Night of the Abandoned Duchess - Chapter 26

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Chapter 26

It was a voice full of concern. She had not been able to hear the details of her father’s affairs. Her father was being investigated for embezzlement, and by the time the investigation was almost over, she was told that there was trouble.

“The investigation concluded that your father would pay a hefty fine… The culprit has not been found yet. We’re still investigating… They say that your father has a lot of resentment here and there, so there’s a lot of suspicions and no real evidence. It seems that things are not going as well as I thought. What to do?”

Leo didn’t seem to know anything in her voice, which had sunk deep, and he was smiling brightly with innocent eyes.

“I see. It would be nice to have something to hold onto…”

Rosalind exhaled low.

Her father’s death, the investigation into the embezzlement, and her sudden encounter with her husband, her mind was all complicated. She just gazed at Leo and raised the tip of her mouth with pain, though it wasn’t the smile that was truly ingrained from her heart.

Still, the only reason she could pretend to smile like this was only because of Leo.

At first, she thought that it was a good thing that she was pregnant with Leo, but as she held the child in her arms, that feeling was washed away.

…Her sweet and lovable child. Even though her husband’s blood was mixed in, Leo was his son, and he was the reason for her life.

“Leo, you must listen to not only mother but also your grandmother from now on. From now on, we will live with Grandmother.”

“Do we live here?”

“Yes.”

Answering him, she also nodded her head.

Soon, Leo took turns looking at Rosalind and Helen. As she looked into the innocent and innocent eyes of a child, she felt a sense of relief from her complicated mind.

“I’ll be bringing all the stuff from the house here soon…”

As she was about to speak affectionately towards Leo, she heard the polite voice of the maid outside the door.

“Madam, you have a visitor.”

“Who?”

At Helen’s elegant voice, the maid responded with a slightly perplexed look.

“Duke Spencer is here.”

What…?

Rosalind gasped at the voice and swallowed her breath.

Spencer…

As soon as she heard the name, it felt like her heart was dropping to the floor again. She opened her mouth resolutely to the maid as she hid her anxious agitation.

“Don’t let anyone in because of the circumstances…”

“Tell him to come in.”

However, Helen’s voice came in faster.

“Mother!”

She raised her voice, although the Marchioness ignored her and turned to her grandson, Leo, and swept his golden hair and spoke.

“Leo, would you like to go to another room with the maid for a moment?”

Leo, who blinked at the soft voice, meekly followed the maid and left the room. As soon as Leo left, the Marchioness’ voice resounded in the room.

“Bring the Duke inside.”

“No, I don’t want to.”

“Isn’t he the child’s father?”

“Leo doesn’t have anything like a father. Leo is my child, and I won’t see him. I don’t want to see him.”

“Rosalind!”

Helen yelled at her as if calling her up, but she didn’t care and got up from her seat. She quickly opened the door and walked into the hallway as if running away.

Rosalind had no desire to see him. To be honest, she wanted to avoid it.

She hurried down the stairs, thinking that she would head to her old room. But, as she was halfway up her steps, she felt something grabbing her wrist. When she turned her head to the grip strength, a familiar face was facing me.

“Rosalind, let’s talk for a second.”

At his words, she bit her lip inconspicuously.

Rosalind replied in a cold voice as if there was no more emotion left, “I have told you before. I have nothing to talk about.”

“I know it’s all of a sudden.”

“If you do, please let me go.”

Nevertheless, he still held her wrist firmly. Her slender wrists were still slender as though they were about to break. Kyle squeezed her skinny wrist even tighter.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.”

He gazed into Rosalind’s eyes.

He used to think of this woman every day. When he looked at this woman, he didn’t know what to do, and his mind went back and forth dozens of times. He was angry at the fact that she was gone, he missed her, he drank alcohol to forget her, and sometimes he didn’t even want to drink it.

The woman’s eyes, who always looked up at him like a girl in love, drove him crazy the whole time…

Kyle remembered the little hand that held out flowers in spring, the face among the fresh leaves in summer, the kind hand that took care of small animals in the fall, and the voice asking if it would be better to wear warmer clothes in winter.

A little over a year. He was resentful during the four seasons they had spent together.

He thought she had no memories with Rosalind, though looking back, Kyle remembered every little thing. No matter how hard he tried to forget her, those memories caught up with him to the point that he was never alone in any season after she left.

