A Mad Lady’s Confession - Chapter 53

The palace maid guided Eleanor into a forest located behind the lakeside.

Just as Eleanor began to wonder if she had followed too carelessly, the maid, who had stopped walking, gave a bow and disappeared.

Before she knew it, Eleanor was left standing alone on a narrow path in the middle of the forest.

Was this some kind of prank? Who would dare to do such a thing at an imperial event? Then again, if the target was her, it wouldn’t be impossible for someone to play such a trick, Eleanor thought.

“If I startled you, I apologize.”

At the low voice, Eleanor turned toward the sound. At the top of a gentle slope where the path continued, a man stood. With his hands clasped behind his back, he looked down at her arrogantly.

The dense forest in midsummer cast deep shadows, and Eleanor could barely make out the man’s large silhouette.

“Who… are you? Do you know me?”

It wasn’t particularly amusing, yet the man let out a short laugh. Eleanor did not feel very good. The man had not done anything yet, but something about him simply felt unpleasant.

“If you have no business with me, I’ll be on my way.”

As Eleanor stepped back to turn away, the man muttered in a low voice.

“Stop right there.”

Crunch, crunch, the man’s footsteps approached, crushing the grass beneath them.

The man who emerged from beneath the greenery, shedding the cover of shadows, wore a summer formal uniform embroidered with gold thread. His face was, of course, unfamiliar.

“Do you not know me?”

There was no way she would.

“That shouldn’t be the case. …I am Klaus von Bernstorff, the Crown Prince of Römern and the sole heir who will follow the sun.”

“…!”

The moment Eleanor realized who he was, she immediately bent her knees.

“I greet the Crown Prince, the little sun of the Empire.”

It was natural that she did not recognize him. She had spent her childhood far removed from high society and had no connection to the Crown Prince.

“If you’re pretending not to know me, it’s not very amusing.”

“I sincerely apologize, but today is the first time I’ve met Your Highness….”

“…Is that so? So that’s how it is.”

After speaking, Klaus let out another short, scoffing laugh. Eleanor could not understand him at all, what he was thinking.

She shouldn’t have come.

She wanted to return to where Matthias was as quickly as possible. A bad feeling kept creeping over her. The way her heart occasionally skipped out of rhythm was not a good sign.

“Your Highness the Crown Prince, excuse me, but if there is no particular reason you summoned me, I am not feeling well—”

“There is a reason.”

Klaus took a step forward, approaching Eleanor. She instinctively stepped back, and he followed with another step.

“There is something I wish to ask you.”

“….”

“Two years ago, why did you attack my fiancée?”

Eleanor’s small body flinched. Once again, that incident was brought up by someone else. The familiar anxiety made her breath tremble.

Unbothered, the Crown Prince continued, “They say you strangled her. That you said you would kill her, that you wouldn’t let her go.”

“….”

“Why did you do it? Why did you want to kill my fiancée?”

That night, whose cries had echoed?

Was it me who sobbed, or that woman? Or was it….

“Now, answer me honestly.”

Klaus’s hand lifted Eleanor’s chin. There was a sharp, acrid scent. Would burning flowers smell like this? A scent she had never smelled before, yet one she somehow knew well.

“Do you truly remember nothing about what happened then?”

“….”

Among those who experienced that night, no one knew why Eleanor had done it. Even she herself said she didn’t know.

People quickly voiced convenient and plausible speculations. That Eleanor Brynhill, the mad young lady, had long harbored unrequited love for Klaus von Bernstorff.

The rumor that she committed such an act out of fear of losing the position of Crown Princess spread most strongly in secret among the nobles of Belgar.

Despite the countless rumors, the Brynhill family never explained anything. Not even the woman who committed the act that day.

Klaus had always been curious. Could the woman before him truly not remember everything that happened that day, the people, the events?

He had once pushed the aftermath onto Matthias, partly because digging into what happened two years ago might stir up scandal about ‘that incident’ as well.

But after seeing Eleanor Brynhill, his thoughts changed. More precisely, after seeing Matthias Nielsen getting along rather well with the woman he had taken on like a burden.

‘So that’s the reason. Quite….’

