A person can fall apart in an instant, and sometimes they even forget how they got so messed up.
What is the reason for it? What could possibly be the cause?
Arthur, lying collapsed, might not be thinking about it, but Teresa surely should know the reason.
“…Where’s Ned?”
At her chilly voice, the attendant trembled like a leaf.
In the room turned upside down with broken furniture, a woman with her hair tousled slightly parted her lips.
She was the one who caused that mess in the first place.
Perhaps there could be someone lurking, watching her actions, thinking of what she might do next.
“W-well, he’s not here. He’s down in the basement.”
“Ah, right. That’s it.”
Teresa burst into a fit of giggles.
Ned, her butler, had ultimately lost her trust as well.
Looking back, it was indeed suspicious.
Her older brother was lying there groaning, and there’s no way the food wouldn’t have been tampered with.
Surely, it must have been Ned’s orders to poison the food.
If the one being tortured just confesses with his own mouth, this whole situation should come to an end.
No matter how much her fiancé did such a thing, using poison was just too much.
…He was scarier than she thought.
When had he been hiding a dagger in his heart? With a small sigh, Teresa brushed her hair back.
Her hair was matted and stiff with dried blood.
She pulled at it forcefully until finally, strands were ripped from her fingers.
Even so, the expressionless face of the attendant turned pale as a ghost.
To Teresa, even that didn’t hurt.
It had already been a week since Arthur’s illness worsened.
Doctors had come and gone, unable to find the cause of the illness, even the priests were clueless. They couldn’t purify that poison.
“The one who said he’d bring the saint—”
“Th-they still haven’t contacted us—”
“I told you they need to come today, how many times do I have to say it?!”
SMACK! Teresa screamed as she slammed her hand onto what remained of the desk, splinters digging into her skin, blood dripping down her palm, while her mind was still filled with thoughts about that poison.
It must have been ingested through food. What kind of poison could it possibly be?
The trembling attendant looked utterly pathetic.
Perhaps… should she interrogate like Ned?
There was no need to be this scared right now.
Did she get angry? No, she was just asking a simple question.
The priest was probably gently asked when the saint would arrive.
Why was he reacting like that?
In that moment, her once frozen eyes slowly began to thaw at the sound of coughing coming from afar.
That cough was no longer just a simple cough.
With each heave, it felt like every ounce of life was being expelled, enough to see he was slowly dying.
“What the heck is going on? That the Taylor family would use poison against us?!”
“We were poisoned?!”
For Theo, the head of the Violet family, this was nothing short of a thunderbolt from a clear sky.
Just a few days ago, the heirs of both families were engaged. Why would they poison themselves?
The truth was, he had no idea.
He had only heard what Teresa said, and even that didn’t provide him with a clear understanding of the situation.
“…I don’t really know either. Why are they doing this to us?”
“Could it be that they just want us to suffer? They never cared about us in the first place. Why would they poison us…?”
How foolish.
Is it really that simple to suspect a sick person is just ill?
He had heard that there are diseases with similar symptoms, but the fact that medicine didn’t seem to help at all indicated it wasn’t just a simple illness.
Pneumonia? No way. That was poison.
Robert Taylor had used poison himself to dismantle the Violet family that had exploited him.
“Father, don’t worry too much. They won’t be able to do anything to us.”
That was a blatant ruse.
If only they could lay their hands on the evidence by torturing Ned, they could counterattack the Taylor family later.
How stupid of Robert to think that such a trick would lead to his downfall.
Suddenly, a sneer escaped his lips.
It was such a bizarre and strange expression that Theo shuddered slightly at the sight of it.
His cold gaze revealed nothing.
He could only stare at his brother, who lay there coughing up blood.
There was neither reason nor sense.
What was the difference between blindly believing that everything he judged was right and what was happening now?
Theo thought of Ned.
To calm his daughter even a little, wouldn’t Ned, who had grown up with them since childhood, be of help?
So, he opened his mouth to call out his name.
“By the way, I can’t see Ned. Where on earth is he in a situation like this? Get him here right now!”
“He can’t come even if you call.”
With a simple throwaway line, Theo turned his head.
The one person who couldn’t understand that they couldn’t come was only Theo in this room.
The attendants bowed their heads and tightly closed their eyes, trying to avoid hearing what would come next.
“He’s down below, that traitor.”
“…I can’t understand what you’re saying. You mean Ned is a traitor?”
“He’s been hiding the fact that he poisoned the food. He probably thinks we’re blindly worshipping him. He’ll probably speak soon. After all, he’s in our family. A torturer.”
His mind went blank in an instant.
The words coming from his daughter were too far from reality for him to even consider, so he could only stare dumbly at her smile.
A traitor…? He knew better than anyone that it couldn’t be true.
And the underground, huh.
