Chapter: 02
“An explanation? What is he going to explain?”
Regardless of her confusion, Vanessa did not have the confidence to face him like this. She could not remember how she had treated him at this point in time.
Unable to choose any answer while her mind raced, Vanessa swallowed hard.
“Besides, if you go out looking like that……”
In the end, instead of answering, Vanessa kicked off the ground and dashed toward the entrance of the mansion as fast as she could.
“Vanessa……!”
She heard his desperate call from behind, but Vanessa ran out as if fleeing, keeping her eyes fixed straight ahead.
It might have sounded cruel to Ian, but Vanessa was still more accustomed to Ian Ruscliff as the man over forty whom she had known.
‘Maybe next time. Though I don’t know if we’ll ever meet again…….’
For now, she did not want to face that youthful face.
Even if he had never intended for it to happen, because of Ian Ruscliff, she had ended up not only divorced but also branded as an adulterous woman.
“Huff, ha…… huff…….”
Only after she had completely escaped the mansion did Vanessa slow her pace and catch her breath.
Once she had gotten away from Ian, she remembered her purpose again.
She had to get to the Sharose estate as quickly as possible.
She had to go and see her father.
‘Where is the carriage rental office?’
Perhaps because it was fifteen years ago, the scenery of the streets was quite different, and it took her a considerable amount of time just to find the rental office.
Vanessa was anxiously tapping her feet when she spotted a sign with a carriage painted on it in the distance. Without hesitation, she hurried over.
“Shar—huff…… Sharose, no…… to the shore of Lake Lamber…….”
A suspiciously dressed woman had appeared before dawn, unable even to catch her breath.
At her exceedingly suspicious appearance, the coachman’s eyes widened.
“L-Lake Lamber, yes. Please, get in.”
“Money, I……”
In her haste, Vanessa pulled off her brooch and handed it to the coachman. His eyes widened once again.
It was an expensive brooch that was clearly worth at least twice the fare, and the coachman’s face showed a hint of embarrassment and annoyance.
“I don’t have any change……”
“Forget the change. Just get me to the lakeside as quickly as possible.”
“My goodness, young lady. How did you know that I have the fastest horse in Dunbarn Village?”
However, that was only for a moment. As soon as Vanessa told him to keep the change, the tension vanished from the coachman’s face.
Vanessa had wanted to head straight to the entrance of the Sharose ducal residence, but looking like this, that would have been impossible. So she had simply given him the name of a nearby lakeside.
The coachman, however, arbitrarily addressed Vanessa as a young lady of noble birth.
Who cared whether the woman in front of him was a thief or a noble lady? The jewel in his hand was proof enough of her status.
Perhaps thinking that way, he went a step further and even wiped down the back seat of the carriage where Vanessa would sit with his sleeve.
Vanessa’s status had risen vertically in an instant—from a suspicious woman wearing a scarf around her head to a noble lady. Listening to the coachman humming to himself, she climbed into the carriage.
How long had they been traveling?
Through the carriage window, the Sharose estate gradually came into view in the distance.
If, somehow, she really had returned to the past.
If that meant she could see her father again.
If she could apologize for all the disrespect she had shown him in the past.
Only then did Vanessa begin to truly dwell on the dreamlike reality that had happened to her.
‘Could I have been placed under a spell? I heard there are people in Delphiro who deal with magic, but…….’
Yet everything was far too vivid to be an illusion or dream created by magic. Even the wind brushing through her hair felt real.
Besides, she had never incurred enough hatred from anyone to warrant someone casting such a powerful spell on her.
‘There is nothing left for anyone to take from me.’
After having everything her father had built—his wealth and honor—taken away from her, and after becoming crippled and barely managing to stay alive, what else could anyone possibly have left to take from her that would make such an effort worthwhile?
Vanessa thought of the people who had taken everything from her, then suppressed the burning anger in her chest and stepped down from the carriage.
Perhaps because she had just run so desperately, walking normally soon felt familiar again.
Even so, Vanessa continued to feel that everything was unfamiliar as she walked toward the bridge between Lake Lamber and the ducal residence.
“Vanett!”
And before she even reached the ducal residence, she heard a voice she had longed for.
The anger that had repeatedly surged up no matter how hard she tried to suppress it suddenly cooled at that single call.
