ETVEWHF 9

Chapter 9

Half of me wanted to see the situation unfold up close, while the other half didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire by staying nearby…

“Mr. Ron’s people are coming today. I think I should stay at the mansion.”

Kristine Blackwood wasn’t exactly imprisoning Rowina in the mansion. She had merely restricted her social activities and required her to report whenever she left the house.

But what was Rowina like?

Because she was so insensitive to emotions, Rowina had only a vague understanding of the concept of wanting something.

So she probably didn’t even feel much desire to go outside.

“Rowina.”

“What about you?”

Howard and I spoke almost at the same time.

“Me?”

“What brings you here?”

“I came for work.”

He answered casually.

“I’m an investor in this theater.”

“Ah…”

That was something I hadn’t known.

“Mr. Howard!”

At that moment, a young man strode over from the entrance.

“I was wondering where you’d gone off to in such a hurry…”

Howard introduced him to me.

“Rowina, this is Mr. Walter, my personal secretary. He just joined me recently.”

“Ah, hello, Madam.”

His secretary greeted me politely.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you.”

So he really had come here for work.

“You look busy, so I’ll be going now.”

“Wait, Rowina.”

I was about to turn around when he caught my arm.

“Mr. Walter, get us the quickest balcony seats available. I’ll be watching with my wife.”

“Understood.”

The sharp-looking secretary went off to speak with the theater manager.

“Aren’t you busy? Busy enough that you had to leave the house?”

I asked in bewilderment, and Howard gave a quiet laugh.

“You said you wanted to see it, didn’t you?”

Strictly speaking, I’d said I was curious about what performances were being shown these days.

But I suppose that amounted to the same thing.

With no other choice, I ended up watching the performance with him.

A few minutes later, an employee came out and led us inside.

“Here.”

“Yes?”

“Escort.”

Only then did I place my hand on the arm he held out to me.

Had Rowina ever imagined that she would end up doing something so ordinary with her husband?

The curtain rose, and around the middle of the performance, my attention began to wander.

I glanced sideways at Howard.

‘He’s really focused on it…’

Brilliant blond hair and blue eyes.

Both brothers of the Blackwood family were exceptionally handsome, but their beauty had entirely different qualities.

Howard, with his radiant, honey-gold hair and warm blue eyes, always wore a cheerful, gentle smile.

If Howard was the quintessential handsome man who looked like he could have been the captain of a college sports team, Nigel was his complete opposite.

Nigel had pale platinum-blond hair with a low saturation and inorganic gray eyes, and he rarely smiled.

The thin-rimmed glasses he always wore only accentuated his uniquely irritable and cold atmosphere.

Because Howard had a large role in the book, I knew his personality fairly well.

But Nigel was impossible to read.

‘He’s definitely insane, though.’

I couldn’t even begin to guess what kind of emotions he normally felt.

And I couldn’t use my ability to sense emotions through physical contact on that bastard, either.

“What are you thinking about?”

I turned my head and met Howard’s eyes.

He leaned closer and whispered beside my ear.

“Ah, nothing.”

I whispered back quickly before turning my attention to the performance again.

I heard him laugh softly beside me.

My body tensed involuntarily, and my heart began to race.

The emotion I’d sensed when he’d leaned close to me earlier…

Clearly, traces of it still remained.

“It was fun.”

As we left the theater, I spoke first, and Howard smiled brightly.

“I liked how the two main characters ended up happy.”

The story was about a man and woman whose parents had forced them into an arranged marriage.

After going through various incidents and repeatedly misunderstanding each other, they gradually grew closer.

“You like happy endings.”

“Arranged marriage itself is a common theme, but there were some refreshing elements to the story.”

“Like what?”

Howard persistently asked what I thought.

“Usually, when a married man and woman appear in a novel or play, they live peacefully for a while before some conflict eventually arises, right?

This is the first time I’ve seen a couple who started out fighting from the very beginning.”

“Haha, that’s true.”

The area outside the theater was crowded with people now that the performance had ended.

We mingled among them as we continued talking.

“Rowina, what do you think? Do you think a marriage can be happy when the couple married without having a say in the matter?”

Howard asked without looking at me, his gaze fixed on the crowd.

According to the story of the book, Howard had already met Cassie.

And my marriage to him had been arranged by our parents.

His question must have been connected to the future he envisioned with me.

