For Eternal Rest - 3
A kindly impression. That was the judgment she had formed the first time she met Robert, and it had not changed now that she faced him once more. That softly smiling face was the very face of the man who had once sworn, loudly, to prove his love to her. Hadn't he come to her like a fool, arms full of jewels, asking whether she could bring herself to believe in him now? And so she had found him laughable...
Even admitting as much, Theresia did not miss how markedly his manner had changed. He still seemed the same fool who would swallow whatever she told him — and yet, for some reason, a strange chill crept over her. Besides, ought there not to have been some manner of preparation waiting to receive her, as there always had been? This time there was nothing. Literally nothing at all, and that odd atmosphere, so unlike the ordinary, narrowed Theresia's eyes.
"...Robert, did something happen today to sour your mood?"
"How could there be? I have been waiting for nothing but your arrival. Come inside — I've put the tea on."
She stared blankly for a moment at the hand Robert extended to escort her, then took it and stepped down from the carriage. There was nothing amiss in his bearing. It was surely nothing more than her own misapprehension — after all, her visit today had been unannounced. Surely there had been no time to prepare a welcome; so thinking, Theresia broke into a bright smile and spoke.
"The rumors are dying down one by one. Soon enough your name will be cleared. I'm glad, Robert."
"Is that so."
With a smooth motion, Robert slipped his hand free of hers and murmured the words. Even so, Theresia's gaze stayed fixed ahead. The thoughts filling her head were solely of the broken engagement she would spit out today — and of the comical face Robert would make when he heard it.
"By the way, you seem to have grown rather extravagant in your adornment of late."
On the way to the garden where they had always whiled away the hours in idle chatter, Robert remarked it as if in passing. Startled by the question, yet finding his expression as gentle as ever, Theresia answered in relief. Was it not obvious? Because lately, thanks to a certain fool, her wealth had grown. Ordinarily such things would have been far too great a strain on an allowance — but Robert, begging her to believe in his love, had funded every last piece of it himself. Dresses, accessories, jewels and the like; and lately, adorned in them, she had become quite the sensation at society gatherings.
"My father gave them to me recently. My birthday is nearly here, after all. You haven't forgotten my birthday, have you?"
"Of course not. I could never forget it."
Inwardly she sneered; outwardly, she smiled the smile of a woman deeply in love. Donning a mask was a task quite familiar to Theresia. Her past was already littered with such affairs, and in the end the man called Robert had been nothing more than another fish caught in her net. A relationship that would end after today, at that. So thinking, Theresia quickened her pace, a sneer on her lips. Once the broken engagement was asked for, she meant to set other work in motion. Even if she would not use a man as she had this time, deceiving fools in one way or another was easy enough.
A pleasant breeze, unusually kind today, tickled her cheek. The Taylor Estate Gardens could stand comparison with the Imperial Palace's own, and merely to look upon the fresh green foliage set her heart at ease. Were the butterflies mingling with the flowers not like a painting come to life? She walked on through that garden, toward the round table where her beloved chamomile tea would surely be waiting. Her steps felt lighter than they had in an age, and a smile spilled out of her unbidden. That strange feeling from before — surely it had been nothing but a mistake.
Lost deep in her musings, Theresia failed to notice that Robert had come to a halt. Only after walking on for quite some time did she realize she was alone, and turn back. With a playfully petulant look and her lips jutting in a pout, just as she made to ask why he wasn't following — Robert spoke.
"Theresia."
"Yes, Robert? Come along — your legs will ache if you keep standing there."
The look in Robert's eyes as he stood rooted in place, gazing at her, was different from a moment ago. Eyes that had always held a soft, watery light were frozen cold — like this estate's Young Matriarch. The warm mildness of his voice had flattened entirely, and the sensation of conversing with a doll narrowed Theresia's eyes.
"...Robert. What are you doing?"
"There is something I wish to ask."
Robert, paused for a breath, began walking again. Toward Theresia, in long strides, closing the distance until their faces were bare inches apart. The woman, toying with a curl of her golden hair, still wore an expression full of puzzlement. What shamelessness, truly. To Robert — who knew precisely what she meant to say today — it was an attitude that could not summon even a bitter laugh.
