Chapter 107
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 107
When her son’s lips curled into a sneer as crooked as his posture, Charlotte’s temper flared.
“If you are the Marquis, then act like one! What is this display? You are not some common laborer, so why are your sleeves rolled up so vulgarly? And in front of the help, no less! Must you act as if I’ve intruded somewhere forbidden, simply to spite me? It’s not as if I, Charlotte von Reinhardt, have come to a place where I am forbidden!”
Charlotte, who had snapped coldly, took a deep breath and began to pace the room. Moving as if weighed down by some deep worry, she lowered her voice significantly and continued.
“I need to teach a certain insolent thing a lesson, but there is no suitable place to do it. There is nowhere in the Count’s residence where I can discipline her in peace.”
“So you feel comfortable here?”
Far from showing any sympathy, Oscar’s voice was laced with sarcasm. Charlotte closed her eyes tightly, then opened them again, her voice trembling with emotion.
“Do you not know why I, the Marchioness of Reinhardt, have been staying at Count Jerome’s residence all this time, leaving my own perfectly fine manor behind?”
Oscar smirked, his cheeks dimpling.
“Barbara Wald and the rest of the vermin swarming this house treat me—the mother who gave birth to you—like an unwelcome guest. They look down on me and refuse to serve me as their master.”
Oscar, who had been smiling like a boy, swept his hair back and asked, “Do you think that is my fault?”
“Then is it my fault?”
“…”
As Oscar stared at Charlotte, it felt as though the sky had suddenly darkened.
He could smell the damn rain. Just as the scent of wet earth registered in his mind, he felt the dampness of rainwater seeping into his shoes, a chill penetrating his very bones. The deafening roar of the downpour, which had threatened to tear his umbrella apart, suddenly drew closer. And with it, the cruel voice that had pierced his ears through that torrential storm.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not going back to that ruin.”
The helpless boy who could say nothing in response to those words was long gone.
“It’s because you live in limbo, neither here nor there. That is why I told you to settle down properly at the Count’s residence.”
“You…”
“Why? Is this place no longer a ruin to you?”
Gone, too, was the foolish, stupid boy who had interpreted “I won’t return to that ruin” as “I will return to your side once Reinhardt is rebuilt.”
“…What are you talking about?”
Charlotte frowned as if she had heard something completely out of context. She didn’t even remember uttering those words.
Oscar stared blankly at his mother, then spoke with cold sincerity.
“‘Marchioness of Reinhardt.’ I am telling you to finally let go of that title you don’t even care about and take the name that actually belongs to you.”
A deep shadow fell over the Marquis’s face.
“Countess Jerome.”
In the past, Charlotte would have slapped her son’s cheek without hesitation upon hearing those words, but today she could not. Instead, her eyes blazed with fury.
“The name that belongs to me? Reinhardt—I was given this name first, not you.”
“…”
“I am…”
Charlotte’s sharp fingertip pressed against Oscar’s chest, right over his heart.
“…your mother.”
As if to say, I gave you this heart.
“How dare you tell me whether to let go of my name. Parents may disown their children, but a child cannot erase their parent’s name. What law in this world would permit such a thing?”
Reinhardt, this manor, and Oscar.
All of it belonged to Charlotte.
“You cannot erase the mother who gave birth to you from your life.”
Her eyes were bloodshot. Charlotte glared at her heartless son, then suddenly turned away. She smoothed her hair and adjusted her shawl as if nothing had happened. When she turned back to Oscar, her emotions composed in an instant, she wore the face of a benevolent mother greeting her beloved son.
“By the way, I didn’t know the young lady whom Sabine personally showed around the exhibition was your guest.”
“…”
“She was quite pretty.”
Charlotte smiled, staring intently at Oscar’s expressionless face.
“But I never imagined she would be using that room. Not with so many other guest rooms in the manor.”
“…”
“I don’t know for what reason she is staying here, but while she is, I will call on her occasionally. We get along quite well. Then again, I suppose I don’t need your permission for something like that. There are no slaves in Luxen, after all.”
Sending an affectionate smile to her son, the mother brushed past him, leaving behind a thorny whisper.
“Take care of yourself. I’ll come again.”
Click, clack.
As Charlotte passed Oscar with the sharp clicking of her heels, the smile drained from her face like an ebbing tide. The sound of a match striking echoed from behind her, followed by the sharp scent of tobacco.
“If what you want is this manor, just say the word. I will vacate it tomorrow. However…”
The clicking of her heels stopped abruptly.
