Chapter 12
No. She absolutely couldn’t have breakfast together.
Julia squeezed her eyes shut.
“I, I don’t think I can.”
“…Is that so?”
“Yes, well… I suppose it’s because I came by carriage yesterday. I don’t seem to have shaken off the fatigue. I feel a bit tired.”
“In that case, it can’t be helped.”
“I regret it as well. Please convey that to His Grace.”
Once she found a plausible excuse, confidence and liveliness filled Julia’s voice.
Mary seemed to accept Julia’s excuse, replying simply, “Very well,” before leaving.
Julia clutched her chest and let out a sigh.
* * *
A couple of hours later.
As Mary had informed her, Duke Drexton left the Drexton residence. Julia worried briefly that he might ask her to see him off, but fortunately, that didn’t happen.
It seemed Duke Drexton intended to treat Julia as a ‘guest to be received with proper courtesy’ rather than as a family servant. At least, for now.
Pretending to lie down from fatigue, Julia heard the bustle outside and peeked through a gap in the curtains, watching Duke Drexton depart.
He personally mounted a robust black stallion and went out with only two attendants, a modest entourage. Before crossing the garden, it seemed as though he glanced toward the window where Julia was.
Julia swallowed a deep breath. It was winter, so the curtains were thick, thankfully. If it had been summer, Julia’s silhouette would have shown through them.
Duke Drexton’s gaze lingered for a few seconds.
‘Is he looking at me?’
Just as her anxiety grew heavier, Duke Drexton turned his gaze away.
With a hand gloved in rabbit fur, he pointed in this direction. No, wait. Not here. A place slightly farther to the left than here.
There must have been something there. In other words, Julia thinking he had been looking at her bedroom was an illusion born of self-consciousness. The place his gaze had actually fallen on was somewhere else.
Thank goodness.
Julia staggered back a few steps and dropped onto the bed.
She didn’t want Duke Drexton to realize that she had been watching him leave. For one thing, her lie about resting from fatigue would be exposed, and beyond that, it would reveal that she was conscious of him.
After barely calming her racing heart and pulling the curtain back a little, Duke Drexton was already gone.
* * *
Julia stayed holed up in her bedroom all morning.
With her body still bearing the clear traces of last night, she pulled on her nightclothes to hide the unclean signs and requested bathwater. Once immersed in the tub, she carefully cleaned between her legs, wiping away the remnants of arousal.
After that, she stubbornly chose and again put on clothes in dull colors that were far from eye-catching. She didn’t openly wear mourning attire, but being conscious of her status as a widow, she chose fabric closest to black. She raised the collar all the way to her neck and fastened it like a fortress with an obsidian brooch.
Once dressed that way, she read endlessly. That was the only way Julia knew to steady her heart.
‘Now that I’m no longer unmarried, it’s embarrassing to grab someone and chatter and complain like before.’
In any case, for a widow who had entered the mansion as a tutor, reading suited her best.
Julia repeatedly reminded herself of her position and role.
Then, even when her chest felt unbearably tight and stifled, everything also seemed to become clear. When the range of one’s movement narrowed, what had to be done became fixed. Then she could empty her mind and simply perform that task properly.
It was a lesson she had learned from more than ten years of marriage.
Do what suits your role.
Julia read for a long while, absorbed. No, ‘absorbed’ wasn’t quite right. She couldn’t focus on the book at all, but she stubbornly dragged herself through the text, tracing the letters with her finger.
Nothing remained in her mind. Still, the sense of stability that came from doing something befitting her role remained.
「 Julia, once you marry, you must behave far more chastely than now. 」
「 Yes, Mother. 」
「 When your husband scolds you, don’t talk back, lower your head. Everyone lives like that. 」
「 I’ll never do the opposite, Mother. 」
「 You’re so good at listening. That’s wonderful. 」
Yes, everyone lives like this…
Julia’s fingertips, turning the page, trembled faintly.
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