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Chapter: 28
“…Me?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
That couldn’t be right.
Lennox raised an eyebrow.
He had only just learned—after seven years—that Juliet’s home, the count’s estate, was this old and decrepit.
To Lennox Carlisle, the Monard Count’s residence had always been an abstract place.
His lover was a daughter of the Monard family, so naturally there had to be a house somewhere in the capital—that was all it meant to him.
Whenever Juliet came up to the capital to be with him, she would stop by the count’s estate briefly, but Lennox had never once gone there to pick her up.
A man who wouldn’t blink even if his lover caught someone else’s eye, worrying about her family affairs?
Impossible. He would never bother with something so troublesome.
And yet the old woman continued calmly.
“Didn’t you send gold to Miss Juliet just yesterday, Your Grace?”
…Of course not. Nothing of the sort had ever happened.
“She told us so herself. She said you were too busy to come with her, but that you had made sure she could spend a comfortable New Year.”
Lennox’s eyes narrowed.
“Everyone in the household is deeply grateful. It is an honor to finally meet you in person, Your Grace.”
The blind old woman bowed deeply once more.
Lennox paused, trying to make sense of the situation.
Still, this didn’t sound like baseless gratitude.
Then there was only one possibility left.
Juliet had made it all up.
“Juliet said that?”
Unaware of the chill in his voice, Juliet’s nurse answered politely.
“Of course. Miss Juliet speaks of nothing but you, Your Grace. Just yesterday, she went on at length about how considerate you are, how kind you are—so different from the rumors.”
For once, he was at a loss for words.
“….”
He could vaguely guess why Juliet had lied, but he couldn’t understand why she had felt the need to go that far.
“Please take good care of our young lady, Your Grace.”
The blind old woman bowed deeply again.
“She may have matured early and seems composed, but she is soft-hearted. She thinks deeply and is easily hurt. Please look after her.”
Instead of replying, Lennox stared at the nurse.
The servants of the estate must have known from the beginning that Juliet was lying.
How could a man who hadn’t shown his face even once in seven years possibly be a devoted lover?
And yet Juliet had desperately defended him with lies—not to protect his reputation, but to reassure them.
Her pride had already been battered beyond repair, but at the very least, she didn’t want the people who had watched her grow up to worry.
Lennox didn’t care about his own infamous reputation, but he had a general idea of what people said about his lover.
Even without gossip from high society, it was obvious enough.
The servants of the count’s estate must have suspected it too: that their young lady’s lover was a cold, notorious man.
They must have worried about how she was being treated as his mistress in the unforgiving North.
And yet, every year, they had pretended to believe her clumsy lies meant to reassure her elderly nurse.
Juliet, who lied, and the servants, who played along—no one was at fault.
“Then am I the villain here?”
Standing in the sunlit corridor, Lennox let out a bitter, self-mocking thought.
Juliet had asked him for financial help only once, several years ago.
It must have been after her first winter at the northern ducal estate.
“Could I borrow a little money?”
She had seemed absent-minded for days, and then one morning, still in her nightclothes, she followed him into the dressing room and spoke with solemn resolve.
He couldn’t remember the exact amount, which meant it hadn’t been much.
It wasn’t even a pillow-talk quarrel. Such a trivial request—yet she had found it so difficult to voice.
She wasn’t a duchess, so she had no personal funds she could freely use, and he knew she had no other way of raising money.
More than anything, it was the first time Juliet—who rarely asked for anything—had made such a request.
He handed her his checkbook, telling her she didn’t need to pay it back, but Juliet, her ears turning bright red, stubbornly insisted.
“No. I’ll pay it back. Soon.”
It was the first time he had ever seen her blush like that.
Her ears flushed red, as if she’d been deeply insulted—and exactly three months later, she returned the full amount, interest included.
Even the checkbook came back to his hands untouched.
Dumbfounded, he remembered staring at Juliet for a long time as she held her head high.
“Did she use that money to repair the estate?”
It wasn’t even enough to buy dresses or jewelry.
But he never asked where she had used the money, or how she had earned it back. It wasn’t a sum worth questioning the source of.
“I’ll give you anything you want—just please help me.”
She’d said that so easily at their first meeting, yet here she was, guarding her pride over something so strange.
He’d thought it spiteful at the time.
Still, the image of her soft, white, dough-like ears turning red lingered in his memory.
After that, he made sure never to speak directly about money with her again. Instead, he discreetly gifted her jewelry that could easily be converted into cash.
The problem was that Juliet had left every single gift behind.
She took nothing with her—as though anything connected to him, no matter how valuable, was repulsive.
For seven years, she had never gone hungry, nor lacked dresses or jewelry.
And yet, that was all he had done.
“I really didn’t do a single thing properly for her.”
A bitter smile escaped him.
No wonder she had run away. Even if she hadn’t been pregnant, she probably would have fled eventually.
His neck stiffened as he clenched his teeth.
Right. She hadn’t received anything, so she must have felt no sense of obligation.
Damn it. What a mess this all was.
Suddenly, Lennox felt that this estate resembled Juliet all too well.
Driving people mad without saying a word. Nothing ever being simple.
Last spring, he had once forced a rare gemstone into her hands.
She’d looked increasingly shadowed back then, and he had been determined to see her smile again.
But Juliet hadn’t even opened it.
“And yet she treated some crude, cheap silver trinket like the most precious treasure in the world.”
The sight had left him utterly speechless.