Robert no longer smiled. Perhaps after today there would be few smiles left to show Theresia. In place of the gentle smile, a sneer; in place of the warm voice, a cold countenance. And for the woman who had tended a flower bed in her head right up until this day... a rather fitting gift had been prepared as well.
"Is there something you are hiding from me, by any chance?"
At Robert's question, Theresia's expression crumpled in an instant. It was the very expression with which she had always cornered Robert. The woman who had been smiling until moments ago was nowhere to be found; jabbing a finger into his chest, her voice began to sharpen.
"Are you doubting me right now? Have you forgotten already that I'm the only one who has ever believed in you?"
"......"
"How absurd. You claim to love me — loved me so much, you said — and the first words out of your mouth are whether I'm hiding something. Fine. There is one thing I haven't told you: how much effort I have poured into finding whoever spread those rumors about—"
"Lies."
The voice that bored into the seam of her words was cold. It was as if her heart had frozen over — a word more than enough to chill, in an instant, the emotions that had been on the verge of bursting out of Theresia. Her body went rigid as she stared blankly at Robert. The finger jabbed at his chest; the steps that had been pressing her forward. As though time itself had stopped — and at the sight of the woman frozen where she stood, a small smile gathered at the corner of Robert's mouth.
"How long did you plan to have me play the fool, Theresia?"
"Wh-what are you talking about?"
She tried to carry it off with some show of composure, but Theresia's tongue had long since tangled itself hopelessly. A lie? No — there was no way Robert could have found out. Hadn't it all been handled in secret, so that no one could ever know? Surely he was only posturing — so thinking, Theresia tried to reclaim her usual bearing. The nerve. Who was posturing at whom, here...!
"I am saying we should break off our engagement, Lady Violet."
But Theresia's flaring anger stopped dead there. As though he had foreseen everything, the man's faintly smiling eyes curved into gentle arcs. The broken engagement — the very words she had meant to say today. When she felt something drop, heavy and dull, in her chest — only then did Theresia understand that Robert had changed. The eyes looking at her held no goodwill any longer. Only a gaze as hollow as the depths of some deep lake, empty of all feeling, fixed upon her.
"A broken engagement. Do you understand what I have said?"
Theresia's expression was truly a sight to behold. The pupils visible within her wide-stretched eyes trembled violently; anyone could see how badly she had been thrown. If she was going to put on an act, she should have done it properly. She had been so sure she wouldn't waver even if I was the one to raise the matter of the broken engagement — yet here she was, flustered before my eyes, and my interest waned accordingly. She had had no trouble slipping poison to me, had she? And yet to see her shaken like this. It seemed her one raw nerve — the thing she could not abide — had been the fact that she was deceiving me.
"Milian Jewelry Store."
At the name of the jeweler where she had spent the riches wrung out of me, the body that had been pressing in on me flinched, shuddered, and began slowly backing away.
"It seems Designer Rober knows you quite well, Lady Violet. Just how many dresses must you have bought for the man to remember you as a regular?"
"Th-that can't be true. Something's been mixed up—!"
"Mixed up how?"
There would be no comeuppance for me in this. So long as this insolent woman had used House Taylor's fortune to fill her own private greed, that fact alone was leverage enough to press her family. Foolish as my own conduct had been, Father would hardly let a matter like this pass untouched. Not that I truly intended to tell him everything. Because—
"Are you frightened?"
Did I not know this foolish woman well enough — that she would cower in preemptive terror at a mere whisper? I did not have much to say to her. I needed only to end the engagement, and to prod at what she was yet to experience — just enough to make her flinch. If any ill should befall House Violet, she would be certain, then, that it was my doing.
Watching her face drain to a deathly pallor, I raised my hand at last and gently traced her jaw. As my fingers followed the line of her chin and stroked her throat, that frail body shuddered. I had hoped she would put up somewhat more of a front; at this rate, there was no savor even in frightening her. So this was all the woman was. And to think I had once been swayed by a creature of such little consequence — just what a fool had I been? Inexplicably, I began to regret the lives of my past loops.
