I’m Done With Unrequited Love - Chapter 16

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 16
That day was devoted to cleaning the entire Mansion.
Bed sheets and curtains in unused rooms were replaced with fresh ones, and every corner was swept and scrubbed.
This work, spanning a full week, was divided by sections and began from the topmost floor of the Mansion.
But who was it that occupied a corner room on that highest floor?
Gasp!
What? Who is this?
Why is there a child here……?
The servants who opened the door were startled to find a girl sitting on the bed.
A girl with pink hair, roughly the same size as Kiara.
Whose child could she be? One of the servants’ perhaps?
But if she’d known today was cleaning day, wouldn’t she have been hidden away beforehand?
Huddled in the doorway, they finally arrived at a single name.
Miss Fidellia!
Who else would dare pull off something so brazen but Fidellia Jonnas?
Their quiet and erudite young mistress had a peculiar habit of committing outlandish acts with the most serene expression.
Surely this was another instance of that.
One of them bolted to inform the Marquise, while the remaining servants watched the girl clinging to her blankets, face gone ashen with shock.
A girl with adorable pink hair.
The child’s lips trembled, and she let out a small voice.
It seemed she’d spoken out of fear, without thinking, but the servants caught every word.
……Fidellia……?
Just as they thought!
It was indeed Fidellia Jonnas’s doing.
Their eyes widened as they crept slowly toward the girl.
There was nowhere to run. Her gray eyes, brimming with tears, squeezed shut.
That was how Rene Flora came to stand before the Marquise Jonnas.
“Tell me. Who brought you here?”
“…….”
But Rene, despite having just pointed out Fidellia moments before, said nothing now. Not even her name.
“Are you protecting Fidellia?”
A direct hit.
Rene hoped Fidellia would not be scolded by the Marquise.
It seemed bringing her to the Mansion had been a grave transgression, and she feared the punishment might be more than mild.
What if Fidellia gets severely beaten because of me?
Because of me.
Of course, Fidellia was a “true” young lady, not an illegitimate child like me, so perhaps things might be different.
Like my sister from the Flora Mansion…….
Rene’s sister was a “true” young lady, unlike herself.
She was registered perfectly in the Flora Family’s household registry according to administrative law.
Unlike Rene, who was called Flora but whose existence was completely hidden away.
And the Marquise seemed to have seen through this.
“You needn’t worry. I have no intention of scolding Fidellia.”
A few words of reproach, perhaps.
“That girl shows interest in no one else—as if no one but herself exists in this world. I thought she’d never pursue romance and would live her whole life alone. If that were her nature, I was prepared to support it.”
“…….”
“But it turned out that girl was…….”
The Marquise’s voice trailed off as though she were recalling something, then she shifted the conversation entirely.
“In any case, that’s why I understand Fidellia bringing you here. I called her because I wanted to hear an explanation. If you won’t answer, I can always press her for details.”
The Marquise smiled faintly and turned her gaze toward the Dining Room’s door.
“Ah, there you are.”
The door opened, and Fidellia appeared.
“You called? I’m in the middle of something——”
As those words left her mouth, Fidellia turned to look their way, and her lips clamped shut.
At the same moment, Rene’s face crumpled.
Seeing Fidellia’s face, Rene felt tears welling up. She’d thought she was fine just a moment ago.
“Rene.”
Fidellia’s gaze swept across Rene, then shifted her attention back to the Marquise.
“Yes, you must be busy indeed—keeping two households running, no less.”
The Marquise chuckled smoothly and swirled her Tea Cup.
“What happened?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
The Marquise gestured to an attendant nearby, instructing her to take Rene outside. The conversation that followed was no place for a child’s ears.
“Fidellia… Fidellia…”
Even as the attendant guided her away, Rene kept glancing back over her shoulder.
Only after Fidellia promised she would follow soon did Rene finally step outside.
Click.
The door closed behind her.
…
Rene’s trembling did not cease.
She had been born into fear, lived with it as her only companion.
Yet she had never grown accustomed to it.
Her shoulders always shook with dread, her tongue stammered at every word, and inevitably, the tears would come in torrents.
Silent weeping had long since become her specialty.
The “mistress” Rene knew was cruel and terrifying.
Though she had been treated with kindness, there was no guarantee the mistress of this house was any different.
True, the Flora mistress showed boundless devotion to her own daughter. Yet Rene had seen her raise a hand in uncontrollable fury more than once—no assurance existed that this mistress would not do the same.
