Come and Cry at My Funeral - Chapter 282

“Haa, to hell with heirs…”

Everyone around him was obsessed with treating him like a stud. Urging him, as soon as possible, to throw this woman away, take a ‘proper lady’ as duchess, and produce a pure child.

A pure child. Did that child, who now slept beneath the briars, mean that child was unclean?

“Damn it.”

He knew well enough that it would be easier to simply accept things as they were. And yet, unable to let this woman go, he acted as if the rumors of her infidelity would die down if he marked her inside and out.

From behind, he reached around and grabbed her b*****s, which bounced forward and back, with savage force. Her swollen b*****s, sensitive to the slightest touch, left her gasping, losing herself.

“Ahhk…! Ha, aaah.”

Her entrance, stretched to its limit, convulsed finely as it clamped and bit down on his length. Izar had come to know all too well that this reaction only appeared when her body was driven to a steep climax.

And he also knew that if he didn’t stop at this point but continued thrusting, the woman would writhe in agony from the excessive stimulation.

She whimpered and struggled, crawling forward in desperation to escape him, pleading as she went.

“N-No, not now, uuh…!”

But not wanting to hear her words pushing him away, he relentlessly stimulated her fevered inner walls with his length, pounding her hard.

He pressed down on the protruding nub between her folds with his palm, and the woman hung her head to the floor, moaning aloud.

“Ah, aahh!”

From the entrance, stretched to its limit, his still-hard flesh pressed wetly against her, making slick sounds. As he pulled out, her clenching entrance spilled more fluid, gaping wide.

But even when the woman reached climax first, Izar never simply let her be.

“You said you’d do your duty, didn’t you.”

“Hnn…”

“You never had another choice anyway.”

Pressing their bodies together from behind, he repeated it to her again and again.

Forget what you’ve lost.

If he simply held her every day, if they just acted as though none of this had happened, that would be enough.

But the woman became an empty doll.

So, in truth, Izar’s real sin was not that he had pettily erased her name from the marriage contract, nor that he had neglected her for three years.

He had never truly trusted her, not even to the end.

And the cost of that sin was, ultimately, the woman’s first suicide attempt, and the reality that struck him when he came to his senses.

“How… could this…”

The first clue came when a bunch of pennyroyal, not disposed of in the kitchen, was discovered. And then, learning that the herb was only added to the woman’s food, everything unraveled.

A d**g that induced stillbirth had been continuously put into her meals. If she hadn’t been carrying his child, there would have been no need for such elaborate schemes.

As he learned just how many people had been involved, his vision went dark.

Electra, of course, and every woman under her. All the servants attending to them.

“Izar, it was for the good of the family! How could you expect an heir from a woman like that—!”

Even reputable knights, even his own aide whom he had trusted since boyhood.

“Milord, I’m being framed! Please—”

But even knowing the truth could not bring the dead child back from beneath the briars. And the woman did not wait for Izar’s belated apology.

By the time he understood and rushed to her, her feet were already dangling lifelessly in the air.

The beast-like howl that burst from his throat tore at his windpipe. He desperately tried to bring her down without breaking her neck, but she was no longer breathing.

“No…”

Clutching her limp body, he cried out.

‘Please, please.’

He could not let this woman go like this. Not after having ravaged her so completely.

“No, not like this…!”

“…Lord Izar.”

With a neck bruised and battered from the noose, she managed to whisper just barely.

She asked him to take their child out from the ground.

And after whispering that, she wilted like a flower with its stem snapped. It was only then, as he clung to her body, that he finally confessed his true feelings.

“I don’t need a child…”

In the end, the only reason he’d wanted a child was because of this woman. He’d hoped that if she bore a child, she might smile, just a little. That she might find some stability, adapt somehow to this life, and finally smile.

“…I only need you.”

That night, under a sky full of stars, he had been so happy.

But the very woman who’d given him that happiness was never happy herself, and he was terrified she might have given her heart to someone else.

He had ruined everything. And so he could not let her die like this.

He was willing to spend any amount on rare medicines, to bring even the arrogant priests of the capital’s temple, who he had always avoided, to the estate to tend to her.

If this woman died, he would die as well.

That thought alone made him ignore the Emperor’s repeated summons, dedicating himself entirely to caring for her. And finally, the woman was barely able to open her eyes.

With all memories of his neglect, his harsh words, and the sorrowful past wiped completely clean. A blank slate.