"Ro...bert, don't do this to me. You said you loved me. Yes? Why are you like this all of a sudden...?"
A wry laugh escaped me at her tearful pleading. She was a woman I had not loved once since the day I first died. I had merely wanted to go on living — to carry everything forward exactly as it was, lest some variable unknown to me rear its head. Hadn't the heart I once held for her been torn apart and ground to dust long ago?
All I had to send her way now was a cold gaze. There had been a time when I forced smiles for her sake, but I had no intention of doing so in this life. I did not think of it as revenge — and yet I did hope she might feel, even faintly, what I had felt.
Three — the number of lives in which I died directly at Theresia's hands. Ten — the number of my deaths in which Theresia had been entangled. When I first grasped those numbers, I lived through several loops half out of my mind. She was not a woman worth the price of vengeance — but I doubted I could bear to watch her... live happily before my eyes.
Theresia's legs gave out, and she crumpled to the ground; I watched her quietly for a moment, then bent down to meet her eyes. The eyes that looked up at me, hollow with futility, were already drained of life. No doubt she had sensed, instinctively, that everything was out.
What was going through her mind, I wondered. Perhaps she believed I meant to do her some harm, here and now. That I might bring ruin upon her house. Perhaps she was cursing me for having hidden my true face all this while. But she was wrong on every count — for I would take no action against her at all. That very restraint would become the shackle that bound her, so that whenever some misfortune struck, she would think of me. If her brother died — me. If her servant died — me. To me, who knew the future, it was simply laughable.
To Theresia, collapsed on the ground, I extended my hand with an air of perfect courtesy. If she remained sprawled here, someone might see and think it strange. Her lips quivered for a moment — but the instant my eyes narrowed, she hastily seized my hand and pulled herself upright.
"Robert... I..."
"Do not call me by my name. There is nothing between us."
"L-Lord Taylor, I was wrong. So please, forgive me just this once. I beg you — I'll do anything, whatever you ask of me. I'm yours, aren't I? Aren't I?"
"I never had any intention of possessing the likes of you. Nor do I intend to do anything to you, Miss Violet."
"...Then?"
At my words — that I would do nothing — her eyes brightened, if only for an instant. In that expression, where relief mingled, color seemed to be returning to her cheeks. I had no intention of lying to her. If anything, it was precisely because of that that these words would come to press upon her all the heavier.
"Come to think of it, you have a brother, don't you?"
Having passed through a hundred regressions, I knew the futures that were certain to come. Futures that would not change, no matter what means I employed. Among them were my own deaths — and included among them, as well, was the death of the man who was Theresia's brother, soon. The timing, if I recalled rightly, was a few weeks from now. He had died of pneumonia, as I remembered it, though from the outside it had seemed a shockingly sudden death. A man perfectly healthy mere days before, dead without warning — that was how the news had come. He had died of pneumonia, without question. I had seen the sight of my own death with these two eyes more than once, after all — so of that much, at least, I was certain.
"I should very much like to meet him sometime soon. While he is still in good health, that is."
"W-wait, just a moment... my brother? Why... why would you mention my brother...?"
But how would this loop's Theresia come to regard that death? At words flung out without context, the color drained from her face. Skin white as paper turned livid blue, and the teeth of the woman whose hands rattled knocked together with a hard click.
Her brother's death could not be prevented — for no cure for acute pneumonia existed in this world. Even summoning a priest would merely ease the body's suffering; no rite could tear out a sickness rooted so deep. And so she would come to suspect, in the days ahead: that it had not been pneumonia that killed her brother, but my own handiwork. That even if it had not been me, it was vengeance upon her for having spent House Taylor's fortune. Naturally I would deny it — but would she take my denials at their word?
To Theresia, who could no longer manage even a word, I gently smoothed her shoulders. Wearing the same soft smile I had once given her so long ago, I whispered to her thus:
"...We should end the engagement, shouldn't we?"
The sight of her head nodding — creaking like a doll whose spring was turning — was, truly, a comical one.