Chapter 7
One day, when I was twenty-one years old, I had a terrible nightmare.
A painting of a mother I had never seen before, smiling brightly. People looking at me with faces mixed with pity and disgust.
The dreadful solitude of a basement room without windows. A young child frightened by my hardened expression at the Crown Princess’s coronation ceremony.
It was a day when I shed a great deal of sweat and tears after having a horrific, cruel dream in which every scene was jumbled together.
Exhausted, I sat in the shade of the palace garden, where wisteria flowers were in full bloom, holding a book I couldn’t even read.
That’s when a round, black clump of dust came running from afar into my arms.
Behind the warm dust, Theodore was chasing after it.
He came running with a limp, then stopped abruptly when he saw me.
“Ah, Your Highness the Crown Princess.”
“Is something wrong? Did you fall?”
“Well, I was chasing this little guy…”
The thing that had jumped into my arms, which he pointed at, wasn’t a clump of dust but a cat.
“I’ve never seen a black cat before! Is it yours, Sir Theodore?”
“No, I’ve never seen a cat like this either. But this little one took my knight’s insignia…”
As he said, there was a leather insignia in the cat’s mouth. When I gently grabbed it, the cat bit down harder.
“You need to get this back, right?”
Theodore nodded with a troubled expression.
“There’s only one way to do this.”
I broke off a stalk of grass with a round, fuzzy tip and waved it in front of the cat’s eyes.
The cat dropped the leather insignia from its mouth and began moving its body in response to the swaying grass.
“There, all set?”
“I’m sorry, Your Highness.”
His eyes, picking up the insignia, were fixed on the small cat.
“This is nothing. I know a thing or two about cats.”
“…May I ask how you know so much?”
The conversation continued unexpectedly. I looked up at him standing there for a while before speaking.
“Cats like darkness and mice. Sometimes they would come down to the basement room where I used to stay. They probably didn’t know someone lived there next to the grain storage.”
“…”
“I’m sorry. I haven’t slept at all. I’m talking nonsense.”
“Not at all. I apologize for asking such an impertinent question.”
I waved my hand dismissively.
“It’s fine. I learned a thing or two about befriending cats back then. I suppose everything has its use, since even darkness has its advantages. Oh, except for my hardened face, of course.”
It was midday, and the sunlight was gradually shrinking the shade. The unfamiliar light shining down from above made me lower my head.
“When it comes to darkness and a hardened face, I’m quite familiar with both as well.”
I found that amusing and fluttered my eyelashes.
“But I can’t think of a better-matched pair than a warm, sunny afternoon and your smile, Your Highness.”
Theodore said this with a stoic face, then bowed his head and left. I blankly stared in the direction he had gone for a while, then touched my own face.
How did he know I was smiling?
Before I knew it, the black cat had fallen asleep in my arms, breathing softly. I quietly stroked the cat and smelled the scent of water drifting from afar. For the first time in a long while, I felt sleepy.
And so, I fell asleep right there, holding the cat in my arms.
After that, I encountered Theodore a few more times. Sometimes he would sit at a distance and keep watch, and on cloudy days, he would leave an umbrella behind.
Before military training or departing for other countries, he would pass dried fish and shrimp to my maids, calling them cat treats.
Gradually, I found myself thinking he probably wasn’t a bad person. Without knowing anything about him, I had decided that on my own.
I writhed in agony at the memories flooding back.
How wonderful it would be to be sitting in the palace garden right now, stroking my little cat, Artie.
Artie, the little angel who lived for seven years.
Thinking of him, I could almost see a soft, glossy cat before my eyes.
I reached out toward the black ball of fur. It was soft and long. Almost like human hair.
Then, a chilling sensation jolted me awake.
“…?”
Before my eyes was not Artie the black cat, but Theodore with his black hair.
Startled, I quickly pulled back my fingers, which had been gripping his hair. He seemed to be in a light sleep, his head resting against the bedside.
So defenseless. Instinctively, I grabbed the candlestick from the nightstand.
I’ll drive this candlestick right into that black head. Then blood will spurt out like a fountain.
His breath would be cut off as quickly as my black dress had once been soaked through.
But as much as I wanted to, my hand wouldn’t move for some reason.
Theodore’s pale back rose and fell with each breath.
Just like my little cat, Artie.
‘Vivian Frederick, can you really do this?’
It felt as if the voice in my heart was filling the basement room. That was when—
“How about we live together for now?”
As if he had been awake all along, Theodore’s crimson lips parted to say those words. His eyelids were even redder than his lips.
My hand trembled violently. It wasn’t because the candlestick was heavy. Probably because of the medicine.
“Give that to me.”
He lightly took the candlestick from my hand and put it back in its place.
“…How did you get in here? Get out. Now.”
“I apologize for the intrusion, but I had something urgent to ask.”
A vein momentarily became visible on his large face. I pulled up the blanket to hide the goosebumps rising beneath my dress.
“You must have sold off the most important human courtesy to come up with that large dowry.”
Theodore ignored my comment and continued.
“When did the Count start laying his hands on you? When I was at this estate five years ago, he wasn’t that much of a scoundrel.”
It was an unexpected question.
His eyes looked uneasy.
Why is he asking this? What does the man who killed me want to know about the man who beats me?
Actually, in my past life, I had no memory of being slapped by the Count. However, when I mustered the courage to say I didn’t want to marry the Margrave, the Count did lock me in the storage room.
For three days, without food or even water.
After that, when Lucas proposed to me, he suddenly turned into a normal father and pretended to dote on his daughter.
“Today was the first time I was slapped and grabbed by the collar.”
“If that’s true… I’m relieved.”
How ironic—he talks about being relieved over a first-time slap when he himself once drove a knife into me.
“If you’re done, leave. And don’t come back. I hope you haven’t forgotten what I said about having no intention of marrying anytime soon.”
“…Vivian, would you praise me?”
“What?”
“Count Dartion was carried out on a stretcher. Because of me.”
As he said this with a rather pleased expression, the anxiety of being alone in a room with him seemed to subside just a little.
“…Well done. Happy now?”
“Aren’t you curious where I’ve been for the five years since I left the Dartion estate?”
Not only was I unaware that Theodore had left the estate five years ago in this life, but I also didn’t care. However, one thing did strike me as odd.
“More than that, I didn’t know you were so knowledgeable about the law.”
Suddenly acting like a shrewd businessman.
Lucas valued Theodore for not knowing how to scheme and for obediently doing only what he was told. That was how he had unusually quickly risen to the position of Knight Commander.
And what about his introversion? While I was in the imperial palace, I had never had a conversation with him lasting more than ten minutes.
But business, after all, requires knowing how to lead and manipulate people, doesn’t it?
“After I became independent, a year passed for me like several years for a growing child. I’ve learned so many new things.”
“So you’re saying you became a completely different person in five years?”
“I’m saying I became an adult, albeit belatedly.”
Theodore rolled up his shirt sleeves and approached me.
I wanted to spit in his face, but I didn’t even have the strength for that.
You cockroach—I rode horses day and night, not knowing you weren’t even with the knights.
“There’s just one more thing I’d like to ask.”
“Ask anything.”
Instead of the smell of a knight’s sweat or the metallic scent of armor, he carried the fresh scent of sandalwood.
“Why did you become a businessman? What business did you do to accumulate money so quickly…”
“I’ll tell you in due time. That part.”
“I thought your childhood dream was to become a knight.”
For the first time, Theodore in this life hesitated.
