An eight-horse carriage stopped in front of the mansion, and all the servants came up to greet the Marquis as the day turned dark. Lia nervously stood next to Kieran, who had been in his room the last few days due to his illness. However, she could not smile. Kieran held Lia’s hand with his signature smile despite his pale face.
The Marquis came down as the carriage door opened. He looked exactly like the portrait, and his green eyes looked at his wife, Kieran, and Canillia in turn.
“My dear wife.”
The Marquis spread his arms wide as he saw the Marchioness, and she came up to hug him with a surprisingly warm smile. Lia’s chest grew warm at the scene. Lia stepped back after shaking Kieran’s hands off. She wanted to bolt but Betty’s hand on her shoulders steadied her. Betty was also trembling.
The Marquis kissed his wife on the cheek and then patted Kieran’s head. He then directed his gaze to Lia.
“Canillian.”
The Marquis leaned down to meet Lia’s eyes, and she tried to keep her tears from falling. “Come here,” he said as he embraced her. She smelled winter on him.
“I heard the child was a girl,” the Marchioness said while she took her husband’s long coat. She bade the servants leave and waited until the bedroom door closed. “We do not need a girl.”
“How will she act like a boy?” The Marquis took off his clothes and put on a comfortable robe before wearily getting into bed. He seemed tired enough to go to sleep right then.
However, the Marchioness continued as she stared at him, “I am not asking her to live as a boy for the rest of her life. I just want her to act as Kieran until he recovers his health. The family will be secure then.”
“You’re too severe to push that life on a girl.”
The Marchioness raised her head after straightening her back, and her eyes shone with pure hatred for a moment as she glared at him, “You’re the cruel one to have loved a maid!”
“Madame!”
“I would have not felt such disgrace if she had been a noblewoman’s widow, but why a maid whose eyes you shouldn’t meet?”
It had been ten years ago, but Anastasia still felt resentment for what her husband had done. Lia’s mother had been a kitchen maid in this mansion, and her beauty had allured many a man in this house. She received both love and hate, and the Marquis had been one of them who loved her. Anastasia had not stopped him despite knowing he was married, as she had thought it would be a brief affair.
The maid’s belly started showing when Kieran had just started walking. The servants had become afraid of the woman who carried the Marquis’s child. They all observed her in case she were to have a boy. The woman mistakenly thought she was loved by the Marquis and acted hysterically to everyone around her.
Then, Kieran had disappeared on a cold winter’s day, and Anastasia had frantically searched the mansion for him. He was eventually found beside a frozen lake and thankfully survived. The livid Marquis gathered all of his servants to find the culprit, and they all said the pregnant maid had done it, and although she was in her last month of pregnancy, the woman had been chased away from the mansion on that same day. Although she had cried bitterly and said that she did not do it, the Marquis would not hear of it after nearly losing his only son. Anastasia had cursed the woman and had said that she would take the baby’s life if it was a boy. However, the child had turned out to be a girl. It was then that Kieran had fallen ill and despite giving him the best medicines from across the land, he was still slowly dying.
“What happened to the mother?” The Marquis asked as he looked at Anastasia’s fists. She composed herself and let down her hair.
“I don’t know. She may have died. However, she loved the girl and took care of her despite living on the streets.”
“You seem to want her dead.”
“Of course,” she said coldly.
The Marquis sighed, and he reached out to his wife after drinking a nightcap. Anastasia’s face loosened, and she came up to her husband unable to stop herself.
“No one will look down on us no matter how weak Kieran is. I won’t lose my son. You worry too much. I cannot forgive the woman who did that to Kieran. Please, do the same.”
The Marquis stroked his wife’s sobbing back. Since Kieran had fallen ill after that day on the lake, it was natural for Anastasia to feel like that, and his blood also boiled whenever he thought of that day. He couldn’t forgive the woman, no matter how much affection he had felt for her. “I won’t forgive her until I die. I swear it on our family,” he whispered to his wife.