I Don't Need the Grand Duke's Regret - Chapter 159
Mirabel blinked as she gently wiped Charles’s face with a handkerchief. Raising her head, she gestured to the maids with one hand.
As Sophie and the other maids left the room, Mirabel slowly spoke.
“Speak.”
“I, I didn’t know that it would feel like this…. When a child is sick, I didn’t know the parents could suffer like this…”
“I suppose so.”
Her tone was flat and emotionless. Yet, that short response hit Ricardo like a sharp blade.
Mirabel looked at him with a calm gaze before turning her attention back to Charles. She observed the child’s condition carefully and then continued.
“It’s in the past.”
“Still, Mirabel.”
“I was surprised back then because I didn’t understand why you acted that way. But now I know the reason and the solution, so it’s okay. I told Charles it was just growing pains.”
A gentle smile spread across Mirabel’s face as she looked at Charles. Watching him suckle on his lip, she smiled warmly.
“Sleep well, my dear.”
She whispered to Charles, humming a quiet lullaby. It seemed to be a song from Segolinde.
The soft melody filled the quiet room, spreading warmth like a gentle embrace.
Ricardo stood in a daze, watching Mirabel and Charles.
The child, who had been suffering from a high fever, was now falling into a peaceful sleep to the sound of his mother’s song.
Watching the peaceful moment between mother and child, Ricardo felt an odd discomfort.
Then, suddenly, a realization struck him.
It was only natural to feel unfamiliar. He had no memories like that.
He had never had memories of leaning on his mother when he was sick or falling asleep to her lullaby.
Ricardo liked his mother, but that was it.
She didn’t like him. In fact, every time she looked at him, she seemed sad.
Sometimes, she would caress Ricardo’s cheek while crying, as if thinking of someone else.
‘I miss you. I miss him so much.’
At first, Ricardo didn’t understand and cried alongside his mother. But as he grew older and understood the reason, he began to avoid her.
Ricardo came to despise his mother’s tears.
And he despised his own existence. He was proof of denial itself.
‘Mother doesn’t love your father, Ricardo. Mother loves someone else. That person… is far above, somewhere I can’t reach.’
By the time Ricardo began to look at his mother with contempt, she spent every day in tears. She mourned her husband’s brother, the Emperor.
In such an atmosphere, it was impossible to expect affection from his mother.
Because of that, Ricardo never believed in the existence of pure affection.
He dismissed it as a fantasy, like a fairytale that deceives children, and thought that believing in it was foolish.
He didn’t even know if such a thing could truly exist in the world.
He didn’t even realize his mother and Armilla were different people.
‘A woman who meets another man while she has a husband, and stubbornly bears the proof of that infidelity.’
He did something he shouldn’t have done to Mirabel. He had made Mirabel suffer.
“…Mirabel.”
Realizing his real mistake far too late, Ricardo dropped to his knees in front of her. His movement caused the lullaby that had been filling the room to abruptly stop.
“What are you doing all of a sudden?”
“I have something I haven’t told you.”
Ricardo clenched his fists tightly on his thighs. It might be too late, but it had to be said.
Mirabel deserved to hear this.
Though he had apologized countless times to Mirabel, he had never explained why he had hurt her. All he ever said was that he loved her, asking her not to leave him.
There was no apology more foolish than that.
“Go ahead.”
Mirabel’s calm voice made Ricardo swallow dryly. He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again and began speaking.
“I… my mother didn’t love my father. So, I assumed you would be the same.”
“I see. It’s not that surprising. There are plenty of nobles who marry without love.”
At Mirabel’s cold reply, Ricardo’s shoulders flinched. He struggled to lift the confession that had risen to his throat, and with effort, he continued.
“I thought you would betray your husband, just like my mother did.”
Ricardo’s confession made Mirabel narrow her eyes, and as he continued, she took a sharp breath.
“…Like my mother had feelings for her husband’s brother.”
Ricardo, who had just made a shocking confession, lifted his head. Mirabel’s blue eyes trembled as she looked at him.
“What, what…”
Mirabel blinked rapidly. The story she had just heard was so shocking that it didn’t sink in immediately.
“My mother had an affair with her husband’s brother, the Emperor. I’m the Emperor’s bloodline.”
Ricardo looked at Mirabel and gave a bitter smile.
“An illegitimate child.”
His words slowly sank into Mirabel’s mind.
The former Grand Duchess had an affair with the Emperor, and Ricardo was the illegitimate child born from that affair.
Even though Ricardo had only stated the facts dryly, it felt overwhelming. Mirabel didn’t know how to process this information.
Seeing that she was silent, Ricardo broke the silence first.
“I’m saying this to apologize properly to you.”
Ah.
Mirabel murmured softly in realization. Now she understood why Ricardo was revealing such a huge secret.
Ricardo was confessing that this was the background of the abuse and violence he had directed at Armilla in the past.
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