Chapter 99
I feared that he might have already entered, but Laszlo was sitting on a bench in the garden of the western annex of the palace, deep in thought.
The cold air ruffled his hair from time to time, but he seemed unconcerned about the weather.
Edel hesitated for a moment before slowly moving towards him.
"It's cold, Your Honor, and it's also late."
Only then did Laszlo turn around suddenly, as if he had regained consciousness.
“Idel…?”
His gaze held a hint of surprise.
"Did I disturb your private time?"
“No, I just went out to get some fresh air.”
But his eyes never left Idil.
Idil felt a little embarrassed, but she didn't stop getting closer to him.
"You met Mr. Jacob, didn't you?"
"How did you know?"
“He said you dropped this. I was coming from the same direction.”
Idil took the tie out of her shawl and handed it to him.
When she approached him, she noticed that his appearance was not as tidy as she was used to seeing him.
He was wearing the same shirt and trousers he had worn in the morning, but the collar of his shirt was half-pull up, as if his tie had been partially untied, and his coat had been hastily opened.
“The air at night is cold, and if you leave your neck exposed like this, you will catch a cold.”
“I can tell you the same thing. The air is cold at night, and just wearing a shawl won’t protect you from the cold.”
Idil laughed softly and sat down on the bench, leaving a small distance between them.
“There is something special about late autumn. The moon is bright, and the sounds of insects are pleasant.”
“True. It is said that all seasons are a blessing from God, but the period between late autumn and the beginning of winter carries a special feeling… a feeling that touches the depths.”
This was the first time Idel had heard such talk from Laszlo. She felt as if something was whispering to her from her side, but she ignored it and looked in the same place he was looking, where only the sound of insects could be heard in the darkness.
It was Laszlo who broke the long silence first.
“I may have been late in apologizing, but I’m sorry I watched your private meeting without permission. It may have been a scene you didn’t want anyone to see you in.”
“I feel a little embarrassed, but I completely understand. You should have known the reason for my father’s visit.”
Laszlo sighed.
“Count Canyon is not someone who can be ignorant of the consequences. How dare he do something like this?”
There was a note of frustration in his speech.
But Edel wasn't upset at all. She readily accepted that her body would take punches from her father, Dustin, when he lost his temper. To her, those punches were proof that she couldn't contradict him.
Idyll smiled slightly.
“He probably wouldn’t even care if you were watching. To him, I’m just a piece of paper to be thrown away when it doesn’t suit him.”
Even if Laszlo had reprimanded Dustin for his behavior in his own home, Dustin, being an old-fashioned nobleman, would not have felt any embarrassment. On the contrary, he might have proudly stated that he had come to discipline his daughter because she had become a burden to him while living off Laszlo.
That stance might have appeared as a sign of loyalty to the old noble faction, making it another gain for Destin.
“What worries me most is what my father said at the end. He told me he plans to restore my honor, but he’s not the type of person to do anything for me.”
"Well... I can guess."
"What do you mean?"
“He may have intended to use you as a spy. I’ve heard rumors that the three great families are paying a high price for information about me. Count Canyon may have planned to use you to gather information and sell it to them.”
Edel laughed bitterly. She knew her father wasn't looking out for her best interests, but she hadn't expected him to continue exploiting her until the very end.
"It's unfortunate how fixed it is in its nature."
But there is something Laszlo did wrong.
“He wasn’t just planning to sell the information, he was seeking to use it as a means to forge relationships with the three families. What my father wants is power.”
Laszlo did not reply. Any reply would have seemed like rubbing salt in Idel's wounds.
Instead, he decided to apologize for something that had been bothering him all day.
“Actually… I misunderstood you.”
He looked into Idil's eyes, felt his lips go dry, but he carried on.
“I thought your marriage to the Duke of Lancaster was motivated by vanity or a desire for power. I said to myself that if it was unacceptable to you, perhaps you would have run away.”
“…”
“I saw you as a well-known figure in high society since you were young, so I thought that you would not pay attention to my humble home even if you became a prisoner in it. I know that this was a feeling of inferiority on my part.”
He knew, but he couldn't control it.
From the very first moment, he considered her “a person from a different world.”
Forcing her to live as a servant in his humble home stirred up a deep-seated feeling of inferiority, even if he had not been aware of it before.
At first, he doubted her intentions, then ignored her, then watched her, denied his feelings, then realized the truth, felt shame, then empathy, and finally pain.
Over the past year, Laszlo has lived with Edel, experiencing feelings he has never known before, and as time has passed, he has gradually begun to understand them.
“Now, I know that you are not who I thought you were. You were just trying to improve your situation as much as possible under circumstances from which there was no escape.”
He concluded his speech with a sad smile.
He felt as though it took him too long to understand her, and as though he had hurt her with his selfish thinking.
But Edel's response was completely different from what he expected.
“Thank you. Truly, thank you, Count.”
Laszlo hesitated for a moment, unsure whether she was mocking him or meant it sincerely. But she continued with a calm smile.
“During my marriage, people looked at me with only two eyes: either pity or hatred. As for the rumors spread by those who hated me, they were so vulgar that I cannot even mention them.”
“I’ve never heard anything like that…”
“If you didn’t hear, that’s better. But there were those who believed those rumors among those who wanted to capture me as a prize.”
Laszlo remembered the men who had proposed to her as if they were competing for a prize. He didn't remember their faces exactly, but their demeanor was clear.
“Hungry wolves…”
The thought that they believed those dirty rumors made him feel sick.
“Anyway, you are the first person who has truly tried to understand me and apologized to me. I never expected that, but hearing it now gives me a great sense of comfort. Thank you.”
Despite her grateful words, Laszlo felt no happiness at all.
"What kind of thanks is this? This is your natural right! You should be angry at the fools who believed those ridiculous rumors!"
But Idil shrugged lightly.
“Honestly, I don’t blame them. Isn’t that the nature of life? Who has time to take care of other people’s affairs when they are busy with their own?”
“Oh, so you’re a saint then? This goes beyond sympathy.”
Laszlo's voice, carried by the cold night breezes, touched her neck, and she trembled slightly and tightened her shawl even more.
"Perhaps this is the right answer."
"What? Being a saint?"
"Of course not."
Idell laughed merrily, but her smile quickly faded.
“Even when I was just a ghost dealing with problems in the Duke’s house, or when I was left alone in the castle, or when I was stripped of my noble title and became plunder, I found an explanation for it all. Every situation had its reasons.”
"Are you stupid?"
“Would I have been better off if I had been? The truth is, I was simply used to blaming myself or giving up. That was easier for me.”
Her voice had an empty tone, as if she were talking to the cold wind.
“You’re right. That wasn’t sympathy.”
She inhaled a deep breath and exhaled it, turning into white sighs in the air.
“I realized I was fooling myself when you showed me Barbara’s letter.”
She cannot forget the feelings that overwhelmed her that day.
That wall she had painstakingly built around her heart began to crack little by little with every word Barbara wrote expressing her concern for her safety.
If Laszlo hadn't been there at that time, she would have completely collapsed.
“But even after that, I thought most people, including you, hated me. I just wished I could live quietly in Chris’s house, as if I didn’t exist.”
"Even under Marsha's management?"
“Yes. If she had only bothered me moderately, I would have remained silent and continued with my life.”
Idil laughed softly.
At the time, that was indeed her idea.
Wherever she went, she would find some kind of harm following her, so she decided to endure it.
Just be patient a little longer, and time will keep passing, and eventually Marsha will stop caring about her.
“Perhaps it was Marsha who woke you up. Without her, you would have lived as a simple servant, resigned to everything.”
But Idil shook her head in denial.