Standing outside the door, Rene’s wide eyes began to spill tears, one after another.
It was so silent that the attendant only noticed when she saw Rene brush her cheek with her sleeve. Flustered, the attendant merely fidgeted helplessly at her side.
That was when it happened.
“Who are you?”
A girl with her face scrunched up in anger appeared before Rene.
“Why are you wearing my clothes?”
* * *
I straightened my posture from where I had been gesturing behind Rene, offering an answer to the Marquise’s question—I had found her collapsed in the Training Grounds and brought her here.
The Marquise’s bronze eyes fixed upon me.
Those eyes, inherited by Fidellia, were transparent as if laying bare every secret of the other person, and beneath the sunlight, her pupils contracted into a keen, piercing gaze.
“Why on earth did you hide her in that room?”
“I couldn’t find the right moment to tell you. I was about to reveal it when Ernan Cleor arrived.”
“And why did you take her to that room in the first place?”
“Kiara was with me at the time. I thought it best they didn’t meet right then.”
“…Hmm?”
I offered my justification.
“It was for Rene’s dignity.”
I didn’t think she’d want her peers to see her in such a state.
The Marquise didn’t entirely accept this, but her expression suggested she understood. She nodded slowly.
“I never intended to scold you.”
…
“How could I scold you for that? You simply did what was right. If a small child had appeared alone in the Training Grounds, I would have done the same thing.”
Though her tone held a hint of irony, I could discern the truth beneath it.
The Marquise’s words were unadorned sincerity.
“I don’t intend to keep her long. I plan to find a good patron and entrust her to their care.”
“Rather than finding her parents or sending her to the Orphanage?”
“She was abused in her home. I can’t send her back to her family or to an orphanage—my best option is to find a patron who will protect her.”
“Good heavens, abuse…”
At the word, the Marquise’s expression darkened as she recalled Kiara’s history, which she had learned of secondhand.
The Marquise agreed with my plan for Rene’s future care, then added a quiet remark.
“It might also be worth reporting her parents to the authorities.”
After a brief silence, the Marquise shifted to a different topic.
“It’s not about Rene, but there’s something I’d like to ask you.”
“Please, go ahead.”
“You didn’t like children, did you?”
“That’s correct.”
“Then why have you taken it upon yourself to be Kiara’s guardian and care for her?”
…
“You could have found a good patron as you said, or even arranged for her to attend a boarding school with your sponsorship. The Academy, perhaps.”
…
It was because…
‘Guilt.’
If there was any way to prevent the children whose futures I had altered from suffering, any way to restore what had been lost to them, then it was a debt only I could repay.
But I couldn’t tell the Marquise Jonnas this.
“I didn’t like her, but I ended up liking her anyway.”
“The girl?”
“Kiara.”
Among the countless humans scattered across this world, only you.
The Marquise Jonnas broke into a broad smile.
“As I thought. How wonderful.”
“…What do you mean?”
“A secret.”
……
This was the sort of thing that kept me awake at night, consumed by curiosity.
I could make an educated guess, though. The Marquise Jonnas had harbored suspicions since my childhood that I lacked empathy.
What people called psychopathy or sociopathy.
Given how blankly I’d always regarded others, how I avoided human contact and never seemed to grow attached to anything, her concerns were understandable.
‘That’s why she welcomed my skepticism instead.’
Though after more than half a year had passed, her relief had transformed into worry.
<I never knew it was possible to hate someone you didn’t even know well. Yes, Fidellia. I find him absolutely… detestable. My arms bend inward, and I cannot fathom how not to regard him with sorrow.>
I remembered the Marquise Jonnas from some time ago, when she had pitied me.
“You gave up on Ernan Cleor and came back here, didn’t you?”
“How did you know?”
“The girl who followed him around every day has returned to the estate and shut herself away in the Research Room. Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”
The Marquise Jonnas laughed pleasantly, then set down her Tea Cup.
“You wouldn’t have returned to the estate without a word, and you wouldn’t have departed for here until you’d given him a proper explanation.”
That was true. I had made my intention clear to him—that we should not meet again.
“But Ernan Cleor happened to visit here at just that moment.”
The smile gradually faded from the Marquise Jonnas’s lips.
The real conversation was about to begin, I suspected.
“That man is mad, they say?”
I swallowed hard.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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