31. One step, another step
Margaret tried to hide her trembling eyes in front of the drawing room of Birch Castle. Mrs. Dutton was standing beside her. She was even more nervous because she had no idea why her former master, now the master of the country, had called her.
“What did I do wrong, Margaret?”
“You just said you had something to check. Don’t worry too much.”
Mrs. Dutton nodded with a stiff expression, wiping the sweat from her forehead with her sleeve. When Paul nodded at Margaret, she swallowed hard and entered the drawing room. Since she only had to tell what she knew anyway, she didn't need to be nervous about what questions she was asked.
“You can come closer.”
Damien came in cautiously and gestured for Margaret to sit down, who bowed her head in greeting.
"...Thank you."
Margaret Seymour. Chloe's personal maid and the person she spent the most time with.
“You were the one who delivered Chloe’s letter on her behalf.”
“Yes. Because the master doesn’t allow Madam to go out.”
Margaret opened her mouth in a small voice.
“Have you seen the contents?”
“That’s not true.”
“I guess you must have checked who it was sent to.”
“...It was a letter of greeting sent to Madam’s family. Among them was a letter addressed to the master.”
Margaret's words were not a lie. Chloe sent a total of twenty telegrams during the thirteen days she was unable to leave Birch Castle. After sending false letters to her husband, who had practically imprisoned her and left her, pretending to repent and whispering words of love, she carried out her work behind the scenes while Damien, relieved, tried to quickly sort out the situation at Swanton and return.
The recipients were her father, the Viscount Verdier, Lady Talbot, and another was the Post Office of Winsbury (probably her sister). Chloe must have given them a heads-up about what was going to happen.
Mrs. Talbot had rented out her house and gone on a cruise on a huge steamer immediately after the incident. The whereabouts of the Viscount Verdier, who had collapsed after the death of his daughter and was said to have gone to a hospital in the south to recuperate, were still unknown. Only the servants who had received a year’s wages at once remained at the Verdier Castle. Alice Verdier’s letters, which had been coming through the Winsbury Post Office, also stopped.
“Is that all?”
“There were also groups involved in the management of the territory. I don’t remember any special... opponents.”
Chloe also wrote letters to the hospitals and workhouses that the Duke of Tisse supported, and sent cards of encouragement to peasants who were struggling during the cold winter. One of the recipients of her letters will soon appear here.
“Was Gray Wilson coming to the cabin on the day the fire broke out?”
Paul handed Damien the passenger list of the train that had traveled to and from Tisse on the day of the incident. He had thought that Chloe's name would not be there, of course. But Gray Wilson's name was there.
“...It was only...just a very, very short moment. My Lady, it was really only for a very short moment...”
Margaret would probably never be a good actress. Her face was pale.
“I don’t want to press you on that. What I want to know is the time.”
Damien's voice grew cold.
“The time she met Gray Wilson. The last time you saw her alive.”
“Around three o’clock in the afternoon. I remember it clearly because that was when the butler came with coal and firewood.”
“So, when was the last time you saw her?”
“The last time I brought you dinner was at seven o'clock in the evening.”
“Wasn’t it usually your job to clean up the hostess’s bed?”
Margaret closed her eyes deeply once and opened them again.
“Madam said she didn’t need it that day. She said she had a lot of work to do.”
“Let me ask you one last question.”
"Yes."
“How long does it take for one stick of a cigarette to burn out?”
“...About four hours.”
Damien sent her away without further questioning. Seven o'clock in the afternoon. Chloe said her final goodbyes to her personal maid. Then, after finishing up her business inside the cabin, she leisurely left.
“Oh, you called, Master.”
Damien lit a new cigarette and looked at Mrs. Dutton, who came in after him. Mrs. Dutton, the cook who had quit her job after the incident, could not hide her even more anxious look in her eyes than Margaret's.
“When was the last time you saw Chloe?”
“It was about nine o’clock at night, the servants’ dinner time... It was time to check the supplies for the poorhouse. The madam always checked them herself, saying that we should not give bad things to the poor.”
