Spring in My Grasp - Chapter 53

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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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(53) No Matter What

No, to be precise, it was a younger version of Rowan facing her.
—Thank you.
The younger Rowan spoke to her.
—Because of you, I think I can go forward more easily.
At those words, an immense sadness and pain welled up in Rowan’s chest. She had been watching me all along. I realized then that I had truly said goodbye properly.
—I’m really going now. Take care of yourself.
The younger Rowan waved her hand. Then, with a relieved smile that showed no lingering attachment whatsoever, she disappeared. I wanted to answer, to say goodbye, but the words wouldn’t come. It was as though my throat had closed shut.
“….”
How much time had passed? In the darkness, Rowan slowly opened her eyes.
“Huh?”
When I sat up, the pillowcase was damp with moisture. I brought my hand to my face and felt that it too was soaked with tears.
‘At least I managed to say goodbye properly… I’m grateful for that.’
Seeing that relieved smile, whenever I thought of the real Rowan, the ache in my heart seemed to ease a little. As I wiped my face in the darkness, I caught sight of a shadow and froze.
“Oh, you startled me.”
I said.
“Alexis. If you’re going to come in, at least make some sound. You’re like a ghost.”
“I did make a sound.”
Alexis replied. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I noticed something odd about the way he was staring at me so intently.
“What’s wrong?”
I approached him and embraced him gently.
“Is something the matter?”
“…No.”
Alexis’s voice carried an unmistakable melancholy.
“But why do you seem so listless? Did you skip dinner?”
“You’re the one who seems listless, not me.”
No matter how I tried, I couldn’t shake the heaviness that had settled over my mood, and it troubled me.
“How are you feeling?”
He asked.
“I feel better after sleeping.”
I blinked as I spoke.
“This won’t do. Let me have dinner now—will you join me? Your voice sounds so weary.”
“….”
Without a word of agreement or refusal, Alexis rose from his seat and pulled the golden cord. Outside, darkness had already fallen, and he quietly began lighting the candles. Only then could I see his face clearly, and I rose from my seat, puzzled by his expression.
“Look at you. Let me see your face.”
I approached him and wrapped my arm around his waist. Then, with my other hand, I gently caressed his cheek.
“You’re in a foul mood, aren’t you?”
Rowan gazed at Alexis’s forlorn, listless face and gently caressed it with her fingertips.
“Whatever could be troubling you so?”
“No, I’m fine.”
Yet Alexis’s voice still carried the petulant tone of a child sulking after being scolded by a teacher. Still, he offered no resistance when Rowan touched his cheek and pulled him into her embrace.
‘He’s become such a child.’
Whenever he imagined that Rowan wasn’t paying him enough attention, he would resort to such childish behavior. He craved her affection and love with an almost blind desperation. So whenever he grew melancholic or withdrawn like this, Rowan would hold him close enough to soothe him, and he would cling to her in return. Afterward, he would brighten as though nothing had happened. But today, that magic refused to work so easily.
The Maid wheeled in a trolley bearing their evening meal. Rowan began eating while making idle conversation. Alexis had been silently moving his fork about while listening to her speak when he suddenly broke his silence.
“Why were you crying?”
Rowan’s eyes widened at his words.
“I wasn’t crying.”
“You were crying earlier.”
Alexis said flatly.
“You were still shedding tears even while you slept.”
“Oh, that?”
Rowan replied dismissively, as though it were nothing of consequence.
“I simply had a sad dream.”
“What dream?”
For some reason, Alexis seemed more persistent than usual today.
“I’m not entirely sure. I can’t quite remember it.”
Unable to confess that she had actually met Layla, Rowan could only laugh it off.
“That’s how dreams are, after all. You forget them the moment you wake. It’s nothing to worry about.”
“You were crying quite heavily.”
Alexis said. Rowan wondered why he was being so insistent about the dream today. Come to think of it, I’ve never woken up crying before.
“Perhaps I was rejected by someone in the dream.”
Rowan laughed and deflected carelessly. In that instant, she was startled. Alexis’s beautiful violet eyes flashed with a dark, ominous gleam.
“Rejected?”
He spoke slowly.
“By whom?”