“……Father.”
Even in middle age, he had a sturdy build and an upright posture. After his wife died, he had raised his daughter alone, disciplining her properly while giving her more than enough love.
He was the man who, upon hearing that his daughter’s legs had become disabled, had turned away and wept for the first time, saying that he should never have married her off.
How long had he been waiting for her?
If she had known this would happen, she should have had the carriage stop at the entrance of the ducal residence.
Seeing her father healthy and whole made emotions she could not put into words threaten to burst out of her, so Vanessa had to bite her lips tightly.
“No matter how much trouble you were in, who taught you to spend the night away from home without saying a word?”
Of course, it seemed her father had interpreted her actions very differently.
“Unless you deliberately intended to worry your father to death, how could you……”
“I’m sorry.”
At his daughter’s quick apology, the duke moved his lips as if to say something, then firmly closed them.
Vanessa was the first to speak again.
“……I’m sorry, Father. For everything I’ve done until now…… for behaving so immaturely.”
“……From now on, at least leave a note before you go out.”
“Yes, I will.”
At the expression on his face that seemed relieved, Vanessa nodded while desperately holding back her tears.
She had thought that the next time they met would be beneath the paradise spoken of in the Holy Kingdom. She had even prepared an excuse for when he scolded her, asking why she had come so soon.
‘Carlyle. It seems it wasn’t God but the devil who was on my side after all.’
When she met the person she had longed for more than anyone else, and realized that she could undo the thing she regretted more than anything else, what naturally blazed up inside Vanessa’s heart was a desire for revenge.
Her father had always covered his forehead.
When she was young, an arrow she had foolishly shot without knowing any better had grazed above her father’s eyebrow, leaving a scar. The reason he continued to keep it covered was also because he was afraid she might worry about what had happened when she was young.
The moment Vanessa caught sight of the scar peeking through his disheveled hair as he hurried toward her, she became certain that this was not magic.
No one besides her knew about the scar on her father’s forehead.
Moreover, the only person who might have been capable of casting such magic on her was her mother-in-law. If it had been her, her father’s face would not look the way it did now.
She had heard that one of the unspoken laws of magic was that it could not create something the caster did not know for certain.
Therefore, she really had traveled back in time.
And she was incredibly happy about it.
“……You did something wrong and you’re laughing.”
“Because…… I’m so happy.”
“You’re happy about staying out all night?”
Vanessa burst into laughter at his wide-open eyes, which looked as though he might explode in anger at any moment.
“No.”
To hide the tears that had slightly gathered in her eyes, she gently curved her eyes into a smile. Seeing the soft curve of her eyes, the duke quietly looked at her face.
“…I’m just so happy to see you, Father.”
“…….”
“When you leave home…… it really is hard.”
“You’re such a fool. I spoiled you too much. If you learned what hardship was after only one day away from the estate, then I must have raised my daughter far too pampered.”
He said it in a deliberately stern voice, but to Vanessa, it sounded like nothing more than her father’s little complaint.
“Really. And speaking of that……”
Vanessa was about to continue, but the duke interrupted her.
“I would like to hear about what you experienced as well, Vanett. But your…… future husband has been waiting in the drawing room for quite some time.”
At the sudden mention of her “future husband,” Vanessa’s eyes widened.
“Future husband……?”
“……The eldest son of the Marquess of Leonard.”
Her father frowned with displeasure before letting out a small sigh.
“I didn’t realize you placed so much meaning on being friends with that boy since childhood.”
“…….”
“Were you so upset by my saying that you could not marry that fellow that you couldn’t even bear to come home?”
At his gentle, soothing tone, Vanessa furrowed her brows.
“What…… Who said that?”
“If you weren’t the one who complained about being upset, how else would that fellow know about the conversation you and I had?”
No way.
The point in time to which she had returned was……
‘Before my marriage to Carlyle?’
Vanessa barely managed to suppress the corners of her lips from curling upward.
She could turn everything back!
Right. Only now did she remember.
Why she had spent the night away from home at this particular time.
And what consequences that night away from home had brought her.
“……I wasn’t objecting to the two of you meeting and developing feelings for each other.”
“…….”
“I only opposed it because I wanted you to meet a better man. That fellow…….”
