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Chapter 49
Victor leaned against the window frame for a while, and soon he saw Scarlett stepping out of the mansion, wearing a wide-brimmed lilac hat.
She ran straight to Isaac, who had just gotten out of the carriage in front of the mansion. After glancing over his face, she must have heard something because Victor heard her shout, “Hey!” Then came the sound of her smacking Isaac’s back several times — loud enough to reach Victor’s office.
It was a side of Scarlett he had never seen before, and the corner of his lips lifted slightly.
Once the siblings’ carriage departed, Evan came in through the open door. His face, usually never so serious, was hardened.
“The young lady stopped by the Royal Police Headquarters before coming here.”
“Why?”
“Count Isaac Crimson caused trouble and ended up in the holding cell.”
Victor, still looking out the window, replied calmly to Evan’s report.
“I see.”
“The Royal Police seem to always be meddling in the middle.”
Victor gave no answer for a moment. Only after Scarlett’s carriage had fully departed did he finally turn to Evan and speak.
“We’ll be paying a visit to the Royal Police Headquarters soon.”
“You’ll go yourself?”
“Whether it’s her memory really being muddled or whether she’s colluding with them, every time my wife visits that place, something happens. I need to see it myself.”
Evan grimaced awkwardly.
“Marching into the Royal Police Headquarters like that would anger His Highness Yuli Iren. You know very well, don’t you? His Highness particularly dislikes you.”
Victor poured out the last of his half-melted ice and dropped in new cubes.
“What does it matter, now?”
He added as he poured himself another drink.
“It’s not as though I can ever be royalty.”
“What’s this talk, after all this time?”
“Even if my name were added to the royal family and my mother restored, it wouldn’t mean much. I should have realized it earlier.”
“…”
“How long would it take?”
“To storm them? To wipe out the Royal Police?”
“Both.”
“Right away for the first, two months for the second.”
“I see.”
Victor poured himself a fresh glass of liquor.
“The man beside Scarlett?”
“Andrei Hamilton… circumstances point to him being Royal Police. I’ll confirm further.”
“Do that.”
Before leaving, Evan changed the subject.
“By the way, that white bread — did the young lady leave it here?”
Victor glanced down at the bread. Evan pressed on.
“Since she left it, you might as well eat it.”
Victor picked it up. When Evan inclined his head slightly and left, Palin, waiting outside, asked nervously,
“Senior… how can you talk so normally with the Captain?”
“It’s all about tact.”
“In your case, sometimes it feels less like tact and more like hypnosis.”
Evan arched a brow playfully and strolled off.
Three days later, late at night, a charity party was being held at the Henter family’s banquet hall in the northeast of Salantie’s capital.
Victor, hair slicked back with pomade and dressed in a tuxedo, stepped down from the carriage with his mother, Marina. Instantly, all eyes turned toward them. Neither Victor nor Marina were people who often appeared at parties.
From the moment Victor entered the banquet hall, the atmosphere shifted. He was nothing like the rough sailor people had imagined. With that strangely alluring air about him, not a soul could look away.
To the disappointment of the young noble ladies hoping for private conversation, Victor never indulged in small talk. Instead, he spent his time smoking cigars with gentlemen thirty years his senior.
Meanwhile, Marina delighted in everything around her. She seemed more lucid than expected, having studied rhetoric from a young age, and she was witty and cheerful besides.
Soon, the guests began to wonder if perhaps Marina Dempelth’s mind was not so unsound after all.
During this time, Nina approached Victor.
“Lady Marina seems to be enjoying herself.”
“Thanks to you.”
“Victor.”
When Nina called his name, Victor looked at her.
She gazed at a man who couldn’t even be placed on the same plane as Yuli Iren.
When he’d disappeared to sea for half a year, everyone had assumed Victor Dempelth was dead. But when he came back alive, having even subdued the pirate island beneath his heel, Nina found herself wishing he had perished in the ocean after all. At least then, she would have been spared this suffering.
It pained her to look at his gentlemanly face, waiting politely with his hands clasped behind his back for her to speak.
Men like him were poison to women, Nina thought.
She asked,
“If I come back… will you take me in?”
Victor’s reply was indifferent.
“I’ll be grateful for the thought, nothing more.”
Nina gave a bitter laugh at that answer.
Meanwhile, Marina, who had at first been laughing and enjoying herself at the party, suddenly grew erratic. Victor noticed she was both fatigued and confused, so he went to her and said,
“Let’s go home now.”
