Viktor knew he had a talent for making others feel disgusted.
He had known it since he was so young that he couldn’t remember his own age. Perhaps his mother had whispered it into the womb where he was growing. ‘My dearest child. Please, don’t be born.’
He carried his sleeping mother back to her room instead of a caregiver and laid her down. When the blood from the back of his neck stained his white shirt, the Dumpert family’s doctor rushed over to treat the wound.
In the meantime, Blight was responding to the press in his place.
“As you can see, our young master’s desire to become a member of the royal family can be seen as an act of filial piety. Even though Duchess Marina has tried to strangle and kill our young master countless times, he is still trying to fulfill his mother’s dream.”
As soon as the reporters got the information they needed, they all ran off to publish an extra edition.
Viktor walked through the rain and sat in the carriage, and Blight, who had finished the interview, started the carriage.
On the way back to the mansion, Blight asked worriedly.
“Did you get your wound treated properly?”
“I should have chosen the convent my wife was going to.”
“Pardon?”
“This place is too nice.”
He said, taking out a cigarette from his inner pocket.
Blight lit it for him and said.
“I don’t know much about Mellin Convent.”
“Father must have a connection there.”
“By the way, the mistress hasn’t sent us a letter since last week. She used to send one every three or four days.”
He couldn’t bring himself to suggest that he should go see her, so Blight said it in a roundabout way.
He didn’t expect him to answer, but Viktor surprisingly opened his mouth.
“I’m doing things I don’t have to because of Scarlett.”
Since his mother’s condition, which he had kept hidden from his subordinates, had been made public to the whole country, it was understandable that Viktor’s anger towards Scarlett would not easily subside. However, no one around him had known that his anger would last this long, so no one had dared to ask why he was so angry.
After a while of watching him, Blight opened his mouth again.
“Please don’t get too angry when you hear this, young master.”
Viktor exhaled smoke out the window and looked at Blight, who then said.
“The mistress… wasn’t feeling well, so she moved to the summerhouse last week.”
At his words, Viktor asked.
“Why would I get angry?”
“She left the convent on her own accord…”
“It was Scarlett who said she would stay there for a hundred days. If she wants to leave, let her leave.”
“…Was that the case?”
Blight looked bewildered.
Everyone except Viktor had thought that Scarlett had no say in going to and from the convent. Scarlett herself probably thought so too.
Viktor opened his mouth.
“She’s not feeling well?”
“They say she has a high fever.”
Scarlett was originally a person with a weak constitution.
Viktor knew that she ate too little and didn’t have many favorite foods. The fact that such a person was sick made Viktor’s expression twist slightly.
“Then why did she go to the summerhouse?”
“Pardon?”
“If she’s not feeling well, she should come back home.”
“Ah, ah! Yes, you’re right.”
Blight’s expression brightened.
“I will send someone to the summerhouse right away to bring the mistress back.”
“Bring her back now.”
The Sallantie fever was a scary disease for those with a weak constitution.
Viktor’s expression didn’t easily relax. He seemed to have forgotten the cigarette he was smoking, and its ashes fell to the carriage floor, making the obsessive Blight nervous.
Scarlett had not even been at the convent for two full months when she began to suffer from a severe fever. It was because she was sleeping on a stone floor with only a blanket, and because the daily ritual of confessing to Father Delphio, even if she had to make up sins, had weakened her spirit.
Since she was about to die before he could even get her to sign the divorce papers, Father Delphio, his face pale, immediately had her sent out of the convent.
Even after being moved to the Dumpert family’s summerhouse, which was close by, in the carriage, Scarlett had a hard time even moving her head. Then, last night, she had a high fever and vaguely heard the doctor say that tonight might be the critical point. But seeing that she had opened her eyes again, she seemed to be tougher than she thought. Or perhaps the Dumpert family’s doctor was excellent.
Gregory Dumpert, who saw that she had opened her eyes, rushed over. He then said to his secretary.
“Hurry and raise Scarlett up and give her a pen.”
