Chapter 68

68.

The air in the ballroom calmed further, like the calm after a storm had passed.

Kyle clicked his tongue at the fuming Duchess Garten. He was someone who was not supposed to be here at all. If Count Pantetz, who was originally appointed to visit Conrad, had not been replaced by Duke Garten due to family matters, and Duke Garten giving him a favor, he would never have stepped in here.

‘Kyle, what the hell were you thinking, liaising1 with him!?’

Kyle frowned as he recalled the fit of rage that had befallen him.

“Damn, who thinks I’m doing this because I want to?”

He also had his own self-respect. He couldn’t help but feel disgusted by Garten, who abandoned them back in the day and became the only family who escaped unscathed. But what could he do? He was born as the eldest grandson2 of the esteemed House Robert. He had to live up to his family’s name.

Kyle was a knight from a great family, but his future prospects were crushed by Bernhardt. Not to mention, the best he could do was be Duke Garten’s escort.

His father, Marquis Robert, was old and avoided taking risks. Having lost his wife and daughter, Marquis Robert chose to live in the mansion like a dead mouse— without ever trying to seize any of the power he once had. Kyle laughed at it. The Marquis’s surviving son, on the other hand, was disillusioned with his inconsiderate selfishness.

So this is where Father came from. Kyle desired to revive House Robert. For that, he could even bear the shame of leeching off a traitor.

Robert will rise again. I will see to it. And the day that happens, I will get revenge on those who ruined my family.

“To kill other people’s families...” Grind. He chipped his teeth. Even though it was only from afar, his rage flared all the more so when he saw Marquis Visaride and Duchess Bernhardt. Nevertheless, it was coupled with a feeling of helplessness of not being able to do anything. That’s what it was, to have no power.

So, he wanted to rise to a higher position, even if he had to borrow Garten’s power to do so, no matter how pathetic it was. Marquis Robert called it his greed and scolded him to be like his younger brother, but Kyle did not care.

At this rate, Robert would be expelled from the Council of Nobles of Grania— just like Damonshire was.

Chewing on his words, Kyle said to the man standing next to him, “This humiliation, this disgrace... Let’s pay them all back one day. That day will come.”

“...”

“What’s wrong, Juan?”

Kyle saw his brother’s frozen expression. His gentle brown eyes were unusually vacant. His lips parted only when Kyle felt strange and put his hand on his shoulder.

“...Don’t ever....”

“...”

“Call me to such a place again, Brother.”

He shook off Kyle’s hand and strode away with a soft crunch.

His callus gesture dumbfounded Kyle. Be like him? As I thought, Father is clearly mistaken.

* * *

Held firmly by Vicente, Ercella crossed the wide hall. They arrived on an unoccupied terrace.

When Vicente opened the door, the cool breeze gently pushed the hem of Ercella’s dress. Vicente crossed the threshold and walked to the railing before releasing her arm.

“Are you okay?” Ercella asked while walking quickly and without paying mind to tidy up her messy hair.

His past of being shunned/neglected by his mother was revealed in detail in front of strangers. He couldn’t have been okay.

“Were you ever bothered by random gossip? Never mind those people. It’s not because they see you in a bad light, it’s just entertainment for them. You don’t need to feel hurt because of those people...”

Ercella’s lips closed slowly on Vicente’s emotionless expression.

“...I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have come here.”

Words of consolation turned into an apology. We shouldn’t have come. She recounted her regrets in her heart, but the mocking gazes directed towards her and Vicente were already imprinted in her memory.

“Sorry.” Ercella clenched her fists so hard that her knuckles turned white. Vicente may have thoughtlessly done something unbecoming, but it wasn’t his fault.

From the beginning... Had she acted properly as a mother from the beginning, she wouldn’t have received such criticism.

Above all, their criticism was just an ulterior motive to bring her down below Garten. However, to think that Vicente was used in the process made Ercella furious.

“Let’s go home. Let’s go back and never come back here again. There are so many people who live well despite being unaware of these kinds of entertainment, I feel so bad towards you—!”

She pulled Vicente’s arm and shouted, but Vicente stood still, unmoving like a solid rock. At that, Ercella clenched her lips tightly and pulled her arm holding Vicente’s again.

“Why did you do that?”

His incongruous low voice slowed her down.

“Why did you do that?” He repeated calmly, as if talking to himself. But Ercella sensed the strange twist hidden in that calmness.

“Are you angry?”

His eyes, which sank deeper the more he got angry, resembled Harsen’s.

“You went overboard,” Vicente said tersely, but it was not difficult to tell that he was in a bad mood.

His eyes looked cooler than usual as if she were deeply upset by her reckless behavior earlier.

Ercella sighed. She deserved it, for she bowed before Garten without dignity, forsaking Bernhardt’s honor.

“Don’t worry, our family’s reputation won’t be tarnished just because of this. But I’ll try my best to fix it—”

“Is that what’s important right now?”

“Vicente?”

Ercella’s eyes grew wide at his seemingly edgy voice.

