Maylily - Chapter 108

Maylily soon disappeared into the inn with Michele. Around then, the shock that had blanketed Hugh’s consciousness rapidly transformed into rage and a sense of betrayal. Heat surged through his veins and spread fast across his body, making his temples throb and his vision blur.

Another man was by Maylily’s side.

And the fact that that man was someone he knew only stoked the flames of his fury.

At last, he understood how Maylily had been able to drift into this remote countryside with no connections and settle here. The blue veins stood out starkly on Hugh’s clenched fist as he stood there alone.

Michele Baratti.

The man he once hired, long ago, to ruin Maylily’s chastity.

That bastard was the accomplice to this damned escape. The deception he’d carried out against Maylily had returned like a boomerang and struck Hugh where he least expected it.

“Nothing unusual was found regarding Michele Baratti. He’s still living in Roden, working as a Cartian language instructor. Recently, several women have visited his house, but according to the neighbors, that’s nothing out of the ordinary. He stated that he has never exchanged personal correspondence with Miss Aile, and that appears to be true.”

Michele Baratti was one of the people investigated when Hugh looked into those around Maylily immediately after her disappearance. According to David’s report, every aspect of his life was unrelated to Maylily, and nothing had changed even after her escape.

So he hadn’t suspected him…. Was all of it camouflage to evade pursuit?

Realizing that he had been played by their scheme, Hugh let out a hollow laugh like a madman. In his relationship with Maylily, deception and plotting had always been his role. Being placed on the opposite side didn’t feel pleasant at all.

Had she slept in my arms every night while secretly consorting with Michele Baratti behind my back? And in the end, did she fall in love with him and plan her escape?

No, that couldn’t be. That couldn’t happen.

Even if Maylily deceived him and ran away, what she had given him couldn’t have been false. There are emotions in this world that even the greatest actor cannot fabricate.

The voice that whispered to him. The gaze that looked at him. The way she leaned into his arms. Even as Maylily’s clear eyes sank into despair and resignation, they were filled with soft, warm affection.

He had no intention of letting the most burning and radiant season of his life be reduced to nothing more than a lie.

No matter what it took, he would reclaim her. Maylily, and everything they had shared. What he gave Maylily was a relationship riddled with deception and mingled love and hatred, but within it, the time, memories, and emotions they created together had been real. He had to prove that.

Whatever kind of relationship Maylily had with Michele Baratti, whose child she gave birth to, or what she went through over the past year didn’t matter. The mere thought that her affection had even briefly turned toward someone else sent rage surging through his veins as if they might burst, and a sense of betrayal tore through the center of his chest. Even so, none of that mattered.

If only Maylily would return, Hugh was ready to accept even her sins and wounds as his own.

So he would find that path without fail. Even if he had to pour the rest of his life into it.

Reaffirming that vow, twisted by obsession and fixation, Hugh loosened his clenched hand. Then he slowly started walking toward the inn’s entrance. Despite his thoughts feeling clearly ordered, it felt as though he was stepping into a deep abyss thick with fog.

When he came to his senses, he was sitting by the window inside the guest room with a cigar between his lips. Amid the murky smoke rising without pause, the red glow of sunset faded and a pale moon rose.

So Hugh remained by the window as night slowly settled over the backyard scenery. In the ashtray on the table, cigars that had burned down along with his sighs all night long piled up into a grave of anguish.

***

When the inn’s front door was thrown wide open, the scent of wood damp with morning dew and the lively calls of birds surged in like a wave.

Into that fresh morning scene, no different from any other day, the acrid smoke of a cigar intruded like an unwelcome guest the moment Maylily stepped outside. The faint vanilla note carried by the pale smoke was something she hadn’t smelled in a long time, yet it was painfully familiar.

Following it unconsciously, she turned her head and found the Count of Everscourt there. Seated on the wooden bench beside the entrance, he slowly turned his head toward her. In the cool morning air, their gazes tangled.

“….”

“….”

