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Chapter 15
After that, the meal with Aiden flowed naturally.
Perhaps out of consideration, Aiden never asked Sarah any questions that might put her in a difficult spot. Instead, he mostly spoke words of resolve about the future rather than dwelling on the past.
When the meal ended, the two of them strolled together toward where the carriage was waiting.
Aiden easily matched his stride to Sarah’s.
“Did the meal suit your taste?”
“I’m not sure about you… You used to dislike it.”
It had been one of the places he detested before losing his memory, so she was curious to know how he would react now.
Was it really different for him? Did it no longer feel unhygienic and filthy?
“I can’t imagine why I disliked it. Tasted delicious to me.”
And indeed, Aiden seemed to have enjoyed it so much that he even suggested they come again, casually and without hesitation.
“It might be nice to come during a quieter time, when there aren’t so many people.”
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t mean it to sound like I was fishing for gratitude.”
“I enjoyed it too. And this bouquet is truly beautiful.”
Sarah touched the petals gently and inhaled their fragrance. She didn’t notice that, a step behind her, Aiden’s earlobes had flushed red.
On the ride back to the estate, a long silence lingered in the carriage. But it was different from the silence that had weighed on them when they first left for the city.
Though she felt reluctant to return after being out for the first time in a while, it wasn’t unpleasant. Sarah held in her arms the bouquet Aiden had given her.
The faint scent of lilac drifted softly between the two of them.
A week passed after that, and many changes came to the viscount’s residence.
Following Aiden’s advice, Sarah began leaving her room and going outside. Her ankle, which she had sprained earlier, had since healed completely.
Even the servants seemed to sense the change in atmosphere in the household. They no longer openly humiliated or scorned her.
Perhaps they still gossiped behind her back, but at least they no longer showed such behavior in front of her. That was enough to make daily life manageable.
Sarah now watered the potted plants. She had started with something as simple as tending flowers and watching new leaves sprout.
Seeing the leaves grow day by day gave her a newfound determination she had never felt before.
Sometimes she spent her leisure time knitting. Other times, she did nothing at all but sit idly in Aiden’s study while he worked.
Whenever she did, Aiden would look at her with a serene smile, as though simply having her by his side was something to be grateful for—even if her presence did nothing to aid his work.
[Is it really okay for me to just sit here, doing nothing?]
[To be truly free, you must escape the burden of thinking you have to be doing something.]
Until now, freedom had always felt far away from Sarah.
She had spent her days idly, sitting in her darkened room without stepping outside.
Yet with nothing more than a change in her surroundings—and someone to share those surroundings with—Sarah felt her daily life begin to shift.
Sometimes she and Aiden exchanged light, trivial conversations. Perhaps that was why…
Their talks, once running on parallel lines, had begun to change course—like him matching her stride as they walked.
Never had she imagined that in this house, which had once been filled with raised voices and sighs, she and Aiden would one day share gentle words.
“How is the weather today?”
Sarah opened the window wide. Sunshine poured in, and she thought briefly about moving the pots closer to the light.
She stretched her hand out toward the window and basked in the warm rays.
“It’s lovely.”
“Feels like there’ll be a rain shower soon.”
“Rain?”
Sarah’s eyes widened. She withdrew her hand from the window and turned toward Aiden, curiosity sparked by his words.
“How do you know that?”
“Oh, I overheard the coachmen talking. One said his knee ached last night.”
Aiden wrapped his hand around his knee, pretending to wince in pain. Sarah tilted her head at his playful remark.
She’d heard something similar before: when the body ached all over, it was a sign that rain was coming—or so the orphanage director had always said.
Just an old wives’ tale, isn’t it?
Seeing her husband put stock in such a saying made Sarah realize he had his own peculiar side too.
A faint smile crept onto her lips, and Aiden closed his files, propped his chin in his hand, and asked:
“Wife, what’s that smile about?”
He too was smiling, his voice soft like freshly whipped cream.
“It just sounds like a superstition.”
“Sounds like you don’t believe it. Then shall we make a wager?”
His eyes curved playfully.
[I want to find out what I like and what I don’t.]
Come to think of it, Sarah herself didn’t know exactly what she liked or disliked.
She’d thought she had no talent with her hands. Yet when she actually tried tending plants and knitting, she found it surprisingly enjoyable.
Her attempts were clumsy, yes, but skill and enjoyment belonged to entirely different realms.
