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Chapter 21
A voice loud and fierce as the hand resounded in her ear. The sharp voice heard in the blink of an eye widened the eyes of the Marchioness, who was sitting quietly.
Baron opened his mouth, staring coldly at his daughter’s cheeks, swollen red.
“You’re my daughter, but I don’t know if you have any thoughts or not…? Can’t you tell what to say and what to hide? Did I teach you that way?”
Rosalind bit her lip hard to suppress the sobs that escaped. Her cheeks throbbed, but she didn’t care for the wounds, which were burning red.
Instead, she turned her head and looked into her father’s eyes.
As she recalled the days when she had been scolded by her father as a child, the desire to obey him like a domesticated beast flashed through her. When she was young, she had no strength. Having seen her mother follow him unconditionally, she grew up experiencing an angry father yelling and beating her.
She knew.
This, too, will pass if she waits a little while. She knew that if she bowed her head now, he would sink again without any fuss…
However, she couldn’t go any further. Now that even the last hope was gone, nothing mattered anymore.
With that thought, Rosalind squeezed her courage and began to vomit the words inside her, barely but clearly.
“Then, did I have to hide it? It might be infertility! Do I have to live like that, pretending not to know it and holding my breath every day?”
“Of course! What use is a barren girl!”
She did not move despite the loud growl like a storm, then met her father’s eyes as she continued her speech in a self-helpful voice.
“Isn’t that the only thing my father thinks of me is useful? You said that since I was little, you had nailed it in my ears. It’s my job to give birth to children, to pass on the generations, and to glorify my family. Though do you know that? I am of no use to him. I’m not even that useful. She’s just the shell of a wife. You see, all I got there for a year was the title Duchess.”
“What?”
“I am just in name…I was nothing more than an abandoned duchess.”
The moment she was chanting like that, her mother and her eyes met, and she hurriedly lowered her head.
Rosalind raised her hand and wiped the corners of her eyes.
“Should I be attached to a shell or something?! Do you know how hard it took me to make that marriage happen?”
Nevertheless, Baron didn’t care whether she would put up with her sadness or not. His daughter, who spit out the words she had been wishing for a long time, was in his vision blurred by anger, and in his dazed ear, the vile words sounded like humming.
“How much I suffered because of you…!”
Suddenly, he picked up the golden candlestick in front of him. In broad daylight, when the sun was shining, the candle was not lit, although the gold candlestick was heavy and solid.
Rosalind’s eyes widened in fear as the candlestick quickly approached her head. She turned her head and closed her eyes tightly as if she couldn’t bear to see it.
“…Stop it!”
However, it wasn’t the candlestick that struck her, but a warm embrace. When she slowly opened her eyes, she realized that her mother was hugging her tightly as though protecting her.
At the familiar and unfamiliar warmth, Rosalind gazed up at her mother as she stuttered.
“…Mother.”
Helen hugged Rosalind and spoke to her husband with her eyes wide open.
“Don’t touch Rosalind.”
In fact, more surprising than her father’s violence was that her mother had rebelled against her father. Perhaps, the reason why her father’s ferocious hand stopped was because, for the first time in his life, his wife rebelled against him.
Her mother grabbed her cheek and met her eyes softly.
A calm but clear voice resounded slowly.
“Rosalind, look at me and remember. Having a husband, children, or even a family doesn’t necessarily make you happy. I have been unhappy all my life because of my marriage. So…”
It was the first time.
When she was scolded for taking the side of her mother when she was young, when she was beaten because she didn’t learn the proper manners, her mother was always silent… This was the first time her mother had gone this far for her.
Her former mother would sit quietly in her seat whenever her father was angry, after which she called out Rosalind and warned her several times to never anger her father.
It was just repeated, as a matter of fact.
When she was young, there were times when she felt like a doll that did what her mother told her to do. Because of that, when such a mother took her side, strangely enough, the crying she had barely suppressed seemed to come out more.
“Rosalind, you don’t suffer from marriage, do what you want and live your life. Don’t be miserable like me.”
