A Butterfly Through the Mist - Special Side Story 4

Unlike the first-year students who shone even brighter than the flowers around them, her own freshman year had been like enduring a harsh winter.

Back then, I was no different from a hedgehog with all its quills raised. Ready to stab anyone who came near, even prepared to hurt the hands extended toward me in kindness.

Even if everyone else condemned the Tilia Ambrose who carried only malice in those days, I alone could understand her.

There are people who can survive only by living that way. And at the time, I was walking a night road where that was the only choice.

In a darkness so deep you couldn’t see even a step ahead, anyone would cling tightly to whatever weapon they had. Tilia didn’t want to condemn the version of herself who had wanted to survive in whatever way she could.

She didn’t dare to criticize it or try to repent, but she also had no intention of denying that she had wrapped herself in malice.

After escaping the night where not even her own shadow was visible and finally greeting the morning, she began to see clearly. That not every hand reaching out to her back then held only wicked curiosity. That she hadn’t needed to wound everyone so thoroughly.

It wasn’t only about the men who had approached her. It was also regret for everyone who had wanted to befriend her.

Even knowing she had done her best, she could still feel sorry.

And the reason she could now, even if only inwardly, offer apologies to those she had hurt was, ridiculously enough, because she could now ride a high-class hired carriage instead of the cheapest one.

In the end, people are just animals. Only when their own belly is full and their own bed secure can they afford to look around at others.

She knew there were those who claimed that even without such stability, the ability to care for others was what separated humans from beasts, but Tilia, who defined herself as one kind of animal, had limits.

Only once her mind eased could she see the outside world. Only once she no longer had to keep suicide as her last line of defense could she enjoy the vitality of freshmen greeting spring.

Their sparkling energy, their lively, carefree laughter made her happy. She wanted to watch them longer.

All of this was something she could never have dreamed of during her freshman year, when her feet stood at the cliff’s edge.

And the person who had transformed her from a prickly hedgehog into a hamster that had forgotten its wildness was the very culprit behind the pregnancy she now suspected.

A baby…

Having reached that point in her thoughts, Tilia slowly lifted her hand and placed it over her stomach.

Her belly, where something might or might not be growing, was still flat. There was no unfamiliar sensation, no second heartbeat that wasn’t her own.

It was simply her body, unchanged from yesterday.

But then, how had Ilex noticed her change before she did?

With her hand still on her stomach, Tilia recalled the events of the past few weeks.

The reason she had first begun suspecting pregnancy had been Ilex Davenport’s strange behavior.

He often circled around her like a dog needing to relieve itself. He constantly pestered her about what she wanted to eat. Those behaviors weren’t new.

However, the way he avoided touching her body, as if restraining himself, was undeniably the first time such a phenomenon had occurred since they began living together.

The first few days were simply comfortable. The following week, she slept soundly and happily. But when his hands only brushed over her body as if examining it, without harboring any intimate desire even after two weeks, Tilia’s instincts sensed something was wrong.

From then on, she began observing in reverse. Once she analyzed his behavior closely, she finally recognized a different kind of overprotectiveness.

Ilex had always been obsessive about her health, but lately, he reacted with extreme sensitivity to anything involving her falling or bumping into something. And if the part that almost collided happened to be her stomach, he reacted like a mother bear on the brink of a nervous breakdown.

Overprotective. And not just anywhere, but specifically toward her abdomen. Having found the clue there, Tilia checked her menstrual cycle.

She couldn’t be certain because it had been irregular for so long, but it was clear she had skipped last month.

Surely not, she thought, and subtly tested Ilex. She told him she planned to go horseback riding with a graduate school classmate. She asked if she could go this weekend.

With a face drained of blood, he answered in a voice that tried to sound calm that he regrettably had to attend a relative’s funeral, so she couldn’t.

Seeing that expression, Tilia became certain.

Ilex Davenport is suspecting that I’m pregnant. He hasn’t confirmed it completely, but he strongly believes there’s a high possibility.

