KMKS 03

Chapter 3

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“Do you not even remember your father?”

Perhaps it was because she couldn’t believe her son had awakened without his memories.
Olga, Aiden’s mother, sat close to him and asked in a trembling voice.

Her eyes, fixed on Aiden as she waited for an answer, were filled with desperate hope.

For their sake, Sarah quietly stepped aside. But she didn’t leave the doorway completely. She feared that in front of Olga, Aiden’s true self might show.

Olga rummaged through her handbag and pulled something out to show him.

“Look at this.”

Aiden’s gaze followed her finger.

“Your proud father, who was honored for his service in the war.”

She held out a small portrait of the late Spencer viscount, but Aiden’s eyes remained dry and indifferent.

“…I don’t know any of this.”

It must have been frightening—faces he had never seen suddenly being called his family.
On top of that, he didn’t even know who he himself was.

Yet Olga held tightly onto his hand, refusing to let go, as if determined to keep asking until he said he remembered something.

“Look closely. Your eyes—you have your father’s eyes.”

“…”

“You adored him so much… If only he hadn’t passed so early…”

This was the first time Sarah had heard such a story.

She had known the late Spencer viscount had died young, but not that Aiden had admired his father, or that he had once knelt and wept at his grave.

It was an image of Aiden Sarah simply could not imagine.

A bitter feeling rose within her.
When it came to her own parents’ deaths, Aiden had tossed out careless words without a thought.

Despite having endured the same kind of loss, he had shown no regard for her pain.

That was why Sarah had believed Aiden had never felt even a grain of affection for his father.
She had been wrong.

“…That’s enough.”

Exhausted by Olga’s endless reminiscing, Aiden sighed quietly.

“Would you please leave?”

His hand rubbed his forehead; Olga’s questions seemed to weigh heavily on him.

Even so, her son’s cold tone unsettled her, and she kept asking if he was all right.

But before long, Aiden complained of a headache.

When the doctor entered to examine him, he urged Olga to leave at once.

Sarah, too, had no desire to be left alone with Aiden, so she followed them out.

As the door shut firmly behind them, the doctor clasped his hands together and spoke.

“You are aware that Lord Spencer is suffering from memory loss, yes?”

“I know—but how am I supposed to accept it!”

Olga snapped back in agitation, glaring at him.

Annoying as her tone was, the doctor remained the best judge of Aiden’s condition.

“I understand your feelings, madam. But if you keep pressing him with questions, he may collapse under the strain. If that’s not what you wish, I recommend you stop.”

Olga stroked the portrait of her late husband, and tears suddenly spilled over.

She wept aloud, saying it broke her heart that her son could not even remember the father he had once adored. She didn’t understand how such a cruel thing could happen to her child.

While Olga sobbed, the doctor turned to Sarah, who at least seemed more composed.

“The coachman told me it was a carriage accident. Most likely, the trauma is the cause.”

Sarah stared at Aiden’s closed door.

If his amnesia was real, then he was probably straining with all his might, trying to navigate a fog of forgotten memories.

As if it weren’t enough that he had awoken not knowing who he was—Sarah, his wife, had once wished he would never wake at all.

Did he hear me?

The thought struck her—words she had whispered as she looked at his unconscious form.

[…Please don’t wake up.]

If Aiden had heard her while lying in that deep slumber, what would he think now?

Sarah’s hand moved to her neck.

And what if his memories returned?
If Aiden learned that his wife had prayed he never awaken, what might he do to her?

The thought made Sarah tremble violently.

The doctor noticed her gaze lingering on Aiden’s room and quickly offered reassurance.

“Ah—his memory may return once he’s stabilized.”

“…”

“There’s no need to worry. Just make sure your husband gets sufficient rest—”

“If you mean that…”

Sarah cut him off, her large eyes turning to him.

Something in her voice made the doctor swallow nervously.

“…then you must also mean his memories might never return.”

She murmured the words quietly, almost forgetting Olga was standing beside her.
Her tone was dry, yet soaked through with a hidden weight.

“You—you child, how can you say such a thing!”

Olga’s sharp rebuke snapped the air, but her tears vanished instantly, startled by Sarah’s unexpected words.

“There’s no certainty either way,” the doctor added, glancing between them. “There are exceptions, rare cases…”

He left it at that, then hurriedly collected the envelope containing his fee.

