Chapter : 09
“Shall I send her away if you don’t wish to meet her, Young Duke?”
“…”
The aide cautiously asked Lawrence, who looked as though Patricia were nothing more than a nuisance.
“Just leave her.”
Despite the question being asked out of consideration, Lawrence shot his aide a glare that clearly told him not to meddle.
“Go out and do your job.”
“Yes, sir.”
Only then, cowed by the sharp warning, did the aide practically flee the room.
“Hmm.”
After Simon left, Lawrence—who had been acting as though it didn’t matter whether Patricia stayed or went—finally shifted his gaze.
His eyes lingered on the window through which Patricia could be seen.
Every ten minutes, he checked outside again.
It was as if he were worried she might leave.
If he was that concerned, he could have gone down to meet her himself—but he didn’t.
Instead, as time passed, the smile at the corner of his lips only grew deeper.
It wasn’t merely because Patricia was struggling in the sweltering heat.
Nor was it simply because he was taking petty satisfaction in tormenting the woman who had bothered him by not visiting for so long.
It was childish.
He would never admit it, nor even realize it himself, but it was childish.
When Patricia failed to appear for an entire month, Lawrence found himself thinking about her more and more.
Why hadn’t she come today?
Was she not coming today either?
Yet each time his thoughts about her began to deepen, Lawrence deliberately erased them.
After all the trouble she had put him through, why on earth would he want to see her unless he were mad?
She irritated him enough to occupy his thoughts, but he pretended not to care on purpose.
It wounded his pride to admit that Patricia mattered to him.
So when his aide brought her up, a part of him wanted to play along.
“Perhaps Lady Patricia has finally lost her feelings for you, Young Duke?”
When Simon said that, Lawrence felt inexplicably irritated.
He convinced himself the bad mood was caused by his aide’s ridiculous remark.
After seeing how obsessively Patricia clung to him all this time, saying something so absurd was so stupid it made him angry.
That was why Lawrence felt good now.
The Patricia sitting outside was proof that his aide’s idiotic speculation was wrong.
If she didn’t like him, why would she sit out there in this heat?
There was no way Patricia didn’t like him.
* * *
“Have you been waiting long?”
At Lawrence’s question, Patricia gave an awkward smile.
She looked slightly angry, yet clearly trying her hardest not to reveal her feelings.
“No. I’m sorry for coming so suddenly, Young Duke.”
Patricia offered a properly courteous apology.
But Lawrence found it absurd.
What is this? What’s wrong with her?
When had she ever come without it being sudden?
As far as he remembered, all of her visits had always been abrupt.
Apologizing and suddenly acting formal now only made her seem ridiculous to him.
“So there’s finally space in the reception room?”
As if annoyed by having waited so long in the heat, Patricia expressed her displeasure indirectly.
For some reason, she seemed a little different from before.
The way she didn’t fully reveal her emotions, the way she awkwardly spoke in roundabout terms—none of it was like her usual self.
Even the way she looked at him felt slightly different.
She’s calmer today.
Unlike before, Patricia’s pale lavender eyes didn’t look excited at all; they were surprisingly composed.
Lawrence’s gaze lingered on her for a long time.
His trembling red eyes looked complicated.
Despite himself, Lawrence was secretly glad she had come.
He had pretended not to care in front of Simon, but in truth, her absence had bothered him too.
What if she was ill?
What if something had happened at House Herarilla?
Yet no one knew better than Lawrence that such worries were pointless.
Within the Empire, there was nothing the House of Gerhardt didn’t know.
He knew Patricia wasn’t sick, and nothing had happened to her family.
There was no reason to worry—or even care—yet the fact that she hadn’t come to see him for no apparent reason weighed heavily on his mind.
Still, that concern ended today.
After all, she had returned.
Now that Patricia was back, he thought there would be nothing left to wonder about.
Her silky platinum-blonde hair reminiscent of wheat fields at dusk, her slightly upturned eyes, her pale lavender irises, even the soft fullness of her youthful cheeks—she was unmistakably the Patricia he knew.
And yet, she was different.
Her attitude toward him felt awkward.
As if facing a stranger, she avoided his gaze whenever their eyes met, and it irritated him.
He wondered what could have happened in the past month.
Normally, she wouldn’t have been able to hold back, chattering noisily the entire way, but on the way to the reception room she didn’t utter a single word.
Did she get heatstroke?
The thought that he might have left her sitting outside too long crossed his mind.
“So what brings you here today?”
He wanted to know why she had come after a month—no, why she hadn’t come for an entire month.
“There’s something I need to return to you.”
Patricia’s eyes wavered anxiously, like someone who had committed a grave mistake.
That might have been the reason she’d seemed so different.
Even her hands trembled slightly as she took something out of her bag.
Lawrence wondered what she was about to say.
Why she was so tense, as if afraid he might get angry.
Seeing Patricia carefully watching his mood like this made him uneasy.
Whatever it was, Lawrence was confident he wouldn’t be surprised.
After all the years she’d tormented him, there wasn’t much left that could shock him.
Whatever it is…
He decided it would be best to let it pass quietly if possible.
Seeing Patricia so cowed didn’t sit well with him.
“Ha! Why do you have this?”
The moment he saw what was in her hand, his anger turned into disbelief.
The item Patricia said she was returning was his mother’s keepsake.
It was the only thing of his mother’s he possessed—the sole item she had left behind for him.
Years ago, he had torn the entire ducal estate apart searching for it.
And now, the thing he’d never been able to find was in Patricia’s hands.
What kind of woman does this?
He was dumbfounded as he looked at her bowed head, heavy with apparent guilt.
Was that really how someone who felt sorry behaved?
She had visited him endlessly all this time, pretending not to know, only to return the necklace now—he couldn’t understand her intentions.
Patricia’s apology now felt unbearably insincere.
“Patricia Herarilla. Don’t ever show your face to me again.”
He couldn’t stand how foolish he felt for having spent time thinking about her.
* * *
“Why are you back already?”
The aide, who had been waiting in the study, cautiously asked when Lawrence returned far sooner than expected.
“Has the young lady already—”
“Don’t ever speak of Patricia again in front of me.”
He wanted to expose everything she had done.
He wanted to make sure she could never set foot in high society again.
But after taking a deep breath, he barely managed to restrain himself.
“Yes, understood.”
The aide answered quietly, seeing that Lawrence’s expression was anything but normal.
“Are you all right, sir?”
This was the first time he had ever seen Lawrence Gerhardt this angry.
The man who was usually expressionless and detached was clearly furious—something must have happened.
“I want to be alone. Leave.”
“…Yes, I’ll take my leave.”
At Lawrence’s clear dismissal, the aide nodded without another word.
Once alone again, Lawrence opened the bottom drawer of his desk and placed the necklace Patricia had returned inside.
“How ridiculous.”
After staring briefly at the silver chain and locket, he shut the drawer.
For an entire year, Lawrence had searched the estate for that necklace.
Yet the one thing he couldn’t find had been in the hands of someone completely unexpected.
“Haah…”
He let out a quiet sigh and roughly rubbed his face.
As if bad memories had surfaced, his brows furrowed for a while.
Though his breathing eventually steadied, his expression remained dark.
Sophiar Gerhardt.
The owner of the necklace—and his mother.
Sophiar.
Already frail, she had lost her life giving birth to Lawrence.
Because of that, Lawrence had never seen his mother even once.
There wasn’t a single trace of her in his memories.
Even so, the necklace she left behind held special meaning for him.
It was the only thing Lawrence truly cherished.
