< 2.Their wedding news >
“Master, I have gathered the invitations you need to look at here.”
Hubert handed a bundle of invitations to Sergey, whose face was filled with disinterest.
“You’ve already read through them, haven’t you? Just filter them out yourself.”
“Was your promise to fulfill your duties as Count of Lindell nothing more than an empty check? Lady Elaine trusts only you…”
“Oh, I was just saying! Give it to me!”
Sergey glared at Hubert, who would often mention Elaine and threaten him, but he did not punish him or refuse to do any work.
After all, that was also a promise he had made to Elaine.
“Hah… Don’t these people ever get tired? Parties, gatherings, every day… Hm?”
As Sergey lazily flipped through the invitations, he absentmindedly tossed one aside before suddenly picking it back up.
“Huh…? Lorina Dardil… isn’t she that annoying woman?”
“Ah, you mean the wicked lady who tormented Lady Elaine.”
“Yeah, that’s her. I almost wanted to chew her up. And now she’s getting married?”
But her groom wasn’t Lark Newt.
Well, it wasn’t surprising. News of their broken engagement had been a hot topic in high society for a while.
“The groom is the second son of the Viscount Roan.”
Aside from looking much older than Lorina, Sergey didn’t recall much about him—just an ordinary man.
Although he was neither as handsome nor as young as Lark Newt, the Viscount Roan family was a very prestigious family.
“It’s been about a year since her engagement with Lark Newt was called off, right?”
“Most likely. It must have happened not long after that damned dragon perished and both families’ titles were demoted.”
“It hasn’t even been that long, yet she already found a new partner. She claimed to love Lark so much that she tormented poor Elaine… What a joke…”
Sergey clicked his tongue.
To him, human love was still a concept he could not fully understand.
They claimed to love someone yet tormented them, acting as if their love would last a thousand years only to change their hearts in one.
How many couples get married with passionate love, only to end up looking at each other with cold indifference?
‘Elaine… is it really okay for her to promise eternity with me?’
Once again, Sergey found himself trapped in a familiar, unanswerable question.
Even after confirming his feelings with Elaine and becoming engaged, that thought haunted him from time to time.
Perhaps now, he was beginning to understand why Elaine had once pushed him away.
‘There are many things between mortals and immortals that they cannot fully understand each other.’
It was inevitable.
Elaine was born human and could not truly grasp the concept of ‘immortality.’
On the other hand, Rabes was born a dragon and struggled to comprehend ideas like ‘impossibility’ or ‘limited time.’
And among all these concepts, ‘love’ was the hardest.
The emotions humans called ‘love’ came in so many forms.
Sergey was always confused about which one should be considered the ‘standard’.
“Master… don’t tell me you plan to attend that wedding?”
Seeing Sergey lost in thought while holding Lorina’s invitation, Hubert asked in confusion.
“Am I crazy?… No, wait. I have to let Elaine know first.”
Sergy pushed the invitation aside and checked the others.
He left out a couple of invitations that he knew he would attend and told Hubert to write a letter of refusal to the ones he could not attend.
“I need to talk to Elaine.”
Waving Lorina’s invitation teasingly at the displeased-looking Hubert, Sergey left his office.
He headed straight to Elaine’s room.
“Elaine.”
“Ah, Sergey! Come in.”
Elaine was combing the hair of her porcelain doll, Sarah.
The way she cherished the gifts he had given her always gave Sergey a pleasant feeling.
Sergey sat down next to her, grinning.
“Lorina Dardil is getting married.”
“Huh? Lorina?”
Sergey handed Lorina’s invitation to Elaine.
“She’s marrying the second son of Viscount Roan family. His wealth can’t compare to that of Viscount Newt, but it’s still a fairly reputable family.”
Elaine took the invitation out of the envelope, read it through, and then put it back in the envelope with a complicated expression.
Sergey sneered.
“That girl was so obsessed with you because of Lark Newt, yet she’s marrying someone else just a year after breaking off her engagement. What on earth is this love that girl was talking about? I can’t understand it.”
However, Elaine couldn’t bring herself to mock Lorina the way Sergey did.
“This marriage is proof that Lorina still cares about Lark.”
“Huh? Marrying another man so quickly is proof of that?”
Elaine sighed softly.
“Lark… will probably get married around the end of this year.”
“So what?”
“If Lorina gets married before Lark, she’ll feel a little less miserable.”
Sergey still looked like he couldn’t understand.
Finally, Elaine added a bitter explanation.
“If Lorina marries after Lark, it’ll seem like she clung to him until the very end, only to be abandoned. But if she marries first, she can at least preserve some of her dignity.”
“I just don’t get it. What’s the point of that so-called dignity?”
“If she insists she wasn’t abandoned, she can still hold her head high in aristocratic society, where people love to tear others apart. And this is just my guess, but I think her parents pressured her into it too.”
