ERTHMB Chapter 131

A Single Spring Breeze

As she barely managed to blink, she saw white hands gripping her arms. It seemed Natasha had caught her swaying body. The feeling of solid support was unfamiliar, so Helena asked again.

“What reason do you have for… telling me such things, for letting me know such facts?”

“Please just accept kindness as kindness, Madam.”

“It’s not even surprising that you would say such things to me.”

“Then you won’t be surprised by what I’ve brought either.”

While Helena was recovering from the shock, Natasha had apparently prepared and held out a small teacup. On the table, items from the basket were now spread out.

A teapot and cups filled with hot water, bundles of herbs that seemed to be the source of the fragrance, and several bottles of light green medicine that appeared to be refined from those herbs.

Instead of accepting this strange kindness, Helena looked back and forth between Natasha and the cup. Natasha shook her head slightly as if to dispel the distrust, then spoke.

“It’s medicine to restore your body, Madam.”

“You expect me to believe that now.”

Natasha swirled the cup just enough that the contents wouldn’t overflow. Her subsequent words flowed as smoothly as that movement.

“His Grace has given his permission for this. If you’re truly suspicious, you may call Dr. Hector to inquire. The confirmation of His Grace’s personal physician should provide sufficient evidence. It’s verification that has already been shown once before His Grace—why not a second time?”

“Eugene was suspicious of you?”

Natasha smoothly avoided answering that and added:

“I didn’t want to say this much, but since you’re already infertile, what more do you have to lose? A life that has already fallen to the bottom has nowhere to go but up, doesn’t it?”

“…I understand your intentions even less.”

“You’re being honest. I like that.”

“You should try being honest too.”

“I really am being honest right now.”

Come on, hurry. Natasha slipped the cup handle between Helena’s fingers. Though she couldn’t understand immediately, at this moment Natasha truly seemed sincere.

Perhaps this was why Eugene still kept her close. This healing medicine might be the only roots she could put down in this mansion.

Helena reluctantly withdrew her wary gaze and tilted the cup to her lips. A thick, bitter taste flowed down her throat. The spiteful face of Christine, raising her whip with narrowed eyes, also flashed by.

‘You could have trampled on me, but you shouldn’t have touched my child.’

Helena already knew this taste. She remembered. It was the long-held hatred she thought had melted into resignation. It was too bitter to just hold inside.

Those who had taught her this taste should taste the same. Those who had stood by and watched should as well.

Of course, she knew it was wrong to burden a child with their parent’s sins.

But Helena could no longer forgive Eugene Evergale. No matter how sincerely he regretted it, no matter how he begged her, there was no way to return to how things were.

‘So Eugene, please let me end this cleanly. Before my hatred can no longer stop at your mother.’

****

The news that Eugene had banished Christine from Grand Bleu was true. Helena let out a long breath in front of Grand Bleu. The grandeur of that magnificent mansion was nowhere to be found—only hay rolling around in desolate emptiness.

No matter how grand a past something had, abandoned things were always so pitiful.

Having visited Grand Bleu in the morning, Helena changed clothes and headed to the indoor garden. She was going to spend teatime with Eugene.

Though Helena wanted to do her own work regardless of him, she had matters requiring her to exercise her rights as Grand Duchess for the time being. So she needed to follow the appropriate schedule to some extent.

When she arrived at the appointed time, she saw Eugene already seated. Usually, when she sat in that spot, Eugene would come with a reluctant face and sit across from her.

Now thinking that it might be her own face that looked that way, Helena approached the table with her lady-in-waiting.

The lady-in-waiting placed warm herbal tea and a cup of coffee each on the table as ordered. The table, which usually held only two cups, was also prepared with various desserts emanating the scent of pastries.

Helena first moistened her lips with the coffee. It was coffee made with beans of much higher quality than what Gelda used.

But somehow it didn’t leave a lasting aftertaste on her tongue. What she had found delicious was probably not simply the coffee, but that cozy space, the murmuring voices, and the person who had brewed the coffee.

Still, the deep aroma she was tasting for almost the first time wasn’t bad, so Helena kept tilting her cup.

Eugene watched her with suspicious eyes.

“You don’t have insomnia anymore?”

“…Why are you suddenly asking that?”

“You had severe insomnia and disliked coffee. That’s why I imported more types of tea instead.”

“What does that… You were the one with severe insomnia.”

They both raised their eyebrows simultaneously. At the openly expressed question, Eugene spilled out what he remembered.

“You tossed and turned frequently starting around the second year of our marriage. For something supposedly about not adapting to this place, it went on too long, so I watched nightly and you never slept properly.”

“…!”

Helena started. The second year after marriage would have been around the time Eugene had completely returned from the battlefield. When she was already worn down among people who were all busy trying to devour her.

It seemed Eugene remembered her state from that time. The man she had doubted would shed even a single tear at her death knew more than she had thought.

But Helena also realized it was too late to discuss such things.

“…Eugene.”

“I know.”

“…”

“You’re probably thinking what does it matter now. I understand everything, so don’t say it.”