His expression hardened to the point where even a laugh was impossible, but Teresa mumbled incomprehensible words, not even realizing it.
However, Teresa was muttering words she couldn’t understand, completely oblivious to it.
Poison? At least in Theo’s opinion, it was hard to see his daughter’s fiancé as such a dreadful person.
Besides, it was unlikely that Ned, who had worked in this mansion the longest, would be involved in such poison.
Teresa didn’t even notice the empty gaze directed at her; Robert was still on her mind.
The poison he had secretly brought in—how could she obtain the antidote?
Her father had long since vanished from her thoughts.
‘…Indeed, I need to bow down at least once.’
There had been several times she pretended to regret her sins and sent letters.
However, she had been waiting for a reply that never came. Somehow… she felt the need to see that face in person.
“Father, don’t worry too much. I’ll take care of it.”
She whispered to her father, who had collapsed on the floor.
It was likely that he had fallen due to the shock of her older brother’s collapse.
If he knew it was all because of one person, what would his feelings be?
Teresa still believed she could resolve this situation.
No, isn’t that obvious?
What Robert wanted was for her to apologize.
No matter how much he found out, if she pleaded with some reasonable charges, wouldn’t he give her the antidote?
If he refused, that would be a poor move on Robert’s part.
“I’ll be back in a moment. It won’t take long.”
The sun was still shining brightly outside.
She hated that sun too. Even though she was in such a serious situation, it felt as if the sky was mocking her.
With a crumpled piece of letter paper in her hand, Teresa stood up.
#
“…So, apparently, he’s coming this way now.”
She nodded while listening to Renold’s words.
She thought his reaction was quite slow, but maybe he had been lost in his own delusions.
She was more fragile than she had expected.
To think she would demand an antidote for a poison she hadn’t even placed.
“Is it… that you originally had a delusion?”
“No, I didn’t have any delusions. It’s just that with my family’s body deteriorating, my mind has probably gone a bit haywire.”
She knew very well that she had no delusions.
Perhaps my words triggered something in her mind, or she genuinely doubted the situation.
After burning a few letters, is she finally coming?
Renold, who had been looking at my faintly smiling expression with confusion, finally asked about the preparations, recalling the last incident.
“By the way, is it alright if we don’t prepare anything this time like before?”
“Well, I suppose it might be better to prepare this time.”
I couldn’t easily imagine how Teresa felt coming here.
While I thought she might be in quite a hurry, I also felt that there would be a certain seriousness about it.
Considering she was babbling about poison and antidotes, it seemed she intended to apologize about this incident.
“It’s not like we can go back with just that much. After pondering for a moment, I subtly gestured to Renold and spoke up.
“One car should be enough. I’ll head out first.”
“Understood.”
As I tidied up my clothes and prepared to leave, the thoughts that drifted through my mind were of the past times spent with Teresa.
The time I lived to not miss even the slightest possibility of survival,
holding onto what could easily be thrown away. Living with things that didn’t matter at all.
Haven’t I lived with the thought that one mistake could lead to death?
In every moment, in every situation, even a slight mistake brought me closer to death.
Recalling the times I died simply for a slip of the tongue made me realize just how perplexing this world was in what it wanted from me.
“Is it just telling me to die?”
There was a time I fought desperately against that thought, but now it feels more like I’m wishing for that very death.
My steps toward the garden felt lighter than ever before.
Even though this meeting isn’t particularly enjoyable, it feels more like sending off a hundred connections I’ve built into the past.
Yet it was joyful. I couldn’t help but smile at the moment.
The weather seemed just right.
The grass beneath my feet and the lush greenery of the garden seemed to be smiling at me.
The warm sunlight soaked my body, enveloping the surroundings in the warmth of summer.
On a lonely round table in the garden sat two teacups and a full teapot of chamomile tea in the center.
I pulled out a white chair, settled in, and began to wait for Teresa to arrive.
Although Renold intended to stand by my side, I shook my head, saying it wasn’t necessary.
“What if an unexpected situation arises?”
“There’s no such situation. You don’t need to worry.”
Teresa certainly had a variety of ways to try to kill me.
And I knew well enough how to deal with it.
Would I have spent a hundred times just playing around? No matter how angry a woman is, she wouldn’t be able to harm a hair on my head.
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Hehe—
My eyes fluttered open at the distant sound of hoofbeats.
Perhaps the woman I had been waiting for has arrived.
I adjusted my posture, waiting for her like a gentleman anticipating his beloved. I couldn’t help but smile gently, recalling my past self.
Clop, clop.
The woman I once loved, the woman I had loved.
That’s why I smiled and often wore a mask to suppress the urge to cry.
It was time to send her my own goodbye.
The only farewell gift I could give her was a polite and warm smile.
I guarantee that what Teresa sees will be a complete mess.
This very smile will surely become the most horrifying poison for her.”
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