Guidelines for the Perfect Goodbye - Chapter 48
“Madam.”
Lilith closed the door and sat beside the bed.
“What brings you here, wench? I didn’t call for a mistress.”
As Guinevere sneered, Lilith shrank back. The ingrained class difference instinctively made her body cower.
‘I’ll surely lose if it continues like this.’
She thought of Cecilia and decided to give herself an internal pep talk.
‘She’s not Madam Rosencrantz.’
‘She’s a maid.’
‘A maid, a maid, a maid…’
And finally, she spoke.
“I was just curious to see your pitiful state.”
The effect of the self-suggestion was overly successful.
“How dare you…!”
Guinevere tried to get up in anger, then fell back, struggling even to breathe.
“You seem to be suffering a lot.”
“Get out.”
“You seem to need an antidote.”
“Shut up. I told you I’m not poisoned… Cough!”
Coughing, she spat out bright red blood onto the bed linen. Lilith, staring at the soiled bedding, said,
“I guess you don’t want to admit it. That you drank the poison you prepared and got poisoned yourself.”
When she heard the story indirectly, Lilith couldn’t believe her ears.
Even the vagrants on the streets don’t choose death so easily. Some people push away the cats and rummage through trash just to survive, while others take lives for their honor and throw away their own.
Was honor more important than life to nobles? If so, she would never become one in her lifetime.
But for the one person who was more valuable than her own life, she truly could do anything.
Even if death was too frightening, making her voice tremble as if vibrating a string.
“It’s Palmascus, right? The name of the poison you used.”
“Like a rat in a poison room, you have sharp ears.”
“It’s not just my ears.”
For the sake of her daughter’s life, she could do anything.
“Madam.”
“…?”
“I have the antidote for Palmascus.”
Guinevere’s expression, which had been bitter, changed suddenly.
“What?”
“I have the antidote. Of course, no one, including the Count, knows this fact. I had obtained it in advance before this incident occurred.”
Obtained in advance? How could she have known such an event would occur?
“You don’t mean…”
“Yes. It was me.”
Lilith raised her head with determination.
“I was the one who tampered with the sachet, induced Hannah Linfitt’s confession, and dragged you into this quagmire. It was all my doing.”
“You…!”
Guinevere raised her hand to strike, but her feeble wrist was caught before it could even graze Lilith’s cheek.
“It was me. I ruined your long-standing plans.”
“…Since when did you know?”
“For quite a while.”
Lilith relayed the words as Cecilia had instructed her.
Once she confessed to being the culprit, her voice no longer trembled. Only an inexplicable shiver ran down the back of her neck.
Lilith smiled with a face that looked as if she might cry any moment. Without understanding the words to describe why her eyebrows were so twisted, she recited the line she had been told.
“What kind of woman would truly cherish and embrace a younger brother who sells his sister to an old Marquis to clear a debt?”
“…”
Guinevere looked down and was silent for several seconds. Staring blankly at the blood-stained bed linen, she murmured softly,
“It was Father’s gambling debt. Adam has done nothing wrong.”
Adam’s family, House Deinz, were distant relatives of the Lasphilla County.
Since Lasphilla had always lacked male heirs, the inheritance rights even extended to her stepfather and Adam.
But with too much debt, one inevitably had to sell the inheritance rights for money.
‘Please help me, Sister. If things continue this way, I can’t become the head of the Lasphilla family.’
Adam came to her, crying and begging.
‘I must live for all of us to survive, right?’
It was understandable.
‘Marquis Rosencrantz is very interested in you. He is sincere towards you. Isn’t it better to be a wealthy mistress than a poor maiden?’
It was understandable.
‘We must send Ulysses to the Rosencrantz Marquisate’s residence. If he becomes the Marquis’s adopted son, he could soon aim for the title.’
This, too, was understandable.
‘Apologize to the Marquis’s wife and ask her to take care of Ulysses, sister.’
It’s under…
‘Shut up.’
What more must be sacrificed?
I don’t want to do this.
I want to reap the rewards of my sacrifices. I want to live enjoying what I rightfully deserve!
Even now, in this moment.
Do I regret my actions? No.
Do I acknowledge them? No.
Do I wish to die? No!
I want to live.
I stand firm, not feeling guilty in the slightest, yet at the same time, I want to live.
There’s so much I haven’t yet experienced!
“…What do you want?”
Guinevere spoke.
“Tell me what you want.”
And with all her might, she clutched Lilith’s sleeve. Her eyes were incredibly vivid, unbelievably so for someone dying.
“It’s not difficult.”
Lilith said.
“Become my daughter’s chaperone.”