Scarlett breathed heavily as she was pulled up by the hands of Gregory’s secretary, who was forcibly raising her body.
As she stared at him putting a pen in her hand, Gregory held out a document in front of her.
“It’s a confidentiality agreement.”
“…”
“I’ll give you the money you want.”
Scarlett stared at the document, and Gregory continued.
“This much fortune will be more than enough for you and your brother to live on for the rest of your lives.”
Her vision was blurry, but perhaps because her fever had gone down a little, the contents of the document roughly came into her mind.
As she, exhausted, just looked at it, Gregory said.
“Hurry and sign it. Hurry.”
Scarlett stared at the document for a moment, then, with hands that had become as skinny as a skeleton during her time at the convent, she signed her name. And she began to copy the letter, which was a condition of the confidentiality agreement, onto the Dumpert family’s letterhead that had been placed next to her.
[The doctor says it’s contagious. I don’t want to make you sick, so I’ll stay at the summerhouse. See you next month, my love.]
After writing that, she seemed to have run out of strength and slid down onto the bed.
Scarlett, who was watching Gregory put the documents in an envelope with half-closed eyes, opened her mouth.
“…Give me the divorce papers too.”
At her words, Gregory’s expression, which had been anxious all this time, brightened.
“A-Are you serious?”
Scarlett closed her eyes, and Gregory questioned her several times. When she opened her eyes again, thanks to the doctor’s intervention, the divorce papers were on the bedside table.
Scarlett considered the fever to be a godsend. It would be a frustrating thing for Gregory, who had initially tried to kick her out without a single coin.
After a month of resting at the summerhouse, eating high-quality food, and receiving the best medical treatment in all of Sallantie, Scarlett’s fever slowly receded.
When her health began to improve, she became engrossed in fixing the kitchen maid Polly’s clock that Candice had brought her. Whenever she felt unhappy, focusing on this gift-like ability that had suddenly appeared made her feel much better.
She was meticulously grinding a gear in her room and had just put it in when the clock started ticking.
At that moment, someone knocked on the open door. She looked up and saw the asset manager, Andrei Hamilton.
“Ma’am, would you mind confirming the receipts?”
“Yes, come in.”
Then, a very thin young man, as tall as Viktor and with his hair completely slicked back, entered.
Ever since she got married, Scarlett had been picking out Viktor’s things herself, and when she couldn’t find what she liked, she would fix them herself. Scarlett confirmed the list of vases for Viktor’s office in the spring and wrote neatly next to it.
“For my husband’s birthday, be sure to get various colors of roses…”
Scarlett, who was saying that, looked up and laughed.
“I used to find a four-leaf clover for my husband’s birthday and put it in a book.”
“You did all sorts of things.”
“I thought he’d be moved.”
“Wouldn’t the person who finds the four-leaf clover be more moved? Be satisfied with having found it.”
At Andrei’s cold remark, Scarlett glared at him and then laughed.
“Yes, let’s think that way.”
“But why are you writing that down? You always took care of the roses yourself.”
“I’m getting a divorce.”
“I see.”
Andrei replied as if he had no interest in it and that was the end of it.
After writing down what he would need to take care of in her place, Scarlett closed the document and bravely asked.
“I’m going to open a clock shop and I’ve leased a place on 7th Street. But I don’t know anything about business, so I need help.”
Andrei scoffed as if he found it absurd.
“So you’re trying to scout me, an elite from a huge business, to a fledgling business with no future?”
“…Yes.”
“All right.”
“Huh?”
As Scarlett, with wide eyes, asked in confusion, Andrei, who was holding the documents, pointed at Polly’s clock.
“You fixed that clock. The one that other clockmakers couldn’t fix.”
Andrei said with a rare, slightly excited expression.
“Then give me the address. I’ll move the things in advance.”
“Oh, here!”
Scarlett quickly handed him the address she had already written down. Then Andrei put the note in his pocket, bowed, and left.
“…Is he really going to do it? Just like that?”
Scarlett muttered to herself, dumbfounded.
