MDCHC 65

chapter 65

“Are you listening to me? Lord Winchester needs to rest.”

Even though I nagged him, Lorinus gave no answer and no change in expression, so Nairi put on the “wide-eyed, lips-pressed-together, strict-and-serious, scary expression” she’d practiced in the mirror for the day she would have to scold Daniel sternly.

Ironically, she’d never had the chance to use that look on Daniel himself — she was scolding his father first.

“How cute is that?” she must have thought.

But that expression didn’t frighten Lorinus. Even seeing his rugged face — he was easily two meters tall and must have weighed a hundred and fifty kilos — he didn’t even bat an eye.

Lorinus just thought Nairi was as cute as the way she shouted about Daniel every day. He even went one step further and found her lovable.

“…Well, Lord Winchester is an adult; he’ll manage himself.”

Nairi, who had been scolding nonstop, stopped all of a sudden. She even turned away with an awkward little smile.

Lorinus sensed something strange.

Nairi’s expression was off. He wasn’t especially good at reading other people’s faces, but he could tell that her look was unnatural.

Now that he thought about it, something had been bothering him for a while. He’d been too busy smiling at Nairi’s face to notice right away.

“Lord Winchester.” Nairi had called him that.

Not “my husband.”

As the realization hit and Lorinus floundered, the sage blossom next to him dropped with a soft thud. The sweet little flower that had been fragrant moments ago was now shriveled and dry.

I really did scold him for a long time. It was only natural — the patient who should be resting had gone out early in the morning to work. Even if he’d come home much earlier than usual, it still wasn’t right.

I stopped nagging not because I thought Lord Winchester had finally understood or because I felt I’d said enough, but because it seemed as if he wasn’t listening to me at all.

He didn’t frown like my scolding bored him. He didn’t offer any protest. He merely stared at me blankly.

“What’s the point of saying all this?” I felt empty all of a sudden. I’d been angry at him for neglecting his health and had let a torrent of complaints loose, but he wasn’t hearing a word of it. It felt like shouting into the void, so I stopped.

At that moment I thought it would be faster to contact the doctor and ask them to check on him. I was about to leave the room to send a message to bring a physician when—

“Would you like some tea?”

Lord Winchester’s voice stopped me. When I turned, he was already pulling on the bell-rope. I sat down as if I couldn’t refuse when he told the maid who rushed in to prepare tea.

“What? I never said I wanted to drink… Well, I didn’t say I didn’t.” I grumbled inwardly. My lips may have stuck out a bit, but I said nothing while the tea was being prepared.

I was quietly grateful he had held me back from leaving, and I was pleased that he’d been the first to suggest tea.

After the maid left and the faint scent of black tea filled the room, Lord Winchester spoke.

“I want to thank you for nursing me when I was ill.”

His words were so formal that whatever little quiet excitement I’d felt immediately settled.

I had simply thought I was doing what I should. Whatever had happened, he was my husband. As his wife, it was only natural that I should care for him.

Actually, I hadn’t even thought that clearly. When he had collapsed, my mind had gone blank. Seeing him so pale made me feel sorry for him, and I couldn’t leave his side.

“You’re welcome.” I swallowed all the other things I could have said and answered with a polite, formal reply — the same measured courtesy as his.

“……”
“……”

Silence fell between us. He drank his tea; I drank mine. It felt as though there was nothing left for us to do.

It was strange. Today, Lord Winchester felt awkward. He felt very distant.

Until yesterday I had been the one nursing the man who’d been lying down; I had even slept beside him. Yet now, in this moment, an awkward atmosphere hung thickly between us.

The heavy air pressed on me. I felt short of breath and even dizzy. I had to say something.

“When you were sick… did you call for someone?”

As soon as the words left my mouth I realized I had chosen the wrong topic. I could have said something light — about the weather, about the flowers in the garden, or how it felt to go out with the knights after such a long time.

We had plenty of common, harmless topics: Daniel’s studies and cuteness, letters people had sent worrying about his health.

But for some reason the name in my head burst out.

“Elly…”

I couldn’t help it. That name had been stamped so clearly in my mind by the way Lord Winchester had once spoken of it in a voice full of excitement. It slipped out in an unconscious moment.

“Is she… Daniel’s birth mother?”

When I lifted my eyes from my teacup and looked at Lord Winchester, I saw that all my suspicions were true.

He wore an expression I couldn’t put into words — a mixture of aching tenderness, longing, affection, and sorrow.

Seeing those vivid, colorful emotions break across Lord Winchester’s usually muted face, I needed no further explanation.

I recognized his true feelings for her.

“Elisabeth.” The heavy-sealed lips of Lord Winchester opened.

“I always called her Elly.”

“You called her by a pet name; you must have been very close.”

He drank a sip of tea with a bitter little smile, as if trying to dilute the bitterness with the tea’s aroma and taste.

“Her… ”

My head told me to stop. But like a car with ruined brakes, my mouth wouldn’t obey.

Asking more would be like picking at his wound. It would hurt him — and it would also wound me.

“…Did you love her?”

But I asked anyway.

“As much as my life.”

When I heard Lord Winchester’s voice, something dropped with a thud — whether it was a sound from outside, something in the room, or the sound of my own heart falling didn’t matter. It didn’t matter at all.

“So when she died, I wanted to die too.”

It was Lord Winchester’s cruelly gentle elaboration.

“I see. That must have been awful.”

I answered like a machine with a programmed reply. In truth, I couldn’t think of anything; I didn’t even know what I was saying.

I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to lose someone you loved enough to want to die with them. I had no such person in my life; no one had ever thought of me that way.

So there was no way I could know the depth of feeling Lord Winchester had experienced.

One thing I could see, however, was that wherever her grave might be, he had buried her in his heart.

I felt a small pang of envy for the woman who would live forever in Lord Winchester’s heart.