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Chapter 6: Benjamin’s Cottage (1)
When I opened my eyes again, I found myself lying with my head resting on a man’s lap.
“Awake?”
Benjamin Cassel. The man who insisted I was his fiancée gazed down at me with a playful smile in his beautiful green eyes and light brown hair framing his face.
I jolted upright as though I’d been struck by an electric shock.
“You can sleep a little longer if you want. You’ve had a pretty rough day since this morning.”
Ben rubbed his thigh and smiled ruefully, as though disappointed that I’d gotten up so soon.
Sunlight and the shadows of leaves filtered through the carriage window, dancing chaotically across his handsome face.
“No, I’m fine.”
We were sitting side by side inside a carriage that rattled along the road. My deep purple handbag was resting on the seat opposite us.
As though he’d somehow guessed what had just crossed my mind, Ben grumbled.
“I’m confiscating the gun in your bag for the time being. Where on earth did you get your hands on such a dangerous thing?”
“Well, that’s…”
“And then you went and disappeared by climbing out a window like a common thief. Did you ever stop to think about how worried I’d be?”
“…I’m sorry.”
That was all I could say.
For now, I had to let him believe I was his fiancée and allow him to protect me. At least until I figured out how to return to my original world.
…And if possible, I’d like to take some gold coins from this era back with me, too.
“I wasn’t looking for an apology. You were sick and confused. Mr. Adams told me that people who lose their memories sometimes experience changes in their personalities and start doing things they’d never normally do.”
He raised a hand as though out of habit, reaching to stroke my cheek. But when he noticed the wary look in my eyes, he flinched and withdrew his hand.
“I let my emotions get the better of me earlier, too. That was a mistake. I won’t kiss you again until your memories return completely. And I won’t do anything you tell me you don’t want me to do. So relax.”
“All right. Since you say we were engaged… I suppose I can understand.”
My memories were still a complete mess, but I pretended to accept, at least halfway, the fact that I was Eleanor Walton.
“By the way, where are we going?”
“Where else? Home, of course.”
Benjamin pointed toward something outside the window.
A peaceful countryside stretched out before us. Trees lined the roadside, and beyond a white fence lay a vast field dotted with countless wildflowers. Farther away, a herd of cows grazed leisurely. The scene was almost absurdly tranquil.
Around a bend in the road, I spotted a two-story house with a garden. Its brick walls looked dignified and elegant, standing out on their own while blending beautifully with the pastoral surroundings.
“I see…”
It was a house I’d never seen before. Still, it didn’t look like a hideout belonging to a criminal organization that kidnapped and imprisoned people, so I obediently nodded.
“Aren’t you hungry? You haven’t eaten anything all day. Let’s ask Betsy to make us something delicious when we get home. She might even be able to prepare your favorite lemon cake for dessert by dinnertime.”
“Before that, could you explain a little more?”
I carefully chose my questions, trying not to act in a way that would contradict my supposed status as his fiancée.
While I could still use my head injury as an excuse, I needed to gather as much information as possible.
“It’s just that I really can’t remember anything. How did I end up waking up in that room earlier? Could you tell me what happened before that?”
Benjamin sighed softly. Looking at me with sympathetic eyes, he met my gaze and spoke.
“Do you remember me coming to the saloon to pick you up last night?”
“No.”
“What about the argument we had?”
I shook my head again. My headache was beginning to return.
“You were very drunk yesterday. When I suggested we go home, you kept refusing, and we ended up having a little argument. Then you ran out of the saloon, jumped onto my horse, and rode off. I had to borrow another horse to chase after you.”
Some details seemed to have been left out, but his story didn’t sound as though he’d simply made it up on the spot.
As I listened, I unconsciously lowered my gaze to my hands.
“By the time I finally caught up with you, you were nowhere to be seen. Still, I followed the direction you’d taken and wandered around for ages. It wasn’t until much later that I found you lying unconscious halfway through the valley on the road to Santafonsa.”
My hands felt as though they belonged to someone else. That dreadful sense of wrongness swept over my entire body again, sending a chill down my spine.
I could no longer deny it.
This wasn’t my body.
How had I ended up inside someone else’s body?
“……”
Only belatedly realizing that he’d stopped speaking, I turned back toward him awkwardly. He was watching me quietly, his eyes full of understanding.
“…So you’re saying I was just lying unconscious in the middle of the valley?”
“Not exactly. Before I found you, I came across a dead horse with a bullet lodged in its rump.”
Ben gave a bitter smile.
“A… bullet?”
