I Did Nothing at All - 2

Kof—

At a nose gone suddenly itchy, someone let out a sneeze.

The sounds that drifted over now and then were nothing special. Just a sneeze, that was all—surely this much was the kind of noise you heard often enough in everyday life. Theresia, listening to the sounds her dear brother made, thought so too. Though a very slight ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sense of something off did prickle at her.

"Got something on your mind?"

"...No. Don't worry about it."

"As for that broken engagement, don't let it eat at you. It doesn't look like the other side intends to make anything of it."

"I know that."

A voice she could never have imagined. Never had she imagined she would hear it with her own ears.

He was the man who had done nothing but smile at her, wasn't he? Who would have dreamed he was hiding such a dagger? Even now, whenever she recalled that moment, a chill would crawl up her spine for no reason at all.

The face that had smiled at her so gently no longer existed. All that remained was a cold sneer, frozen over, and a pair of eyes that bored straight through her—as if raking apart everything she held in her heart. He might as well have been an entirely different person.

Brief as it was, in that moment she had been utterly overwhelmed by Robert.

When on earth had he changed?

The instant the name Milian Jewelry Store reached her ears, she had barely kept her legs from giving out beneath her. Wasn't that the sound of a man who had known everything from the very beginning? And yet he had swallowed it all this time—recalling the eyes that had fixed so steadily upon her, Theresia's shoulders gave a shudder.

And so she had broken off the engagement. That very day she hurried home, returned the engagement ring sealed back in its box, and set the annulment proceedings in motion without a moment's delay. She had believed that would be the end of it.

It still gnawed at her that he had brought up her brother, but that was surely just bravado. Powerful as House Taylor might be, House Violet was a noble family of considerable standing in its own right. They could not compare, no—but there was no way they would be felled by mere poison. There was no pretext for them to crumble from within; all she had done was make use of a foolish man. What could possibly come of that?

"...He wasn't foolish at all."

She corrected the thought with a sigh. It felt as though she had been struck squarely. That he had known everything, and all the while played the fool so perfectly for her sake... even now, the very thought raised gooseflesh.

The plan she had built so meticulously and believed to be going so smoothly had collapsed in a single instant. Even the word annulment seemed to have been drawn out only after he had unraveled her intentions completely.

Hadn't breaking it off been precisely what she meant to say to Robert that day?

Though she had fled like a thief in the night, the whole way home she had spent in dread of pursuit. She had feared returning to find her house already torn to pieces, yet with all the time that had passed since, not even the smallest trouble had arisen.

"You don't wear that strange look these days. The one that made it seem like something was worrying you."

"...There was, for a while. A lot's happened lately."

"Well, to love each other like that and then suddenly call it off—the shock of it could linger, I suppose."

Kof—

Arthur, letting out a cough a shade thicker than before, opened his mouth.

That cough grated on her. Why was he coughing at all, when he never did?

Theresia's eyes narrowed briefly, then she spoke, curt.

"Have you caught a cold? You keep coughing."

"Mm... no, it's not that. My throat's just itchy. It's nothing. It's happened now and then, hasn't it?"

"Have ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠some medicine brewed later. And don't go spraying spit everywhere for nothing."

"It'll clear up once I've slept it off."

In that instant, she found herself biting down on her lip against an irritation rising unbidden. Grrit—the sound of her own teeth grinding together. Theresia flinched at it and stared blankly into the air. There was nothing to be irritated about, and no way to explain why this feeling had welled up so suddenly.

The face reflected in the teacup she held was a thoroughly unsettling one. To anyone watching, it was the face of a woman very much enraged. Theresia let out a small sigh and smoothed it away.

Perhaps it was her pathetic brother's antics after all. She had seen them so often she thought nothing of them anymore—but watching them this frequently, the anger had simply burst its banks.

"Just take your medicine quietly. And quit getting on my nerves."

Having cleared her throat and answered, she seemed to settle a little. After all, his words were nothing but empty talk and swagger. Would she not look just as foolish, letting herself be rattled by it?