Lennox dragged a hand over his face and erased his sneer.
Given the count’s family circumstances, where had Juliet found the gold to support the servants and protect her pride all this time?
Swallowing a sigh, Lennox finally turned away.
“…The estate is in poor condition. I’ll send workers to help.”
* * *
“You said you’re going to meet your husband, right?”
Juliet smiled gently at the curious young stewardess.
A woman traveling alone on such an expensive cross-continental train must have seemed unusual.
The forged identification under the name Lillian Seneca listed her as married, and Juliet wore a thin silver ring on her left ring finger.
“I’ve heard there are good jobs at the eastern gateway.”
“Yes.”
A wife traveling to meet her husband drew far less attention than an unmarried woman traveling alone, so Juliet deliberately let people misunderstand.
When the stewardess learned that Juliet liked Rynn tea, she even brought her a whole teapot.
“I’ll bring you some scones later, too!”
So that sweet buttery smell filling the dining car had been scones.
Screeech.
Right after the friendly stewardess left, the train slowly came to a halt at a small station.
Just as it had taken Juliet aboard in the capital, the luxurious cross-continental train stopped periodically, letting passengers off and taking on new ones and cargo.
Thud.
It seemed they were loading particularly heavy freight here; the train remained stopped for quite a while, heavy noises echoing repeatedly from the rear cargo cars.
While the train was stopped, Juliet spread a map on the table and sank into thought.
“So we’re around here now.”
She marked the train’s current location—her own position—with a small silver pigeon ornament.
“And this is Robel, and this is Sanbon.”
She placed a sugar cube on each of the two major cities where the train would stop.
Since they were heading east, the train would arrive at its final destination, Sanbon, in two days.
Sanbon lay at the far eastern edge of the continent.
Her ticket was for Sanbon, and that had been her original plan.
But now Juliet felt she might need to change it.
“Should I get off at Robel tomorrow?”
The fact that the man possessed a tracking holy relic bothered her.
Especially since it was in the hands of an undoubtedly furious Lennox Carlisle.
“This isn’t your child.”
After lying like that and running away, of course he would be angry.
Juliet let out a quiet sigh. Whenever she was entangled with that man, there were moments when her temper flared beyond restraint.
After staying by his side for over seven years, she knew exactly how to wound a proud man with words.
But in the end, that was all she could do.
At best, she could scratch his pride and provoke his anger—hardly even a blemish on a diamond.
“Still, I don’t regret it.”
She didn’t care if he misunderstood and thought she had run away with another man.
Unlike Lennox Carlisle, Juliet had little to her name—no honor or pride she needed to protect.
Even so, the holy relic in his possession worried her.
He would know she had boarded a train east, but that meant she was being tracked every moment.
Of course, Juliet didn’t believe he would personally chase after her.
He was far too busy to waste time on a mere mistress.
“So there’s no way he’d come after me with knights—”
Just as she reached that thought, Juliet suddenly felt an intense gaze and flinched.
“…?”
She cautiously lifted her head, then relaxed.
“Oh.”
Across the table, diagonally opposite her, the source of that passionate stare was a chubby-cheeked baby.
A young couple with an infant was seated at the neighboring table.
Cradled in its parents’ arms, the baby stared at Juliet with shining eyes, fascinated by the woman visible through the partition.
How adorable. Juliet’s eyes softened into a gentle smile.
“Hi.”
She silently greeted the baby, shaping the word with her lips.
“Gyaa!”
Perhaps realizing she was responding, the baby suddenly wriggled and stretched its arms toward Juliet, as if trying to come to her.
“Oh my—what’s gotten into you all of a sudden?”
But the confused parents adjusted their hold, and the small, chubby face disappeared behind the partition.
After soothing the briefly fussing baby, the young couple soon left the dining car.
Juliet withdrew her lingering gaze and absentmindedly toyed with the hem of her skirt.
“I had one too…”
White, plump cheeks. Tiny hands. Soft, pale skin with a sweet scent.
There had been a time when she endured in silence, imagining such things, clinging to patience.
My baby would have been beautiful too.
Juliet smiled faintly.
In her previous life, Juliet had wanted to raise the child, even if she had to do it alone.
But in the end, she had never even held her baby before that first life came to an end.
“How long were you planning to hide it?”
Juliet gripped the warm teacup tightly.
“I decided to think of him as a different person.”
Having been pregnant, being spoken to cruelly by a man—those were all things from her past life.
If he didn’t remember that life, then he might as well be a different person altogether.
“You were the one who chose not to resent him.”
Only Juliet remembered her first life.
So she couldn’t resent a man who remembered nothing, for things that happened in a life only she recalled.
She knew that, and when she chose to stay by his side, she decided to bury the past forever.
Still, there were moments when resentment and sorrow surged up unexpectedly.
“But what about my baby?”
That child—who surely would have been loved—would exist forever only in Juliet’s memory.
That was why, when the man who chased her last night casually spoke of marriage, as though offering alms, she hadn’t been fooled.
“Why was I the only one who returned to the past with my memories?”
No matter how much she wondered, it was a question that would never be answered.
Juliet gazed out the window at the thin drizzle falling outside.
Thud.
It seemed the heavy cargo had all been loaded; now passengers were boarding the train.
Resting her chin in her hand, lost in thought, Juliet suddenly jolted.
“…Huh?”
A group of suspicious men with swords at their waists were boarding the train in a rush.
