Louisa scolded him with a worried face.

“How are you going to get back home?”

“Don’t worry. I can always take a cab or call Paul if I need to.”

Edward rang the bell to call the waiter.

After emptying one glass like that, he ordered a whole bottle of wine, as if planning to drink more.

Louisa gasped and said,

“Ed. Even for you, drinking too much is dangerous. You have a long way to go.”

“It’s fine. If worst comes to worst, I can stay at any hotel for a night and go tomorrow.”

There was no rebuttal to his nonchalant words.

Edward’s glass was filled with new wine, and he downed it again in one gulp.

Louisa watched it with great concern.

Edward’s gaze fell on the table flowers. Although artificial, small yellow baby’s breath and large white roses were modestly arranged together.

“Louisa. Do you remember that painting?”

“Which painting?”

“The one I painted of us together on your birthday.”

As soon as she heard it, Louisa recalled the portrait from that day, which remained a faint memory.

“Of course I remember.”

“You thought I would throw it away, didn’t you?”

Edward looked at her with sadness in his eyes. Though his gaze had softened a bit from the alcohol, various emotions were tangled within.

Somehow, he looked pitiful. Louisa took a sip of wine to wet her throat.

“Mrs. Johnson must have told you. That’s right.”

“Why… did you do that?”

“When you got so angry at the suggestion of hanging it in the drawing room, I thought you must have hated that painting.”

“Why did you think I would hate it?”

Louisa felt a sense of déjà vu in this situation. It felt like their conversation from just minutes ago was repeating.

“Well… because you got angry.”

Edward smiled bitterly.

“You know, I realized something this time.”

He recalled what he had learned through the days without Louisa.

My pride was so important, but it wasn’t more important than you.

He looked into Louisa’s eyes steadily and said,

“How could I throw away a canvas with you painted on it? That’s not it.”

He painfully revealed the inferiority complex tightly coiled within him.

“I just… when I see that, I’m reminded of those times when I couldn’t even take a proper photo of you. It’s evidence of my poverty and incompetence.”

Edward kept drinking wine instead of eating his meal.

“I really didn’t want to say this, of all things…”

As he said that, his shoulders looked especially slumped as he just kept drinking listlessly.

Edward had a resigned expression. If sound could be heard, it would likely be a sigh mixed with exhaustion and no strength at all, that kind of face.

Louisa felt deeply sorry for this man who had lived embracing guilt alone, thinking that even memories of happy times had caused her misfortune.

“You are truly too kind.”

Tears welled up in Louisa’s eyes. Her pupils trembled.

“You live carrying burdens that aren’t your own because you’re a kind person.”

“That can’t be.”

Edward shook his head.

“I’m the bastard who pushed you until you broke. No different from Benjamin Allen. A disastrous man.”

She gently clasped her husband’s hand.

“No. I loved you because you were such a responsible and kind person.”

The warmth of his wife’s hand transmitted through his palm. Edward felt tears suddenly welling up.

They had resolved their misunderstandings, but the emotions were still in the past tense.

There was still much he wanted to say, but his wife didn’t seem like she would allow that opportunity.

“That’s why I can say this even more certainly. You’re different from your father. The biggest proof is that you’ve come to me like this, even if belatedly, to open up.”

The blue eyes he loved looked directly into his tear-filled ones.

“He ran away, and you didn’t.”

But Edward thought,

If the result was hurting you, then in the end, he and I are no different.

The two only got up after all the other couples had left.

Louisa, who found Edward quite untrustworthy after he had drunk a fair amount, finally came out to the street saying she would hail a cab herself.

Edward, who had walked out steadily on two feet, pulled her back from where she was standing close to the road.

Louisa turned to look at Edward standing above her. He spoke slowly and clearly.

“I’m telling you, you don’t have to go that far.”

“If someone hadn’t drunk so much that they needed to go that far, I wouldn’t have had to.”

It sounded like words spoken with a bit of anger. Edward closed his mouth.

As Louisa glanced at him slightly and turned her gaze back to the approaching cars, Edward blocked her way and said,

“The sun has already set, and if I go alone, it means you’ll have to go home alone in this dark night. So let’s either go to your house, or if not that, then to Lord Everett’s house.”

Louisa looked at her husband very disapprovingly. Nevertheless, when he didn’t back down, she sighed and said,

“Alright. Then just to my house. But after we arrive, you must absolutely take a cab to a hotel.”

