Chapter 84
“Your Grace?”
Anne had only stepped out for some quiet to clear her head, but how on earth had Gray followed her here?
And at this hour, in the dead of night!
If anyone saw them, they would think they were having a secret tryst. It was the perfect setup for gossip, slander, and scandal.
Anne sprang to her feet.
“I’ll be going now.”
She tried to walk past him, but Gray caught her wrist.
“I checked on the way. No one’s around.”
“…Did you come looking for me?”
“Yes.”
Gray hadn’t even known there was a greenhouse here until just a while ago. It was only when he saw a glowing blue dot moving across his map late at night, when everyone else was asleep, that he had rushed out and followed it here.
“Why?”
What more was there to say between them? How many times did she have to reject him before he understood?
Anne was sick and tired of it.
“I’m sorry. I just… I wanted to say this to you in person, not through a letter. I never meant to cause you trouble.”
“I’ll accept your apology. But please don’t make that mistake again.”
“I see. But Anne… you’re still kind.”
“…What?”
Even as she glared, her face tight with anger, he smiled like it was something amusing.
Heat flushed up her neck—not from embarrassment, but from sheer fury.
“If it were me, I’d have slapped me. Ten times over.”
“…What are you talking about?”
“I met other women behind your back. I doubted you, refused to believe a single word you said. And still, even blinded like that, you stayed by me until the end. Until you died.”
Her fingertips trembled, stinging as if burned. Every word out of Gray’s mouth stabbed into her like a blade.
“What… what are you talking about…?”
But Gray spoke with certainty.
“Anne. I’ve remembered you since I was thirteen.”
“…!”
She snapped her head toward him, and the look in his eyes made it feel like he could see straight through her. But Anne pressed her lips tightly shut and only glared, refusing to acknowledge it.
“You used to check if my lights were out, keep watch while I slept—even though I annoyed you. Did you hate me even back then?”
Gray looked down at her with sorrowful eyes. His large red irises were wet, as if tears might spill any second.
He looked like a man sinking into the swamp of a past he couldn’t escape.
But Anne didn’t hesitate.
“Yes. I hated you.”
Not just hatred—she had loathed him.
How hard had she fought to survive, to finally escape? And now here he was, dragging her back into that nightmare.
“Then you’ve remembered everything since then too.”
Anne froze.
“And still, you were kind to me. Gentle, even though you despised me so much you eventually fled. You endured it all anyway. …Anne, you’re still the woman I loved, just the same.”
Gray’s gaze burned with painful longing.
Like a man consumed by an incurable lovesickness—his voice, his eyes, his very body seemed desperate.
…And what did he expect her to do with that?
Anne’s voice was cold.
“Stop talking nonsense. I am Hannibal Clayde’s fiancée.”
She should have cut him off completely before Hannibal returned.
Terrifying and hateful as Gray was, she would have to deal with him eventually.
Whether it was a past she’d survived or a future she refused to accept—if Gray insisted on clinging to her, the blame was partly hers for not severing it cleanly before.
She could not allow scandal to spread. She would not let Hannibal’s honor be tarnished because of her.
This time, she would end it for good.
“I know. I’m engaged to the Marquess’s daughter myself.”
Gray seemed calm, even as Anne’s fury flared in his face.
“You can be as angry as you want. I’ll wait, however long it takes, until your anger cools. Just like you once endured me.”
There was no longer any doubt. Anne remembered the past. And so did Gray.
Tears slipped down his cheeks as he blinked.
“I’m a bastard who deserves to be beaten. A man who couldn’t even protect the woman he loved. I deserve a lifetime of resentment. Isn’t that right, Anne?”
“…What utter trash…”
Not worth resenting, not worth remembering. She trembled as she forced the words out.
“I was wrong. I’m sorry, Anne. I couldn’t even protect our child—”
Crack!
Anne’s palm whipped across his face, the sharp sound splitting the silence of the greenhouse.
“Don’t you dare speak such words with that mouth. You don’t even deserve to say them.”
Her palm throbbed red-hot from the force of the strike.
“You remember everything? Then do you also remember what you did to me? How dare you appear before me again, knowing that? How dare you even speak of it?”
Anne shouted, fists clenched, voice shaking with rage.
