~Chapter 02~
I Only Need the Duke’s Child Episode 2. Do Not Love You
The woman Heredin had brought was named Miela, a face Blair had seen once or twice while going back and forth to the temple.
Her occupation was a priestess.
A job that suited her angelic face.
Miela, who had gone north on a mission by the will of the goddess, happened to discover the Delmark Knight Order, which had suffered great damage from an attack by demonic beasts, and helped them.
Taking that incident as an opportunity, Heredin highly valued her abilities and recruited her as an assistant in subjugating demonic beasts, keeping her by his side, and she even returned to the capital with him.
A talented person and a lord who had the eye to recognize her.
On the surface, that was the extent of their relationship, but the servants whispered about the two as they pleased.
‘You know His Grace and Lady Miela—don’t you think there might be something between them?’
‘His Grace and Lady Miela?
I’m not so sure.’
‘Well, His Grace is like that.
He’s not someone who shows his emotions much.
But can’t you tell that Lady Miela likes His Grace?’
‘That’s… true.
Just look at how she hasn’t returned to the temple even after coming back to the capital and is staying here.’
‘His Grace will probably fall for Lady Miela soon enough.
A woman that beautiful and capable says she likes him.’
‘Well.
Whatever it is, it’s better than the daughter of an enemy.’
The giggling voices of the maids cleaning reached Blair’s ears as well.
But Blair covered her ears as if she had not heard.
She was afraid that if she reacted, it would be the same as admitting the rumor was true.
Thus the suffocating summer passed, autumn went by, and the bleak winter returned.
After returning from the main estate, Heredin, as he had always done since Blair became pregnant, never sought her out first.
He was always busy with outside duties, and even when Blair went to see him, he rarely received her.
At first, Blair tried hard to restore their relationship, but eventually she stopped going to see him.
If there was one fortunate thing, it was that he occasionally showed interest in Asiel.
Of course, Asiel seemed not even to recognize the unfamiliar man as his father.
That day, Blair went to Heredin’s office, placing her hopes on that faint interest.
It would be Asiel’s birthday in half a month.
Blair intended to suggest that, for Asiel’s birthday, they go down to the Holstein villa and spend time together as a family.
Blair, who had been about to knock on the door of Heredin’s office, hesitated.
The door to the office was slightly open.
“Heri—”
At the sight visible through the open gap, Blair swallowed the words she had been about to say.
Miela was in Heredin’s arms.
Blair’s eyes, looking at the two of them, began to tremble aimlessly.
“Ah….”
Blair instinctively stepped back, trying to escape the unbelievable reality.
At that moment, her eyes met Heredin’s as he looked toward the door.
He seemed briefly surprised, but he did not avoid Blair’s gaze.
It was as if he had no intention of avoiding it.
He pulled Miela, who was leaning against him, closer into his arms.
While his cold gaze remained directed toward Blair beyond the door.
As if deliberately showing her.
Staggering backward, Blair turned around and returned to her room.
She could not remember how she had made it back.
Looking down at the floor because her feet were cold, she saw that one of her slippers was missing, perhaps dropped along the way, and her breath was rising to her chin.
“Haa, haa….”
The moment she closed the door, the tears she had been holding back burst out.
She could not forget the look in Heredin’s eyes as he held Miela and looked at her.
Imagining him embracing another woman with the gentle hands that had once held her, whispering to another woman with the languid voice that had whispered to her, made it hard to breathe.
Even if his tenderness had only lasted for a fleeting moment right after their marriage, she still loved him.
Even though she had run away from that moment, she could not run away from the reality she had faced.
“Ha, ugh….
Sob….”
Her respiratory system, severely damaged in a fire incident more than ten years ago, could not withstand that brief dash and the crying, and she gasped for breath.
Blair beat her chest as she cried, unable even to breathe properly.
More than the chest she struck until it bruised, her heart hurt more.
* * *
The next day, Blair left a message through the butler—‘I want to spend Asiel’s birthday at the villa, so please come on the day of his birthday even if you are busy’—and fled to Holstein with Asiel.
Even so, she secretly hoped.
That he would come and explain that what she had seen that day was nothing, that it had been a misunderstanding.
But not even a single letter came from Heredin by the day of Asiel’s birthday.
To Blair, who could not leave the window from which the front gate of the villa was visible even with lifeless eyes, a small shadow toddled over.
“Mommy!
Mommy!”
It was Asiel, dressed up to the fullest for his birthday.
As if she had never been wearing a sorrowful expression, Blair smiled and lifted Asiel into her arms.
