Episode 43
The dark prison cell in the basement.
Holding just a single candle, Catherine came to visit Rachel, who was locked up in the middle of the night.
“…Who’s there? Ah, Catherine.”
Rachel noticed her presence and smiled faintly.
She seemed to believe Catherine hadn’t abandoned her.
“Catherine! You’ve come to save your poor mother, haven’t you? Please, tell the Duke this is all a misunderstanding!”
Rachel pleaded with a sorrowful face.
But Catherine wasn’t moved.
“It’s no use, Mother. I already heard everything from Alex.”
She didn’t fall for Rachel’s act.
“No, it’s not true. It’s a misunderstanding. I swear I’m innocent—”
“I heard that you secretly bribed the Duke’s servants and even stole important information from the household. I thought you just wanted to make Eleanor suffer, but turns out you wanted to control the entire Valentine family. That’s quite the plan.”
Catherine had always believed Rachel just wanted the Duke’s affection.
Of course, she knew their marriage wasn’t based on love. She remembered what Rachel said before marrying the Duke:
“I’m marrying the Duke. Isn’t that great? Now we’ll live in a rich house, and you’ll be a noble lady.”
“I’m happy wherever I am as long as I’m with you, Mother!”
“Hahaha! That’s my girl. Just follow your mother.”
Catherine wasn’t sure how Rachel managed to marry the Duke, but it was a business deal. In the novel too, their story was brief and never painted as a love story.
“Rachel went to the Duke saying Eleanor needed a mother. The Duke, annoyed by the gossip about his household, accepted her offer of a marriage of convenience.”
Catherine didn’t know the full story from the book.
But from watching them, she noticed Rachel would sometimes gaze at the Duke with a longing look, so she thought maybe Rachel did like him.
But the truth was, Rachel never loved the Duke.
She only approached him to gain power and status within the Valentine family.
“…Well, I guess none of that matters anymore.”
Her evil plans would end here.
At Catherine’s quiet words, Rachel’s face hardened.
“Ah… so you already knew? Hah.”
Rachel muttered bitterly like she regretted pretending.
She was no longer the calm, graceful lady of the house. Her eyes now showed coldness and indifference—even toward her daughter.
This was the real Rachel.
The one Catherine hadn’t seen since they moved into the Duke’s mansion. But it was the mother she had always known before.
“So, why did you come? To laugh at your mother’s downfall?”
Rachel sneered.
“No… I came to ask you something.”
Catherine remembered what Alex had told her when she said she wanted to see Rachel.
“Your mother was going to abandon you, Catherine.”
He couldn’t understand why she still wanted to see Rachel.
But Catherine had always wondered—
“Did you ever love me?”
It was something she had wanted to ask for a long time, but never could.
Since she was a child, she had felt like she meant nothing to Rachel.
“Love? So you’re one of those people obsessed with that ‘love’ nonsense too?”
Rachel spoke with disgust like the word itself was filthy.
“I know you weren’t a good mother. But still… I wanted to believe that maybe you loved me, even just a little.”
Catherine remembered all the times Rachel had tried to abandon her.
“Tsk. Of all the eyes to be born with… those cursed blue eyes.”
“You look just like my mother. And my sister. I hated them.”
“Crying kids are the worst. Alex alone is already too much to handle.”
From as early as she could remember, Catherine knew Rachel didn’t like her.
But then there were also those rare, sweet words.
“My dear daughter. So good and smart.”
“You always understand me, Catherine. Such a clever girl.”
Even if they were lies, Catherine had wanted to believe them. Even if those words were just to use her, she had clung to them.
“You foolish girl… you are just like your father. Always weak and too sensitive. That’s why I couldn’t stand you.”
Rachel stared at Catherine as if she were pathetic.
“You’ve always been like this, since birth. Starving for love. Obsessed with the idea of family. You were never a normal child.”
Rachel closed her eyes as if recalling old memories.
“M-Mother…”
She could still remember Catherine as a toddler, begging for affection, trying anything to be loved.
Catherine’s blue eyes, filled with desperate need, had always made Rachel uncomfortable.
“Just like him… Francis. He was like that too.”
Rachel suddenly brought up someone from her past.
“You always wanted to know about your father, didn’t you? Let me tell you a secret. Your father, Francis, was an illegitimate child of this house.”
He had been caught between love and duty—just like Catherine.
“What’s your name?”
“Francis. And you?”
“Rachel…”
Did Catherine know? The love she longed for had once existed, long ago.
“The old Duke… he wasn’t Francis’s real father. But he still raised him. Francis believed it was love—until he realized he was just a pawn.”
“Do you see my blue eyes?”
“They look just like my mother’s. Maybe we’re distantly related.”
“These blue eyes… they’re proof of royal blood. Sometimes they pop up in far-off descendants, like me.”
Francis’s mother had spent a night with a royal out of spite when she learned the old Duke was marrying someone else. Later, she realized who the man was.
Rachel didn’t think the Duke took them in because of love.
He wanted Francis as a tool to gain control over the royal bloodline.
Still, foolish Francis loved his “father” and hurt his half-brother in the process.
“I still feel sorry for him…”
Francis eventually left that family to avoid hurting anyone else.
“Don’t you want revenge? On your family or your father?”
Rachel once asked him that.
“No. Not at all.”
“Why?”
“Because I still love them. Even now.”
Rachel could never understand that kind of love.
And when she found out she was pregnant with Catherine, she tested him.
“What if I were pregnant? What would you do?”
She thought he would be happy.
But he had gone pale.
“If I have a child… it might hurt my brother and his mother again.”
“Someone like me shouldn’t become a father.”
“Sorry for making promises I couldn’t keep. Sorry for being a liar.”
Rachel said nothing but held her growing belly alone.
He left her only a letter.
“Guess how he ended up? He lived the rest of his life longing for those he loved.
He died alone from a so-called broken heart. Ridiculous, isn’t it?”
“Rachel… what’s this?”
“A necklace?”
“It’s a keepsake. Something that will get you accepted into the northern house.”
“That’s what love is. Empty and useless. Why do people chase it like fools?”
“Turns out the old Duke had already died long ago. I was too scared to face the truth, so I ran and hid…”
Francis was a pitiful man.
He always ran away. Never fought back.
“I hope this can protect her. I hope she lives somewhere better.”
That was the last thing he said before he died—too afraid to face Catherine even in the end.
“You never once thought of me. Not even at the end.”
Standing before his grave, Rachel felt only misery.