“If the two people regard each other as husband and wife, fulfill their marital duties, and make an effort to understand each other, wouldn’t it be possible?”

Even if he had another woman in his heart, I would fulfill my responsibilities as his wife.

So that I could prevent the ending where I was divorced without receiving a single penny in alimony.

“If you go to the center of the capital, there’s a street lined with theaters. They’re on a scale that makes this place look tiny in comparison.”

At my answer, Howard stopped walking and looked at me.

“Let’s go there together someday.”

“I’m not sure. I don’t know whether Madam will allow it…”

I couldn’t help thinking that he was a truly terrible person.

He was already longing for a former fiancée he’d reunited with on the battlefield,

yet here he was, treating me like an ordinary wife.

“Do you want to live like the other ladies, without being under house arrest?”

Rowina had never particularly objected to the restrictions Kristine Blackwood had imposed on her.

But for my plans, I needed the freedom to move around.

“If there’s something you want, tell me directly. If it’s something you want, I’ll do it.”

“Mm, yes.”

I felt like I shouldn’t let myself get drawn in by him any further, so I changed the subject.

“Ah, come to think of it. Have you heard about what happened recently?”

“Something? Ah, you mean Miss Clearwater.”

“Yes.”

So he’d already heard.

“I was actually on my way home because of that.”

It didn’t seem like a good idea to tell Howard that I’d gone to deal with the task Kristine had given me and ended up watching a play, so Howard and I decided to return home separately.

And that’s when I witnessed something rather bewildering.

“Our Tommy, fly up to the sky!”

“Higher! I want to go higher!”

There was a swing set up in the garden behind the mansion.

It creaked as it swayed back and forth.

It must have been the same swing Howard or Nigel had used when they were children.

Julia was pushing Tommy on the swing and playing with him.

I leaned against a tree and watched them.

‘What is she doing?’

Julia was crossing the line far too much.

If her goal was assassination, then now that she’d successfully entered the mansion, she should have been keeping a low profile.

Demanding a guest room or putting an illegitimate child on a swing that had presumably been used by the legitimate children of the household was nothing more than a petty provocation compared to murder.

If she provoked Kristine to the point of being thrown out, she wouldn’t be able to accomplish her original goal.

‘Ah. Is that the point?’

Perhaps she was trying to create a situation where she could naturally be outside the mansion on the day the poisoning took place.

But a fundamental question still remained.

If her goal was to poison Kristine, why had Julia deliberately tried to establish herself in the mansion?

Now that she’d recruited Dr. Morgan, she had no need to be in the mansion at all.

In fact, being absent would have made it easier for her to avoid suspicion.

Something about it didn’t quite fit.

Meanwhile, Julia seemed to notice me and spoke brightly.

“Oh, it’s Rowina.”

“Wina?”

The child mumbled after his mother.

“Tommy, it’s not Wina. It’s Rowina. Sorry, Rowina. He’s too young to pronounce it properly while observing proper etiquette.”

“He’s young, but shouldn’t a grown woman like Miss Clearwater know better?”

I deliberately hardened my expression.

“I don’t remember ever allowing Miss Clearwater to call me by my name or claiming any sort of friendship with her.”

A look of confusion spread across Julia’s face.

Julia had deliberately acted friendly toward Rowina and called her by name.

Since Rowina never encountered Julia in public except when she was meeting Tom in secret, Rowina had simply tolerated it.

Julia had probably mistaken that complete indifference for goodwill.

After becoming Tom Blackwood’s mistress, Julia had become an enemy of everyone in the family except Tom.

Perhaps she’d thought that she and Rowina were similar because Rowina, too, didn’t truly belong among the Blackwoods.

‘What a huge misunderstanding.’

Julia concealed her irritation.

Perhaps she had finally realized that the disgust on Rowina’s face was genuine.

“That’s rather cruel. I was going to overlook the rudeness you showed me yesterday, thinking that perhaps you couldn’t help yourself.”

“Well, even if Madam hadn’t been there, I think you still deserved the slap.”

The air grew cold.

The child rolled his eyes around, sensing the tension.

“…Come to think of it, where is Howard? I wanted to say hello since it’s been so long.”

“What business could you possibly have with my husband’s father?”

“Oh my. I knew Howard even before I met Tom. You don’t know much about the past, I suppose…”

The corners of Julia’s lips curved upward.

“I was his partner at his graduation party.”