They probably thought that if she married before Lark, they could secure a better match for her.
That reasoning made more sense to Sergey.
Then, something else came to his mind.
“Wait… so Lark is getting married too?”
“Yeah. I heard it from Her Majesty while having tea with her the other day.”
Now that Anais was Emperor, she invited Elaine for tea every month or two as a gesture of hospitality.
They usually exchanged lighthearted conversations, but the last time, Anais had hesitated before carefully informing her:
“It seems that Viscount Newt will be getting married sometime later this year. His fiancee is Nella Paroli, the eldest daughter of Count Paroli.”
It was an unexpected pairing.
But after some thought, Elaine realized it was a mutually beneficial arrangement.
Count Paroli likely coveted the wealth of the Newt family, while Viscount Newt, whose title had been downgraded due to disgrace, needed Count Paroli’s aristocratic connections and ties to foreign royalty.
‘That’s so like Lark….’
After Sasha Haberon was executed, the families involved in her schemes were punished to varying degrees.
Thanks to Lark’s careful maneuvering after the death of Rubaine Newt, the Newt family had managed to survive with only a title demotion and a payment of compensation.
After that, Lark broke off his marriage with Lorina, as if he was not satisfied with the Dardill family that had become the Baron, and seemed to focus solely on the family’s business.
‘Looks like he spent that time searching for a beneficial match.’
Elaine got goosebumps thinking about him, how he was so calculating and yet showed such a strange obsession with her, telling her, “You’re mine.”
If she hadn’t returned to the past and had ended up with Lark, she might have been locked away in the Newt family’s annex like her mother.
Even now, she wasn’t sure what Lark’s feelings for her had really been.
* * *
A few days later, Elaine attended a party hosted by Count Armand—and unexpectedly ran into Lark.
It had been over a year since they last met. He looked even more distant and more depressed than before.
Elaine was going to pretend not to know him, but she thought it would be more awkward, so she gave a brief greeting.
“It’s been a while, Viscount Newt.”
“Elaine….”
Elaine didn’t answer.
Only then did Lark seem to realize his mistake, quickly correcting himself.
“Baron Riel.”
The title still sounded unfamiliar, but Elaine lifted her chin confidently.
“I heard you’re getting married. Congratulations.”
This time there was no answer from Lark.
His sunken eyes seemed to swirl with emotions—resentment, regret, or something else entirely.
“I think the Count Paroli family would get along well with the Viscount Newt family. I wish both of your families prosperity and happiness.”
Once, she had loved him. After her return, she resented and even hated him.
But now he was someone Elaine didn’t really care about.
That was why she could offer such well wishes.
However, upon hearing her words, Lark’s expression hardened terrifyingly.
“Do you really mean that?”
“Hmm… Yes. I just hope you do well.”
“Hah….”
Lark closed his eyes tightly, as if trying to suppress a painful pressure in his chest.
‘I didn’t want to receive your congratulations.’
He had tried to push those emotions down, but the moment he saw Elaine standing before him, it was all for nothing.
Her light green eyes still shone as brightly as ever. Her honey-colored hair was neatly pinned up, her cheeks glowed with a lovely warmth, and her lips were soft and pink, like watery cherries.
‘She’s even more beautiful than before.’
Unlike before, when she seemed like just an innocent girl, she now had the air of a considerably mature and calm woman.
Lark had sensed she had changed, yet his heart still pounded for her.
But now he also knew that he could not confess his feelings.
“Thanks…”
That was the only answer he could give.
Elaine would never know the real reason he had set his wedding date earlier than hers and Sergey’s.
‘Otherwise, there would have been many people who wouldn’t have believed that I had forgotten you.’
After hearing the news of Sergey and Elaine’s engagement from Lorina, he fell into despair for a while, but he was the head of the struggling Newt family.
He had quickly calculated the best move, found the most advantageous match, and ensured that his wedding was scheduled before Elaine’s.
Count Paroli’s family was the best match he could have gotten.
“I wish you happiness.”
But to that final farewell, he could not respond so easily.
Because there’s no way he could be happy marrying any other woman but Elaine.
He maintains a vague relationship with that woman whose face he can’t even remember exactly, and he just fulfills his duties and responsibilities.
He will continue his married life. A life without love.
That was the punishment given to him.
“You…, be happy.”
Lark returned the answer with regret and resentment and turned his gaze away from Elaine.
He knew that although they might occasionally encounter each other like that throughout their lives, he would never get any closer to Elaine than that distance.
Elaine, too, gave a small nod before stepping away from him.
“Elaine! Where have you been?”
Sergey, who had been dragged away by Count Armand and had to have a boring conversation, was approaching Elaine.
Elaine smiled brightly at him.
“Just went to say goodbye.”
Elaine’s face, having said her final goodbyes to a past that had completely ended, glowed with relief.
* * *