Just as before, Brynhill suited his taste quite well. Like ‘that person’ from before, the woman in front of him had a distinctly different air from the noble ladies of Belgar. Unlike those soaked in vanity and hypocrisy, she gave off a fresh, lively presence. The kind of freshness that felt like if you bit into it, sweet juice would burst out.

“Tell me. Was it truly because you harbored feelings for me that you did such a thing?”

If that were the case, he was willing to ‘take the woman over’ from Matthias. Since she claimed to have no memory and knew nothing of the truth of that time, it would be better to make her his and keep her in his grasp. Besides, it would be far more beneficial for Nielsen as well, so there would be no reason for him to refuse.

Eleanor’s trembling gaze lifted to Klaus’s face. By now, her heart was beating completely out of rhythm.

Looking closely up close, the man was wearing rather heavy makeup. Eleanor lowered her gaze to the wrist of the hand gripping her chin. There was a dark mark about the size of a thumbnail. Dark and unmistakable, it was shaped in a way she knew well.

As if struck in the solar plexus, a gasp caught in her throat.

Her breathing grew rapid in an instant. This can’t go on, not like this….

“If your feelings are still the same, then I—”

I can’t endure this, someone help me, someone save me….

“Eleanor!”

At the moment she felt she might suffocate and die, a man’s voice rang out.

Hurried footsteps rushing closer, a motion that knocked away the hand holding her chin, a familiar scent brushing the tip of her nose.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

At the sharp, icy voice, Klaus raised both hands.

“What do you mean what I’m doing? I was just….”

Klaus’s slick gaze turned toward Eleanor.

You have no idea how warm the eyes looking at me are.

“I only wanted to exchange greetings.”

El, I’m going to die.

I’m going to die. El.

I’m going to disappear from this world forever, El.

Everything mixed together chaotically, and her vision went completely dark.

***

“What? Why did you engrave my name? This belongs to you….”

It wasn’t that she disliked it. If anything, she was foolishly happy. It was the first time she had ever received something like that.

“You are soon me, and I am soon you. Happy birthday, El.”

I’m sorry, even though we were one body, I didn’t prepare a gift for you.

“I think I’ve fallen in love.”

Me too. I think I’ve fallen in love as well.

“El, I’m going to die. I’m going to disappear from the world like this forever….”

Don’t say things like that. I only have you… If you disappear, what am I supposed to do?

“…Will you promise me? You have to live happily, even for my share….”

Don’t. No… don’t, I….

“Goodbye, El.”

There was the sound of a beast crying. Only after I held you, who had turned blue, did I realize that it was a sound coming from my own mouth.

Please, someone help us! Someone save us. Please, let us live!

We have to run away, the only ones who can save us are ourselves. I’ll save you!

In pitch-black darkness, I can feel your stiff body slung over my back. You’re hanging limp, I can’t feel your heartbeat at all.

I’ll make you live! So that I can celebrate your birth, I will….

I see the wall blocking our way, and I speak to you, who cannot hear me.

If we get over there, you know, we can live. You’ll live.

Clenching my teeth, I climbed the wall. My nails broke and my flesh tore, but I didn’t give up.

Del! I won’t give up on you! I will…!

“Eleanor!”

At the voice, the movement of climbing the wall stopped.

Slowly, she opened her eyes.

In the middle of the night, she saw rose vines clinging thickly to a wall.

A dull pain spread, and when she lowered her gaze, blood was flowing from her fingertips where she had torn through the vines with her bare hands.

“Eleanor….”

At the sound of her name, the woman in white nightclothes, barefoot in the garden, turned her head this way, her face bleak and smeared with blood.

A familiar yet unfamiliar, longed-for, piercingly painful face of a man was looking at her. Only then did Eleanor realize the present.

“Ah, ugh… hic… sob….”

Her palms were covered with self-inflicted scratches, as if clawed by a beast. Grotesque wounds that, by any standard, did not suit a noble lady.

Live happily, El.

And… will you take revenge for me?

Did you say something like that?

“I… sob, I keep getting… angry….”

“Eleanor….”

“Ha, sob… what, what do I do… I… what do I do….”

The promise she had made that she would never do anything insane again shattered to pieces that night.