He just found the woman who drove him crazy like that, and he couldn’t let Rosalind go like that…

“Now that I get to see you again, how could I let you go easily?”

He couldn’t.

Clasping her wrists even tighter, it was as if he was making a promise.

“What if you don’t let me go? Are you planning on even taking me away?”

After Rosalind’s words, silence fell between the two.

Now that he had found her, what was he going to do? No, he never thought about what he was going to do or what he wanted to do. He just wanted to find her again no matter what I did. As before, Kyle just wanted to keep her by his side as if it was natural.

“To you…”

“Mom!”

At that moment, the door slammed open and a cheerful voice was heard. It was Leo. After that, the maid, who opened her door and came out, followed Leo as if in trouble, but she was already one step late.

“Young master…!”

Irrespective of the maid’s voice, Leo ran to Rosalind.

He buried his tiny hand in Rosalind’s lavish dress and tugged at her hem. Then, suddenly, he blinked at the sight of a strange man standing in front of him.

The child’s eyes observed the stranger curiously.

“Mom, who is that person?”

“Leo, would you like to go in?”

“Mom…?”

As soon as he heard the word “Mom,” he frowned.

At the time of the funeral, it sounded like an exaggeration, although they looked so familiar and natural, both the child who calls her mother and Rosalind who answers.

The puzzlement that remained on his face turned into a surprise in an instant, and it quickly hardened to the point of astonishment. Kyle looked at Rosalind without saying a word. As if asking for any explanation.

“Mom will talk to him for a moment. Will you go in?”

Leo pursed his lips at the sound of the soft voice, then slowly nodded his head. As the maid said, “Come on, Young Master,” he meekly followed her.

After seeing Leo disappear until the end, Rosalind opened her mouth to Kyle. It was a decisive and callous voice, quite different from the voice that had just dealt with her son.

“Did you hear him call me Mom? I have a child.”

“You said you were infertile.”

“I was not infertile until I became pregnant.”

“…The husband?”

She chuckled and avoided his gaze before answering.

“I do not know.”

An obvious lie. Unaware of that, he stared intently at Rosalind as if he was going to pierce it.

“Rosalind.”

Rosalind confronted him again as he urged her.

“…He left. He was a very sweet and nice person, but he’s not with me now. We were only together for a very short night.”

Her voice was clear.

Despite the fact that it was a lie to some extent, it wasn’t entirely wrong either.

All she loved was the sweet Kyle of that night, and he was there for just one night. On the day he left his last name behind hers, the gentle man seemed to have left me.

So, it wasn’t really a lie.

‘We were only together for a very short night.’

He was endlessly confused, as if someone had stirred up his mind. Kyle couldn’t even understand why his head was so complicated. He thought that if he just found Rosalind, everything would be solved, but when he searched for her, nothing was solved.

She was still cold and even had children…

Mom!

The innocent voice calling out to Rosalind was still ringing in his ears. The moment the blonde, tousled hair and innocent eyes turned to him, he could intuit that the boy was her son.

She had a child? Born between another man…?

When Kyle remembered Rosalind’s calm voice, who said it had only been one night, the thought of ‘Where did you get that guy came from?’

A man running away from a pregnant woman… He wondered what kind of guy he was but didn’t even wonder, then got mad for no reason, then confused because he didn’t know what to do.

Wetting his lips with the wine from the cup, he thought perhaps it was because of the bitter alcohol running down his neck, the fever rose to the tip of his head, and he felt exhilarated.

“She’s truly… She’s a woman who really makes people go round.”

With such an irresponsible person…

As he retraced his conversation with Rosalind, he suddenly looked back at the past.

Even though he missed her so much and barely survived day to day, she gave birth to a child with another man. This situation was so unrealistic that it was hard to believe. Kyle felt dizzy because he drank more alcohol than usual.

Every time he gulped over the wine, his bulging neck groaned.

But, on the other hand, he kept doubting whether the child was his own. It was more likely to be his own child than to have given birth to another man’s child. However, it was not possible to objectively judge whether it was because it was his wish, or whether it was a real possibility…

He lost the power of his own objectivity in front of Rosalind.

Perhaps, just searching for and missing the daughter of Marquis Baron and so much may be regarded as a loss of reason. He had been half mad since the time she left.

Why did the traces she left behind after she left felt so difficult…?

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────