Teresa’s attitude was quite proud.
Rather than coming to seek forgiveness for her sins, it felt as if she was determined to uncover something from me.
I had no idea what she truly wanted from me.
But I couldn’t help but think that her intentions might be rather absurd.
…At least, it’s certain that she’s not genuinely here to apologize.
Watching the woman approach from afar, I quietly thought about the next situation.
As she stepped into the garden and approached me, Teresa’s eyes didn’t waver even a little.
I wondered what she was thinking of saying.
While I waited for her to speak her first words, she walked right up to me and stared intently at the round table.
“Where is the antidote?”
“Are you talking about the antidote?”
“Don’t play dumb, just tell me quickly. What poison has my older brother been infected with? A poison even a priest can’t cure? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
Of course. I hadn’t used any poison to begin with.
The truth was, there was no excellent doctor in reality who could treat acute pneumonia.
I wondered if a saint could have cured it.
While I had considered that possibility, I had never heard that a saint’s divine power healed diseases.
The gaze looking down at me was calm.
That darkness was deep and cold, conveying to me that my mind was slowly twisting.
Did she hate me, or was she just resentful?
I didn’t know which was true, but it was certain that she had come with some resolve.
…However, she shouldn’t have lost her manners just because of that.
“You jump right into talking about the antidote as soon as you arrive. I haven’t heard anything about poison either, so is my older brother unwell?”
“…Don’t ask me something you already know. Your older brother is dying, and you well-!”
“How would I know that?”
The voice that escaped my lips was cold enough to surprise even myself.
But it was true.
I knew that her older brother would be sick, but I only learned that it had happened this round thanks to the recent contact.
“Are you planning to claim that you didn’t know about your older brother’s condition?”
“Whether I plan to or not, that’s quite a righteous attitude. The reason I reached out was to seek an apology, but it seems someone else must have done that?”
“I will apologize. But—”
“You should have apologized first. You shouldn’t have come here asking for the antidote.”
A sneer had escaped me, twisting my lips into a grimace. I felt quite displeased.
Perhaps it was because of her face and the memories I had associated with it, but I felt even more regretful about being swayed by such a woman.
I could have easily abandoned her long ago; if I had cut ties with her just a bit earlier, I wouldn’t have to carry this kind of regret.
I took no action in response to Teresa’s presence.
I did nothing to her, yet she doubted my words and came all the way here.
I could have cleared up the misunderstanding. However, that desire had disappeared.
Perhaps the moment she decided to come here, her fate had already twisted.
If she had sincerely kneeled to apologize, maybe the future could have been slightly different, but now that possibility was fading from my mind.
In that moment, Teresa’s body twitched.
As our eyes met, she took a step back, narrowing her eyes as if wary of me.
“I don’t understand why you’re looking at me like that. Am I frightening you?”
“Am I scary?”
“… If you just give me the antidote, it would all be over. How can a person let their older brother collapse like that?”
“I told you. I don’t know anything.”
Teresia’s arm, clenched into a fist, trembled.
It was quite amusing to see her trying to suppress her own anger.
Where on earth does that confidence come from? There’s no clear evidence.
Because I didn’t do it.
But there’s no way poison would suddenly appear from somewhere.
Naturally, there was no poison that caused effects like acute pneumonia.
Even if there were, her older brother Arthur’s illness wasn’t caused by poison.
Teresia was simply trapped in her own conviction.
She had come this far solely based on the words I had carelessly thrown out last time as evidence.
Truly a remarkable woman. To be this foolish yet have her own beliefs.
Is there another woman in the world more terrifying than this?
“I said I wanted to meet your older brother because of this Moonlight Festival.”
“What does my brother have to do with the Moonlight Festival…?”
“Arthur Violet is one of the organizers of this Moonlight Festival, but did you perhaps not know that?”
At that, Teresia seemed momentarily speechless, merely glaring at me without uttering a word.
Of course, that wasn’t what I meant to imply.
I had thrown out those words hoping she would act this way, and she had taken the bait perfectly.
If you ask if it’s my fault, well, I wonder. Isn’t it the fault of the side that was the victim?
“It’s amusing to see you come all this way causing a scene without even knowing what your family does. You even said you’d apologize, yet you’re talking about something as vague as an antidote.”
“… That’s—”
“Is it funny to you, Taylor?”
I asked again in a lowered voice.
Her actions could easily be interpreted as looking down on this family.
After all, she was trying to tarnish my honor with such baseless doubts.
Though I had no attachment to this family whatsoever, if I set my mind to it, I could easily exploit it.
More cruelly than she could ever imagine.
What a splendid title to hold. The most prestigious family in this empire has become the best weapon at this moment.
Behind that chilling question of whether Taylor was funny, I opened my mouth again, smiling innocently.
“I hope it isn’t the case.”
“N-No! That’s not it! I wasn’t looking down on the Taylor family!”
I know nothing about the antidote. The Taylor family isn’t involved in this.
Mentioning her older brother was merely because I wanted to talk about the Moonlight Festival, which she didn’t know about.
With nothing to say, she sighed in exasperation and looked at me with an awkward expression.
“So, the reason you came all the way here is just to apologize to me about the past?”
“…….”
After staring at Teresia, who couldn’t answer for a long time, I finally lifted my teacup.
The effect of chamomile was quite nice.
It calmed my excited emotions, allowing me to look at Teresia with a serene gaze.
I no longer cared about the past.
It was simply the past, wasn’t it?
What I had to do going forward wouldn’t be thwarted by mere ghosts of memories.
At my slight smile, Teresia gritted her teeth.
Yet, despite that, she had no words for me, and her sealed lips remained closed.
Should I just stay here quietly?
Regardless, the fact that she would crumble remained unchanged.
