Deceived, Yet Drawn to You - Chapter 140

Blair screamed and was pushed backward. Scorching heat swept through the air, turning everything crimson before her eyes. Even breathing was agony. Staggering in a complete mess, she still forced her eyes open and fixed them on the entrance. In case the man she longed for might emerge from that horrific inferno.

But no one appeared. The only thing waiting for the chapel doors to open was the fire itself, howling like a ravenous beast.

“Edmund!”

The name she cried until her throat felt torn apart scattered into the smoke. No answer came back. Having lost her reason, Blair stepped toward the chapel.

“Madam! Step back!”

As a guard urgently grabbed her and dragged her behind a tree, Blair lost her balance and desperately reached out into the air. Merciless smoke spread like a curtain in every direction. There was no way to tell whether Edmund had escaped the chapel safely.

“Ed…!”

Before she could even finish calling his name in a shrill voice, a series of explosions rang out. A terrifying vibration shook the ground and rattled her vision. What filled her sight then was the opposite corner of the roof collapsing. Overcome with shock, Blair’s head slowly dropped. Unable to withstand the searing heat, the thread of her consciousness snapped.

***

The first thing to awaken her senses was the sharp smell of disinfectant.

Tormented by a nightmare, Blair opened her eyes with a ragged breath. An unfamiliar ceiling came into view. It was a quiet space, with no flames and no scorching heat like the last thing she remembered. But it didn’t take long for her dazed mind to grasp reality.

“Edmund.”

Blair sprang up from the bed. The sudden movement sent a sharp pain through her shoulder, but she ignored it. The only thought filling her head was that she had to confirm his condition.

“Ah… the Duchess is awake!”

“Quick, fetch a doctor! And tell everyone!”

Someone gasped in surprise upon seeing Blair. Hurried footsteps approached, but she had no time to respond. A warm hand grasped hers, steadying her as she staggered.

“Madam…!”

It was a familiar voice. The one sobbing with a soot-stained face was Milia. Blair tightened her trembling grip on the maid’s hand.

“Milia, where is Edmund?”

“Sniff….”

“Where is my husband? Where is he now?”

Instead of answering, Milia only sniffled. Blair couldn’t tell whether it was simply overwhelming emotion or whether something terrible had happened to him, and her heart pounded violently.

What if he hadn’t made it out? The moment that thought surfaced, a dreadful image spread before her eyes. The roof collapsing with a crash, the debris reduced to ashes in the flames, and the figure of a man trapped inside rose one after another in her mind.

“That can’t be.”

Blair shook her head. Milia’s refusal to answer, her continued sobbing, constricted Blair’s chest as if it were a notice of death.

“No, that can’t be.”

Just then, the hospital room door opened. Blair, who was about to shout that she didn’t need a doctor’s examination, froze in place.

Even after seeing the face of the person who stepped through the doorway first, she couldn’t believe it. She’d longed so desperately that she wondered if her mind had conjured an illusion.

“Blair.”

That unmistakably clear voice reached her ears. The precise pronunciation and the distinctively low tone. There was no way she wouldn’t recognize its owner.

Edmund stretched out both arms and pulled Blair into a deep embrace. The scent of disinfectant was unfamiliar, but his broad chest was warm and solid just as she remembered. Relief surged over her like a tidal wave. Only when she felt the steady beat transmitted to her did his presence finally become real.

“Is it really you?”

“Yes. I’m here.”

“I thought I was mistaken.”

“As you can see, I’m perfectly fine.”

A lie. She lifted her head, tears pouring out like rain. Blair scrutinized Edmund with an almost obsessive gaze.

The man before her was far from his usual immaculate self. The scrape on his cheek was the first thing she noticed, and she saw the bandage wrapped around his thin shirt. Layers upon layers of white cloth wrapped around his entire upper body, a testament to the struggle he must have endured.

Her throat tightened instantly. Noticing her gaze, Edmund slowly brushed a hand through her hair.

“I wanted to stay by your side until you woke, but I had to step out for a moment to have the bandages changed.”

Only then, as she looked around the spacious hospital room, did she notice the two beds placed side by side. Blair, who hadn’t even realized he had been using the same room as her, grabbed hold of his white shirt.

“You could’ve had them changed here.”

“I didn’t want you to see me in such a mess.”

