The Countess's Body Has Disappeared - Chapter 35

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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 35
“Are you going to come back injured like this again? I’ve been alone all this time, thinking hard about what I could have done wrong. But I couldn’t figure it out. Was it because we fought so much? Because I made you lonely? Yet we’ve endured far worse things together, haven’t we?”
As Davion furrowed his brow in question, Cecilia steadied her ragged breathing, her hand resting on his chest. Davion cradled her face and pleaded with her.
“Tell me. If I’ve wronged you in some way, give me the chance to make it right. And think about it again, slowly.”
……
“Please? I can’t live another day without you.”
Do you have any idea how many words are piling up inside me, waiting to be said?
But Cecilia shook her head. And she rebutted firmly.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not sorry about any of this right now. And you can live without me.”
“My love……”
“If you can’t accept that, then learn to. You’ve been through it once, so you’ll do better the second time. There’s no point tying me down like this. I’ll leave no matter what—eventually, I’ll have to.”
At that, Davion stared at Cecilia with disbelief in his eyes.
As he rose from the bed and stumbled backward, the chains beneath his feet rattled. Cecilia kept her gaze fixed stubbornly ahead, her voice a warning hurled into empty air.
“Don’t you dare kneel!”
Thump. She drove her fist down onto the quilt, her voice sharp.
“I told you not to kneel before! If you kneel in front of me again, I won’t forgive you even in death!”
Yet even as Cecilia cried out with such anguish, she suddenly seized herself in alarm, clutching her lower abdomen. The scar there seemed to throb painfully.
Watching Cecilia’s profile as she curled into herself and gasped for breath, Davion’s face began to grow cold.
‘Leave no matter what? Won’t forgive me even in death?’
The words carried too much conviction. Cecilia showed no doubt whatsoever that she would soon leave this place. As he noticed something amiss, he had now fallen to nearly a whisper.
“There’s something you’re not telling me. Isn’t there?”
Davion dropped where he stood as though his strength had abandoned him, then crawled toward Cecilia and seized her hand.
“What is it? Did you fall into some terrible debt behind my back? Are those people coming after you? Or did you see your family? It’s all right—tell me. I won’t be angry. If there’s debt, I’ll pay it all, no matter what, all right?”
No, you fool, I told you not to kneel……
There’s nowhere left for me to retreat to anymore. As Cecilia sighed and closed her eyes, she felt tears slowly tracing down her cheeks.
“I wanted to hide it. Not for me—for you. So what you’re doing now is really, truly cruel to me.”
Davion’s grip on her hand tightened, as though urging her to speak.
Cecilia forced the words out through a voice threaded with steel, barely a whisper.
“I’m going to die.”
In that moment, a furrow deepened across Davion’s brow.
“That’s why chaining me down like this won’t work. I don’t have long to live anyway. After I miscarried our baby, not long after that I received a terminal diagnosis.”
“What are you saying?”
Davion sat up on the bed, asking as he did. He wiped her wet cheeks with the back of his hand, a hollow, disbelieving laugh escaping him.
“Why are you doing this? I’ve told you dozens of times already—this kind of joke isn’t funny, Cecilia.”
“It’s not a joke. If you think I’ve been making light of something like this all along, then you’re the one who’s misjudged.”
Cecilia suddenly felt an overwhelming pity for herself, standing here explaining such things to this man before her.
“I can’t taste food anymore. My left ear has been deaf for a long time now. And now my legs barely obey me either.”
She tried wiggling her toes beneath the quilt once more, but felt nothing. Now she understood—when she’d tumbled from the bed just moments before, it wasn’t because her legs had failed her, but because all sensation had died away.
“I’m going to die soon, my love.”
Davion’s mouth fell open as though he’d lost all his wits. The sight was almost comical, and despite herself, Cecilia let out a weak, helpless laugh.
After a moment, Davion’s eyes narrowed, and he shook his head as he spoke.
“You’re only in your twenties. What kind of fatal illness could you possibly have?”
Cecilia regarded him gently, giving him time to think. In that silence, the puzzles of days past fitted quickly together in Davion’s mind.
And with that, he understood that Cecilia truly was not joking.
.
.
.
By the time Liam arrived at the commotion, it was all over.
“My lord.”
Spring wind slipped through the shattered window glass and stirred the curtains gently. On the floor, a desk clock lay in pieces, its second hand ticking meaninglessly as it passed over the number four.
Objects that had been neatly arranged on the desk lay scattered across the room. When Liam spotted the black ink spreading across the carpet’s weave, he swallowed his sigh.
……
Clutching a black and white photograph of Cecilia to his chest, Davion collapsed onto the sofa and stared blankly at the ceiling.
He seemed unaware that he was weeping. Lost in what must have been memories of happier times with a Cecilia far different from this moment—perhaps he was remembering them so intensely that he might suffocate before ever reaching for the shotgun.
A woman catching fish in a stream on a sweltering summer day when the sun burned hot. My beloved little witch sleeping beneath the plane tree……
There were so many things I wish I could do if I could return to those days. Sunk into the depths of the past, Davion closed his eyes and laughed.
“Cecilia……”
2. Davion
2-1. The Twenty-Fourth Midsummer
Prologue
A white-haired girl, fishing in the stream one afternoon.
My wife, my life, my everything.
Cecilia,
let me die with you on the same day, the same hour.
* * *
Five years earlier. When Winterhall Estate was still called the Thistle Down estate.
That summer was unusually hot.
With her skirt hitched up to her thighs and tied firmly in place, Cecilia waded into the stream with her spear. Small fish swam lazily along the creek bed, which was so clear you could see straight through to the bottom.
The sunlight beating down from above was sharp enough to sting.
The gentle murmur of flowing water tickled her ears. She felt the trickle of sweat running down her slender nape.
Cecilia drew in a short breath. She raised the spear high, aimed at its mark, and drove it down toward the fish gleaming with silver scales.
A direct hit.
She worked the flopping fish off the spear and tossed it into the basket. Then she swallowed hard and cast a furtive glance at the embankment above.
“…….”
For some time now, a man had been squatting on a nearby slope, staring at her intently.
Cecilia quickly lowered her head, then swallowed again and carefully lifted her eyelids. The man tilted his head and gazed at her steadily, wisps of gray smoke curling from between his teeth.
His glossy dark eyes traced down her wet body and came to rest on her feet submerged in the clear water.
His gaze pierced her like a needle. Involuntarily, she curled her toes, and she caught the faint upward curve of his mouth.
Heat flooded Cecilia’s ears. She splashed around and turned away. Just as she was raising her spear again—
“Cecilia!”
A jolt.
Cecilia’s head snapped up in surprise.
“Cecilia! I brought lunch!”
A woman carrying a basket wandered through the green fields around the cottage, searching for her.
The man’s brow darkened. He twisted at the waist to look toward the source of the voice. Without hesitation, Cecilia grabbed the basket of fish and her shoes, brushed past him, and hurried up the slope.
“Cecilia!”
“Kate! I’m here!”
Cecilia dashed across the windswept meadow, then suddenly stopped and glanced back.
The man stood with one foot propped on a rock by the stream, watching her intently.
His gaze pierced her chest like a needle.

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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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