After I Died, My Husband Went Mad - Chapter 42
May my final scream reach your ears.
Those were the last words of Belita as she lay dying at the hands of her beloved husband.
“Too sentimental,” sighed Sebelia as she closed the book on the story of the first Duke of Inverness.
On her way back from a doctor’s appointment, she’d picked up the book, ‘The Tale of the Cursed Duke’, while buying stationery at the general store. The fact that she deliberately borrowed Belita’s last words at the end of her suicide note had stirred her conscience anew.
“Hmm…”
Sebelia rubbed her flushed ears and furrowed her brow. She had to admit it. Looking back on it now, she felt she might have been too emotional when she wrote the suicide note. But if someone asked whether she could have restrained herself back then, she probably would say no.
“I couldn’t help it, because that was my truth.”
Covering her mouth with a palm-sized book, Sebelia concealed a bitter smile. If she were truly a cursed and insane woman, she wouldn’t have had the composure to write that letter.
I wonder if I could even hold a pen properly. Maybe I would have painted the walls with blood and hanged myself.
But she hadn’t done any of that. The note was her last will and testament as Sebelia Inverness, and so she decided to just leave behind what was truly in her heart—all the resentment, sadness, and anger that she’d never been able to voice. In doing so, she hoped to give at least a small shock to those who would falsely mourn her after she was gone.
But maybe that was a bit much.
Besides, there was no guarantee they would read her suicide note and regret anything in the first place…
Reading the will alone might make it seem like she intends on becoming a ghost just like Belita, returning to curse them all.
“Maybe I should have written it more calmly.”
Sebelia felt like an adult looking at a teenager going through an angsty adolescent phase. Except that the teenager was her own past.
“Hah…”
With a sigh, Sebelia returned the book to its place and walked toward the rack of letters. She had to tell Denisa a strange mixture of sad and happy news.
Her disease was slowly but surely progressing, but there was slim hope of finding a potential cure.
* * *
As soon as the morning light emerged, the air in the manor stirred. People exchanged uneasy glances, not knowing what to do next.
Hillend Hall was on lockdown and that alone was shocking. Closing off Hillend Hall—what in the world was he thinking? People were paralyzed with fear at the unpredictability of the Duke’s behavior. However, what was even more unexpected was the fact that no further orders were given to them after that.
“What the hell is going on? Are we supposed to just keep doing our jobs?”
“I suppose so. It’s not like we’ve been given any other instructions…”
But they all secretly knew that something had happened. Lady Glenn’s nervous demeanor and the tense atmosphere lingering around them proved it.
“I heard that Sir Ryan took some of the servants and is questioning them about something…”
“I’m glad the Duke isn’t making a scene anymore, but I have a bad feeling about this.”
After what seemed like days of walking on thin ice, the knights returned from the port harbor.
“That’s…!”
“Oh my goodness.”
A sigh of relief and despair erupted from the tense group—relief that they no longer had to suffer from the terror of uncertainty and despair at the realization that the Duke had drawn his sword against his family.
“What on earth is the Duke thinking?”
The knights returned from the port, bringing a shabby-looking Roger in tow.
* * *
“De…hart…” Roger called out to him with an earnest voice.
“Well, I guess you didn’t have a very comfortable trip.”
He wasn’t exaggerating. Roger, who had always maintained his dignity as the family patriarch, looked as pitiful as a rat in a gutter. Dehart thought that image suited him quite well and greeted him with open arms.
“I apologize. I wasn’t in the right mind to take care of my uncle.”
His sardonic laughter made him look repulsive. Roger seemed to think so as well, glaring at Dehart with reddened eyes. Dehart had really forgotten about him in that desolate place.
“It’s a fact without a shred of falsehood,” explained Dehart, “but you must be quite upset nonetheless.”
How could he care about an uncle who stabbed him in the back in the face of his wife’s untimely death?
“I’m sure you’ll forgive me, since you’re the one who pushed me into this in the first place.”
Dehart met Roger’s resentful gaze with a thin smile.
“Don’t look at me like that, Uncle. It seems you’re trying to muster up some sympathy when I have none to spare.”
“De…hart. You’ve finally gone mad…”
“Maybe so,” said Dehart, casually lighting a cigar as he opened a window. “But where do you get the confidence to spout such words at a madman and think you’ll be fine?”
He turned around, no longer smiling. “Is it hereditary?”
His face, cold and beautiful like a finely crafted porcelain doll, was adorned with nothing but cold insanity.
Roger gulped dryly, remembering what he’d heard as he’d been dragged here.
They say the curse has manifested and drove him insane, it’s true…!
A chill ran down Roger’s spine.
