Why the Northern Duke Wanders the Snowfields - Chapter 26

“What nonsense are you talking about?”

The mocking curve on Kaeloc’s lips faltered, then trembled.

“…Are you saying you knew me?”

“Is that more important than the fact that you’re a duke?”

Aubrianna tilted her head.

She thought that if someone had lost their memory, they would naturally be curious about the past they couldn’t remember.

But thinking about it, Kaeloc wasn’t the type to cling to such things.

“What does my past matter?”

Kaeloc crossed his arms and lifted his chin arrogantly.

“More than that, the fact that you knew me is far more interesting.”

Aubrianna took a small step back, her expression saying this wasn’t what she meant.

“I want you to focus more on your past.”

“No. Right now, I—”

Kaeloc suddenly leaned in. For some reason, a playful glint flickered in his blue eyes.

“—I’m thinking of focusing on you.”

“….”

“What’s your name, really?”

Aubrianna frowned slightly. Did he think she had been lying this whole time?

“I’ve never lied to you.”

“Then say it again. What’s your name?”

She had been about to tell him the truth, but somehow it had turned into an interrogation.

Letting out a sigh, Aubrianna clasped her hands together and straightened her back.

“My name is Aubrianna Morel.”

“Aubrianna.”

As if tasting it again, Kaeloc muttered her name once, then asked again.

“Then what’s this baby’s name?”

“…Theophilus.”

“Good. So you intend to keep playing this strange game?”

“A game?”

“When I ask you something, you only tell me half the truth. You must’ve been like that the entire time we were together. Are you expecting me to figure out the other half on my own?”

Only then did Aubrianna realize.

The curious sparkle in his blue eyes wasn’t playfulness. It was sharp, relentless persistence.

She swallowed and tried to avert her gaze, but Kaeloc was faster.

His hand gripped her small chin firmly.

“Look at me.”

When Aubrianna raised her eyes, their gazes collided intensely.

Like fire meeting ice, their eyes tangled in the air, and the space between them tightened with tension like a drawn bowstring.

“What is that child’s surname?”

“You didn’t even want to know when we were in the cabin.”

She frowned as if asking why he was doing this now.

But to Kaeloc, it seemed to be an important matter.

“Answer me!”

He didn’t want to raise his voice, but he was already angry at the thought that she had deceived him.

“Tennant! Theophilus Tennant!”

Kaeloc’s gaze darted to the baby, then returned to Aubrianna.

Their eyes met again in silence. Then, belatedly, Kaeloc’s eyes widened.

“I suspected it when you told me the name Tennant, but….”

The hand gripping Aubrianna’s chin dropped limply.

“…Theophilus is supposedly the name of the founder of House Tennant or something like that.”

Aubrianna rubbed her sore chin and drew up her knees.

“I said I didn’t like it. I was planning to give the baby a different name when you came back. But since you went missing, the baby ended up being named Theophilus.”

They had to register the birth, but it was the first time in the family that a child had been born out of wedlock.

On top of that, the baby’s father, the duke, was missing. While everyone was in confusion over the unprecedented situation, Sion, the duke’s aide, stepped forward.

“There were instructions to name the child Theophilus if it were a son, and Theophina if it were a daughter.”

Thanks to Sion, they barely managed to complete the birth registration.

“Then you….”

As if at a loss for words, Kaeloc blinked, and Aubrianna answered in his place.

“That’s right. I’m your mistress, Aubrianna.”

***

They could have talked longer, but Kaeloc had reached his limit and was no longer in a state to continue the conversation with Aubrianna.

Soon, a long silence followed, and Aubrianna said that if there was nothing more to say, she would sleep.

Listening to the sleeping breaths of the woman and the baby, Kaeloc kept turning over the facts he’d learned today.

‘So I’m a duke, and the bastard who had an illegitimate child with his mistress.’

“Mm.”

The woman sleeping beside the baby shifted in her sleep.

He had at least taken off his jacket and laid it under her, but she still didn’t look comfortable, and it made him uneasy as well.

‘Damn it.’

He rubbed his face, pushed his hair back, then carefully got up and went outside.

