Why the Northern Duke Wanders the Snowfields - Chapter 28

Aubrianna’s expression as she looked at Kaeloc turned resentful.

Without realizing it, her feelings for him had grown too deep.

He was someone she could never dare to reach, yet she began to indulge in futile fantasies in secret.

Aubrianna vaguely remembered her childhood. The place she’d lived as a child had been vast and splendid like a palace. Her father, who used to lift her high into the air, had surely been a noble. Whenever she walked with him, everyone around them would bow their heads.

‘If only I were a noble’s daughter….’

If that were the case, could she marry Kaeloc? Even if her family wasn’t as distinguished as the other noble ladies being mentioned, and even if she wouldn’t be much help to him.

‘Still, if… just if….’

Aubrianna realized then how such expectations could slowly eat a person away.

Rumors spread that Kaeloc, who never even glanced at balls or parties, was now attending even tea gatherings hosted by noble families and meeting numerous young ladies. A cold distortion formed in a corner of Aubrianna’s heart.

Her pride was like a transparent glass cup, gradually cracking and splintering under Sion’s continued cold treatment and Kaeloc’s indifference.

By the time the sharp fragments pierced painfully into her heart, one young lady had been named as his prospective fiancée.

Aileen Lott.

The goddaughter of Duchess Eloise and a young lady from a wealthy count’s family connected to the royal family.

Now the shards of glass were fully embedded in her heart, making it feel as though blood would pour out.

She couldn’t bear to watch his engagement or wedding.

She decided to leave first and slowly sold off the jewels and accessories Kaeloc had given her.

She thought it was fine since he had given them to her to use.

She didn’t intend to sell everything. She only prepared enough money for tuition and travel expenses, secretly received the exam papers by mail, and took the exam.

She couldn’t study much because she didn’t want Kaeloc to find out, but fortunately, she managed to pass.

But Kaeloc found out.

“I didn’t give you permission.”

“Do I need Your Grace’s permission? No. I can leave of my own free will.”

The debt she owed because of Miss Francis had already been paid off years ago. She was in a position where she could leave at any time.

“That won’t do.”

“You’re going to get engaged and married now anyway.”

Kaeloc’s expression as he listened was blank.

From some point on, Aubrianna always felt like she was standing alone on a cold field when she saw that numb expression on his face.

“Still, no.”

He was completely unreasonable.

“If you get married, I can’t stay here.”

So she begged him to send her away in advance. She cried and pleaded. But her admission to Regatta Girls’ School was canceled, and she ended up locked in her room.

She once asked the man who came every night to take her.

“What am I to you?”

“You’re just a woman to me.”

That single sentence stabbed into her heart, already filled with shards of glass, like a blade striking it.

It seemed there was no longer any way for their relationship to be revived.

In the end, Aubrianna became pregnant, and through Mrs. Nelly, she heard that Count Lott’s daughter, his prospective fiancée, was extremely angry.

The second suspect was Lady Aileen Lott.

‘To her, I must have been a thorn in her eye.’

Aileen’s mother was from the Elswin family, which had produced Marcella, the queen of the Kingdom of Trilan, and Lady Lott took great pride in being connected to the royal family.

Given how proud a young lady she was, there was a high chance she found it unacceptable that her fiancé had a mistress and an illegitimate child.

So she might have decided to get rid of them in secret. She had a grudge against Aubrianna, and she certainly had the means to hire assassins.

And one more person.

Duchess Eloise.

Everything that came into her room was by the duchess’s orders. After the duke’s disappearance, the one who confined her to a room and fed her strange food was, in all likelihood, the duchess.

After all, if the Tennant bloodline disappeared, she could continue to enjoy wealth and glory by putting forward Cedric, the interim head.

Until the moment her breath stopped in her previous life, Aubrianna never found out who was behind the attempt on her and the baby.

But if she told Kaeloc about those circumstances now, she had no idea how he would act, having lost his memory.

‘It might be better for this man not to know anything.’

What Aubrianna wanted from him was simply for him to safely reclaim his position as duke and use that power to protect her and the baby.

‘That’s all your role needs to be.’

She softened her expression again.

“Kaeloc. Come sit here. I’ll tell you the truth.”

At her coaxing, the man’s expression turned suspicious again.

“If you’re trying to make a fool of me again….”

“That’s not it.”

