Guidelines for the Perfect Goodbye - Chapter 295
It was a cloudy day. In Caswick, a cloudy day simply meant an ordinary day.
Yes, it was an ordinary day. A day too vague to feel happiness, and too ambiguous to feel unease.
Such everyday tedium often makes people let down their guard. On days like this, even if something happens, it’s hard to react quickly.
For instance, even if you catch your lover kissing a strange woman on the balcony at a banquet, you have no idea what you’re supposed to do.
Caroline couldn’t figure out whose cheek she should slap first. No, she couldn’t even bring herself to feel angry. Her mind was in turmoil.
It’s strange. He said he loved me.
“Chris……?”
She mustered her courage and approached him. She hoped he would tell her it was a misunderstanding. At the very least, she believed he would apologize.
He was unperturbed. With a face as indifferent as his half-brother’s, he introduced Caroline to the woman beside him.
“Madam Vattler, this is my friend, Caroline Lasphilla.”
The noblewoman greeted her politely. The whole sequence of events was simply absurd.
“Friend?”
Did I hear that right? She asked again, and he answered that she hadn’t heard wrong.
“How could you do this to me?”
He frowned, as if tired of such a clichéd question.
“What’s the problem? It’s not like I treated you like a stranger.”
“That’s not it… Weren’t we… lo-lovers?”
Pfft.
Next to him, the woman called Madam Vattler let out a laugh, as if she found it all amusing. Caroline couldn’t even see her.
Some vulgar woman was none of her concern. What mattered was the man who had confessed his love to her. Christian.
“Lovers?”
He sneered.
“What did we even do?”
“……”
“Did we ever go all the way?”
“Th-that… that’s not what being lovers means. If our feelings for each other—”
“Oh, I’ve thought about this for a while now.”
Christian cut her off, rubbing his brow with his knuckles.
“You’re truly an exhausting woman.”
“……”
“Haven’t you ever heard that before?”
“N-No, I… haven’t…”
“If you haven’t, then remember it now. No one likes a clingy woman like you.”
He took the other woman and returned to the banquet hall. In the end, she hadn’t even managed to slap him.
Caroline stood there, transfixed for a while. When she finally left the banquet hall, her face was already soaked with tears.
Louise, who had been waiting by the carriage, came running over.
“Milady, what happened?”
“Madame. I…”
Caroline closed her mouth and quietly lowered her gaze. Tears fell again. Seeing her like this, Louise hugged her tightly, having guessed the whole story.
“Milady, I’m sure it’s all a misunderstanding. Surely, he—”
“Madame.”
“Yes, yes. I’m right here. So please, cry as much as you need in my arms, and then later—”
“…Let go.”
“Milady?”
Caroline slowly pushed Louise away. She was no longer crying. She gazed at Louise with a desolate look in her eyes.
“You were wrong, Madame…”
“……”
“Let’s go back. Spring in Mannheim is over now anyway.”
* * *
June in Caswick is capricious. The sun rises and sets several times in a single day. The clouds, always prepared to spill rain, move slowly and heavily, and the air is so thick with humidity that it feels as if you’re breathing with gills.
It was dreadful weather. Cecilia’s maid, Mary, opened all the windows and put away the leather goods.
“Milady, it’s so muggy today. It’s only June, but it feels like summer’s already here.”
“It does.”
Yet her lady’s face was fresh and dry, oddly mismatched with the weather. Her expression was so ordinary that Mary wondered if something was wrong with her mistress’s sweat glands.
“Mary, how’s my sister doing?”
“Lady Caroline? Um, I’m always with you, so…”
“Here, a coin.”
“Oh, thank you…”
“Is she eating?”
“Yes, her personal maid said she’s finally started eating a little since yesterday.”
“Really? That’s good.”
“…Are you worried?”
“Hmm…”
Cecilia’s brow slowly furrowed. Worried? No way. It wasn’t because she pitied Caroline. It was just… she didn’t want to see her.
She already knew Christian was subhuman in every way. Even so, she hadn’t stopped Caroline from making her choice.
After all, Caroline wasn’t the sort to listen even if she tried, and, just like now, any connection between Lasphilla and Christian only meant she’d have one more means of using them for her revenge. There was no reason to stop her.