It was a flimsy makeshift shelter made from his cloak to begin with, and even with just the woman and the baby lying down, it was cramped, so he intended to keep watch outside.

It was a small relief that it wasn’t snowing and the air felt relatively mild.

When he looked up at the sky, countless stars filled it. In the darkness like black silk, the endless starlight felt like jewels embroidered across it, giving him a distant sense of being left alone.

Just then, the baby cried out from inside, and soon Aubrianna’s low voice could be heard singing a lullaby.

Hearing the song comforting a baby longing for its distant mother, telling it to sleep peacefully, Kaeloc felt an inexplicable ache and rubbed his jaw.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?”

After putting the baby back to sleep, Aubrianna came out of the shelter.

“Just in case those bastards come….”

“If they come, that would be better. At least we wouldn’t have to sleep on this cold ground.”

At Aubrianna’s reply, Kaeloc answered flatly, dumbfounded, “Then why did you run from them?”

“I wanted to tell you the truth first.”

“Too bad. They told me first. I just didn’t believe them.”

At the thought that Kaeloc hadn’t believed Sion, Aubrianna let out a small laugh.

“I wish I could’ve seen Sir Sion’s face then.”

“What’s there to see about that bastard’s face?”

He spoke irritably, displeased that she brought up another man’s name.

“Sir Sion has always disliked me. It’s not like we were close enough for you to be jealous.”

“That’s a relief.”

Aubrianna quietly studied Kaeloc’s face as he lifted his chin.

The faint stubble, his disheveled black hair, and those arrogant blue eyes showed no trace of sleep even though the night had deepened.

Though he had lost his memories, his obsession with her seemed unchanged. Yet at the same time, there was something subtly different that she couldn’t quite put into words.

“Why?”

“Nothing. You just feel like a different person.”

Kaeloc’s lips twitched. “Should I take that as an insult?”

“I don’t really know either.”

This time, his sharp brows lifted, then slowly lowered as he asked in a gloomy voice, “Did I… do something to you? Something bad….”

Unable to finish his sentence, Kaeloc’s face gradually hardened.

She watched him quietly, then slowly shook her head.

At first, there had been coercion on his part, but in the end, she’d wanted it too.

‘It’s just that I got greedy beyond my place.’

Aubrianna looked back on her foolish heart. She had once believed that someday he would overcome every obstacle and marry her.

A trace of relief seemed to settle faintly over Kaeloc’s face, only to turn serious again.

“Then why did you set out to find me with the baby?”

As soon as winter in the snowfield ended, the search party came to the cabin.

Aubrianna and the baby had come to the cabin in the very middle of the dangerous winter in the snowfield.

“Did my disappearance cause some kind of problem?”

It was a long story.

“Your disappearance was the beginning.”

Just as Kaeloc had done earlier, Aubrianna looked up at the sky. The starlight was bright, making her pale face glow like the moon.

“It sounds like this will be a long story.”

At the man’s gesture, Aubrianna quickly moved to his side. Even though the weather had eased compared to before, it was still cold.

Neither of them had a cloak on, and Kaeloc wasn’t even wearing a jacket.

“Aren’t you cold?”

When she took the hand he held out, the man pulled her onto his thigh.

“It’s warm now.”

The man wrapped an arm around her waist, buried his head against her shoulder, and murmured, “So that means you’re my… lover?”

Instead of using the word mistress, Kaeloc chose lover, and finding that endearing, Aubrianna lightly stroked his hair.

“How is it? Are you not ashamed of me?”

“What nonsense are you talking about. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

“You said I was the first person you saw when you woke up in a pool of blood.”

Telling him not to say things that lacked credibility, Aubrianna wrapped her arms around his neck.

“There’s something I’m curious about, Kaeloc.”

The woman’s low voice rang softly by his ear.

“How much do you remember?”

At her words, Kaeloc tried to recall his past.

“You’re the duke of the North, a man who has everything. Think carefully. Isn’t there even one thing that comes to mind?”

Remembering the wound on his head she had once seen, Aubrianna gently brushed that spot with her hand as she asked.

Kaeloc rubbed his forehead against her shoulder from side to side as if nothing came to mind.

“I really can’t remember anything.”