"Where have you been?"
"... I went to see a play. I felt suffocated staying at home all the time. Were you waiting?"
"I thought we could have a meal together after a while, but you weren't in your room."
His voice, lower than usual, seemed to press down on the surrounding air.
Blair, sensing Lina's awkwardness between the two of them, sent her ahead to eat first, then entered the room with Herdin.
"I was worried when you left without the carriage and knights."
Herdin spoke as if he was genuinely concerned about her, but his eyes betrayed suspicion rather than worry.
The moment their eyes met, she recalled his voice from some time ago.
'How could I trust you?'
He was doubting her again.
Realizing this, her emotions welled up suddenly.
The man who hadn't shown his face for a fortnight was now openly displaying suspicion over a single outing, reminding her of the past.
"Is it because you can't trust me?"
Her voice came out sharp, impossible to conceal.
In the past, Blair would have been cautious of his mood, worrying if she had upset him, but not anymore.
Blair continued in a cynical tone, disregarding his feelings.
"Are you anxious about what I might be plotting behind your back?"
Herdin furrowed his brow slightly at this. It was a sharp side of Blair he had never seen before.
He met her violet eyes filled with resentment and let out a hollow laugh.
You know this well, yet you still act so suspiciously?
The doubts that had accumulated over time burst out like sharp blades.
"If you know that, then from now on, take the knights with you wherever you go. So I won't have to worry anymore."
Herdin, who had been spitting out each word bitterly, swallowed his next words when he saw Blair's reddened eyes.
He sighed, covering his eyes with his large hand, then slowly opened them. His Adam's apple moved as he suppressed his emotions with difficulty.
"I—"
Before Blair could raise her voice further, Herdin spoke in a deliberately restrained tone and turned away.
"... Wash up and come down. You must be hungry."
Blair watched his back as he left the room without giving her a chance to stop him. Suddenly, a memory from the past overlapped with that back.
He was always like this.
They would raise their voices at each other, then at some point, he would stop and turn away. As if avoiding the deepening of emotional rifts. Even though his heart remained unresolved and frustrated.
Not realizing that such behavior was actually digging the emotional trench even deeper.
Blair could only watch his broad back as he turned away from her. The door closing coldly.
That was the insurmountable wall between them.
Before her regression, she had been afraid to open that door. She feared that if she opened the door, held onto him, got angry, cried, and in the end, only their end would remain after that collision.
So she had never opened that door. But now...
'I don't want that anymore.'
As she struggled to swallow the tears that were about to spill, her eyes fell on the unlit fireplace. After staring at it for a moment, Blair slowly approached it.
* * *
Herdin, who had come down to the dining room first, was drinking an aperitif while waiting for Blair. It was already his fifth glass.
As he moistened his burning throat, Herdin recalled the situation from earlier.
Reddened eyes, a trembling body, rapid breathing, a woman who looked like she might collapse at the slightest touch.
Why had he revealed his emotions when he couldn't even press her further for fear of something going wrong? How stupid.
Even in that moment, he couldn't help but want to check if she smelled of another man, and he let out a bitter laugh at his own ridiculousness.
Even if there was another man, so what?
As soon as that thought crossed his mind, his blood ran cold. He downed the aperitif like whiskey and put down the empty glass.
But Mason, who had been waiting behind him to refill it immediately, showed no sign of moving.
Herdin called out to him with a slightly irritated voice.
"Mason."
Only then did Mason approach and skillfully refill the glass. Worried words followed.
"If you keep drinking on an empty stomach, you'll upset your stomach."
At his nagging, Herdin let out a chuckle for the first time since entering the dining room.
"I suppose I still look like a twelve-year-old brat in your eyes."
"If you were twelve, you wouldn't be able to drink, so I wouldn't worry like this."
"... You're such a humorless old man."
Herdin chided Mason for taking his joke seriously, but there was no anger in his voice.
He remembered Mason's efforts in raising an orphaned twelve-year-old boy to become a proper head of a noble family.
However, just as he was about to raise the refilled glass, ignoring that concern, the closed dining room door suddenly burst open, and Luth rushed in.
"Your Excellency!"
There was urgency in Luth's voice.
Herdin stopped the glass he was about to tilt and narrowed his eyes at him. He had an ominous feeling.
"The madam... has collapsed."
And that prediction turned out to be exactly right.
* * *
Melly was waiting in the bathroom to assist with the bath, in place of Lina who had gone to change into outdoor clothes. The madam had said it was fine to change clothes on her own and told Melly to wait in the bathroom.
But even after a long time, Blair did not come.
'Could she be struggling with a difficult dress?'
Worried, she left the bathroom and headed back to the room. Suddenly, she recalled Herdin's expression as he left Blair's room earlier.
Usually, Herdin exuded a chilly aura that made him difficult to approach, despite his handsome face, but just now, he had emitted a coldness that was almost freezing. Even the surrounding air seemed to hold its breath.
And when Melly had entered to attend to Blair, Blair had her back turned and didn't show her face. However, that back figure had seemed somewhat precarious. Even her voice telling Melly to wait in the bathroom had seemed to tremble.
The uneasy premonition that belatedly occurred to Melly hastened her steps.
Search "child" at redcatty [.] com to read ahead up to chap 170.