The Countess's Body Has Disappeared - Chapter 25

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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 25
Esmeralda was the only person who had witnessed these two in their secret affair. She remembered vividly the tenderness in Davion’s eyes as he looked at Cecilia in those days—how deeply he had loved her.
Understanding not only Cecilia’s position but also Davion’s circumstances in full, Esmeralda found herself only more perplexed.
She had come today only to check on Davion’s condition. To see whether he had truly contracted smallpox.
But how had things come to this? Esmeralda caught herself earnestly trying to convince him and sighed inwardly.
“I know you both loved each other enough to overcome the difference in station, but the rumors were hardly flattering, were they? So what if your wife returns and says she no longer loves you—that she ran away because of it? Will you cling to her like this even then?”
“I don’t believe Cecilia would do such a thing, but I’m preparing myself nonetheless.”
Davion withdrew a revolver from his waistband and set it on the coffee table as he spoke.
“They say that with a gun like this, suicide often fails—the bullet doesn’t penetrate the skull, or misses the vital part of the brain. So I’m trying to acquire a more destructive one.”
“I… wh-what did you just say?!”
Esmeralda’s face drained of color instantly, and she gasped in horror.
“Listen, stop talking nonsense! What would your wife think if she heard that?!”
“I don’t know. Romantic, perhaps?”
Davion smiled with a lightness like a gentle breeze, then shrugged and murmured.
“If Cecilia were to say she’d rather die from loving me too much, I think I’d be overjoyed.”
Good heavens. Was Davion Winterhall truly such a man? Esmeralda pressed her pale forehead and shook her head, staggering slightly.
“This is madness. Absolute madness…”
“Perhaps it is.”
She had to find Cecilia at once. These two could never meet. If Cecilia truly died, it was plain what choice the man before her would make.
She slung her handbag over her shoulder and offered Davion sincere counsel.
“Go see a reputable doctor. From what I can tell, you genuinely need professional counseling.”
Then she kicked open the reception room door and strode rapidly down the corridor, her footsteps clicking sharply against the floor. Davion called after her retreating figure, raising his voice belatedly.
“Lady Esmeralda! If you happen to see Cecilia on the street, please do let me know!”
The steady rhythm of her footsteps halted abruptly.
In the sudden silence of the corridor, Esmeralda’s voice cracked out, harsh with resolve.
“I won’t be an accomplice to suicide!”
* * *
Nearly three months had passed since Cecilia left the mansion.
Though the weather remained cool, the afternoon sun streaming through the hotel room windows was warm enough that the stove need not be lit.
Nagi, who had always curled up before the fireplace, had moved her bed to the window seat some weeks ago. Even lost in her own musings, she would glance outside now and then to see if Ruby was coming.
Ruby had not returned for a week.
In the meantime, Arcan had removed his bandages. In exchange for his promise to the physician not to run, and surrendering his crutches, he had finally regained full use of both arms.
“Shall I see you off? To mark the occasion of removing my bandages.”
He asked this while watching Cecilia apply salve to her face in the mirror by the door.
To hide her anxiety about Ruby’s absence, Cecilia had been smiling more lately. She gathered her outer coat from where she’d draped it carelessly over the doorknob, opened the door, and wrinkled her nose with feigned disapproval.
“No need to see me off. You’re still a patient—rest in your room.”
Upon leaving the hotel, she took the familiar shortcut to Shenfield Square Garden. As always, she exchanged greetings with the colleagues she’d grown close to, collected her things, and made for the backstage area of the Grand Theater.
But today, someone was waiting for her behind the lift.
‘Cecilia.’
Esmeralda, hidden behind the lift, called to her with her lips and gave a small wave.
At first, Cecilia mistook her for someone else and nearly cried out in alarm. It was easy to understand why—Esmeralda, who ordinarily wore a worn gray practice costume backstage, was today dressed head to toe with obvious care.
Where could she have hurried off to this early in the morning? Her blonde hair, arranged in a spiral shell-like roll, was disheveled, and her makeup was smudged in places.
Cecilia looked cautiously around before approaching her.
“This isn’t a rehearsal day. What brings you here?”
Jeremy was keeping watch, hidden behind the curtain at the front of the stage.
“I have something to tell you. Not being able to use the telephone is driving me mad.”
Esmeralda made a sharp hissing sound through her front teeth to call Jeremy. She tucked him into her coat pocket as he scurried over on his stubby legs, then took Cecilia by the wrist and headed toward the corridor.
“E-Esmeralda?”
Bewildered, Cecilia was pulled into the waiting room.
The moment the door closed, a statement struck her like a bolt from the blue.
“Cecilia, you must leave this city at once.”
Esmeralda spoke without preamble, already locking the door and beginning to barricade it with a chair.
What? Cecilia couldn’t hide her confusion. “Leave? Why so suddenly? Just a few days ago you were trying to convince me to go home.”

“Because I didn’t know then that you were terminally ill!”
Even as she walked about the waiting room closing the windows, Esmeralda’s words poured out without pause.
“This morning I paid a visit to the Count’s sickbed. The smallpox story is complete nonsense! And we spoke briefly in the reception room, and he seemed unlike himself. He’s searching for you desperately—he’s lost so much weight you’d barely recognize him. At first I thought it was from illness, but no, something is definitely wrong with him. The way he looks… it’s as if…”
Cecilia lifted Jeremy, who had been wandering dangerously near her feet. In the meantime, Esmeralda firmly locked the final window, then turned to face Cecilia and exhaled a long breath.
“In any case, the Count is now convinced that you are alive.”
It took Cecilia approximately three seconds to understand the weight of those words.
“……what?”
Her vision swam, and her feet seemed to lift into empty air. Desperate not to cry out, Cecilia clapped a hand over her mouth.
‘He knows I’m alive?’
It was impossible. So much had happened since her escape, but at least the plan to stage her death had been flawless. No—more than flawless.
There had been a clear reason for masking her flight as suicide: the thought that a dead woman might walk again simply doesn’t occur to people. That man had no way of knowing I survived—
So how did he find out?
“He told me that after your funeral was complete, when they went to move you, they found the grave empty. It’s already happened, so we don’t have time to stand here.”
Esmeralda seized Cecilia’s shoulders as she began to tremble in shock, gripping them with enough force to jolt her back to sense.
“Cecilia, don’t hide anything from me. When the physician gave you that terminal diagnosis, what exactly did he say?”
Cecilia slowly lowered the hand that had covered her mouth.
The memory rose unbidden—a past painful even to recall.
“He said I could live perhaps another year and a half at most. The physician couldn’t even identify the disease, but I’d been ailing slightly for years before I became pregnant……”
“What was the nature of the illness? What were your symptoms?”
“First, I began suffering from somnambulism right after the wedding. Then, once I became pregnant, I had the distinct feeling several times that the baby wasn’t growing properly, but I pushed through it. The physician assured me at the time it was nothing serious.”
Cecilia had miscarried last spring and undergone emergency surgery. It was then the terminal diagnosis was rendered—leaving her perhaps ten months at most.
Ten months itself was, in truth, an optimistic estimate. If she had weakened enough to cough blood, her condition had already passed the point of no return.

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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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