“I see. Did you see Madam leave after checking the items with your own eyes?”
Mrs. Dutton couldn't answer for sure. It was the afternoon of the day when the overdue groceries were delivered, and she had been busy organizing the storeroom all day to avoid being nagged by the butler, Paul.
“That... That... I clearly saw her standing in front of the carriage...”
Damien gestured to Mrs. Dutton, whose eyes were starting to shake in confusion, to stop. He had almost gotten all the information he wanted to confirm. After Margaret and Mrs. Dutton left one by one, Paul finally said that the last person had arrived.
“Tell them to come in.”
Click.
A middle-aged woman opened the door and came in, bowing her head politely to Damien. Damien looked at her and muttered quietly.
“It’s been a while, Eliza.”
“Your Majesty, the King.”
Eliza's calm face was quite different from Margaret's or Mrs. Dutton's. Perhaps, she must have guessed why he had called her.
“I have something to ask you, not as a King, but as a Duke whose umbilical cord you cut.”
“Please ask.”
“Where is my wife?”
“I don’t know.”
A silent flame burned in Damien's eyes. The answer, not "dead" but "I don't know," made his heart race. His long fingers began tapping the desk at a steady pace like a metronome. Damien swallowed dryly and tried to keep his composure.
“Are you serious, Eliza?”
“I, too, am a person who values my life. I am not so stupid as to not know the nature of the person I raised myself.”
“I won’t believe you when you say you don’t know. Then tell me what you know.”
Damien stared at Eliza intently and spoke in a cracked voice. His fingers tapped the desk faster and faster.
“I’m sorry, but please ask your question specifically...!”
Boom! Eliza's words were interrupted by the harsh sound of the desk being slammed down. Damien's clenched fists began to tremble.
“It was the Duchess who got you a job at the hospital sponsored by the Tisse family after you were kicked out of Birch Castle for your misdeeds. Thanks to her recommendation, the hospital director had no choice but to ignore all the rumors and hire you. The hospital was always short on manpower, so there was no other way.”
Damien continued in a cruel voice, watching Eliza swallow dryly.
“You must have been the one who smuggled the unidentified female body from the hospital to Birch Castle. It wasn’t hard to plan, since you knew all the cart drivers who traveled to and from the castle. That afternoon, no one would have known that there was a small female body in the coal box delivered to the cabin. Except Chloe and you. Am I wrong?”
“It's true.”
Damien's eyes lit up as he looked at Eliza, who did not deny it. Now all the puzzle pieces were in place. Chloe personally laid the body on the bed, placed the oil-stained books and firewood next to the candle-lit bed, and left the cabin. She walked through the pitch-black night to the storeroom behind the castle and escaped by taking a wagon heading to the workhouse while the servants were busy with dinner.
“You said with your own mouth that you are not stupid, so I think you are fully aware of what you have done.”
Eliza clenched her hands together as Damien let out a low growl.
“Let me be clear again, I only allowed an unidentified body into Birch Castle, and I had no idea what she planned to do with it.”
“Are you saying that in front of me right now?”
“Because the madam didn’t tell me the purpose.”
The paper crumpled in Damien's hands. Eliza could clearly see that his patience was reaching its limit.
“I guess so. She didn’t want anyone to get hurt. So no one should know about Chloe’s plan.”
But there were certainly those who belatedly guessed that her last actions were strange. After the incident, all those who left the castle must have found Chloe's death suspicious. And they must have immediately realized how dangerous it was for them to be even a little involved in the incident.
“Because you knew best that I wouldn’t forgive you.”
“...It is as you said.”
Eliza's wrinkled eyes trembled and turned red. Damien glared at her and spat out his words with an expression that seemed to be spitting out bitter water.
“But I definitely saw you at the train station that day.”
Damien jumped up and ran towards her, the impact causing the chair to fall backwards and roll across the floor.
“...You knew what Chloe was going to do.”
Eliza caught her trembling breath as she watched him approach with murderous eyes.
