Chapter 25: The Insurmountable Wall Between Them
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 25: The Insurmountable Wall Between Them
"Where have you been?"
"...I went to see a play. I felt cooped up staying inside all day. Were you waiting for me?"
"I thought we might have dinner together for once, but you weren't in your room."
His voice, lower than usual, hung heavy in the air.
Blair dismissed Lina, who was standing awkwardly between them. "Go on and eat first," she said, before entering the room with Herdin.
"I was worried when you left without a carriage or knights."
On the surface, Herdin sounded genuinely concerned, but the look in his eyes was one of suspicion, not care.
The moment she met his gaze, a voice she had heard once before echoed in her mind.
How can I possibly trust you?
He was doubting her again.
The realization sent a bitter retort rising in her throat. A man who hadn't shown his face for a fortnight was now openly questioning her over a single outing. It was a painful echo of the past.
"Are you sure it isn't because you don't trust me?" she asked, her voice sharp with an irritation she couldn't hide.
In the past, Blair would have walked on eggshells, worried she had upset him. Not anymore.
Uncaring of his feelings, she continued in a cynical tone, "Are you worried I might be plotting something behind your back?"
Herdin's brow furrowed slightly. He had never seen this sharp side of Blair before.
Meeting her resentful violet eyes, he let out a dry laugh.
If you know that so well, then why do you only act in ways that invite suspicion?
The suspicion that had been building for so long finally sharpened into words, slipping from his lips of their own accord.
"If you know that, then take knights with you wherever you go from now on. So that I won't have to worry anymore."
Herdin bit out each word, but he swallowed what he was about to say next when he saw the rims of Blair's eyes turning red.
He let out a sigh, covering his eyes with a large hand before slowly lowering it. His Adam's apple bobbed as he struggled to suppress his emotions.
"I—"
Before Blair could raise her voice, Herdin spoke in a tightly controlled tone and turned away.
"...Go wash up and come down. You must be hungry."
Blair stared at his back as he left the room before she could even think to stop him. As his figure retreated, the past superimposed itself over the present.
He was always like this.
They would raise their voices at each other until, at some point, he would simply stop and walk away, avoiding the conflict before the rift between them could widen. But it left her feeling suffocated and unheard, with nothing resolved.
He never realized that his actions only carved the rift deeper.
Blair could only watch his back as he turned away from her. His broad shoulders grew distant, and the door closed with cold finality.
That was the insurmountable wall between them.
Before her regression, she had been terrified to open that door. She had been afraid that if she opened it—if she held onto him, got angry, and cried—their clashing would only lead to their ultimate ruin.
So, in the end, she had never opened that door. But…
I don't want that anymore.
Swallowing the tears that threatened to spill, her eyes fell upon the cold, unlit fireplace. After staring at it for a long moment, Blair slowly stepped toward it.
* * *
Herdin, having gone down to the dining room first, was drinking an aperitif while waiting for Blair. It was already his fifth glass.
He quenched his burning throat as he replayed the scene from earlier.
The reddened rims of her eyes, her trembling body, her ragged breathing—she had looked as though she would collapse at the slightest touch.
Why had he let his emotions get the better of him? He couldn't even bring himself to press her for answers, terrified she might break. How foolish.
Even so, a hollow laugh escaped him at the thought that he had wanted to check if she carried the scent of another man.
And if there is another man, what then?
The moment the thought crossed his mind, his blood ran cold. He gulped down the aperitif as if it were whiskey and slammed the empty glass onto the table.
However, Mason, who usually stood by to refill his glass immediately, didn't move.
Herdin called out to him, his voice laced with irritation.
"Mason."
Only then did Mason step forward and skillfully refill the glass, adding a worried remark.
"Drinking so much on an empty stomach will ruin your health, Your Grace."
At his nagging, Herdin let out a faint chuckle for the first time since entering the dining room.
"I suppose I still look like an immature twelve-year-old to you."
"If you were twelve, you wouldn't be able to drink, so I wouldn't have to worry like this."
"...What a tedious old man you are."
Herdin chided Mason for taking his joke so seriously, but there was no anger in his voice. He would never forget the old butler's devotion in raising a parentless twelve-year-old boy into a proper head of the house.
But just as he picked up the refilled glass, ignoring the concern, the dining room doors burst open without warning. Ruth rushed in.
"Your Grace!"