Why didn’t he tell me? she wondered, even as she traveled to the villa where she had secretly called the physician.

If he thought she might be pregnant, he could have simply told her. And if he feared it might not be true, he could have at least taken her to get examined under the pretense of a routine checkup. He wasn’t foolish enough to lack even that level of cunning.

Then why?

Tilia felt ripples disturb the calm surface of her heart and frowned slightly.

Why hide it from me? Is there some reason he can’t say it? Why?

Does he dislike children? But then why did he never use contraception and always release inside me?

She had actually thought she had simply conceived a little later than expected. Ilex often asked if he could finish inside her.

The way he asked had always felt like he was testing her heart, seeking reassurance. But his joy whenever she agreed had never seemed fake. After spilling himself inside her, he would sometimes touch her belly with anticipation.

He must know what that act leads to. Then why?

Tilia had been tilting her head over and over, frustration tightening her face as if she were facing an unsolvable riddle.

She felt the carriage wheels smoothly come to a stop. Only then did she realize she must have been lost in thought for quite some time, because the carriage had long since left the campus.

“We’ve arrived.”

A respectful voice announced their arrival at the destination.

Setting aside the unresolved problem like a difficult exam question, Tilia decided to face the next task before her.

***

“Congratulations. You’re pregnant.”

Perhaps because she still had unanswered questions lingering in her mind, even after receiving confirmation of her pregnancy from the physician she had secretly summoned to the villa, Tilia felt nothing but stunned.

There’s really a baby inside me? That was the only thought she could grasp.

It wasn’t as though no one around her had given birth before. Coworkers at her previous job had, and closest among them was Judy.

But for some reason, hearing that she herself was pregnant only made it feel unreal. It was something she had never seriously imagined in her entire life, which made it feel even more distant.

“It’s still early, so you’ll need to be careful, but since the mother is healthy, there’s no major need to worry. That’s fortunate.”

Unlike Tilia, who could only sit there stunned in disbelief, the Davenport family’s physician, whose hair was already streaked with white, was smiling so broadly it was hard to believe he was the same dour man from before.

“I’d been wondering when you would finally allow an examination, so I’m truly relieved to be able to give a definite answer today. Congratulations.”

Examination? Still absently touching her stomach, Tilia finally lifted her gaze at the physician’s next words.

The physician, who said he had served the Davenport family for generations, even had tears welling at the corners of his eyes.

“You kept asking only about symptoms and kept postponing the physical examination, so I was at a loss. The early stages of pregnancy are the most dangerous. This old man’s heart was burning up with worry.”

“Ilex is very cautious.”

Tilia had just learned that Ilex had even summoned the physician to ask for an opinion. And yet, pretending she had known all along, she calmly prepared to gather clues.

“He even tried to hide it from me. Who hides a pregnancy from the mother herself?”

“Exactly. That is exactly what I was thinking.”

Having waited so long to finally confirm that both mother and child were healthy, the physician’s joy had overwhelmed his judgment, and he readily agreed without even a hint of suspicion toward the duchess.

“He was so firmly opposed that, well, I even had an improper thought for a moment.”

“What kind of amusing thought?”

“I wondered whether the pregnant woman His Grace asked about might not be the duchess…”

Realizing midway that he was saying something he absolutely should not say, the physician’s voice grew smaller and smaller. Sensing this, Tilia let out an intentionally loud laugh.

“That makes no sense. As if Ilex would ever do something like that.”

“O-of course. It was nothing but the useless worry of an old fool. I know better than anyone how devoted His Grace is to you.”

Realizing belatedly what an awful mistake he had made, the physician wiped his cold sweat and scrambled to appease Tilia.

But the person he was trying so hard to read showed no outward reaction at all.

“You must have had a hard time.”

Of course, it was only her expression that was calm.

The hand that had been gently resting over her belly had already turned into a tightly clenched fist.