How Long Can I Keep Hating You
When Blair slightly lifted her head, she saw Herdin’s back. He was wearing a robe as if he had just washed.
He was putting firewood into the fireplace.
Droplets clinging to his wet hair glimmered as they caught the light.
After confirming the fire had caught, Herdin turned toward the bed. :contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0}
Blair closed her eyes, pretending to sleep.
It felt like she should.
The soundless presence approached and stopped in front of the bed, casting a shadow before her eyes.
Soon the weight of someone settling beside her could be felt.
It was a familiar weight, the same one that pressed her down every night as he embraced her.
Blair worried he might wake her, but even after some time passed, Herdin did not move.
When she quietly opened her eyes, she saw his face lying still with his eyes closed.
That face felt unfamiliar.
He always held her greedily until he collapsed asleep himself, and only then would she fall asleep, while he would wake first.
So seeing him lying quietly beside her doing nothing but sleeping felt strangely foreign.
A that was here for her alone, without any benefit to himself.
Suddenly, she remembered the night when she had lit the fireplace herself to prove her innocence.
That night as well, he had stayed by her side.
He was always like this.
Just when she turned away because she no longer wanted to be hurt by his indifference, he would come closer like this and shake her heart.
At the very moment when she needed him most, when her heart had grown weak.
He never missed that opening.
Blair realized that, without her even noticing, the trembling of her body had calmed.
She gave a self-mocking smile.
She could no longer deny that it was because of the man guarding her side.
‘A man who might have killed me.’
And a man who would soon leave her again.
I hate your careless kindness.
I hate that even though I know that kindness is like a spring breeze, I still waver.
When I miraculously turned back time and returned to the past, I had clearly decided that I would never love you again.
I had.
But now…
I’m starting to feel a little uneasy.
How long can I keep hating you?
* * *
That evening, after the sun had completely set, Wesley came out through the side gate of the Baldwin Marquisate.
He looked around repeatedly before stepping onto the main road and hailing a hired carriage.
His behavior was extremely cautious.
“Take me to the club.”
It was his first outing since the hunting tournament.
A few days earlier, the hunting tournament had been halted when Blair went missing.
Ivan, who did not know the full circumstances, simply thought Blair had gotten lost and was displeased.
Herdin had been frantic, tearing through the entire forest searching for Blair.
During that time, Wesley had found and killed the man he had hired for the kidnapping.
Now there was no way to prove he had been involved.
He had borrowed money from Rachel, but unless she confessed her own involvement in the incident, she could never demand the money back.
Even if Herdin suspected him, he could not punish him based only on suspicion.
‘In the end nothing even happened to that woman Blair, and she was rescued safely. Isn’t that enough?’
Thinking that, he felt relieved.
After spending several days staying quietly inside the marquisate out of fear that Herdin might come to capture him, it almost felt ridiculous.
Of course, it was a little regrettable that he had spent money preparing the incident.
‘If I had used that as gambling money, I might have multiplied it quite a bit…’
While Wesley smacked his lips in regret, the carriage arrived at the club.
‘Whatever. I’ll just win today and increase the stake.’
Standing in front of the club, he suddenly felt an unfounded confidence that today he would be the winner.
As always, Wesley entered the club filled with anticipation.
“Well, well. The famous Wesley Baldwin missing club attendance for several days? What’s the occasion?”
“I thought you were sick.”
The group he usually associated with greeted him with laughter.
After exchanging trivial jokes, they naturally took their seats and began a card game.
Wesley received his cards and checked his hand.
His eyes widened.
‘This hand is pretty good…?’
Perhaps it wasn’t just anticipation—he might truly become today’s winner.
His heart began pounding with excitement.
It was even more nerve-wracking than when he had a bad hand.
Anxiously, Wesley received the final card.
The moment he saw it, joy spread across his face.
This was a hand that would be harder to lose than to win.
As Wesley tried to calm his pounding heart and reveal his cards—
A shadow suddenly fell over him.
“Hello, Wesley.”
At Herdin’s sudden appearance, Wesley’s face turned pale.
“A dog might quit eating filth, but how could you ever quit gambling.