“Sorry? If you’re sorry, then disappear. Get out of my sight forever. Go back to the capital right now, and never come back!”
It was a life already erased. A past already dead. Memories remained only as nightmares—reminders never to repeat.
But Gray’s very presence dragged those nightmares back into reality, forcing her to relive the pain.
“I’m sorry, Anne. Truly… I’m so sorry…”
He wept, tears splattering on the floor. To Anne, it was meaningless—crocodile tears.
He didn’t retreat a single step.
“I just… I loved you. The times I spent with you were the happiest of my life. That’s why I shamelessly came looking for you again.”
For one, it had been hell. For the other, heaven they longed to return to.
“I love you, Anne. Forgive me for loving you…”
Gray wept endlessly, rooted in place.
“I’ll wait, Anne. I’ll wait a lifetime until your anger fades. If you ever remember me again, please come back to me.”
But from this man, drowning in feelings he couldn’t control, Anne would never hear the answer she wanted.
“That will never happen.”
Now that she knew they shared the same horrific past, she abandoned all thought of persuading or understanding him.
“I want nothing more to do with you. In any way. His Lordship has been good to me, the people of the West are kind. I’ll live happily here in Tegenes. So do not seek me out again. This is no longer a request, Duke Gray Benton—it is an order.”
With that, Anne fled the greenhouse without a backward glance.
Behind her, Gray remained rooted where he stood, weeping in the dark until his tears dried.
And not far away, hidden behind a tree, a black figure watched Anne pass before slipping silently away.
* * *
A few days later, Hannibal returned.
“His Lordship has passed through the gates,” came the report.
Anne, drinking tea with Victoria, jumped up and rushed to greet him.
“My brother’s never been away this long before. How do you feel, Anne?”
“…I don’t know.”
Her heart was in turmoil. Gray had made her days uncomfortable and suffocating, but hearing Hannibal was finally coming home filled her chest with a bright, nervous excitement.
“Getting engaged and then rushing straight to war… Honestly, my brother was too much, wasn’t he?”
Anne smiled faintly at Victoria’s words.
It had been over three years since she last saw him.
They had kept up correspondence, and she had forced herself to act composed, but now that she would finally see him again, her heart fluttered uncontrollably.
Had he been well? He probably hadn’t eaten or slept properly at the front. What if he’d lost too much weight? Was his health intact?
His letters were warm, but in person, he was often blunt—what if things felt awkward again?
Her mind swirled with worries, longing, anxiety, and anticipation. But one truth stood clear.
Anne Perrot had always missed Hannibal Clayde.
The man who had protected the West, who had kept her nights safe and peaceful—she wanted to see with her own eyes that he had returned alive and well.
As they reached the main house, Count Arthur came walking from the annex, with Gray trailing behind. Anne felt the sting of his presence at her back, but she refused to look.
Together with Victoria, she stood at the wide-open entrance.
The thunder of hooves echoed closer and closer, until it shook the ground—and her heart—like a drumbeat.
Anne couldn’t tell if the pounding came from the earth or from within her chest.
“Brother!”
A sharp whinny, and the horse skidded to a halt.
“Victoria.”
Hannibal dismounted, greeting his sister.
“How have you been? Where’s Oliver?”
“He’ll arrive shortly with the carriage. Steward, prepare the large guest chamber.”
Leaving Victoria behind, Hannibal issued quick instructions to the butler before striding straight toward Anne, who hovered nervously nearby.
“Have you been well?”
It had been so long since she’d heard his voice that it hardly felt real.
Was it just her imagination, or was there an unusual gentleness in his tone?
When she lifted her head, Hannibal was gazing steadily at her.
“….”
Anne’s throat tightened. Her eyes stung, making it hard to speak.
“Anne?”
His violet eyes searched hers, as if to reassure himself she was truly there.
“Yes… thanks to Your Lordship, I’ve been well.”
His face, pale from war, was still clear and striking. His body was as strong and broad as she remembered, and though unscathed for the most part, a faint scratch across his forehead made her chest ache.
As she frowned in worry, their eyes locked, and she caught sight of her own reflection in his pupils.
The face of a woman who had missed and longed for the man before her.
Anne Perrot’s true feelings.