“Our son is wearing such pretty clothes today?
Oh my, how pretty.”
Asiel, smiling brightly while being showered with kisses by his mother, suddenly seemed to remember something and pointed out the window with his tiny hand.
“Dada?”
He remembered how his mother held him every evening, wandering by the window waiting for his father.
At the title that came from Asiel’s mouth, Blair’s face, which had been smiling as if nothing were wrong, distorted for a moment.
“…Yes, Daddy will come soon.
It’s our baby’s birthday, so he’ll definitely come.”
Just as she repeated the hope she wanted to believe, as if consoling herself, a knock sounded.
It was the butler.
Seeing Asiel in Blair’s arms, he delivered the news with a troubled expression.
“My lady, His Grace says his schedule has been delayed more than expected.
So this birthday will be just the two of you….”
At that news, the light vanished from Blair’s eyes, which had held a faint hope.
* * *
“Sweet dreams, my baby.”
Blair gently kissed the small head of the sleeping Asiel in her arms and laid the child in the cradle.
The child was asleep with a peaceful face, sucking on his finger.
Blair, with a faint smile on her face, fiddled with the child’s tiny hands and feet before returning to her room.
Only then did the smile disappear from Blair’s lips, which had been consciously smiling in front of the child.
The room where she had always lived alone suddenly felt lonely and silent.
Sometimes, when that emptiness grew too large, she would bring Asiel into the room and fall asleep holding him, but today she had deliberately left the child in his room.
Because it felt like the tears she had been holding back would burst out.
Because she did not want to show this side of herself to Asiel.
Because she hoped that lovely child would not know this side of his mother.
“Haa….”
Blair collapsed onto the sofa.
The child had celebrated a modest but happy second birthday.
He had been surrounded by servants and congratulated, eaten delicious food, and received a pile of birthday gifts sent by the vassals.
It had been a perfect birthday.
Except for the fact that his father, Heredin, was not there.
The child laughed cheerfully as if he was happy with just his mother, but whenever the servants came and went and the door opened, he searched for Heredin, wondering if his father had come.
Every time she saw that sight, Blair’s heart collapsed miserably.
She could understand Heredin treating her coldly.
But she could not endure him being indifferent even to Asiel.
‘Asiel knows nothing.
He’s at an age where even receiving love from both his mother and father wouldn’t be enough….’
Her heart ached as if it were tearing apart, thinking that Heredin’s neglect of Asiel was entirely her fault.
Once again, she regretted loving that indifferent man.
‘If I could return to the past, I wouldn’t love that man then.’
Just as Blair swallowed the tears rising in her throat.
Creak— the sound of a door opening echoed in the quiet room.
With a faint hope, Blair lifted her head.
“…Heredin?”
But what she faced when she looked toward the door was a suspicious man wearing a black mask.
The man’s face, hidden by the mask and darkness, could not be seen clearly.
However, the black eyes reflecting the moonlight from the sword and the hideous scar across the bridge of his nose were clearly visible.
Blair’s heart dropped at the sight of the intruder.
Seeing the man striding toward her, Blair instinctively tried to scream, but remembering Asiel sleeping in the next room, she clamped her mouth shut.
If she screamed, the child would wake.
If the child cried, the man might notice the child’s presence and go to kill him.
That must never happen.
Blair turned her trembling body and ran toward the bell rope beside the bed.
But at that moment.
Cold, chilling metal pierced into her back.
“Ah….”
With terrible pain, something hot burst from her mouth.
It was bright red blood.
But Blair, staggering, gritted her teeth and approached the bed.
And she desperately shook the bell rope.
Help me.
Please, anyone, protect my baby.
Blair could no longer endure it and collapsed onto the bed, yet she did not let go of the bell rope she held.
Not even when the intruder, who had approached a moment later, pulled out the dagger stuck in her.
At the same time, the sound of several people’s footsteps could be heard from the corridor.
The intruder, retrieving the dagger, disappeared over the balcony.
Blair stared blankly at the back of the intruder as he crossed the balcony.
The distinctive pattern engraved on the handle of the dagger he was putting away glittered in the moonlight before disappearing from sight.
Only after his figure completely vanished did Blair release the bell rope she had been clutching desperately.
‘Thank goodness.
I didn’t let Asiel sleep in my room tonight….’
Gradually, she felt the shadow of death approaching.
I can’t die like this.
What will happen to my baby, my baby who will look for his mother?
There is still so much I want to do for him….
Thinking of Asiel’s face flickering like an afterimage, Blair finally lowered the eyelids she had been struggling to keep open.