Isn’t that right?”
Terrified, Wesley quickly stood up to run, but Herdin would not allow it.
He grabbed Wesley by the head and slammed it onto the card table.
“Argh!”
Frightened by the violent momentum, the club members fled in all directions.
After smashing Wesley’s head against the table a few more times, Wesley finally stopped resisting meaninglessly and went still.
Bending down toward the groaning Wesley, Herdin spoke in a low voice.
“If you try to run the moment you see my face, I have no choice but to be suspicious.”
“That’s because you suddenly accused me of being the culprit and threatened me from that day!”
The respectful attitude he had shown at the hunting tournament had long disappeared.
But from Herdin’s perspective, that was less ridiculous.
Rather than the way he had pretended to flatter him after becoming an adult, despite having mocked his misfortune when they were younger.
Herdin turned Wesley’s head to meet his gaze.
“It was you, wasn’t it?”
Blue flames seemed to burn in his eyes.
Instinctively overwhelmed by that presence, Wesley flinched—but only for a moment.
“Damn it, do you have any proof it was me?”
Herdin looked at Wesley strangely as he brazenly pushed back.
Struggling against the hand gripping his hair, Wesley shouted.
“If you treat someone who helped you out of goodwill like this—”
“Rachel Selden.”
At the familiar name that slipped from Herdin’s mouth, Wesley’s resistance suddenly stopped.
Herdin did not miss the moment.
“She confessed everything.
Said it was all something you planned.”
Hearing that, Wesley’s heart dropped.
At the same time, anger surged toward Rachel for betraying him.
“Damn it, that’s not true!
It was all… yes, that woman ordered everything!
I just did what she told me to do!”
“……”
“She gave me the money too!
She said Blair—no, the Duchess—had offended her pride, so she wanted to humiliate her!”
“……”
“Think about it.
Where would I get the money to arrange something like that?”
Herdin listened quietly before finally releasing Wesley’s head and speaking.
“I suppose I’ll have to visit the Selden Marquisate and ask how much of that is true.”
“…What?”
Wesley froze.
The fact that Herdin said he would go to the Selden Marquisate meant…
“You… you didn’t meet Rachel first…?”
Looking at Wesley’s stunned expression, Herdin smiled coldly.
“That’s why you always lose your stakes.”
To lose your reason and confess everything yourself just because of a single unverified sentence.
And your emotions are written all over your face.
“You bastard, lying like that—!”
Herdin tripped Wesley’s foot as he lunged forward.
Wesley fell to the floor with a loud crash.
Looking down at him coldly, Herdin spoke.
“Why.
You touched my woman and deceived me, yet I’m supposed to play fair?”
“You—!”
“Don’t feel too wronged.”
He took a small bottle from his inner pocket and threw it in front of Wesley.
The bottle shattered on the floor, spilling the liquid inside.
A sweet and enticing scent spread through the air.
Wesley’s eyes trembled.
The contents of that bottle were what the kidnapper had tried to make Blair drink.
“There was never any way for you to escape from the start.”
When he had visited the abandoned house with Wesley, he had found the medicine bottle dropped near Blair’s traces.
In that old, shabby house, the only new-looking bottle had been suspicious at a glance.
Herdin had ordered an investigation into the identity and origin of the drug.
For Ruth, who was well versed in such matters, finding the buyer of the drug had been extremely easy.
Even though he already knew Wesley was the mastermind, Herdin had probed him for two reasons.
First, to secure Wesley’s confession.
Second—
‘I saw her going into the forest earlier with a knight.’
To confirm the suspicion of Rachel Selden, who had given a false testimony claiming she saw the kidnapped Blair with another man.
Since Wesley Baldwin had fulfilled his role perfectly in that regard, there was nothing left for him to do except babble.
And he would surely be noisy.
“For now, go to sleep.”
Herdin grabbed the back of Wesley’s head and slammed it hard onto the card table once more.
Soon Wesley’s body went limp.
Herdin turned away after tossing the unconscious Wesley to the waiting knights like a sack of luggage.
“Put him in the carriage.”
It was time to capture the other mastermind