.”

“What about your meal? The master is waiting in the dining room, and today perhaps you could dine together—”

“No, I’ll eat in my room today too, so bring it here.”

Evelyn curtly dismissed Penny’s attempt to reconcile the couple.

Just then, a maid who entered with a knock bowed politely, and in that instant, something popped out from her arms.

A snow-white cat slipped through and leaped lightly onto Evelyn’s lap with nimble movements.

“Oh… Popo!”

Her face, which had been captured by gloom, brightened.

“Popo, are you okay? You’re not hurt anymore, right?”

Evelyn slipped both hands under the cat’s armpits and lifted it up, examining its whole body. 

It must have been thoroughly washed—the fur that had been matted with dried blood was soft like before, and the terrible wounds had healed considerably. 

Unless you looked under the fur, everything seemed fine.

“Popo, does anything hurt?”

Meow!

When she called, a languid meow came in response, seeming to say it would at least answer her. She’d been right.

After turning the cat around to examine it from all angles, Evelyn soon pulled it into her chest in an embrace. Behind the small joy, tears pricked at her eyes again. 

She kissed Popo’s cheek, who had returned healthy just like Elkas had promised to treat it.

“If you do that again, your big sister will scold you! Hey! Are you listening?”

Meow.

Popo, who had caused all that trouble and nearly died in the process, casually lifted a hind leg to scratch its ear, pretending as if nothing had happened. 

When it let out a nonchalant yawn, Evelyn couldn’t help but giggle. As she played with Popo’s whiskers for a while, a memory surfaced—something similar had happened a long time ago.

“Come to think of it… back then too… you nearly died.”

The day she found newborn Popo, the cat had been dying from injuries received before she discovered it. Though she’d run away with it, determined to save it, she’d been too young to even know where to get it treated.

And the one who saved Popo then was a boy who’d made his carriage stop abruptly before it nearly hit her and stepped out.

Though he’d said mean things at first, the boy later called for people and ordered treatment. 

Thanks to that, even while she was grounded for a while because of the incident, Popo recovered its health alone.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that boy had saved Popo.

Blue eyes reminiscent of a cloudless blue sky, and golden hair more brilliant than even Sheila’s—that boy.

“But… why did I suddenly think of that kid when I saw Elkas back then?”

Why had she suddenly remembered that nameless boy she’d never thought about in her life at that moment?

Evelyn tilted her head, then looked down at Popo, who was pressing her hand with its front paws.

“Back then… and now too, you survived. Right?”

Popo meowed in response.

Looking back now, though it had been reckless, it was also the most proactive thing she’d done in her life. 

Perhaps the determination to protect that small life came from the comfort she’d found in the eyes of that tiny creature who looked at her lonely childhood self like she was everything. 

It was also an experience gained from the expressions of adults who looked at her inadequate self with faces that occasionally read “that’s enough.”

Evelyn grabbed Popo’s front paw, which kept playing around, and pretended to put it in her mouth while laughing.

“Rawr. I’m going to eat you up.”

* * *

After eating a leisurely lunch and taking a nap, Evelyn woke and looked at her unusually quiet door.

“He should be here by now…”

Around this time, she should be hearing Elkas’s voice from beyond the door, asking to talk.

Had he already given up?

If that was the case, Evelyn, who couldn’t stand for that either, went out into the corridor.

Popo, tail held high, followed arrogantly behind Evelyn as she tiptoed down the unusually quiet corridor.

“Where did everyone go?”

Thinking they might be taking afternoon naps, Evelyn peeked out the window and suddenly spotted two familiar figures from behind. She ran down the stairs.

The whole time she ran, Evelyn bit her lip, replaying the scene she’d just witnessed. If he was going to apologize, he should do it properly to the end. 

What kind of half-hearted attempt was this?

Setting aside the fact that she hadn’t met with him, the intent behind Elkas calling Sheila here while leaving his pregnant wife was nothing but devastating. 

After running for a while, Evelyn burst open the greenhouse located in the estate’s rear garden and shouted, unable to hold back.

“How… could you do this?”

“Evelyn?”

“Evelyn!”

Elkas and Sheila, discovering Evelyn’s sudden entrance, looked at her with simultaneously shocked eyes. Their flustered appearance at the unexpected person’s arrival was exactly like that time at the Windelson annex.

‘I knew it.’

Leaving his pregnant wife behind, now he’d even called her sister here directly.

Grief rose to Evelyn’s throat, and her eyes quickly reddened.

“Evelyn, what’s suddenly wrong?”

“Sister, you’re too much too! I’m still here, and no matter how much you like Elkas, how could you come here?”

“Evelyn, what are you talking about? Do you know how shocked I was to hear you ran away while pregnant?”

In this moment, even her sister’s worried face directed at her seemed detestable.

Elkas, who’d let out a sigh, spoke up.

“Evelyn, you’re misunderstanding right now.”

“What misunderstanding? I saw everything. You and Sister… having a secret meeting together.”

“A secret meeting? Good heavens, Evelyn, what kind of huge misunderstanding have you made?”

“Evelyn!”

“Don’t come near me!”

At her agitated cry, Elkas, who’d been approaching, stopped in his tracks.

The two people’s shocked expressions, looking like they’d heard something absurd, were laughable.

Though she resented her blood-related sister, she resented Elkas more—the man who treated her so kindly while holding another woman in his heart.

This worked out well, actually. She should have just said it all clearly like this from the start instead of going in circles.

“Evelyn, I understand what you’re misunderstanding, but calm down first. I’ll explain everything.”

“I don’t want to hear it. You hid my pregnancy from me and lied.”

His face, which had been approaching, visibly hardened. 

He must have pieced things together from the fact that the Duchess had even run away. Seeing that face made her even angrier—she couldn’t stand it.

Now she thought she understood. Why he’d hidden the pregnancy from her.

Perhaps he didn’t want to create unnecessary obstacles for a wife he was planning to separate from anyway.

Evelyn, desperately trying to hold back tears with choking sounds, finally broke down.