“Can you imagine how I felt when I saw that? I thought something terrible had happened to you. It felt as though my whole world had collapsed.”
He gave me a slightly resentful sidelong glance.
He looked a little tired, as though he’d spent the entire night anxiously searching for me. I’d only noticed because I was sitting right beside him.
“Fortunately, I found you hiding in some nearby bushes pretty quickly. It seems you might have been targeted by bandits while passing through the valley. You didn’t appear to have any serious injuries, but you still wouldn’t regain consciousness, so I took you to the saloon and called for Mr. Adams.”
Come to think of it, parts of his story matched what I’d experienced in my dream.
The strange woman’s voice I’d heard inside my head. The pain throughout my body, the darkness, and the terrible cold.
Could it be… that hadn’t been a dream at all?
What if I’d started being dragged into this strange world back then, and it had all been real?
“That’s impossible. If I’d fallen off a horse after it was shot, there’s no way my body could be completely fine now!”
I shouted as though trying to shake off the frightening thought.
Even my palm, which had burned and hurt more than anything else in that dream, was now perfectly clean, without a single wound.
“Yes, Mr. Adams called it a miracle, too. There wasn’t a single visible injury on your body. But we didn’t know that for certain until you woke up.”
Benjamin hesitated for a moment, then turned to look out the window. When he looked back at me, his eyes were sad.
“Ellie, the way you look at me now, the way you speak, even your smallest gestures… Everything about you feels as though you’re a completely different person. You’ve forgotten everything that happened between us… forgotten me, haven’t you?”
“……”
“When I think about it that way, all your strange behavior suddenly makes sense. You must have hit your head badly when you fell off the horse. Even if there are no visible wounds, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t any internal damage.”
“…I suppose so.”
I nodded absentmindedly, not knowing what else to say.
“For now, don’t worry about anything. Just rest quietly. If you give yourself some time, everything will soon return to normal.”
After saying that, Benjamin’s eyebrows twitched slightly. Then he suddenly leaned forward, bringing his face close to mine.
“Until Mr. Adams examines you again and confirms that you’re all right, you’re not allowed to leave the house. I’m sure you won’t be able to stand it for even a day before trying to run away again, but I’ll have Tom keep a close watch outside your bedroom door. If necessary, I’ll station someone beneath your window, too.”
In practical terms, he was saying he intended to keep me under house arrest. Yet his ridiculously handsome face somehow made the situation feel less real.
The way he curled his lips into a playful smile and glanced at my disheveled skirt had a strange charm of its own.
Still, there was a noticeable difference between this side of him and the sweet, gentle expression he’d worn around Mr. Adams and the others. It was hard to believe one person could have so many different expressions.
“You understand, don’t you? I’m doing this to protect you. If you run away again, I’ll have no choice but to send you to a hospital.”
In any case, as far as anyone could tell, my body belonged to Eleanor Walton. I was his fiancée, a woman who had suffered a riding accident and was now mentally confused.
Considering how people with mental illnesses were treated in this era, being confined to a house was practically a merciful outcome. There were plenty of people who wouldn’t think twice if he tied up my arms and legs and strapped me into an electric chair.
For now, I would play the part of a well-behaved patient and gather information while staying at his house. If I couldn’t find a way back to my original world soon, I could always pretend my memories had returned.
“…All right. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Thank you for understanding.”
I turned away from his smiling face and gazed out at the peaceful scenery. I tried to sort through my jumbled thoughts, but it was far from easy.
The brick house looked even more impressive as we drew closer. It wasn’t quite large enough to be called a mansion, but it was certainly grander than the typical cottage on a rural farm.
The carriage entered a pretty, compact garden and continued toward the tall, white front entrance. The path was so meticulously maintained that there wasn’t a single weed in sight.
“Mr. Cassel, you’re back!”
As soon as the carriage pulled into the grounds, an older woman and a tall man hurried out of the house to greet us.
Both wore distinctive dark-colored clothing, so they appeared to be household staff.
“We thought you wouldn’t be back until much later today…”
However, the woman abruptly stopped speaking as soon as the carriage door opened. Upon spotting me sitting inside, her expression hardened dramatically.
Benjamin, on the other hand, swung the carriage door open cheerfully and hopped down without a second thought, seemingly unbothered by her reaction.
“Mrs. Featherstone, everything went smoothly while I was away, I hope?”
“…Everything was perfectly quiet and peaceful.”
Mrs. Featherstone replied, looking pointedly at me as I sat awkwardly inside the carriage, as though to imply that things certainly wouldn’t remain that way.