“What? Why are you suddenly so interested in my dreams today? A dream I can’t even remember.”
“….”
When Rowan finally snapped back at him, Alexis’s lips pressed into a thin, rigid line.
“There’s no one who could reject me but you.”
When Alexis’s expression refused to soften, Rowan quickly shifted her tone and spoke with coquettish charm. Throughout the meal, she performed every trick she could muster, hoping to brighten his mood, and only after some time did his expression finally relax.
‘Good heavens, I’m exhausted.’
After Alexis left the bedroom saying he had some remaining work to attend to, Rowan collapsed onto the bed and let out a weary sigh.
‘I’m not raising a child, so why is he in such a mood today? Did something unpleasant happen outside?’
Normally, Alexis would light up like a puppy with just one embrace from Rowan, but today the process had taken considerably longer. Now that he’d eaten his fill, Rowan was about to drift back to sleep when a sudden thought jolted her upright.
‘Wait… could he have figured out what happened today?’
***
Rowan’s suspicions had been correct. The moment Alexis left the Royal Palace, he received a report from the Shadow Operative. Once he confirmed that Rowan had fallen asleep upon returning from the city, he set the rest of the investigation in motion. The Shadow Operative’s work proceeded with remarkable speed. Uncovering Lucien’s existence was child’s play—hardly an investigation at all. And what Layla had demanded of Rowan, what the Baron’s Family desperately needed right now—all of it came to light swiftly.
“….”
Alone in his darkened office, Alexis poured himself whiskey and drank. Since becoming a Holy Knight, he had rarely indulged in alcohol, and from the moment he learned Rowan was pregnant, he hadn’t touched a drop. Tonight was an exception.
‘Lucien.’
In the darkness, Alexis’s eyes gleamed with a sharp, piercing light. How had he not considered this? It had never once crossed his mind that Rowan might have feelings for another man. She had become his the moment they met. That was why he’d never entertained the thought that she could care for someone else.
‘I was only worried she would leave.’
I hadn’t even considered that she might harbor feelings for another man. Alexis’s expression grew profoundly dark. That was the extent of what I had barely managed to suppress in front of Rowan. I could understand a hundred times, a thousand times over, her desire to flee and escape our marriage. But the shock of discovering that there was a man she trusted enough to follow—that was unbearable.
Though Alexis had once lived a dissolute life, contrary to what society believed, he had never lusted after women. Women had simply gravitated toward him because he moved in circles where such attention was natural. As a result, he understood far less about the female heart than one might expect.
‘Had she loved him so deeply?’
To return from seeing that man and shed tears like this.
‘Has she still not forgotten him?’
The thought drove Alexis mad—his chest felt as though it were being torn into a thousand, ten thousand pieces. Perhaps she remained at his side only out of necessity. From the very beginning of their marriage, Rowan had harbored no great attachment to Alexis. She was someone who could live perfectly well without him. Even in the East Annex, faced with coldness and humiliation, she had never wavered in the slightest.
He had approached her repeatedly, wiping away her tears, yet they continued to flow endlessly from her eyes. Watching it had pained him so deeply that he’d considered waking her, but remembering that Rowan was pregnant, he’d left her be. He simply gazed at her sleeping face without end.
Eventually, unable to drink the whiskey for long, Alexis returned to the bedroom. Rowan had fallen asleep again in the meantime. After changing into comfortable clothes, he climbed into bed and pulled her into his arms from behind, burying his face in her hair. It carried a familiar scent. Rowan’s scent.
Alexis closed his eyes tightly. You can live without me. Even without me, you’ll live as courageously as you did in the Annex.
‘But I…’
I seemed to have become a fool. Now, merely thinking of her absence, imagining her going to another man, left my mind blank and empty of all thought.
‘No matter what happens, I will be by your side.’
Alexis resolved this within himself.
‘No matter what.’
For now, a world without her was something I could no longer even imagine.

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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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