Chapter 48
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 48
“Were you crying?”
She hurriedly wiped the tears from her cheeks. Lost in thought, she hadn't even noticed him approach. Perhaps the lazy maids had neglected to announce their master's return, or perhaps…
Louise Winchester received her husband's kiss while remaining seated at her vanity.
“How are the children?”
“The twins are as healthy as ever. And quite beautiful, just like you.”
Just like you. Quite beautiful. Louise felt the sharp thorns hidden in his words. He was always like this. Whether offering praise or criticism, he never sheathed his blade.
Louise stared at her reflection in the mirror, a stranger looking back at her. Her wavy red hair, cascading to her waist, and her green eyes remained striking despite the passage of time. Still, the wrinkles around her eyes had deepened recently, etched there by mounting anxiety. Louise let out a soft sigh.
“Don't joke.”
“Do you think I'm joking?”
Marquis Winchester smiled, kissed the nape of his wife's neck once more, then turned toward the console. His movements were perfectly fluid as he picked up the whiskey bottle. Louise watched his back, a trace of anxiety on her face.
“Sissy stopped by this morning.”
“That must have been nice. You should have gone to the department store together.”
“I should have. But for some reason, I just wasn't in the mood today…”
Loosening the cravat constricting his neck, Marquis Winchester let out a sudden laugh.
“They say women get depressed when their children are about to marry. I didn’t expect my wife to be one of them.”
“Heavens, Henry, it’s not that. I’m just so relieved that Blair has finally settled down.”
“He’s only ever wanted one thing since he was a child. I always knew you’d eventually give in to our son’s stubbornness.”
Louise tried to hide her shock, but it was no use. Her face, instantly pale, looked unnatural to anyone watching. Taking a slow sip of his drink, the Marquis smiled and continued.
“I don’t understand why you disapprove of Vanessa so much.”
“You know why. Her reputation, for one…”
“Vanessa is a good girl. Both you and I know that.”
“...That’s not the issue.”
Louise anxiously bit her lip, studying her husband's expression. Just as a thin bead of blood formed on her painted lips, the Marquis moved. He used his thumb to pry her mouth open.
“You’re bleeding, Louise.”
“Let me go. I’m really not in the mood today…”
Before she could finish her protest, her lips were devoured. He hoisted her skirt, stripping away her undergarments and garter belt in a single, rough motion. After a few futile attempts to push him away, Louise gave up and wrapped her arms around his neck. She knew all too well that when he was like this, quiet cooperation was the fastest way to get it over with.
Sex like this was less passion and more punishment.
“Ah, Henry…”
His fingers slipped into her wet heat. He narrowed his eyes, a spiteful smile on his face.
“And to think you said you weren’t in the mood.”
“Yes, so please, just… make it quick…”
“You’re not wet enough yet. Hold onto the table.”
Following his command, Louise gripped the edge of the vanity, her skirt hitched up around her waist. After gazing at her for a moment, as if admiring a piece of art, the Marquis struck her pale buttocks with his palm.
A sharp moan escaped her at the sudden, stinging pain. Louise wished for it all to be over quickly. At times like this, Henry was not the gentle husband she knew but a tyrant. The sheer humiliation made her dizzy.
How did it come to this?
Looking back, the beginning of her misery was clear. It was the night of a masquerade ball when she was twenty, her heart burning with jealousy after hearing that the man she had long adored had proposed to her close friend. Wasted on alcohol and drugs, she had confessed her hidden feelings to her unrequited love, completely forgetting she already had a fiancé—Henry.
And so, she had seduced him. Just one night would have been enough. She believed she could live off that memory for the rest of her life, and for a few blissful hours, she was happy. Or so she thought, until she woke the next morning and realized the man she had spent the night with was not her beloved, but his younger brother, Wyatt. A month later, her period stopped.
It had never been regular, but the timing made every passing day a living hell. Wyatt mocked her, claiming there was no way the child was his. The very next day, he fled in the dead of night with a lowly maid. Overcome with despair and unable to bear the guilt, Louise confessed everything to Henry, telling him she believed she was carrying another man’s child.
“Who else knows about this?”
“No one, Henry… I haven’t told anyone but you and that man.”
“Then we will proceed with the wedding as planned.”
Henry’s voice had been terribly calm, filled with a chilling possessiveness.
“If there is a child in your womb, that child is already mine. So give birth, Louise. And spend the rest of your life atoning by my side.”
Back then, her husband had been her savior. At first, she was simply grateful. After giving birth to the twins just seven months into their marriage, she spread her legs whenever he demanded it—in the private boxes of the Opera House, in the corridors of ballrooms, and in drawing rooms in broad daylight, just like this.
Unfortunately, they struggled to conceive a child of their own. Around their tenth year of marriage, after hearing something from a doctor, Henry became even more violent during sex.
“Blair said he plans to spend his honeymoon in the South.”
Louise lifted her flushed face.
“I know. I… was against it from the start. It’s because you allowed the children to stay in Somerset…”
“I don’t mind the children associating with Vanessa.”
“Well, I do. If only you hadn’t given in to their stubbornness.”
“But I enjoy seeing you so anxious.”
“You really have… ah, a twisted taste…”
As he thrust into her with sudden urgency, Louise swallowed a groan and gripped the edge of the table.
“Do you believe that blood recognizes its own, Louise?” her husband asked, his voice laced with amusement as if the thought had just occurred to him. “I wonder if our children would recognize their biological father.”
Our children. The words were a mockery. For all these years, Henry had never asked about what happened that night, and at some point, Louise had even managed to deceive herself into believing the children were his. Until Blair began to see Vanessa—that girl—as his woman.
Her husband’s bizarre nature struck her with fresh shock. How could he have known everything all along and still…
“How naive. Did you really think I wouldn’t know when you made it so obvious?”
Her thoughts were cut short as she let out a soft, breathless cry. Laughing, as if satisfied, Henry bit the nape of her neck hard enough to hurt. As if to brand her, to show the world what a loose woman she truly was. And he had personally selected the dress she was to wear to the social gathering in two days—one that left her neck completely exposed.
Henry traced the reddish bruises blooming on her pale skin, looking thoroughly pleased.
“It’s a relief the children take after you completely.”
“Henry, ah, please, stop.”
“It makes it easier to feel as though they are my own blood. They look just like you, and I raised them with my own hands.”
He pinned her struggling hand back down on the table. “Otherwise,” he whispered into her tender ear, his voice incomparably cruel, “how would I be any different from those fools driven mad by a mistress, leaving their entire fortune to her son?”
Adjusting his grip on her limp waist, he laughed and thrust a few more times.
“Blair will make a perfect successor. As long as you don’t forget your duties as a wife. Just as you are now.”
“Ah…”
“I love you, Louise. More than anything.”
Louise groaned weakly and closed her eyes. Her husband had saved her, but he had never forgiven her. And he would never, ever let her forget it.