The Count wore a composed expression, as if he’d anticipated or even expected this moment. Maylily, on the other hand, was startled enough that her heart gave a heavy thud at the unexpected encounter, but she forced herself to stay calm. She didn’t want to make a flustered spectacle of herself over something so trivial.

The Count was impeccably dressed, down to the pin adorning the center of his ascot tie. Yet his pale face, as if he hadn’t slept at all, and his eyes that looked lost, like those of a man without direction, gave him a slightly disordered impression.

What happened overnight? Or did he look like this yesterday too?

The shock of their reunion was so overwhelming that she couldn’t clearly remember what his face looked like before. Maylily retraced her memory for only a brief moment, then gave up.

It has nothing to do with me.

With that, she gave him a light nod, just as she would to any other inn guest. Without even the slightest hint of a smile. As if displeased by that distant attitude, the Count’s eyes narrowed faintly.

Ignoring him, Maylily moved on and took a broom and a rake out of the small shed attached to the stable.

Ever since fully recovering after childbirth, Maylily had cleaned the front yard every morning. Michele’s family told her there was no need for her to trouble herself with such chores, but she refused to yield. Since they’d accepted her as family, she wanted to do her share as family as well.

So even if the presence of the Count of Everscourt occupying the bench in the front yard bothered her, she couldn’t bring herself to skip this task. She might have fled from his world, but she didn’t want to flee even here, from the place she’d built with her family’s help and her own effort.

After picking up the trash scattered around the front yard and stuffing it into a sack, Maylily grabbed the broom she had leaned against the wall. All the while she swept the dirt dust from the flagstones, a hot, clinging gaze stuck to her back.

She turned around several times as if to drive him away, but it was useless. Beyond the irregularly rising haze of smoke, the Count never took his eyes off her, watching her every movement. Even with a face that looked as though he might collapse at any moment, he sat with a bearing full of lofty dignity, as if he were the master of this place.

She once admired that man’s aloof nobility. But not anymore. Seeing him once again barge into her life like he did on the day they first met in Director Fritz’s office, trying to bend it to his will, made her sick to her stomach. At the same time, she was afraid. Afraid that he might once again take something precious from her.

[What brings such an honored guest to our inn, of all places? Judging by the name, he seemed to be from Riverton. Frank, was it? That’s a Riverton-style name, right, May?]

According to what she heard from Carlo the previous evening, the Count of Everscourt rented a room under the name ‘Frank Barry’ for an entire month. As Carlo and Giovanna happily talked about the large income it brought in, Maylily couldn’t say a single word.

She wanted to demand to know what he was doing here, what scheme he was plotting.

But she wouldn’t ask anything. She would take no interest whatsoever in someone she had already cut out of her life.

“Maylily!”

It was just as she finished cleaning the flagstones, holding firm under the suffocatingly quiet gaze. Michele’s voice rang low across the front yard as he came out of the inn at a somewhat hurried pace.

“Dylan woke up.”

At the sudden mention of the child’s name, Maylily flinched and instinctively looked toward the Count. Following her gaze, Michele noticed the Count’s presence a moment late, and his expression stiffened slightly.

Meanwhile, the Count remained in his relaxed posture, smoking his cigar and staring stubbornly at Maylily.

“He keeps crying even when I hold him, so I think he’s really hungry.”

Michele stepped in front of Maylily, shielding her flustered expression, and took the broom from her hand. With his other hand, he gently smoothed her bangs that the wind had tousled.

“I guess so. It’s not time for him to be awake yet….”

Thanks to that natural gesture, Maylily regained her composure and spoke in a calm voice.

“Leave the rest to me and go inside.”

“Then I’ll leave it to you, Michele. I’m done sweeping the stones, so you just need to tidy up the gravel.”

After giving Michele a faint smile that told him not to worry, Maylily hurried inside. Watching her retreating figure, the Count of Everscourt shifted his gaze to Michele, who was left standing in the front yard, and exhaled a deep stream of smoke as if letting out a light sigh.

“Just as I thought.”