“Do not go any further than that.”
Following her footsteps, Charlotte’s breath hitched. Looking back, she saw a black wolf standing with his back to the light, staring at her with icy blue eyes.
“Consider it the price for my heart.”
Charlotte did not answer. She turned away from the wolf standing in the backlight and fled the hall. Her palms, wrapped in fur, were drenched in sweat, and her heart was pounding wildly. The maids who had been trembling outside the hall followed her in a panic.
Even the presence of Barbara, with whom she loathed to breathe the same air, was of no concern to Charlotte right now. She barely registered how she managed to climb into the carriage.
“Marchioness, you’re breaking out in a cold sweat…”
“Enough!”
Savagely throwing aside the handkerchief the maid handed her, Charlotte gripped her fur shawl tightly. Although she was usually adept at managing her emotions, she could not calm herself. Her ragged breathing only began to subside when the carriage left the manor and started down the road along the riverbank.
Even after her breathing evened out, she remained motionless, like a lifeless doll. Then, she muttered with a sigh.
“Yesterday, too… that was why he came.”
That woman was behind Oscar’s completely incomprehensible actions.
Yesterday and today. It was by no means a coincidence.
There were two things she had to confirm today.
One was the woman, and the other was Oscar’s reaction to her.
Money, honor, peace, recognition.
Human desires usually fell within that range. A woman relying on Oscar for shelter—it was obvious what such a person would want.
What she had handed the woman was not poison. It was a real medicine imported from Rioher. Whether the woman took it to get on Oscar’s mother’s good side, tried to feed it to him out of greed, or simply did as she was told out of fear—any of those would lead to her being abandoned by Oscar once he recognized the medicine.
But the desire she had glimpsed in that strange Outsider was not like that at all.
Why did she see Barbara Wald in someone who wasn’t even from here? It wasn’t as if that woman had raised her.
But what was even more chilling was Oscar’s reaction.
Oscar, who always put reason before emotion, had rushed over. He had clearly come because he was furious to his limit and could no longer endure it. And after rushing over like that, he had told her to give up her name, even offering to hand over the manor.
Charlotte covered her mouth.
“Ha… haha.”
Her dry chuckle soon turned into a loud laugh. Seeing the Marchioness laugh as if it were truly amusing, the maids sitting opposite her exchanged uneasy glances.
After laughing for a long time, Charlotte looked up at the sunlight. Staring directly into the blinding rays without blinking, she murmured quietly.
“To be satisfied with just the manor?”
To take only that and live as Countess Jerome? There was a limit to how much she would allow the position she had built for herself to be torn down.
“I could absolutely never do that.”
She would rather die than live like that.
* * *
After Charlotte left, Barbara reported the details of what had happened, then bowed deeply to Oscar. She admitted that allowing Seo-ah to hide in the wardrobe had been her own error in judgment.
“I am sorry, Your Excellency.”
Straightening up, Barbara spoke in a cold, businesslike tone.
“My mistakes are becoming more frequent, and my judgment is no longer accurate.”
“And so?”
“I believe it is time for me to step down.”
“If you step down, what about your work?”
“I will prepare someone to take my place.”
Even though she was essentially asking to be discarded, her expression was, as always, firm and emotionless.
While some demanded their place with astonishing shamelessness, others offered to give up a position they had held for decades as if they had been waiting for the moment.
Oscar let out a dry laugh.
Let her do as she pleased.
“Do as you wish.”
Barbara, who had practically dedicated her entire life to raising him, stated by when she would have her successor ready.
Oscar turned his eyes away from her.
“I am going to get ready and head out. Wait outside.”
“Understood.”
He heard Barbara leaving.
Oscar took a deep drag from his cigarette, then opened a drawer in his office desk. Inside was the medicine bottle Charlotte had left behind. The gold-gleaming bottle was so distinctive that it was hard to forget once seen.
“I am… your mother.”
Blue veins bulged on Oscar’s neck.
Did anyone beg her to give birth to him?
Oscar opened the medicine bottle for the first time. Inside the small bottle was a single round pill that gave off a unique scent. He rolled the pill between his fingers, then crushed it. It crumbled like well-kneaded clay.
When he had forced the carriage, which had been en route to the Tekan Embassy, to turn back to the manor, Simon had looked at him with complete incomprehension. But Oscar offered no explanation. There was no reason to explain, nor could he.
When he arrived at the house, Charlotte’s carriage was there.
“Your Excellency, right now in the central hall…!”