“I was going to do that even if you didn’t say so.”

Edward held out his arm. Louisa looked at it with quite displeased eyes but still took her husband’s arm.

The two walked down the street where the cold night air had settled.

It was the first time since leaving Greenburgh that the two were walking together at night like this.

The smell of the road and dust piercing the nostrils instead of the scent of earth. Silence continuing instead of chatting about the day’s events.

It wasn’t like the old days when they would walk playfully swinging their clasped hands, but the two were simultaneously lost in nostalgia, recalling the same memories.

It wasn’t long to Louisa’s house. Edward, who stopped in front of the flat gray building that appeared after walking for a short while, looked up at it with a shocked expression and said,

“Don’t tell me you’re staying here?”

The lights of the first-floor store were already off, so it was dark near the building. Louisa, who couldn’t see Edward, instead of answering the question, said while taking out her key,

“Now that we’re here, just take a cab as soon as one comes and go. I plan to go in after you leave.”

“No, if you stay in a place like this…”

Edward looked at her with a bewildered expression. He hadn’t known his wife was staying in a multi-family building rather than a detached house with a yard.

There was no small vegetable garden his wife liked here, no tea table set with lush flowers and trees…

“Did Lord Everett really get you a place like this?”

Edward put a hand to his forehead. Of course, Louisa, who couldn’t properly see him speaking, gave no answer.

Just then, a cab approached from afar. Louisa waved her arm forward so the cab could see.

The rushing car slowed down and approached where they were. Louisa turned to Edward and said,

“Then take care, Ed.”

It was really time to part now. Edward looked at the gray building with shocked eyes, then at Louisa with regretful eyes.

When would he see her again after this miraculous day passed?

But he had already been greedy enough. There were certainly stories left unresolved, but asking for more than this today would be nothing more than his own greed.

As the car stopped in front of them, Edward opened the rear door of the cab. As he got in, Louisa waved her hand slightly from beyond the car window. Edward also waved back at his wife, gazing at her intently.

“Any hotel… near here.”

The driver who received the destination started the car. As the car began to move, his wife grew farther away.

He turned his body to look at his retreating wife. His wife, who had been staring intently at the vehicle he was in, finally turned her back and went into the house when she became smaller than a finger.

His wife was no longer visible.

Edward closed his eyes.

In the darkness with light blocked out, he searched for his wife.

Louisa, who had closed the door and come in, put her hand on her chest and let out a big sigh.

Perhaps because she had been out all day and just returned, the house was chilly. She first lit a fire in the fireplace.

As the firewood caught fire, small sparks flew with a crackling sound. She sat on the small sofa placed where the warmth of the fireplace reached.

Louisa stared blankly at the fireplace. As she watched the flickering flames, her heart also wavered.

Her husband and she knew so little about each other.

Unknowingly hurting each other, their scarred hearts festering and bursting.

“What should I do with that poor man…”

Louisa endlessly stared at the flickering light of the fireplace. And so she spent the night.

The weekend came around again.

It was a rare, fine day with fluffy clouds floating in the sky.

Louisa was looking at the rapidly passing cityscape through the train window.

‘It’s such a strange thing.’

She was lost in thought, recalling their previous date.

She learned that even the times she considered memories were times that reminded him of pain.

So it only became clear that if she stayed by his side, he would inevitably be further from happiness…

‘And yet his words and actions, as if he actually loved me…’

With such sorrowful eyes and gestures that she could mistake it as such, he looks at her as if that alone were the truth.

Just then, a familiar scenery entered her view. It seemed to be time to get off now. Daniel tapped her to call her attention.

“Louisa. Let’s get off now.”

The two had come up to the capital, Lindburm, to see the formal attire for the previously promised Portland Duke’s return party.

Their current destination was Everett’s townhouse.

It had been so long since she last went there that she couldn’t even remember when it was.

It was the first time since childhood. After the family’s downfall, they didn’t have the means to maintain the townhouse. The place the siblings were heading to now was one they had bought back after selling it before.

Moreover, when she returned to the capital, it was already after marrying Edward. For that reason, there hadn’t been any occasion to stay at the Everett family townhouse in the meantime.

The butler of the Everett mansion greeted the two as they got out of the cab.

“Master. I’m sorry to do this as soon as you arrive, but this.”

He approached Daniel right away and held out a small piece of paper.