“Did you turn?”
Her father’s voice was more intense than before.
“It’s unfortunate! I, I can’t make Rosalind live like me.”
Suddenly, her mother’s eyes were also moist. Baron stared at the mother and daughter who was looking at him with confidence.
Helen hurriedly grabbed Rosalind’s hand. She took her to the room and began to grab stuff at random. Rosalind watched with bewildered eyes as her mother gathered her expensive jewellery and money.
With one hand, she rummaged through her box of valuables and began to wrap things inside a piece of cloth.
“Stay away for a while until your father calms down. At this rate, your father won’t be able to leave you alone.”
“Mother…”
Helen said as she wrapped the luggage she had packed into her daughter’s arms.
“Looking back, I didn’t do much for you as a mother. When I was young, I believed that it was my job to raise you and send you to a good husband from a good family. Though after a long time, I looked back and it wasn’t like that… I just realized that now, it’s too late.”
She squeezed Rosalind’s white hand.
It had been a while since she had held her hand like this, and it seemed like the first time she had ever held her hand, except when she was very young. Her mother’s hands were so small and wrinkled.
The hands she remembered as a child seem to be very large, fine, and firm.
“…And, I didn’t even get it right. This is probably the only thing I can do for you.”
Uttering so, she then squeezed her daughter’s hand as if she was giving it power before slowly letting it go. Rosalind could feel the warmth she had touched disappear.
“If you leave the room like this, there is a back door. You know, right? Get out of there.”
“Afterwards…”
“Leave the rest to me.”
Her father did not touch her mother. It was not because her mother was obedient, but because her mother’s family was too strong for him to beat her with anger.
Often in her childhood, Rosalind was beaten because she was weak and helpless.
“You must live happily.”
At her words, she nodded her head slowly.
Holding back her tears, she made her way through the back door.
‘Having a husband, children, or even a family doesn’t necessarily make you happy. I have been unhappy all my life because of my marriage. So…’
It was only after listening to her mother that she realized it.
That having children doesn’t solve everything, and that maybe she knew it implicitly…
Her mother said she was not happy in the end, and it was her who had watched her mother for so long.
She had been told it was her job to have a child that it pierced her ears since she was young, and she wanted to give birth to a child and make a real family for her. Nonetheless, she was most obsessed with a child because it was her one and only hope.
Just as it was a vague hope to live steadfastly in the midst of endless despair and misery, the child in an unhappy marriage was her only hope.
If she had children, she would be able to live happily like an ordinary family. She may have instinctively sensed that if she didn’t believe in it so earnestly, she wouldn’t be able to survive this marriage.
How could she have endured her own plight of being a wife hated by her husband if she didn’t even have a glimmer of hope?
However, no matter how much she turned a blind eye, she thought the time would come when she had to admit everything. That her children, her husband’s love, and her hopes were but her own fleeting wishes…
She smiled bitterly.
For over a year of her life, she was a false wife, and she lived with a false affair.
’Rosalind, you don’t suffer from marriage, do what you want and live your life. Don’t be miserable like me.’’
Rosalind held back her tears and diligently accelerated her steps.
She loved him.
Some may laugh at me for being childish.
Still, she fell in love with him magically in that short night, that brief moment.
Kyle’s kindness kept coming to her mind, and she wanted to know and wonder what kind of person he was. She was excited every day after marrying him, she wanted to be a good wife to him, and she wanted to be loved.
Even though she knew she wasn’t good enough. She was greedy for him, so she tried to be the kind of person that she deserved.
As time passed, her heart did not fade, and it only added day by day…
Goodbye. Her weary old heart.
After taking steady steps, she finally glanced back as if regrets remained.
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Although she knew she had to hurry before the boat left, she could not easily move her feet. The tips of the green leaves began to turn into a deep yellow, then a dry brown. The green leaves are now falling from the sky, and the hot days are getting colder day by day.
Suddenly, someone who was sweet and fresh like that green came to mind, and she smiled thinly.
So, summer came to an abrupt end.
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