Chapter 36

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Translator: Harry Potta

Chapter: 36

Chapter Title: Drew the Curtains

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Erna crouched beneath the clock tower, gasping for breath. The thought of taking shelter from the rain inside the station crossed her mind, but her crumbling body refused to obey. Even the weight of the pouring raindrops felt burdensome now.

Pavel hadn't come.

She believed he was just running late due to some circumstance, that he'd arrive soon, but Pavel never showed. Something must have gone wrong. He was not the kind of man to break a promise like this otherwise.

Having reached that conclusion, Erna hurriedly left the station and boarded a carriage heading toward Pavel's home. What if there had been an accident? What if he was ill? What on earth had happened? Her worries chained together endlessly as she arrived at Pavel's house, shrouded in deep darkness. Even pounding on the door with all her strength and calling his name brought no response.

Pavel hadn't come. And Pavel's house was empty.

Erna, plunged into despair, stared out at the rain-swept night street for a long while. What was she supposed to do now? The more she asked herself, the greater her sense of hopelessness and powerlessness grew.

In the end, unable to find an answer, Erna returned to the station. Without the money Pavel had promised to lend her, even returning to Buford wouldn't free her from her father. But she couldn't go back to the Hardy house either—a place she no longer wished to call home—so the station was her only option.

Erna forced her half-closed eyes open and bit down hard on her lip. The pain of the wound reopening sharpened her dulling consciousness.

Get up and go inside the station to wait for Pavel.

Having sorted out what needed to be done step by step, Erna tried to summon strength in her legs to stand. But her body, now wracked with chills and throbbing joints, wouldn't move as she willed.

If Pavel doesn't come by midnight, I'll go back to Buford alone. If the trains have stopped, I'll find a place to stay nearby for the night.

Erna even devised plans for the worst-case scenario. She folded up her completely ruined umbrella, gripped her trunk more firmly, and steadied her feverish breaths.

It's simple. These are such simple things.

Comforting herself, she tried once more with all her might, but Erna still couldn't steady her body. Instead, she lost her balance and collapsed onto the wet ground with a thud. Raindrops sliding down her dazed face looked like tears. Disliking that, she wiped her face with her sleeve, but her thoroughly soaked clothes offered no help.

Erna braced her tilting body with one hand on the ground and squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, the rain had stopped. No—the world was still filled with the sound of pouring rain, but only Erna's rain had ceased. Realizing this, her senses finally returned. A pair of shoes entered her vision. The long shadow cast by the gaslight. The umbrella overhead. And that man.

Erna looked up at the man standing before her, holding an umbrella. It was Prince Biern. Unbelievable, but it was him. While she blinked in confusion, unsure how to process the situation, he knelt down in front of her. The sound of raindrops falling on the umbrella grew closer. His familiar scent and quiet gray eyes were the same.

Thunder rumbling from the distant sky awakened the two, who seemed frozen as if time had stopped.

Erna averted her gaze first. Biern's eyes sharpened as he watched her flinch and lower her head.

Slowly opening his eyes, he reached out and cupped Erna's face. The tremor of the frightened woman transmitted vividly through his fingertips.

With a sigh-laced curse under his breath, Biern cupped her cheek again, this time with far gentler touch. He met her slowly, carefully lifted face. Their eyes locked amid the relentlessly pouring rain.

Biern gazed silently at Erna until her convulsing throat stilled. The clarity in her eyes, no longer avoiding him, was just like that night he thought was their last—by the riverbank during the festival.

Erna gazed at Biern, feeling as if she wandered somewhere between dream and reality.

The carriage rumbling along, the unrelenting rain, her vision clouding with fever, and the man's face within it. It didn't feel real at all, yet too vivid for a dream.

Why did you appear there? Were you looking for me? Why?

Countless questions flickered in her hazy mind, but Erna couldn't voice any. Just struggling to hold onto consciousness was exhausting; she doubted she could speak properly. That was why she had no choice but to obey Biern's command and board the carriage.

"I don't know who you're waiting for, Miss Hardy, but that person isn't coming."