Having grasped what would follow from just the first word, Eugene interrupted first. But Helena stubbornly spat out the coffee’s aroma.

“That’s right. Whether you had insomnia or I had insomnia, nothing would change. Are you trying to make explanations now?”

The words came out with a sharper nuance than she had intended. Perhaps because she had heard the truth about the miscarriage from Natasha, her tongue couldn’t move gently.

Then Eugene responded with a similar attitude.

“Yes. I feel like I have to pour out such pathetic explanations from my mouth for you to understand what I’m saying. Why do you think I went so far as to have separate bedrooms with you? Because I didn’t want you, who already had trouble sleeping, to be woken up by my irregular lifestyle.”

Regardless of how his feelings changed afterward, his initial suggestion of separate rooms was purely for Helena’s sake. Since he had a lot of work and often came home at dawn or left early in the morning with an irregular schedule, he wanted her at least to sleep comfortably.

But regardless of intentions, you can’t hold water in a broken cup.

“Don’t blame my irregular schedule on you.”

“Then what should I do? Should I grovel and beg as if everything is my fault, as you want?”

“I never wanted that.”

“You were a woman who would cry when you lost even one ring I gave you as a gift. Do you think there was any other way?”

“You just needed to tell me honestly.”

“Ha, you’re the last person who should say that.”

At the tone that seemed to blame her to the end, Helena didn’t soften her momentum but pushed even harder.

“Why do you keep blaming me, Eugene?”

“Do you really not know?”

“What exactly!”

“Because you always treated my consideration as a debt you had to repay!”

The anger that had been building layer by layer finally exploded. Eugene breathed roughly. As if he wanted compensation for the past that Helena hadn’t acknowledged, he stared at her with fierce eyes.

Helena was momentarily surprised by the raw emotion, then quietly murmured:

“I could have repaid that consideration plenty. You’re the one who thought I couldn’t and gave up first. You’re the one who defined me as merely at your level and gave up first, Eugene.”

Helena had become impenetrable again. Eugene thought of himself as a single drop of rain falling into the vast ocean.

Something that couldn’t change anything, such a tiny existence. Even bearing the fearsome name of Evergale, he felt that way.

“Why are you acting like this, Helen? Didn’t you come to restore our relationship? Why are you being so prickly?”

“Do you really not know? Why I came?”

“…”

“I’m waiting while I stay here. For you to give me a reason.”

“What reason?”

To the question that came immediately, Helena answered without pause.

“A reason to hate and forget you.”

“Helena.”

“A reason to abandon you without hesitation.”

“Damn it, what the hell did that bastard do to you?”

Eugene slammed the table and stood up abruptly. He closed the distance in one step and grabbed Helena’s shoulders.

“Whatever words and actions that bastard used to seduce you, you can’t possibly believe all that nonsense. You don’t have childhood memories. What couldn’t someone say to a person without memories? If that bastard is trying to use you with lies—”

“So what.”

“What?”

“Whether it’s lies or not doesn’t matter. I don’t believe him because he’s trustworthy. I just believe him because I want to believe…”

Eugene tightened his grip on her shoulders as if he didn’t want to hear any more. But Helena stubbornly finished.

“—that’s all.”

Because I just want to like him, that’s why I like him.

That’s how it sounded to Eugene’s ears. The affection she had given blindly was no longer his.

Unable and unwilling to admit this, Eugene pressed on like a whining child.

“Come to your senses, Helena. Haven’t you thought about being betrayed by believing blindly? How much do you know about him?”

“Do you really want me to say it with my own mouth? You’ll be hurt. I remembered everything. What Ian meant during my childhood.”

“You… recovered your memories? When?”

“While you were ransacking Partren.”

Some strength drained from Eugene’s grip. Taking advantage of that gap, Helena removed Eugene’s hands from her shoulders and stood up.

Facing Helena more closely, Eugene desperately began denying reality.

“Then it wasn’t long ago. No matter what connection you had in the past, he’s essentially a stranger who appeared after more than ten years, and you’re not foolish enough to trust him that much.”

“…You’re right. All I did with Ian was spend a brief time in Praeterita, and I lived forgetting him for a long time. On the other hand, the years I lived with you… are immeasurable.”

Contrary to his expectation that she would argue back as always, Helena meekly agreed.

But Eugene couldn’t shake off his creeping anxiety. His hands, having lost what they had held, twitched restlessly. He wanted to grab Helena again. He wanted to touch her skin, feel her embrace, and hold her tight.

“But you know, Eugene. Just because you stay somewhere long doesn’t mean your heart deepens. You know that well.”

“…Helena Evergale.”

Eugene muttered unconsciously.

The woman he had prided himself on understanding deeper than anyone else. His wife. Eugene had now completely lost his understanding of her. If knowing her was like this, it would have been better to be strangers. At least then there would be a chance to start over from the beginning.

But Helena was no longer a woman who gave chances.

“For me, a single spring breeze was warmer than all the returning seasons of Evergale. That’s all.”

Just as he could no longer claim her as his wife.