Urgency dripped from his voice.
Herdin paused, his glass halfway to his lips, and furrowed his brow. A dark premonition washed over him.
"The Madam... has collapsed."
And his premonition had been devastatingly accurate.
* * *
Meli was waiting in the bathroom to help the Madam with her bath. She was filling in for Lina, who had gone to change out of her traveling clothes. Blair had told her she didn't need help changing and to wait in the bathroom.
But a long time passed, and Blair did not come.
Is she struggling with a difficult dress?
Worried, Meli stepped out of the bathroom. As she headed back to the bedroom, she recalled Herdin's expression when he had left Blair's room earlier.
Herdin's handsome face usually carried a chilly aura that kept others at a distance, but earlier, he had radiated a cold so intense it was practically freezing. It was enough to make the very air hold its breath.
And when Meli had entered to attend to Blair, her lady had kept her back turned, refusing to show her face. Even so, her back had looked incredibly fragile. Her voice, telling Meli to wait in the bathroom, had seemed to tremble.
A belated sense of dread quickened Meli's steps.
She practically ran to Blair's room and knocked, but there was no answer.
Unable to wait any longer, she pushed the door open and stepped inside. A wave of warm heat brushed against her skin. The fireplace, which had been cold when Meli left, was now blazing fiercely. And in front of it…
"Oh my goodness, Madam!"
Blair lay collapsed on the floor before the fireplace, unconscious.
Upon hearing the news, Herdin rushed upstairs, followed shortly by the attending physician.
"It appears she temporarily lost consciousness due to mental shock. There are no other abnormalities. She should recover with some rest."
Once the physician finished his examination and left, silence fell over the room. It was broken by Lina's sobbing.
"Your Highness..."
Lina didn't dare approach the bedside where Herdin sat like an immovable wall. Instead, she stood at a distance, sniffling.
Herdin's expression hardened at the title that slipped from her lips. It had been over a month since Blair became his wife, yet she was still being called "Your Highness." Even the sound of the maid's crying grated on his nerves.
Without looking back, Herdin commanded, "...Ruth. Take them out."
Sensing his foul mood, Ruth quickly ushered Lina and Meli out of the room. At last, the two of them were alone.
Perhaps it was his imagination, but Blair's pale face looked even whiter, almost translucent. Yet, her expression was perfectly serene.
Anger flared inside him at the sight of the woman who had thrown the entire mansion into chaos sleeping so peacefully.
Why on earth would a woman so terrified of fire that she wouldn't even go near a fireplace collapse right in front of one? It made no sense.
Could it be...
Just as Herdin was trying to fathom the reason, Blair's gently closed eyelids fluttered open.
Her eyes, blinking slowly, turned toward him.
The moment their gazes met, his first emotion was relief, rendering the anger that had been boiling inside him just moments ago utterly futile.
Staring blankly at him, Blair spoke.
"...Did I faint?"
"Did you approach the fireplace on purpose, knowing this would happen?"
"I wanted to find my memories. It's not something I can just bury and pretend not to know forever..."
The word "memories" spilled from her lips, and his heart sank.
She, a woman so terrified of fire she wouldn't light a fireplace in the dead of winter, had done this with her own hands. All for those memories. All because he had doubted and pushed her.
Her voice was calm, devoid of resentment. Or perhaps she was simply too exhausted to feel anger anymore.
Herdin gritted his teeth, clenching his fists so tightly that the veins on the back of his hands bulged.
"Even so, there is no need to search for them so recklessly. Never do this again."
His cold voice was an echo of her past life. It had been the same then.
She remembered the moment she realized he had only pretended to love her to pry the truth from her, remembered how he had distanced himself when it seemed there was no hope of that. Back then, Blair had recklessly undergone hypnosis on her own, only to fall ill from the aftereffects. When she awoke, Herdin had scolded her. Just like now.
'Do not do anything more. Just stay still. Like you have always done.'
She remembered that day, the day she had stopped confronting him, terrified of where it would lead.
But she didn't want that anymore.
"...What if I never recover my memories for the rest of my life?"
"There will be other ways. Isn't Lady Lorellain working on it?"
"And I'm supposed to believe that memories missing for ten years will suddenly return after a few conversations? All while I have to endure your suspicion?"
Blair's calm voice grew strangely high-pitched. At the same time, her breathing became ragged.