CHAPTER 190: THE TRUTH BETWEEN THEM

The furnishings reflected her taste.

A carved table with delicate patterns on its edges and legs, silk-covered chairs to match, embroidered sofas, and finely crafted benches.

By the fireplace, several large cushions were scattered.

Behind the counter, shelves displayed polished glassware and bottles of liquor.

"Would you like something to drink?"

She rang a small bell and a young maid who is barely twenty appeared. The girl went to the counter and began preparing drinks.

"Are there no guests today?" Gabrant asked.

At that question, Ashe gave a faint self-deprecating smile.

"I am no longer young, Gabrant. The wild parties of the past only leave me tired now. These days, only young musicians or budding painters stay here from time to time. Aspiring artists often live in poverty until their talent blooms. I like to think I can help them, even just a little."

The maid returned and handed Gabrant a glass of strong liquor with ice.

He wondered whether Ashe had remembered his preference and instructed the maid, or if it was only coincidence.

"And... what became of them?" Gabrant asked hesitantly. "The children, I mean."

It was an awkward subject, one he had long avoided. He had heard rumors once—that she had borne children. But now, in this villa, there was no trace of them. The house was silent.

Ashe looked at him in surprise. Then, softly, she broke into amused laughter.

"Those children were my maids’ little ones. Many of my attendants were once ladies-in-waiting from the royal palace and they were all beautiful. Most of the gentlemen who visited my salon only came for them, not me. At one time, yes, the villa was filled with children running about. But those were not mine, Gabrant. What a strange misunderstanding you’ve carried all these years. I suppose I never corrected it. Perhaps I even encouraged it. Maybe it was my way of returning the pain my unfaithful husband caused me."

Heat rushed to Gabrant’s face. He had never been told this version of the story. Ashe must have known how easily it could be misunderstood and she had let the rumors spread unchecked. Perhaps it had been her silent revenge for his betrayals.

"And the maids themselves?" he asked. "I see none of them here now."

"They all left long ago. Some grew weary of this quiet country life and returned to the city. Others married and built happy households. A few of them sometimes come here to visit me now and then, bringing their children or even grandchildren. One in particular... she regrets deeply how mistaken she was back then. She has confessed as much to me."

Ashe lifted her glass and took a sip of her cocktail. Her gaze drifted out to the flowerbeds, still sparse with early greenery.

As Gabrant looked at her profile in the afternoon light, he felt his chest tighten. For the first time, he thought she looked tired.

Gabrant had always believed that Ashe had lived a dazzling life.

He had thought she spent her days freely, enjoying herself however she pleased.

However, now, he began to realize that much of what he had heard about her had never been true.

Those stories had been rumors—false images.

She had not been happy at all.

She had abandoned the child she had given birth to, left the capital she knew so well, and shut herself away in a secluded estate deep in the woods like some recluse.

He wondered suddenly if she had ever truly laughed from her heart during all those years.

"General... you never came to me," Ashe murmured, her eyes drifting far away as she spoke, almost as if to herself. "Even when such damaging rumors spread about me, rumors that made it so easy to misunderstand me, you never came to question me."

She drew a small, bitter breath.

"I waited for you. Truly, I believed I should have gone to you myself. But I was young, and foolish, and proud. You know... I admired you, General. The way you looked when you returned in triumph—so strong, so noble. All the young women admired you. I thought I was lucky to be the one who married you."

Ashe turned back toward him with a mischievous expression and for a fleeting moment Gabrant saw the sparkling face of the young girl she had once been.

His heart began to beat faster, like a drum.

"Sometimes I hear rumors from the capital," she went on softly. "They say Dominic resembles you. They say the girls admire him now the way they once admired you."

But her eyes turned again to the glass windows, toward the pale early-spring sky where thin clouds drifted slowly.

"I was still a child then. I knew nothing. I was ignorant. Life in that manor was so different from life in the royal palace. I had no real understanding of what it meant to be a wife. I only dreamed of the happy marriages described in stories. I did not understand reality. In that house, I grew restless, cramped, always feeling something was missing, always full of dissatisfaction. Sometimes I even imagined the servants were laughing at me because I was so useless. And in society, I had become the wife of a viscount. I was now expected to show courtesy to those who had once bowed to me. At the time, it all felt unbearable. I was a fool."

Her words fell softly, but each one struck Gabrant like a quiet weight, revealing how much of her life he had never seen.

Her profile looked as if she were swallowing down something bitter, her face tight with pain. But Gabrant could not bring himself to say a single word to her. Back then, he had never noticed the struggles or the hardships she had been carrying. He had not even tried to notice them.

"The maids," Ashe went on quietly, "only added fuel to my fire. They kept whispering complaints and stirring up dissatisfaction, constantly criticizing the Beaumont house. Yes... now I can see clearly that their behavior was arrogant and disgraceful. But at the time, I couldn’t even control them. I was blind, too proud of my own rank to see anything. In the end, it was all my own failings. I failed as your wife. I failed as a mother."