IGRA Chapter 88

“Your Grace, I will enter.”

Philip opened the door and went inside. Even though he had knocked for a long time without any response, Daryl was sitting blankly at his desk. An empty bottle and glass were on the desk.

“…Your Grace.”

Daryl showed no reaction. His unfocused eyes and motionless body were like a person who had been stuffed in that place.

“A letter has arrived from Count Saunders. It seems to be the letter you mentioned before.”

At those words, Daryl’s fingertips twitched faintly. Philip cleared away the bottle and glass, and placed a thick letter in their place.

“As you instructed, I did not open the inside. Please check it yourself.”

Philip bowed his head and left the office. Daryl slowly reached out to the letter. And without using a paper knife, he roughly tore the edge of the envelope.

[To Daryl.

I told Douglas not to deliver this letter if you do not marry Eleanor. If you are reading this letter, it means you have accepted my will.

You were a child who grew up quickly, and I hardly had to take care of you while raising you. Because of that, Anthony and Layla felt like brats.

All the other family members resented me because of the Townsend family, but you never said anything until the end. Of course, that doesn’t mean I think you didn’t harbor any complaints against me. At least for the year until my death and this letter arrived, you must have resented me a lot.

I believe you must have wondered why this father left such a will for you, and why there was no explanation. And why this letter arrived a year later, I will explain all of that from now on.

First, I will write why I sponsored the Townsend family over the years. It is not, as suspected by the world, that I had an illicit relationship with the late LadyTownsend. Eleanor is definitely the daughter of the former Earl of Dashwood. This is an undeniable fact. I can swear on everything I have. But I had a reason to support her and her mother despite all the rumors and opposition from our family. You know well that I was more devoted to hunting than any other hobby. And not light sports like fox hunting in groups, but serious hunting where I track prey alone in deep forests or mountains. That was the only time when I could forget everything else and be completely alone.

There was a deer called Silverhorn. According to rumors, it was 1.5 times larger than ordinary deer and had splendid antlers. It was called Silverhorn because its antlers were slightly silvery. It was so agile and elusive that no one could catch Silverhorn. It was a kind of legendary deer among hunters.

At that time, I was constantly chasing a Silverhorn with the intention of hunting it with my own hands. That day, too, I was tracking Silverhorn alone. It was neither within the Duke’s territory nor a legally recognized hunting ground, but I didn’t care.

People who knew me would have been surprised if they knew this. Because I’ve always walked the path that everyone believes is right. Even when I was young, I had never experienced even a minor deviation. But such a belief was never born out of a pure heart.

People said I had everything, but I was never happy. All that existed in my life was emptiness.

The fact that I am confessing now is something I have never confided to anyone else.

I don’t know the emotion called love. I’ve never loved anyone in my life. Not my parents who gave birth to me and raised me, not my sister Cecilia who was always like a mother, not my only wife Edith, and not even my children, including you, with whom I share blood.

You might be shocked by my confession. I kept thinking that maybe you knew. When I was wearing a false smile without my heart, only you looked at me with a quiet gaze. At those times, I was swept up in the urge to confess everything to you. For some reason, I felt like you, whom I saw myself, would understand me.

Everyone said your temperament was like Edith’s, but only I knew that wasn’t true. You were the most like me among the three children. You inherited my inner self, which was as empty and frozen as a winter wasteland. The only difference between you and me was whether you intended to hide that fact or not.

Sometimes I envied your freedom. I couldn’t stand the jealousy of being able to show your true self in front of others without any hesitation.

I lived my whole life in the shackles that others put on me. Both my father and my sister wanted and believed that I was just perfect. So I’ve been acting like the me they wanted. A perfect son. A perfect brother. A perfect man. And a perfect duke.

But only I knew that I had a major flaw as a human being. When I was a child, I was just like you. I couldn’t interact emotionally with anyone. The reason I changed was because I recognized that as a problem. It was nothing more than imitating the emotions of others by observing them.

The reason I proposed to Edith was partly because she had almost perfectly the qualities needed for a duchess, but the decisive reason was because she declared that ‘she does not want to be loved by her husband’. So I thought I could manage a married life without any problems with Edith. The story has gone too far away. I’ll go back to the original topic.

The thrill of hunting was the most intense pleasure I’ve ever experienced in my life. That’s why I chased the Silverhorn, despite knowing it was illegal. 

I couldn’t stand it, knowing that it contradicted the false image of ‘Frederick Lloyd’ that I had built up over my lifetime.

After a long time and effort, and with a bit of luck, I finally found the Silverhorn. As the rumors said, it was as majestic as it was beautiful. All the characteristics that the hunters talked about matched with it. There was no possibility that I had seen it wrong.

I aimed at Silverhorn and waited for the optimal opportunity. I didn’t know how much time I would have to spend if I missed it here. But the careful shot I fired did not cut off Silverhorn’s breath. But it was by no means a shallow wound. Silverhorn ran away from me, but it couldn’t maintain its original speed. I hurriedly chased after it.

I was so engrossed in catching Silverhorn that I didn’t notice the sound of a carriage running down the hillside road. I aimed and fired the second shot at the moment Silverhorn tried to jump out of the bushes. But this time, it missed. And Silverhorn fell right in front of the oncoming carriage.

If it had hit the running horse or the carriage, it might have been able to avoid a big accident. But because the coachman pulled the reins hard to avoid Silverhorn, the horse’s course was greatly twisted. The carriage fell down the hillside as it was.

The carriage overturned and rolled several times. It wasn’t a very high hill, but it was a height that any person inside wouldn’t be safe. It was even more so because it was a roofless carriage. When I ran and looked down, everyone except one person was under the horse or the carriage.

It happened in an instant. The Silverhorn had already run away and disappeared.

I checked that there were no witnesses and left the place.

I won’t make the excuse that I couldn’t help it because I was flustered. I won’t say that I didn’t think of rescuing them because I naturally thought they were all dead. I clearly intended to cover up the fact that the incident was my responsibility.

So, I couldn’t help but be surprised when I found out that there were survivors in the accident. It seemed that they were rescued by a passerby who happened to pass by not long after.

Considering the scale of the accident, it was nothing short of a miracle that Sylvia Townsend and Eleanor, who was in her womb, survived. But before I could be thankful for that fact, the emotions that hit me were worry and fear.

Would she remember hearing the gunshot just before the accident? Could she have seen my face before or after the accident?

The latter possibility was realistically very slim. But I couldn’t just leave it alone, thinking about the difficulties I might face if I ignored that slim possibility.

So, I visited the Townsend family under the pretext of paying a visit.

Sylvia looked like a person who had lost her soul and was left with only a shell. It wasn’t just because her injuries were severe. It was a natural thing considering the tragedy she had experienced. As it turned out, Sylvia seemed to have lost her parents in a carriage accident even before her marriage.

Sylvia blamed herself severely. She believed that the responsibility for the accident was in her cursed fate, and said that she was a person who should not live. The fact that she confided such words to me, who she had never met before, shows how much her mind was broken.