Please Forget Me - Chapter 362

‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.

The Marquis merely cast my grandmother a cold look, signaling her to leave.

“Sit. This will take a while.”

After she exited and we were alone, the Marquis gestured toward the sofa again. But by then, I had nothing left to hear from him.

“Rupert, please accept it. Our marriage is already over. There’s no way something this broken can be fixed. Let’s stop before we make things even uglier.”

I didn’t expect remorse or apologies for what he’d done to Killian and me. I only wanted him to let me go.

“If we stay tangled in this increasingly disgraceful fight, you’ll lose just as much. And Killian won’t stay silent anymore.”

The Marquis scoffed, as if the idea of Killian acting were laughable, then said something utterly absurd.

“Dana, you’re being used by the Ackroyds.”

By the man who had tried to use me himself.

“Think carefully. You didn’t reveal memories you recalled on your own. You simply wrote down what Killian and his mother told you.”

“So you’re going to claim they’re lying?”

“I’m asking you to hear my side too. That’s only fair, isn’t it?”

“Fair? After your elderly aunt was beaten with a rifle and I was hunted down and kidnapped like an animal, you’re asking for fairness? That’s rich.”

“This is—”

The Marquis looked genuinely surprised.

“Your grandmother must have been overly… enthusiastic. All I wanted was a chance to sit down and talk with you face to face.”

He shifted all the blame onto her.

“As you know, I’m a man who must set an example, the head of my house. I don’t air domestic disputes in public the way you do. Family matters should be resolved quietly among ourselves. Aunt must have acted rashly and made the worst possible choice…”

Even after everything had been exposed, he was still pretending to be a dignified, principled man of refinement. Most people would bare their teeth and claws when cornered badly. Why did he still cling to pretense?

“I’ll admit it. I wasn’t your first love. I did steal you from Killian.”

The confession was unexpected, but even that felt performative.

“I did it because I loved you. I hope you can understand that.”

I was the woman who had dragged his most shameful secret into the open, sullied the dignity he cherished most. He should have hated me more than Killian, whom he’d always despised. So why was he not trying to frame me again or throw me in prison, but instead speaking of love and understanding?

“Yes, it began with deception. But the ten years after that were love. A deep, passionate love, nothing like exchanging letters for a mere month.”

He still thought he could deceive me.

“Dana, think about it. Why would a man like me still refuse to give up on a woman who’s given herself to another man?”

‘Because of your pitiful pride.’

If he let me go, he’d be admitting my exposé was true. Because he couldn’t stand the sight of the two people he hated most living happily together.

“If it’s not love, then what is it?”

Ridiculous.

“You loved me, and yet you slept with another woman?”

In that face uncomfortably similar to Killian’s, I noticed a crooked nose, something Killian didn’t have.

“That was…”

“You admitted it on the train to Dunley. You’re not going to claim it never happened now, are you?”

“Fine. I did stray briefly. But fooling around with a woman from the enemy nation, that’s Killian’s slander.”

“Then who was it?”

“That sort of past does nothing for our future. We both made mistakes once. Let’s call it even and bury it.”

He’d said he wanted a conversation, yet he dodged every question I asked and spoke only his own version of events. The point was simple: Killian and Kathleen were liars, and he alone spoke the truth. At some point, I stopped responding and let him talk to himself.

“Killian was a priest who harbored filthy lust for his cousin’s wife. When you and I saw it with our own eyes, we were horrified. I didn’t want to tell you, since you don’t remember anymore. But you deserve to know what kind of man he really is.”

“……”

“He withdrew from Leningen before we did. Do you know why?”

“……”

“He was caught m**********g with your stocking.”

For an instant, a grotesque image flashed through my mind. A man pressing one of my stockings against himself, panting obscenely.