She pressed a thumb firmly to her brow, then raised the chamomile tea to her lips. For as long as the fragrant aroma filled her mouth, she felt released from every worry.

Her brother grumbled as he tipped the medicine down his throat; she watched him only a moment before closing her eyes to savor the tea. Didn't merely drinking it set the heart at ease? It was nothing but needless fear.

There was a worry that kept rising, true—but Theresia erased it from her mind at once. In its place, she dredged up another matter. She had failed to make use of Robert; might it not be wise to assume she could be exposed the same way elsewhere?

"How on earth did he find out?"

She had been certain she'd handled it all without a soul knowing. Whenever she bought something, she bought it under an entirely different name; whenever she visited a designer, she let no one but the man himself know who she was.

Inwardly docking points from the designer Rober, Theresia's eyes narrowed. Perhaps he truly had known nothing, and those few details had simply slipped out by accident? She might have taken a moment to think it through, but the shock had hit so hard that she had confessed her guilt on the spot.

Had she met him brazenly instead, the outcome might have been somewhat different. Had she flared back at him—aren't you the one in the wrong?—even Robert might have been thrown off balance.

Tsk. Blaming her own folly, Theresia clicked her tongue softly.

It couldn't hurt to reach out to him once, it seemed. Send a letter owning up to her faults in measured amounts, and surely he would grant her a meeting.

Theresia, midway through the letter, gave a little laugh and took up her pen again. If this worked—what then? She found Robert, who had startled her so, quite insolent, and so she had lately amused herself dreaming up little acts of revenge. Until that very day, he had even written her letters professing his love—who could have imagined he would hurl such insults at her the moment they met? Even now, the memory of that mocking face made her brows knot of their own accord.

By rights, it should have been a relationship she held in her palm and toyed with... but because she had wavered for a single instant, it had come to this.

Having scribbled an apology calibrated to be neither too much nor too little, Theresia stretched. No doubt a reply would come soon enough. But it was already deep in the night; with the thought that she could simply send it upon waking, she headed straight for bed.

It was hardly a matter of importance, so there was no harm in it. Even if she forgot, she could send it whenever it came to mind. That would suffice.

To Theresia, Robert remained, in the end, an easy mark.

Khak—

Rough, labored breaths rang through the room. The one wearing a pallor as though he might collapse at any moment was Arthur, Theresia's elder brother. He stared at nothing with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠dulled eyes, then screwed them shut, stifling the cough that burst up from within. He felt as though he wanted to reach into his chest and pull his itching lungs out with his bare hands.

A cough that leaked out of him regardless of his will called forth no small storm of feeling on its own. It had been mere days since he'd waved it off as a simple cold—who could have known it would swell into this? The slightest movement tore loose a cough that raked his raw throat. He wiped the faintly metallic taste from his mouth. Even without blood on the cloth, he could feel how far his body had already broken down.

No cold he had ever known was an illness this grave. A cold was the thing that vanished clean away after one night's sleep. That was why he had grown careless with his medicine—but this, this was no sickness that would yield no matter how faithfully he took it.

Khak—

His chest pulled tight from all the coughing. Even his appetite had fled; he had now lain idle in bed for three days running. How had it come to this? Yet what frightened Arthur most of all was the question of whether this illness would ever break.

"It has to be poison."

Theresia, who had been pacing back and forth at his side, murmured. Gnawing at her innocent fingernails, her foot bouncing restlessly as though something had snagged on it, she cut a thoroughly anxious figure. Ever since his condition had worsened, she had been hauling in physician after physician to hunt for poison.

But that it was no poison, Arthur knew better than anyone. Poison, after all, is made for the purpose of harming someone. At least as far as he knew, no poison produced symptoms so like an ordinary cold.

"...I'll have to interrogate the servants. The food you've been eating is suspicious."

"Theresia, you know perfectly well that's impossible."

"Know? Brother, what could you possibly know? Look at you—it's poison, obviously it's poison. Why else would a perfectly healthy man fall ill out of nowhere... This is poison. Someone sent an assassin after us, Brother. It can't be House Taylor—no, it's him. It's Robert, that man sent an assassin at—!"

