Please Forget Me - Chapter 361

‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.

Kathleen shoved me out of the car and really was about to shut the door. She was right. I was the only one they were after. If only I ran, everyone else might be spared. Hesitating here would only put innocent people in greater danger.

So I turned my back on the car and started running.

Thud!

“Ugh!”

A dull sound echoed, the sound of a body collapsing after being struck by something heavy. The thought flashed through my mind that this was what it sounded like when someone was hit in the head with a rifle butt, and my legs nearly gave out.

“Stop right there!”

I forced my trembling legs to move and kept running. At the far end of the road, I could see the guards sprinting toward me. Just a little farther, I thought desperately, kicking off the ground with everything I had.

Thud! The sound of a rifle butt striking flesh rang out again. A terrible premonition seized me. I turned around—and froze.

Why was the car door I’d shut while fleeing now open? Why was Kathleen leaning out, wrapping her arms around the waist of the man chasing me?

‘Then the sound I heard just now was…’

The frail old woman’s body crumpled helplessly to the ground.

“Ah—!”

Without thinking, I took a step toward Kathleen, only to recoil as the men surged toward me.

‘Please… please, just let me make it that far…’

I started running again toward the guards, now close enough to see their faces, when suddenly someone snatched my hat from behind. The hat flew off, the grip loosening for only an instant.

“Aah!”

Another hand appeared immediately, wrenching my hair back brutally. No matter how I struggled, it only hurt more; the grip wouldn’t loosen.

Dragged backward, I stretched out my hand toward the guards—only three steps away now—but they were blocked by the other attackers and couldn’t reach me.

I was hauled off and thrown into the back seat of their car.

“Drive! Now!”

Bound like an animal and dragged away, the place I was thrown into next was Loveridge estate in Dunley.

“Y-you lunatic!”

The one who’d sent men to kidnap me wasn’t the Marquis—it was my grandmother. The old woman raised her hand as if to slap me, her fingers trembling, then lowered it again.

Whack!

“Ugh—!”

She struck my thigh with her cane instead, clearly afraid that hitting my face would leave marks others might notice.

“You shameless creature! Leaving your husband wasn’t enough, you had to disgrace yourself like this? I can’t even hold my head up because of you!”

My hands and feet were tied, a gag stuffed in my mouth. I couldn’t resist or talk back, only endure the blows and the verbal abuse, just like when I was a child. Then I was locked in my bedroom, no different from back then.

“Mmph… ngh…”

At least in the past, my limbs hadn’t been bound and my mouth hadn’t been sealed shut. Sweat streamed down my face as I struggled desperately to loosen the ropes. But the more I fought, the tighter they bit, until tears mixed with sweat.

‘I should’ve listened when Killian told me not to come…’

I’d expected neither the Marquis nor the Loveridges to stay still. I’d prepared for retaliation, but I’d never imagined something this violent and ruthless. Ramming cars, assaulting an old woman, kidnapping me outright.

This didn’t feel like the Marquis’s doing, nor the doctor’s, they cared too much about appearances. This felt like my grandmother’s work: crude, vicious, devoid of refinement.

Whether he’d been involved in the planning or not, I became certain the Marquis was behind it the moment he appeared that evening.

“Well? Aren’t you going to beg for forgiveness?”

That night, my grandmother had the maids wash me, dress me up like a doll, then shoved me forward to apologize to the Marquis, poking me in the back.

The man sat there sipping wine with an air of elegance. Naturally, what I said wasn’t an apology.

“Why did you have me kidnapped?”

“Kidnapped?”

The Marquis paused, his face twisting sharply.

“It seems you’ve forgotten who you are, as well as everything else. You’re my wife.”

“And it seems you’ve forgotten what I’ve done. Do you really intend to have an heir with a woman who’s done that?”

“That’s marriage. Or do you need me to show you the marriage certificate, signed by Father Killian Ackroyd himself, before you accept that we’re husband and wife?”

My clenched jaw trembled.

“Dana. Sit.”

The Marquis gestured to the empty sofa across from him. When I didn’t move, my grandmother shoved me hard.

“Don’t touch me.”

I slapped her hand away and glared at her. For a moment, she looked like she wanted to strike me. But then her brows drooped, her face rearranging itself into pitiful misery. She wanted to look like a poor old grandmother tormented by a wicked granddaughter.

If it had been her son, he might have scolded me and defended his mother. But the Marquis had never had affection for the old woman, he didn’t even have interest.