“It’s fun, let me stay a little longer. Please?” she begged like a child.
Victor shook his head.
“Before you get more exhausted, Mother, let’s go.”
“I said no.”
She tried to shove him away, but he didn’t budge.
Frustrated at being thwarted, Marina snapped.
“You suffocate me. You’re the one who ruined my life, wouldn’t let me enjoy it! Did I ever ask to give birth to something like you? And if that wasn’t enough, you abandoned me in that wretched convent!”
Her outburst brought the party to a halt, all eyes turning toward them.
When Victor grabbed her arm to pull her away, Marina seized a bottle by the neck, smashed it, and hurled the jagged end at him. It grazed his throat before falling to the ground.
The onlookers gasped, but his men barely reacted, continuing to drink and smoke as if nothing had happened. They knew that had Victor wanted, he would have avoided it.
The maids rushed in and restrained Marina by force, dragging her out.
Victor pulled out a handkerchief and wrapped it around the wound on his neck.
Nina ran up.
“Victor, are you alright?”
“I’m fine.”
He patted his pockets, then raised an empty hand. Only then did one of the sailors approach to offer him a cigarette.
Victor took it, and the sailor lit it for him. With smoke between his lips, Victor said,
“I’ll go ahead.”
“Get treated first.”
“No need.”
He turned and left. He hadn’t felt tipsy all evening, but with blood dripping freely, the intoxication now finally hit him.
At the cozy second-floor home above the clock shop on Seventh Street, Scarlett had been working late into the night when a sudden knock startled her. She went downstairs nervously.
What could it be at this hour? Had Isaac gotten himself into trouble again? Her heart pounded as she peeked through the curtain — and saw Victor.
Relief flooded her, mixed with an overwhelming surge of emotion, as she opened the door.
“Are you crazy? At this hour—w-wait, your neck, what happened?”
Scarlett gasped at the sight of his wound. Victor took a step forward but staggered, bracing against the wall.
The smell of alcohol wafted thickly from him.
When she hurried to support him, he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her against his chest. Shocked by his wound, Scarlett slapped at his arm, forgetting they were divorced.
“Let go and come upstairs. You’re insane.”
She locked the door and led him up.
Victor followed quietly and sat where she pointed.
Scarlett pulled a medical kit from under the bed and opened it.
“This isn’t something that can be fixed with just medicine.”
She muttered as she set out tweezers, alcohol, and ointment. She lit the gas lamp brighter, then carefully plucked out shards of glass lodged in his skin.
Though it made her flinch to look at the wound, she forced herself to sound calm.
“Even drunk, how could you walk around like this?”
Victor tilted his head, watching her as she focused intently on treating him. When she finally picked up the disinfectant, she squeezed her eyes shut, then shook her head.
“No, I can’t. It’ll hurt too much. You need to see your physician.”
“Scarlett.”
He finally spoke, and Scarlett looked up, softened by hearing his voice.
Then he said,
“When did I ever tell you it was alright to leave me?”
Scarlett froze.
Victor pulled her arm, drawing her down onto his lap. She stumbled and ended up seated on his knee, pressed against him.
His drunken hands were rough.
“A-ah, that hurts,” she protested in alarm.
He immediately let go, frowning.
“It hurts?”
Scarlett had never seen him look so unsettled.
After a pause, he spoke again.
“I always held you this tightly in bed. Did it hurt back then too?”
“Well…”
Perhaps he thought he was holding back as much as he could, but with hands trained daily in strength, his grip had felt like being bound in steel. And in bed, when his control slipped even more, just his hands clutching her arms had been painful at times.
Victor pressed.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because I loved you.”
“How is that any excuse not to tell me?”
Scarlett gave a hollow laugh.
“Because I was afraid you’d leave me. You always made me feel insecure.”
Victor froze, then staggered to his feet. Scarlett tried to help him, but he pushed himself away, breathing hard, struggling to rein it in.
His eyes searched for a mirror. Catching his reflection, he smoothed his disheveled hair, then left abruptly.
Outside, Blythe had just arrived, leaping from the carriage in a panic.
“Young master!”
Victor climbed straight in.
“Drive.”
“But—”
“Now.”
“Yes, young master.”
With no choice, Blythe shut the door, bowed to Scarlett standing at the shop entrance, then climbed into the driver’s seat and drove away.
