I Married the Mad Duke Who Killed My Husband - Chapter 81
“Huff. Huff… Huh.”
Amidst the silence, Lorang’s heavy breathing echoed along with the rhythmic footsteps. Actually, I was starting to feel tired too, but Lorang’s noisy ascent made it less noticeable.
“Tsk tsk. How did you manage to be the Empress’s night companion with such a body?”
“Huh?! I-I’m sorry, no, I…”
It seems I wasn’t the only one bothered by Lorang’s breathing, as the Emperor, who was climbing at the front, chided him. But the content was so spicy that Lorang, who had naturally looked up, almost stumbled and fell, only to be caught irritably by Cassion.
“The First Prince had good stamina since childhood. Your faces are quite similar, but the more I see, the fewer similarities I find. It makes me wonder if I was fooled during the trial.”
“No! I, I swear, huff, o-only the truth… Huh.”
“Keep your mouth shut. If I had known it would be like this, I should have brought a knight to carry you up.”
“Ugh.”
Lorang closed his mouth, conscious of the Emperor, but his harsh breathing through his nose continued.
I looked up to check the remaining stairs. It seems we’ve climbed about two-thirds of the way.
“I knew my Empress didn’t like me, but until the trial, I never thought that the First Prince might not be my own child.”
“…But Your Majesty, you didn’t seem surprised at all during the trial.”
“I wasn’t surprised that day because I had confirmed everything just before the trial. But when I first found out, I was quite shocked. As I said, the First Prince had many aspects that resembled me except for his face, so I never thought of it. Why else would I have asked the Duchess to choose between the First Prince and the Second Prince?”
However, seeing him joke with me even in this situation, he seemed quite calm for someone who claimed to be shocked.
Since he was a person who died early in the original story, I didn’t know much about him, so I was cautious in dealing with the Emperor. Not being able to read his thoughts made me even more anxious.
“Ah, don’t make such an expression, Duke. The Duchess said you were the best. And now the Second Prince will become the Crown Prince, and you’re close to him, aren’t you? We already have enough gossip in the current imperial family, we can’t create complex relationships between the Crown Prince, the Duke, and the Duchess.”
I couldn’t quite grasp the true intentions of the Emperor, who was making jokes in a situation where the First Prince’s desperate rebellion might occur.
As we neared the top floor, I gathered my skirt once more and looked at Cassion. He was also staring at me with his lips tightly pressed.
In the silence that returned, only Lorang’s panting echoed.
“So the current situation is quite regrettable. I tried so hard to prevent a civil war over the throne succession during my lifetime, tsk. I didn’t know the First Prince was so emotional and easily
swayed by others. It seems there were many things I failed to observe.”
“That’s not true, Your Majesty.”
“Save the flattery, Duke. However, even if it’s late, I need to know everything… I’m hoping for a conversation between the Empress and that fellow. He spoke to some extent during the trial, I hope he’ll do so again this time.”
By the time Lorang was almost crawling on all fours and my breathing became slightly labored, we reached the top of the tower.
After climbing up many stairs, a space large enough for several people appeared. At the end was a sturdy iron door. Lorang’s expression became subtle as he caught his breath, seeing the padlock on the iron door.
Click. Clank. Thud.
“Now then, please have a deep conversation with your old lover, without minding us.”
The Emperor opened the padlock with a rough key from his pocket and removed the chains but didn’t open the door as he gestured.
Realizing that the Emperor intended to let only Lorang enter the room, I quickly led Cassion to stand behind the Emperor.
The room would be small anyway, and if the door was open, even small conversation sounds should be audible.
“…It reminds me of our old secret meeting place.”
Lorang, whom I thought might have been intimidated by facing the Empress alone, seemed to have a different mindset as he stepped forward with a subtle expression.
Just like on a certain day over 20 years ago, watching him open the door towards the woman who would be sitting quietly inside felt strange, as if peeking into someone else’s secret rendezvous.
Creeak-
“….”
“…Hello, Lione.”
“Lorang.”
