Chapter 65
Chapter 65
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 65
Chapter Title: A Man One Year Late
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Juliet, left alone, watched the silhouettes of the two men fade into the distance before slowly starting to walk along the beach.
“Peep!”
With the tireless little creature tagging along behind her.
The festival-goers seemed too absorbed in eating and drinking to notice anything. Juliet veered toward the lakeside to escape the noise.
But there was an unexpected obstacle.
“Ouch.”
The moment she stepped onto the hill to cross the forest, her shoe sank into the mud.
“Ugh.”
Somehow, she’d had a bad feeling about her shoes.
Juliet glanced back at the path she’d taken. Should she go back and change them? But it was too far and too late now.
After a moment’s hesitation, Juliet slipped off her shoes and continued barefoot.
Beyond the shoreline lay a low forest thick with grass and trees, and crossing it would lead to the lake she knew so well.
Upon reaching the lake, Juliet took off her ruined shoes. *How am I getting back?* The thought crossed her mind briefly, but she decided not to worry about it.
*Whatever happens, happens.*
Juliet tossed her shoes far away, then sat at the lake’s edge and carefully dipped her feet in.
She had come here last year, too.
*It was raining then.*
Juliet blankly lifted her head. The full moon hung ripe and luminous in the sky.
*And Lennox never came, in the end...*
She’d known he wouldn’t, anyway.
“Would you come with me?”
It was around this time last year that Juliet had been in Alje. Not to enjoy the festival, though.
Lennox had been busy acquiring a newly discovered mine in the Alje region.
She had followed him to the east, but Juliet spent the whole day killing time among strangers.
The ducal household was so frantic that they overlooked her birthday—something they’d never forgotten before.
She could understand that. But there was one thing she desperately wanted for her birthday.
That morning, Juliet pleaded with Carlyle.
“There’s supposed to be a full moon tonight.”
“So?”
“Would you... come with me?”
There was a lake nearby, and the view was supposed to be spectacular. That would be gift enough. She’d never asked for anything before. That’s what she’d planned to say.
“Sure.”
When he agreed so casually, Juliet had been excited from early evening onward, like never before.
But from midnight that night until dawn the next day, Juliet never saw him.
She never asked why he didn’t show. He was busy, or he forgot. One or the other.
What a dull story.
“Happy birthday, Juliet.”
Juliet murmured softly.
It was the one phrase she’d longed to hear but never did.
“Peck?”
The baby dragon, peering curiously at the lake’s surface, chirped back.
Juliet silently reached out and stroked the young dragon’s back. So her twenty-fifth birthday would pass like this.
Juliet sighed and drew her legs up onto the deck.
She’d at least cleaned her filthy feet. The east’s winter was mild like early spring, but nights were still quite chilly. Time to head back.
That was when it happened.
Neigh!
A horse’s whinny echoed from afar.
Juliet looked up absently. A horse came galloping, kicking up a cloud of dust, then came to a stop at a distance.
“Roy? You’re already here?”
Juliet smiled brightly at the tall silhouette dismounting from the horse without a hint of unsteadiness.
“You said you’d come quick, and you really...”
But when the man strode forward and his face came fully into view under the moonlight, Juliet lost her words.
“......Juliet.”
It was the man who was exactly one year late.
**
“You’re late, Your Highness.”
Juliet murmured blankly to herself.
For a brief moment, she wondered if she was going mad and seeing things.
But the man approached with familiar strides and pulled her deftly into his arms.
He’d clearly ridden hell-for-leather, his breath right up to his jawline.
Yet he gripped her hand in an interlocking hold, as if afraid she’d bolt while he caught his breath.
Juliet, too, struggled to find words.
“You.”
Moonlight revealed his face. Was it because he always wore such a cold expression?
Somehow, Lennox seemed both endearing and flustered.
Even though that made no sense. The serene lakeside bathed in full moonlight, the quiet chirp of crickets.
Countless words described the scene, yet there stood a man who seemed the most out of place in the world.
Feeling pressured to say something, Juliet blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“Hello, Lennox. How have you been?”
From the way his expression darkened, though, that clearly wasn’t the right answer.
So what should she say?
Juliet just thought about how to make herself seem a little less pathetic in this moment. An old habit.
She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d seen his face. She’d imagined reuniting with him countless times, but never like this.
Unable to sort her own jumbled thoughts, Juliet suddenly noticed his gaze fixed on her lower abdomen.
*......Oh no.*
Crisis hit her then. She recalled what she’d said right before leaving him.
“Juliet Monad.”
He spat the words like they were poison, his eyes capable of killing with a glance alone.
“You like that bastard?”
* * *
“......Hello, Lennox.”
He was far from fine.
“How have you been?”
He hadn’t been well.
Cheeks flushed pink like a village maiden’s, eyes sparkling.
Hair neatly braided and pinned up, dressed like something out of a fairy tale—Juliet beamed.
As if the past few weeks that had driven him to the brink of madness were nothing but a bad dream.
He couldn’t bear the sight without disrupting it.
Alje. Lapis lazuli mine. Moon Festival.
The hazy words stirred vague memories. Not all of them, but a year ago, they had been here.
“I want to see the moon.”
The quiet woman rarely voiced any demands at all. Moon viewing, of all things?
The view from their mansion was monotonous enough—what made this special?
“Would you... come with me?”
He’d agreed offhandedly, and she’d smiled radiantly, a rare sight.
“Thank you.”
Was escorting her to see the moon something to be so grateful for? Bowing her head over such a trivial thing?
He’d brushed it off with a yes, but it crossed his mind again late that night.
Rumble.
*Damn.*
Peering out the window, he saw no moon—just pouring rain under thunderclouds.
*Moon viewing’s off the table.*
He thought little of it and moved on. Only the next day did he realize.
“Moon viewing” meant the Moon Festival, held on the first day of the new year in the region. And that it was the one day of the year he’d remembered—her birthday—that had slipped by.
“What’s this?”
In a rush, he’d brought her the deed to the lapis lazuli mine. It was worth several times their usual dealings—enough to cover the late gift.
But even after he told her all she needed to do was sign, she left the paper blank for days.
She burrowed under the covers, shut away in bed.
“I’m not feeling well.”
The pale-faced woman answered from beneath the blankets in a voice thick with tears.
He later learned she’d been bedridden for five straight days with a raging fever.
Why had that memory surfaced now, of all times?
“Mm......”
Her captured hand seemed uncomfortable—or perhaps his presence unsettled her. Juliet awkwardly averted her gaze.
He’d mulled it over dozens, hundreds of times on the ride. Juliet and his conclusions were set; he had only one thing left to say.
It was simple.
Find Juliet, confirm she was safe, then convince her.
The father of the child in her belly didn’t matter. Whatever she wanted—including raising the kid as his own—he’d grant it.
But the moment he laid eyes on her, he realized.
“Juliet Monad.”
How shallow the depths of one Lennox Carlyle truly were.
“You like that bastard?”
The words that actually left his mouth were pathetically childish.
Forgotten Juliet