“I know that it was my fault from the start and it became such an issue because of my family name. An issue that would have ended with only me being criticized. There was no reason for Mother to bow before anyone. To mindlessly...”

...act like that.

It wasn’t hard to guess the words Vicente shoved down his throat. Even if she thought about it herself, her response earlier was foolish and it was true that she acted without thinking.

But what to do? Even if she regretted it, it was already past. Ercella laughed a little, “It’s my fault.”

It was in the past, but she was the reason this incident happened in the first place. And she felt no regret admitting that she was indeed embarrassed for a moment back there.

Don’t you already know? Vicente doesn’t want your apology.

Don’t you really want to be forgiven?

That kind of greed... Can you really deny it? Be honest... Is it okay if your endless apologies aren’t accepted?

Ercella clenched her hand at the flood of suspicions. And she thought. What did I do wrong this time? What’s wrong? Is it so wrong to say I’m sorry?

Then what should I do?

But the answer that never reached her dropped Ercella’s head crushingly.

Vicente indifferently watched Ercella, who was about to crumble just from touch. Her weak body looked as pitiful as a lamp that was about to extinguish, but why does hatred add weight on him?

He knew why. He didn’t hesitate to hurt the woman in front of him because he was tired of it.

“Are you avoiding me again? You always shirk away and hide, living your life as you please. I suppose it’s become a habit because Father accepts everything you do.” He despised the way she always avoided and ran away.

“Were you always like that with him, too? Looking like you’re about to cry, just like you’re with me right now? How old are you...” Vicente nervously deflected his gaze at her quivering clenched pale hand. “Just as a bunch of apologies doesn’t solve everything, it’s too late to cry over spilled milk. Aren’t you old enough to not act selfishly? You sure live a very convenient life. What on earth did you think you were doing? Don’t you care about the people around you? Why are you always so...!”

“...What was I supposed to do then?” Unable to contain it, her rising voice rasped in his ear. Ercella finally appeared from behind the words she had locked forever in her throat.

“Tell me. What...should I do?” Ercella was looking at him with eyes that were ready to shed tears as soon as her eyelids fell.

“I’m so sorry toward you, so much that I’m dying. I feel sorry... Is that wrong?”

“...”

“...Are you disgusted?”

Vicente chewed the inside of his mouth. Yes, it’s disgusting to try to escape the situation with tears.

“I’m waiting for you. I-I keep on...really....” Her voice trembled with tears in her eyes. Ercella poured out endless words as if she was voicing a sorrowful cry. “You-you’re avoiding me...I k-know. I know, but I k-keep waiting. I wait. That’s all I could do.”

Then at some point...

“That’s all I could do!”

The trembling stopped.

“I feel sorry and want to atone for my sins, but all I can do is wait! I..!”

The angry cries pierced his heart. Vicente swallowed his dried saliva. He couldn’t breathe, like a man that was being strangled from his throat.

“Then what should I have done?”

“...”

“Do I...Do I have to complain to you that I was having a hard time, that I was young and scared back then? Haven’t I hurt you enough already?”

“...”

“Do I!”

He heard a desperate roar.

“Do I have to tell you how much I blamed you even though I knew it wasn’t your fault?! Should I have spelled out everything to you one by one?!”

He saw his mother exhaling vigorously as her fierce voice pierced his eardrums, unable to overcome her anger. She stared at him with eyes reddened, as if she wanted to kill him... Strangely, his chest ached.

“I know I was wrong. I know you hate me, yet I act selfishly as I please. Even if you don’t want to forgive me, it’s also true that I want to be forgiven.”

“...”

“But it’s...”

Ercella closed her eyes tightly.

You’re crazy.

You’re crazy, you.

That’s all she could think of. She could not have uttered it herself without being crazy. As if it was not enough having to beg apologies for your mistakes...

“...so frustrating.”

She was the worst, really.

“My friends who upset you by teasing you, the Gartens, the gossipers around us, who I usually don’t pay any mind to but had to when I suddenly thought of you. To think I upset you by bowing my head is vexing me. I feel despicable.”

Ercella bowed her raised head at the self-loathing boiling up in her head. The tears were burning and her eyes were blurry. She was frustrated.

“Nothing is going my way...”

Tears dripped down from her bowed head.

“...Why isn’t anything going my way?”

Why am I being mean to you again?

Ercella, who couldn’t stop crying, eventually began to sob. It’s over. I’ll always be hated. Vicente will no longer have any expectations from me. He won’t laugh with me anymore. He will despise me even more. He will hate me. It brought more tears to her eyes.

“...Sorry. I was wrong,” Ercella cried and wept like a child.

I’m sorry.

Vicente buried his face in his hand at Ercella’s endless repetition of apologies like a person who only knew to say that. Again, the rasping sound rang in his ears. That laughter was nothing but despondent.

“I’m sorry...that you have a mother like me.”

A woman who had not grown up, for whom time had long stopped.

It was both contemptible and heartbreaking.

* * *

Missed 5 updates and I’m behind the official manhwa too :/ Wish I could catch up.

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