He had intended to give the family hope for the patient’s recovery—but realized he might have offered another kind of hope entirely.

Feeling uneasy, he tucked the envelope deep into his coat and hurried away without looking back, fearing they might stop him.

Olga followed him with narrow eyes and clicked her tongue in distaste.

“Just look at him scuttling away. If that’s not deserving of a curse, what is.”

It was a curse to Olga, but to Sarah, the doctor’s words carried a different meaning.

Even as Olga grumbled, Sarah mulled them over.

Exceptions…

Could there be anything sweeter than that word?

If anyone could defy the ordinary, surely it would be Aiden.

So lost in thought, Sarah didn’t notice Olga calling her name again and again.

At last, Olga waved a hand in front of her face, and Sarah blinked back to herself.

“Where’s your mind wandering? Don’t let your thoughts stray, child. Everything will be fine.”

Olga launched into another lecture.

“Yes, right now it may be hard. But really, he’s only lost his memories. It won’t affect daily life in the slightest, will it?”

Sarah took a long moment to absorb the meaning.

It sounded, at first, like encouragement that Aiden might soon recover.
But underneath, Olga’s true intent was different.

“He’ll have no trouble fathering a child. In fact, isn’t it better that he’s forgotten?”

“…Better?”

Sarah’s throat burned as if she had swallowed thorns.

“That mistress of his—he won’t remember her now. You can make it seem as if your marriage was perfectly happy.”

Olga’s lips curled into a crooked smile.

A child.

Just as her husband had once demanded of her, Olga too expected Sarah to fulfill her “duties” as a wife.

Sarah, however, had no intention of following her mother-in-law’s wishes. Least of all pretending to have a happy marriage.
For if Aiden’s memories ever did return, such lies would only shatter.

“You’ll see—he’ll only get better. He’s my son, after all.”

Olga’s preaching continued for a long while. All the words she had never spoken to her son now poured out at Sarah instead, using his memory loss as excuse.

Even before the accident, Olga had always scolded Sarah far more than Aiden.

It was only after Olga finally departed that Sarah’s knees gave way beneath her.

Her mother-in-law had spent less than a day demanding, again and again, that she bear Aiden a child—even though her son lay injured.

Sarah sank down, staring at Aiden’s tightly closed door.

She thought of him inside, writhing in pain from severe headaches.

Olga had boasted confidently that her son would recover, but Sarah said nothing.

And if he does get better?

What would change then?
Wouldn’t regaining his memory be the greatest misfortune for her?

She stared at her own thin hands braced against the floor. Something hot welled up from within.

She had thought she could endure it all—but perhaps her strength was finally giving out.

It felt as if she herself were slowly vanishing.

Still, Sarah forced the bitterness down her raw throat.

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A few days passed, yet Aiden made no move to leave his room.

Sarah hadn’t been waiting for him, but she felt herself growing more and more precarious.

Because while he remained hidden away, the servants’ cruelty toward her only worsened.

They didn’t clean her quarters; instead, they pretended to and walked out wearing the few trinkets she owned.

Meals weren’t delivered on time—if at all.

“These cookies are truly delicious!”

They knew she had a peanut allergy, yet with smiling faces they handed her cookies laced with peanuts as if nothing were wrong.

At first she managed to avoid them by watching carefully. But soon they grew cunning, disguising the peanuts so well she could not detect them.

Her body would break out in rashes, leaving her trembling in itchy torment.

Meanwhile, the food sent to Aiden’s room was lavish, exactly to his tastes, with servants waiting attentively by his door at all hours in case he summoned them.

And that wasn’t all.

Even in front of Sarah, the viscountess of the house, the servants didn’t bother to lower their voices.

“If I were her, I couldn’t stand it.”
“Same here.”

They raised their voices deliberately, making sure she heard, as if hoping she would walk out of the manor on her own.

Once, Sarah might have summoned them and scolded them fiercely.

But she no longer had the strength.
Even chastising subordinates required authority, and her words had long since lost any power.

There was no one in the household who would take her side.

And even if Aiden had seen all this, she was certain he wouldn’t have lifted a finger for her.

That was the one kind of faith Sarah still held in him—
the certainty that he would do nothing.

 

A certainty built up over two years of marriage.