A woman consumed by her own doubts, looking back on my life, hadn’t there been many cases like that?
Looking back on my life, there have been many cases like that.
Since I had been in a similar situation, I knew well that she had crossed the line.
Even if the conversation ended here, it was unlikely that I would see the woman named Teresa again.
Still, I had no intentions of ending things here.
In this life, my wish was for Teresa to not appear before me.
I wouldn’t directly kill her, but I hoped to never hear that name until the day I die.
I wanted her influence to vanish from my life.
So, I resolved to trample her down.
I planted the seed of doubt in her and it had blossomed to this point…
There was no reason to stop; not a single one.
As I set the teacup down with a clatter, a gentle smile graced my lips.
It was a smile that genuinely came from my heart.
The more I imagined the expressions Teresa would show in the future, the more I couldn’t restrain the joy that blossomed within me.
“I wish you had apologized as soon as you arrived. Then maybe I would have forgiven you… but who am I kidding?”
Saying that, I sounded somewhat regretful, but that wasn’t the truth.
I had no intention of forgiving her at all, so Teresa’s once steadfast eyes began to waver.
She chewed on her pale lips, left only with a blank stare at me.
“I knew all about the sins you committed. Buying jewels with the money you got from me, ordering dresses. Including those cute little pranks and how the Violet family’s wealth strangely increased. I was fully aware.”
“That was my fault. I asked my father for help. It wasn’t my older brother’s fault. I’ll apologize, so please…!”
“No, it’s not your place to apologize. Didn’t I say I didn’t know about your older brother’s affairs?”
With a composed smile, I shot back and her expression was quite a sight.
Shaking her head as if to deny it, she started to cling to my hand in desperation.
Why was she acting like this now when she had been so confident just a moment ago? Has she begun to feel a bit desperate?
I coldly brushed her hand away and continued speaking.
“I didn’t really plan to do anything about this situation. I thought that simply breaking off the engagement would end our relationship.”
“Robert, I was wrong. I apologize for the rudeness just now. Just give me the antidote; my older brother might die at any moment. Please, Robert!”
I knew it. Arthur was likely to die tomorrow or the day after.
He always died around the full moon festival, so there couldn’t be much time left.
While I felt regret about his death, reversing what was already decided was something only a god could do.
Since I’m not a god, I couldn’t grant her wish.
However… I could perhaps fuel the doubts she harbored even further. I cleared my throat and whispered softly.
“You must be coughing up blood by now, so it’s certain you’re dying. Truly a lamentable situation. With your cough being so severe, you might even struggle to move around; are you eating properly?”
Her eyes widened in shock, swirling with confusion and panic.
It was only natural.
In any letter she sent me, there would have been no mention of her older brother’s condition.
Stammering, she collapsed to the floor, weakly grasping my hand.
It was as if she was asking what my words meant.
Of course, she would never truly understand the meaning behind my words for her entire life.
This wasn’t something I’d done with poison or by deliberately making him sick with pneumonia.
Who would ever believe that I had died a hundred times and knew the future?
Who would truly believe that I know the future?
“Well, you must be having a hard time, considering you can’t even eat. It’s been just a few days, and your condition has worsened. Everyone must be busy, right?”
“…I never told you anything like that.”
What was reflected in her eyes was certainty, and also a sense of futility.
She must have been convinced that I did something.
The hand that had grasped my collar slipped down.
Then she quietly laughed to herself, looked at me, and started moving her lips.
“Was it really all your doing…?”
“No. I haven’t done anything.”
“Then how do you know about my brother’s condition? I never mentioned such things. Robert, did you really poison him?”
“If you ask how I know…”
I gave a small smile, shrugged my shoulders, and answered.
“Well, how would I know?”
Teresa’s body showed no signs of moving.
She just stared blankly at me, trying to ponder the meaning behind what I said.
The face of the woman, once so proud, was now filled with cracks.
The broken heart was reflected in her eyes, and the Teresa I once knew was nowhere to be found.
I knelt down to meet her gaze.
While looking into her eyes, I gently pulled her hand from the floor and held it lightly.
“Teresa, I have no intention of saying anything about you doubting me. And I also have nothing to say about your rudeness in coming here like this.”
“……”
“There’s no need for that. It seems you’ve deluded yourself into thinking you’re something important, but to me, you are nothing. You don’t need to apologize or come seeking forgiveness.”
It was time to say my own farewell to Teresa Violet.
As if to say we shall never meet again. And if we were to cross paths in the future, let us not even acknowledge each other.
Just like when we were once lovers, she merely looked at me with a hollow gaze when I held her hand softly.
She seemed to have so much to say.
From how I knew about Arthur’s condition to the existence of an antidote.
But to the poor woman, I had nothing to offer.
What could I give when I hadn’t done anything, and there was no doctor to heal her illness?
All I could offer her was this hand holding.
To the woman with a face as pale as if she had seen a ghost, I whispered softly.
“I hope you won’t come looking for me like this again. Because I know nothing about the current situation. If I had an antidote, I would have given it, but coincidentally, I don’t know anything about that.”
“…I was wrong, Robert. Could you just let it go this once, please…?”
Thud—
Now on her knees, rubbing her hands, a hollow laugh escaped me.
She thumped her head against the ground several times. Dirt and grass stained her clothes, making her look nothing like a noble.
She resembled a madwoman, swayed by something.
Thud—
In this tranquil garden, there was only one thing I could say to her.
So, I gently lifted Teresa’s shoulders as she bowed her head and smiled softly.
“I remember saying this several times.”
“……”
“I did nothing at all, my lady.”
Will Teresa ever realize that all of this is true?
I think she’ll never know.
Even if she does grasp it, by then, she’ll already be someone unrelated to me.
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