To Erna, who stubbornly refused to go, Biern said in a voice as sharp as the wind and rain.

"That person isn't coming. He abandoned you."

The more Erna tried to deny it, the colder his words grew. The clock tower overlooking them now pointed to midnight. It was the moment the last spark of hope faded from Erna's eyes.

Erna finally succumbed to the intense chills and dizziness, her eyes drifting shut.

A deep sigh escaped Biern's lips as he watched her stubbornly clinging to her dripping hat and cloak. He felt an urge to rip off those cumbersome things immediately, but sensing it might torment her further, he left them be for now.

The moment he saw her bruised and wounded face, Biern understood. Her reason for fleeing her father wasn't just about the marriage dealings. And the source of the merciless violence inflicted on her was likely that scandal.

Erna Hardy's sudden disappearance had coincided with the outbreak of the first scandal. She reappeared about a fortnight later. Considering the time needed for such bruises and wounds to heal without a trace, a chill rage surged within him. To mar the goods that were practically his lifeline—Walter Hardy was equally worthless as a father and a merchant.

He had thought it a perfect transaction, yet he had unexpectedly incurred a debt.

Biern looked at Erna, who had curled into a small, trembling ball, with disconcerted eyes. Her cheeks burned like fireballs, unnaturally red, and her breaths were ragged. It was only natural after wandering through this downpour in such a state.

The one she had desperately awaited was surely a man.

The instant he saw Erna circling and collapsing in front of the clock tower, Biern had a premonition. She had an accomplice aiding her elopement. Most likely a man, who had betrayed her at the last moment.

As his thoughts reached that point, a young painter from the Royal Academy's art exhibition suddenly came to mind. The redheaded, robust man she had so desperately sought. Pavel Roer, if he recalled correctly.

Come to think of it, the princess's man was a poet.

The unexpected memory darkened Biern's gaze. Lars's genius poet, who had received the acclaim and love of the entire continent, had died two years ago before reaching thirty, ascending to the ranks of tragically short-lived genius artists.

Are all does weak to cocksure artist males?

With a cynical chuckle, Biern turned to look out the carriage window. The storm-ravaged deep night streets were empty. Thus, the approaching hoofbeats from the opposite direction rang out all the more clearly.

Biern glanced indifferently in that direction. His once-calm eyes sharpened only when the distance had closed enough to make out the red hair of the man riding toward them from the darkness. The name came sharply to mind. Pavel Roer. The man who had likely planned to elope with the Hardy family's lady.

The situation matched his prediction so perfectly that it drew a smirk from Biern. No—he hadn't abandoned her yet, so at least one thing differed from his guess. Biern didn't particularly like variables like this outside his realm of prediction and control.

Thunder roared loudly from the sky once more.

Erna, who had lost consciousness, startled at the crash and opened her eyes. Her unfocused, dazed gaze wandered the jolting carriage interior before landing on Biern's face. Those lost-child eyes that had occasionally nagged at his nerves.

The moment they turned toward the window, Biern drew the curtain. Almost simultaneously, the mounted man and the carriage passed each other. Erna stared blankly at the curtained window for a moment before losing consciousness again.

Observing the situation now back under his control, Biern closed his eyes and leaned deeply into the seat. The speeding carriage soon arrived at Tara Boulevard, where the Hardy house stood.

The coachman, knocking to announce arrival, was startled twice. Once at the scene beyond the open door, and again at his master's command.

The Hardy lady lay limply asleep, her head pillowed on Biern's lap. She was wrapped in the prince's clothes instead of her ruined cloak and hat. Unlike the flustered coachman, Biern treated it with his usual composure.

That was why the coachman accepted the order without question. In retrospect, it seemed odd, but the commands from the prince's mouth all felt like perfectly reasonable matters.

Isn't this going to cause real trouble?

He hesitated briefly, glancing at the mansion where he should have dropped off the young lady, but ultimately gripped the reins again.

The grand duke's carriage departed, leaving the Hardy house behind, heading north through the city—far from Schwerin Palace.