She deliberately let out a long sigh.

“I just want you to understand me a little.”

Wrapping her body with her slender arms and curling herself up as much as she could, Aubrianna looked at him with eyes full of sorrow.

“I was just scared and afraid of everything. You were missing, and there was no one on my side in the ducal castle. And I was very worried about you. People believed you would surely return alive, but I wanted to see you with my own eyes.”

It was true that leaving for the snowfield had been her own choice. Watching Kaeloc’s expression gradually soften, she smiled faintly.

“To be honest, I was so happy when I woke up in the cabin and you were there.”

“But you didn’t act like you knew me.”

Kaeloc slowly sat beside her and casually pulled her into his arms, sharing his warmth with the woman who looked cold.

“I don’t know how shocked I was that you had lost your memory. And I was sick, you know. I lay in bed for a week thinking about how I could explain everything to you, but in the end, I failed.”

“That’s right. You failed.”

For nearly two months in the cabin, the woman had never let it show.

‘No, did she let it show?’

She was a woman who knew his body astonishingly well.

Only now did it feel like all the pieces were finally falling into place.

Kaeloc looked at her lips, drained of color by the cold night air, and slowly brought his own lips to them.

He tried to devour the woman’s cold, sweet, ice-cream-like lips greedily, but barely managed to regain his senses.

“So….”

Murmured Kaeloc, who had closed his eyes and was savoring the taste of her lips.

“You and I were lovers.”

Aubrianna let out a short breath. “I was your mistress.”

“So what?”

Kaeloc opened his eyes and licked the taste of her still lingering on his lips.

His blue eyes, sharp and clear, followed her without missing a single moment, as if trying to pierce through her very essence.

“If I had feelings for you and you had feelings for me, then that’s the kind of relationship we became, isn’t it?”

The man lifted his gaze and thought for a moment, then let out a short laugh.

“I still prefer the word lover over mistress.”

Aubrianna felt a little flustered by how often he brought up the word lover.

Could such an excessive, sweet word really suit her?

But it seemed the man thought otherwise.

“To put it a bit bluntly, I was just a maid, and you were a duke.”

Compared to being lovers, she thought she had simply been someone easy to take, but the man was stubborn.

“From the position of a duke, I must have seen countless women, but if I only looked at you, then this must be true love.”

The man’s cold blue gaze flickered, then shifted toward the shelter.

“And I even had an illegitimate child. You’ve lived long enough in the Kingdom of Trilan to know what that means, right?”

The fact that he, a noble man, had fathered a healthy illegitimate child clearly meant he’d loved Aubrianna.

The matter of that fiancée must have been some kind of misunderstanding.

At the word illegitimate child, she almost frowned but quickly hid her displeasure.

‘I need to get a definite answer now.’

Securing the safety of herself and the baby. That could only be done through marriage.

“I don’t want Theo to be called an illegitimate child.”

“That’s….”

Wasn’t illegitimate child simply a term for a baby born without marriage?

But if Aubrianna disliked it, then he disliked it too.

Kaeloc took both of her hands.

The starlight of the black night sparkled beautifully, and in the vast snowfield, there were only the two of them.

“I swear. When we return to the ducal castle, I’ll marry you.”

The man, smiling broadly, seemed happy just imagining it, his eyes curving.

On the other hand, Aubrianna felt drained.

‘To speak of marriage to me so easily….’

She looked up at Kaeloc with a pitiful expression.

He was a man who had lost his memory. Looking at his face, a man who knew nothing about what it meant to hold the title of the northern duke, she felt strangely unsettled.

It all felt like a joke, and at the same time like wandering inside a futile dream she had in that hellish underground prison.

She tightly shut her eyes, then opened them again. She could still see Kaeloc’s handsome face looking at her with bright, joyful eyes.

Only then did her heart begin to pound heavily.

Aubrianna asked in a small voice, “Do you mean it?”

“Of course,” Kaeloc answered confidently. “Even if it were me before I lost my memory, I would have done the same.”

At his words, she once again lost what to say. Aubrianna bit down on the tip of her tongue, which tasted bitter.

‘You didn’t.’

She hid her expression and lifted the corners of her lips. She smiled sweetly like a woman who had just received a proposal.

‘You irresponsibly got me pregnant and went ahead with your engagement to Lady Aileen Lott.’