For a moment, I wondered who he was calling. But I soon realized it was the Empress’s name from her immediate response. They really were lovers.
“Well… It’s awkward to say this here, but it’s been a long time.”
“Didn’t we see each other in court?”
“No, that… You didn’t seem like the you I knew then. You seemed like ‘Her Majesty the Empress’.”
“The me you know is no different.”
“No, it’s different. The you I know was a lonely and empty woman waiting for me. Clinging to my insignificant warmth.”
“I didn’t think a man with such poor stamina as you would climb this high tower just to mock me. Are you that angry about me stealing your seed and deceiving you?”
Wow. The conversation is quite direct. The Empress surely knows that the Emperor and others are outside the door, yet she speaks without hesitation.
Indeed, when had she ever hesitated to speak?
In this aspect, the Emperor and Empress seem like a perfect couple.
“You know better than anyone, Lione, that I’m an insignificant man. That’s why you chose me. I’m not so ignorant of my place to get angry about such things.”
“You didn’t seem that way when you spoke in court.”
“That, that. Ahem. That was different!”
Lorang reflexively glanced at us outside the door, and our eyes met. Is he crazy, really? Why look this way while saying that?
“Just come in. I have nothing more to hide.”
As expected, the Empress, who had noticed the presence outside the door, spoke nonchalantly. Judging by the slight clanking sound, it seemed that her hands or feet were tied somewhere.
“…The First Prince… our son, they say he escaped with the help of your family.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“Why did you do it, Lione? I don’t think you liked me enough to bear my child. You despised my feelings for you back then.”
“That’s right… I don’t like you.”
The Empress’s bored and slow tone echoes off the cold stone walls. If voices had a temperature, none could be colder than this.
“But I don’t like His Majesty either. Isn’t that how all contract marriages are?”
Gasp, Lorang inhaled sharply, conscious of the Emperor outside the door, but the Empress continued as if nothing was amiss.
“I hated the imperial family, Lorang. From a childhood I can’t even remember, I grew up conforming to the imperial family under my family’s orders to become the Empress, and I became the Empress as everyone wanted.”
“….”
“Rebellion is something you have to learn to see, Lorang. I grew up like a puppet, not knowing what the rising frustration was, nor how to resolve it. Then suddenly, I heard that noble ladies go on outings in unusual attire without servants, and I was compelled to try it myself.”
“…And that’s where I was.”
“Yes. I suppose being raised as the future Empress, one develops an eye for aesthetics? You were the most eye-catching thing on that street.”
“Th-Thank you.”
…Are they flirting again now? I glared at Lorang, who was scratching the back of his head in embarrassment. But Lorang, far from extracting information from the Empress, was too absorbed in her confession-like story to notice.
“Thinking about it now, it was just a youthful deviation that everyone does. The fact that no one knew, that I was acting on my own will, was quite thrilling.”
“Lione…”
“Would you believe me if I said I had no intention? It wasn’t rebellion against my family who made me the Empress, nor revenge against the indifferent Emperor. I wanted to leave one proof of my youthful impulse in the prison-like life I was about to live.”
“….”
“That’s all. That child is not my sin, but my only decision. Even knowing it was selfish and deceptive, whenever I felt suffocated, looking at that child helped me breathe.”
“Rather than lying, you could have borne my child and then taken a lover. I would have allowed it.”
The Emperor, who entered the room in place of Lorang, who couldn’t continue speaking, said to the Empress.
The Empress, not surprised at all, answers in her still monotonous voice.
“I didn’t know, Your Majesty.”
“You didn’t know?”
“Yes. I simply didn’t know. I was too young, and my perspective was narrow. That’s how I was raised.”
Clank. The sound of chains rang out once more.
“If the nannies and maids who taught and raised me, if my family had given me just a little leeway, or if my marriage to Your Majesty had been delayed by even two or three years, allowing my narrow perspective to broaden a bit.”
As the Empress stood up and came forward, her eyes met mine.
“Instead of creating a child, I would have sought my own life even if it meant killing my husband and family, like the Duchess. The person I envy the most these days is the Duchess.”