Had Aiden not spoken those words, she might still be shutting herself in her room, spending her days the same as always—haunted by nightmares, sinking deeper into gloom.
She would have withered away, never discovering the small joys hidden in daily life.
But giving her care and attention to something brought new vitality to her.
Like the leaves sprouting a little more each day, Sarah too was slowly changing.
[So don’t be so quick to assume that I could ever hate you.]
Sarah brushed her hand over her neck for no reason. She didn’t know why that memory surfaced now, nor why her head bowed on its own.
On the windowsill of her room, the bouquet he had given her sat in a vase, soaking up the sunlight.
The sky outside was perfectly clear, with no sign of rain.
Will it really rain?
The wager with Aiden had already begun. He seemed absolutely certain that it would.
Sarah didn’t know what the outcome would be, but at this moment, she felt that either way would be fine.
Whether it rained or not.
She decided to turn her attention away from her husband—who had lost his memory—and onto something else. Today, her focus landed on the stack of newsletters she had never been able to read before.
Before he lost his memory, Aiden had disapproved of Sarah reading such things.
Keeping up with the world through the printed word, he’d claimed, was strictly men’s business.
Not that he read them himself, either.
But now, with him no longer restricting her, Sarah felt a spark of curiosity when she discovered the pile of unread newsletters stacked in a corner of the hall.
It was a rare moment of peace. Or perhaps, the calm before the storm.
As Sarah opened one of the papers, she was met with a shocking headline.
<Icon of Misfortune: The Duke of Winston?!>
<News that the Duke of Winston is suffering from amnesia has become this year’s hot topic in society.>
At the name Duke of Winston, her heart sank.
A troubling memory resurfaced: his relentless gaze, the way he looked down at her with one corner of his lips raised. It remained a humiliation she had never shaken.
And now—amnesia? Her eyes froze on the all-too-familiar term.
She hadn’t misread it. The word amnesia was written there clearly.
<He has shown behavior quite unlike his usual self, and society watches keenly to see if he will ever reclaim the dignity of a duke.>
When she had finished the article down to the last line, Sarah’s gaze drifted toward Aiden, who was still immersed in his work.
He wrote intently, the scratching of his pen on paper echoing louder in her ears than before.
Duke Leo Winston had been known as a popular gentleman in society, but Sarah had never once seen him.
Since marrying Aiden, she had never been permitted to attend social gatherings, nor had she been allowed to explore the outside world. Aiden had always considered her a disgrace.
Not just in private gatherings, but even in official ones.
[You think you can show up looking like that?]
[Do you want us both to be humiliated?]
It wasn’t that she didn’t know how to dress herself up. She simply had no money to do so.
Sarah had fiddled with her thin, bony hands, and all she could manage to say was:
[…Go without me.]
[Hah. Absurd.]
That was all she could say. And even that seemed to annoy Aiden, who stormed out of the house.
Later, she found out he had attended that gathering with another woman. She had only learned of it through Aiden himself—he had bragged about it loudly, as he did the first time he had brought a woman into their home, without shame.
Perhaps he would rather sneak another woman into his arms than be seen in public with a wife who did not shine.
If Sarah had had friends, she might have heard gossip about what went on in society. But in a house where she barely had space to breathe, friendship was nothing but a luxury.
How desperately she had wanted to escape that house. Could it really have been called a home? She let out a bitter laugh, her hands tightening unconsciously around the newsletter.
She had been pushed into marriage, and in fleeing from the Count and Countess of Dorsen—who had never felt like guardians—she had only ended up in the Spencer household. That alone was cause for despair, even if it had been her only choice at the time.
Had she thought more carefully, might there have been another option?
Sarah shook her head hard. The more she remembered her miseries, the more they tried to swallow her whole.
[How dare you bump into the noble Duke of Winston!]
[Shouldn’t you be apologizing for such insolence?]
Yes, he had called himself Duke of Winston.
Amnesia?
Recalling the way he had looked down at her then, Sarah shut her eyes tightly.
He had never given her a chance to speak, only spewing his own words. She couldn’t help but be reminded of the husband she had once known.
Her body trembled before she realized it, and a different unease began to creep over her.
No matter how she looked at it, she couldn’t believe it.
Two men suffering from amnesia at nearly the same time—was that truly a coincidence? Something about it gnawed at her.