Hup—swallowing down a dry, hollow breath, Theresia went pale to the lips. She had ranted herself into the realization all on her own.

Only now did she seem to understand. Only now did she grasp that what he had said to her that day had been no empty threat.

Wasn't all of this far too strange? It was summer, not winter—and a cold that could have begun as no more than a cough had driven a man to a state no different from a walking corpse.

At first she had taken it for a nasty cold. And if not that, then some passing ailment. Thinking only that much had been the mistake. This was a vile trick staged by House Taylor. Just as Robert had warned, he had clearly done something to Arthur, her own brother.

A current of electricity zinged through her skull. Her breath stopped; the dread that poured down from the crown of her head seemed to drain out through her fingertips. Her heart went cold, and her stunned mind set her body swaying. She did not even notice that her legs had given way and dropped her to the floor—Theresia simply began sorting the shards of memory that were clicking together in her head.

The reason her brother lay sick—of that much she was certain: it was Robert's doing. How else could Arthur possibly have fallen ill? A mere cold, worsened to that degree? No. Impossible.

Theresia had struck every other possibility from the board before it could even be weighed. Having taken Robert's words as a threat, her head packed solid with that single thought, her reasoning clouded over on its own. There could be no clear judgment here. Had she only slowed down, she would have seen there was no such possibility—but she had already fixed it in her mind that Robert was the cause of everything.

"Ned. Bring me every servant in the house this instant and question them. Whether anyone put something strange into the food."

"Th-that is, my lady... the questioning was, in fact, already completed."

The old man called Ned answered with a bow of his head. He had, of course, asked them all, and there was not one who would have carried out so suspicious an act. Moreover, nothing brought in from outside was ever used carelessly; there was simply no way poison could have found its way into the food.

But he could hardly disregard the force of Theresia's wide, glaring eyes, and so Ned opened his mouth with care.

"There was no one who behaved suspiciously. At the very least... I do not believe there is a soul within this mansion who would commit such a deed."

"Then tell me why my brother lies there like that. Because he's simply bedridden with a cold?"

"Have we not sent for a physician? Once he is treated, he will take his medicine and recover. We have also summoned a priest, should the worst occur—so I would say you may rest easy for now, my lady."

At Ned's words, Theresia at last felt her bleary sight return. Right. There was no need to work herself into such a frenzy this very moment. If she moved too rashly, House Taylor might only tighten the screws...

Then a new thought surfaced, and Theresia's eyes narrowed as she scanned the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠room. What if someone were watching all of this?

It felt as though blood was only now beginning to circulate through her skull. Her vision spun—ping—and only then did Theresia register that she was lying on the floor.

"...Right. Then I suppose I'll just have to wait. Until that smug physician deigns to arrive."

"Yes, my lady. I will call for you the moment the physician arrives. Please rest a while."

Thud—the door shut. On its far side, left alone, Theresia's body began sinking toward the floor all over again. She no longer even wished to rise. Her mind was crammed full with nothing but this situation.

It might not have been House Taylor that had moved, after all. To pass judgment now would be premature. Grasping at the situation with a measure of calm, Theresia wiped her brow. If it were truly a cold, medicine alone would see him right. And if so, the whole thing came down to coincidence—nothing more.

"Could it really be?"

Fear seized her in one cold gulp. If this were an illness no physician could cure... then wouldn't that mean House Taylor truly had laid hands on her brother?

Her breath came faster, and the hand clutching her chest began to shiver. Face the color of ash, Theresia stared into the empty air with flickering eyes. Nothing could be wrong. This had to be just a bad cold—an illness that would vanish entirely after a few nights of sleep. Only if it turned out otherwise would all of this become karma—retribution for the greed she had nursed.

"It'll be fine."

So she murmured it—to scrub away Robert's voice, which echoed in her ears like a haunting. And to keep hold of the hope that still lingered, faint as it was.

Theresia went on murmuring like that, for a long, long while.