Chapter 4
The cost of the carriage fare had been quite steep, but it didn’t matter.
As a port city, Yul had plenty of transients, and it seemed like the perfect place to make a quick getaway if needed. That was precisely why she had chosen it.
“Wow…”
Of course, that wasn’t the only reason Belle had insisted on coming to Yul. She had never seen the ocean before, not even once in her life.
The sight of the sea for the first time was breathtakingly blue and refreshing. The unfamiliar mix of salty and fishy scents lingered in the air, but it felt surprisingly invigorating.
“It’s amazing…”
The coachman dropped her off at a popular beach often frequented by tourists, and it was everything she had hoped for. The sensation of the soft, sinking sand beneath her feet and open sea were a feast for the senses.
After wandering along the sandy shore for a while, Belle found herself a decent lodging.
She planned to stay here for some time, working and living, so she asked the innkeeper to recommend a good guild for finding work.
Just as she was about to head out to locate the guild, someone rushed into the inn and collided with her. The impact was hard enough to send Belle to the ground, her shoulder aching from the collision.
At that moment, another vision of the future appeared before her eyes.
“Ian Rothiers.”
The menacing voice of her father-in-law, Avalon Rothiers, called out to a man with a cold glare. Standing beside him in the vision was herself—Belle Agrita.
That brief collision had only given her a glimpse of what was to come, but it was enough to strike fear into her heart.
Ian Rothiers.
The name belonged to her second brother-in-law, whom she had rarely heard mentioned since her marriage.
Belle stared at the man in front of her as if entranced. He bore no resemblance to her brother-in-law, yet the sudden vision couldn’t simply be a coincidence.
Could this man possibly be Ian?
“I’m so sorry. Are you alright?”
The man, oblivious to Belle’s internal turmoil, reached out a hand to help her up, his expression flustered.
She knew he meant for her to take his hand and stand, but to her, it seemed as if the hand reaching toward her was that of a ghost trying to drag her away.
Forcing herself up with her own hands, she avoided his assistance and quickly brushed past him.
“Hey, wait!”
He called out behind her, but she ignored him and hurried away, silently pleading for him to let her go.
Her desperate prayer, however, went unanswered.
“Excuse me!”
The man chased after her and grabbed her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks.
From his perspective, she had ignored him after he had apologized and even offered his help, which must have seemed rude.
But the moment he touched her, another unwanted vision flashed before her eyes.
“What’s going on here? Why are you with Belle?”
Her father-in-law’s puzzled expression as he looked between her and the man. Behind him, Cedric stood pale-faced.
“Is something wrong? Is there something on my face?”
The man’s voice snapped her out of her vision.
But the woman standing next to Cedric in the vision wasn’t Deloni.
What kind of situation had she just witnessed? The fragments of the future were too disjointed to piece together.
And why was she with this man when she returned to Rothiers?
More importantly, if this man really was Ian Rothiers, was their encounter truly a coincidence?
Would she end up being dragged back to Rothiers by him?
“N-no, I’m sorry!” Belle stammered, trembling.
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”
“Ah, no! It’s because I ignored you earlier. You must be angry, right?”
“Hmm…”
The man stared at her intently without answering.
Did he recognize her?
But how could he? Ian had never once set foot in the Rothiers estate during the two years she had lived there.
Not a single word about him had reached her ears in all that time.
She had only ever seen his face in a portrait.
And even that portrait had been painted when he was a child. If she were to see him now, she wouldn’t recognize him—if not for the visions of the future that flashed before her.
“S-Sorry. I was just so startled,” Belle stammered, her voice trembling as she tried to apologize. She took a step back, inching away from the man.
But he chuckled softly and said, “Can I ask why someone who’s supposed to be dead is standing here?”
“W-What? I don’t understand what you mean…”
Her eyes trembled violently.
There’s no way he recognizes her. That’s impossible.
He’s never seen her before, not even once.
Suppressing her racing heart, Belle forced herself to meet his gaze confidently.
“If you’re trying to fool me, you might want to work on your poker face,” he said with a sly smile.
But it seemed she still wasn’t good at concealing her emotions.
“No, you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” she insisted.
“Rothiers.”
“…”
If the name *Rothiers* hadn’t come out of his mouth, Belle might have been able to keep lying. But the mere mention of that name made it impossible for her to maintain her composure.
“Or should I say, Cedric’s wife, Belle Rothiers? Or have you already discarded that name, now that you’re supposed to be dead?”