“Were you hurt badly enough for the bandages to get soaked?”

“Still, I’m alive.”

The voice that muttered it like a joke felt unfair for no reason. Turning her gaze, she noticed Benjamin standing behind Edmund. The doctor wasn’t interrupting their conversation, but his expression was worried. From Blair’s perspective, her own body felt fine, which only made it seem that Edmund’s injuries weren’t light.

Biting her lower lip, she tightened her grip on the hem of his clothes, pulling him to sit on the edge of the bed. The thought that such a robust man might actually struggle even to stand made her heart race. Edmund didn’t resist moving closer to Blair and allowed himself to be led by her weak strength.

“How… how did you get out? I clearly saw the roof collapse….”

“There’s an underground storage cellar in the waiting room on the east side of the chapel. As soon as the fire spread, I headed there. It’s a place that isn’t used often, so it’s usually kept locked, but when you attended Rufus’s funeral, we opened it while preparing it as a lounge for you to rest in.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s a storage cellar. It’s good for keeping your drinks or fruit cool.”

In other words, his thoughtfulness in taking careful care of Blair ended up saving his own life. The tenderness she once thought excessive and overly meticulous had returned as a lifeline at the crossroads between life and death.

“Still, if it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t have been able to avoid the collapsing ceiling.”

Edmund gave all the credit to Blair’s quick thinking in finding the key that unlocked the bolt at the crucial moment. Even though he was badly injured, he remained the same man who tried to reassure only her to the very end, and her heart churned.

“What about the baby? Is the baby in my womb all right?”

“Everyone is safe. It’s just….”

The gentle voice that had been soothing her stopped abruptly. As he lowered his gaze with a single blink, a cold murderous intent flickered in his eyes.

“Only the one who deserves to pay for her sins survived as well.”

It meant Isabelle had returned alive from that inferno too. Her life was as tenacious as steel.

“I’ll make Isabelle pay as soon as the minimum treatment is finished. I won’t let her ever reach out to you again.”

“….”

“It’s all my fault. I thought that once I stripped her of her position and expelled her from the ducal residence, she wouldn’t be able to struggle again. I misjudged, believing that even if some venom remained, she wouldn’t go so far as to commit something this reckless.”

Blair hadn’t even known that Isabelle had been expelled. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen Isabelle at the exhibition, nor anywhere in the mansion that night. She never imagined that the one who stirred up Count Twyford and caused the kidnapping incident was Isabelle.

In the end, Isabelle was able to use Sam because of money. When she was disgracefully driven out of the ducal residence, not only was the reward she had promised him for helping Rufus flee in the dead of night cut off, but even the long-standing financial support stopped entirely. Cornered, Sam was lured by Isabelle’s suggestion that they threaten the Duke, extort a massive sum, and overturn their lives in one stroke.

On the night of the fire, Isabelle causing a scene at the main gate, demanding to be let in, was also a calculated move. While the guards’ attention was focused on her, Sam, who knew the layout of the mansion well, slipped inside in secret.

“No one would’ve expected the madam to go this far.”

As Blair carefully intertwined her fingers with his and spoke, Edmund fell silent for a moment. As if savoring the warmth being passed between them, he placed his other hand over the back of hers and spoke in a low, heavy voice.

“Sam has been taken to the Metropolitan Police and is awaiting disposition. He was so frightened that he confessed everything before the interrogation even began.”

“So, the madam….”

“She deceived him as well. From the beginning, she only had one objective.”

“Ed.”

“It wasn’t merely my death. If you knew what she intended to do to you….”

Watching the man’s face darken with anger and self-reproach, Blair bit her lip. He couldn’t even finish his sentence aloud, his expression twisted with a pain she had never seen before. It was hard to tell whether it was murderous intent toward Isabelle or loathing directed at himself.

After a moment of silence, Blair turned her head toward the doctor standing behind them.

“Mr. Jensen, what is the madam’s condition?”

“She is barely maintaining consciousness.”

“Is she able to speak and hear?”

“She hasn’t opened her mouth yet, but her hearing appears to be intact. She’s reacting sensitively to sound.”

Blair didn’t hesitate and stepped down from the bed. Her legs were still unsteady, but her resolve was clear. Edmund’s unfinished bond of ill fate had to be tied off here.