“Madam didn’t tell me anything. She went to the train station on her own. I guessed what you guessed. I saw her there. She was walking with an old blanket on. As soon as she saw me, her face turned pale and she tried to run away.”
"...So."
“So I caught the madam. I put my black coat on her, covered her face with the hood... and I put her on the train, wishing her a comfortable journey.”
“You knew she wouldn’t come back.”
"Yes."
Tears flowed from Eliza's wrinkled eyes. She already knew that there was no need to lie to him, who had already figured out all the circumstances.
“If I had known in advance that she would leave with nothing in her possession, I would not have packed her only one bag.”
“Why did you help her when you knew that you wouldn’t be forgiven when this came to light?”
“Why?”
Eliza smiled slightly with reddened eyes.
“Well, would you understand if I said it was because I am human, Your Highness?”
It was the moment when the arrogance of Damien Ernst von Tisse, who thought he had a perfect understanding of human psychology, was shattered.
In the study where everyone had left, only the sound of the pendulum ticking could be heard in the still air. Damien got up from his seat because of an instinctive pull. It was an impulse driven by intuition. His beastly instinct led him to the wall. Damien looked at his own portrait standing on the enemy general's neck and slowly took the picture off.
There was something in the safe, which should have been empty, as he had burned all its contents. Damien's hand slowly swept through the inside of the safe.
Bam.
Thud.
Damien couldn't help but burst out laughing as he watched the objects fall at his feet.
"Ha..."
It was a shattered brace, the one he had designed himself and remade several times, custom-made for her leg.
“Hahahaha!”
Chloe Verdier left this place without a single trace of Tisse on her body. She had clipped the wings he had wanted to give her and had left leisurely, completely deceiving him with her limping legs.
If you think about it, it wasn't strange. There were more than a few people in this country who used canes. There were plenty of people who carried canes like their alter egos, including people who had injured their legs in the war, old women with limited mobility, and stylish gentlemen.
Chloe laughed at his miscalculation that she would never be able to escape from him with her sore leg, shattered it.
“Haha... ha... haa...”
The snickering laughter eventually turned into rapid breathing. Hot blood flowed rapidly from Damien’s heart to his head, then back to his heart, and through his fingertips and toes. Damien imagined Chloe’s expression when she came in here and hid the broken brace.
“You knew all this, Chloe.”
Damien leaned his head against the wall, his eyes unfocused, and whispered. He thought he knew everything about Chloe, but he ended up knowing nothing about her.
“You expected me to end up here.”
The evidence was right before his eyes. Damien gasped as he looked at the shattered brace.
“Then what do you do when you want to get to know someone?”
“You just... You just found out.”
The woman who had been spouting the most stupid answers in the world knew more about herself than she did. Damien felt dizzy at the fact. His head was spinning, and his heart was pounding wildly. Never in his life had he felt more unfamiliar with himself than at this moment.
In the uncertainty that was thrown into his life, which had always been clear, Damien felt both fear and maddening excitement. It felt like a new milestone had been reached in his life.
Chloe must have thought of him as she put the broken brace back into the safe. She must have imagined the look of horror and the boiling emotion he would make when he found it.
Are you as excited as I am right now, Chloe?
Damien walked out of the study, past the brace that had fallen to the floor. The dimly lit hallway on the walls seemed endless. He retraced the exact path Chloe had taken as she limped along, her body shaking with excitement, betrayal, and revenge. Blood rushed to his lower abdomen as he remembered the tears welling up in her clear eyes.
As he passed through the hall, a huge plaster statue appeared. It was a work of art depicting himself holding a horse's reins and raising his head haughtily. Damien reached out to the cold, inorganic statue.
As a rough groan echoed from his teeth, the large plaster statue fell to the marble floor and shattered with a loud noise. Damian laughed as he stepped on his own shattered form. The first thing he would say to Chloe when he met her again came to mind.
Thank you for breaking me, my love.
You can look forward to how I, who have been torn to pieces, will get you back in my hands.
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