“…”
“It’s true, isn’t it? I’m Ian Rothiers. This is our first time meeting, isn’t it?”
The man introduced himself with a warm smile, far too calm for someone claiming to have met a woman publicly declared dead.
—
Ian seemed absolutely certain that she was Belle Agrita.
“H-how…”
How did he recognize me?
“I keep up with the affairs of the Rothiers family,” he explained casually.
According to him, though he had left the family, he still kept an eye on them through the newspapers. Naturally, he had seen her photograph in articles about her marriage to Cedric.
“That was two years ago…”
“I have a good memory,” Ian replied with a grin.
His cheerful demeanor made her feel something was off.
Ian was rumored to be the disgrace of the Rothiers family and just as much a scoundrel as Cedric. Yet his tone and behavior seemed polite and refined.
He was said to be a massive troublemaker. If that were true, wouldn’t he have been harsher with her?
At that moment, the two of them were still standing in the inn’s hallway, facing off.
Just then, the inn door opened, and a new guest entered. The innkeeper glanced at the two of them and said pointedly, “If you know each other, take your conversation somewhere else!”
“…Ah.”
Embarrassed, Belle took a step back. Unsure of what to do, she hesitated. Ian, noticing this, gestured toward her. “I know a place. Follow me.”
She didn’t want to follow him, but it didn’t seem like he would let her go, so she had no choice.
“Don’t look so scared,” Ian said.
“…”
“I’m not planning to inform the family.”
As if I could believe that.
In the vision I saw, I was clearly with him when I returned to the family.
“I’m not exactly in a position to judge, either,” he added.
He led her to a quiet café, though it looked more like an old, worn-down pub than a café.
“Chase? What’s with the lady?” the bartender asked as they entered.
“Just ran into someone I know,” Ian replied casually.
“Someone you know?”
“Yeah. Now buzz off, we need to talk.”
Their banter seemed far too irreverent for someone claiming to be the second son of a duke.
Belle glanced around nervously, clearly out of place in such an establishment.
Chase.
So he was living under a false name as well.
Ian climbed the stairs to the second floor and entered the room at the very end of the hall. Belle hesitated, unable to shake her unease, but eventually forced herself to follow.
The thought of being alone in a small room with a man was suffocating.
But this man isn’t Cedric. It’ll be fine.
Repeating this to herself like a mantra, she slowly stepped into the room.
“Since you seem so guarded, how about I start by telling you a bit about myself?”
Ian, sitting at the table, smiled slyly as he spoke.
“As I said earlier, I’m Ian Rothiers, the second son of the Duke. As you can see, I severed ties with my family and have been living as a wanderer for the past few years. The truth is, I’m also a bastard born from my father’s affair.”
A bastard?
I had always known him as the second son, but I never imagined he was different from Cedric or that his mother was not the same as Cedric’s.
“Because of that, I’ve been hated quite a lot,” he continued with a casual tone.
Thinking of my mother-in-law, I could understand. She’d done plenty of terrible things to me, so how much worse would it have been for Ian, the child born outside of marriage?
“As I lived, I started getting annoyed about why I had to live that way. So, I cut ties and left. But my father kept looking for me.”
“…Why?”
“Because my older brother is such a troublemaker. You know? You was his wife, after all.”
That’s why they still hadn’t officially chosen a successor, wasn’t it? Perhaps Avalon Rothiers had always considered Ian, not Cedric, as the next Duke?
“But I have no intention of going back. If my father hadn’t been looking for me, I would’ve settled down and lived a normal life.”
Does this mean I’m going to get caught and dragged back with him?
No, if it was a matter of being found, the Duke wouldn’t have questioned me so casually when he saw me.
In other words, it’s likely that I walked back on my own accord.
Why is that?
“Anyway, that’s enough about me. Now, could you explain how the second wife, who was supposed to be dead, is still alive and how she ended up here?”
“But… why are we having this conversation?”
“…Because I’m curious.”
I knew he had no intention of pretending he didn’t know, so I wasn’t surprised that he got this far, but his reason was so simple and absurd.
“It’s not hard to talk about, but… I’d rather we just pretend we don’t know each other. Whether I ran away or whatever I did, I don’t want to be involved with the Rothiers family anymore… I hope you understand.”
“…I see. But, I can’t resist my curiosity, so I’d really like to hear the story.”
Ian shrugged his shoulders and answered with a grin.
Having met a Rothiers person in Yul, I figured I should either take a ship further inland or move to another city.
With that thought in mind, I said,
“…My husband… I mean, Cedric… he tried to kill me.”
