Episode 72: The Life You Don’t Know

“Alright. I’ll let Hamizle go.”

“No. Let me go instead.”

“Lara.”

“If you knew how horrible it was back then… if you knew how much we had fallen apart, you wouldn’t torment me any further.”

The tension in Alec’s eyes loosened. Lara looked down at him without emotion. She couldn’t tell what exactly had shaken him, but she noticed his grip on her dress slackening.

“…I tormented you?”

Lara’s face crumpled as if she were about to cry, but she held back her tears. Showing tears to him was no different than showing them to the ballerina Gladys. It wasn’t a good thing. Lara nodded.

“Yes. You are tormenting me. Just like your wives do….”

“No.”

Alec grabbed Lara’s clenched fists. The way he covered her hands disgusted her, and she shook him off. It was a cold rejection. She shook her head and whispered, “Don’t do this.” At her low whisper, Alec burst into tears.

“I love you. I wasn’t tormenting you. Do you even know what you’re saying to me right now?”

“…….”

“I know. You wanted to protect me. You didn’t want to lose me.”

“Lara, please, don’t abandon me. I was wrong. I was wrong. Lara, don’t do this to me. Please, please. I’ll do better. This time, I will do it right. This time for sure….”

“I understand you, my love.”

The moment she said those words, her heart shattered into tiny pieces. Even though she hated him, she understood him. Even when he had married twice and bedded them to bear children, Lara had understood him. But understanding didn’t always come with forgiveness.

“Regardless of my hatred for you, I know what you were trying to do. That’s why I could only watch. Because I didn’t have the strength to protect my love….”

“No, Lara. That’s not it.”

Alec shook his head, his face wet with tears. Lara watched him, shaking his head like a child in denial, then slowly bent her knees. His tear-streaked eyes glistened coldly. Lara gently wiped the reddish heat from his swollen eyelids.

“A long time ago, when I lived as a slave under the Marquis of Oprege.”

It was the first time she had spoken of that time in front of Alec. In her past life, she had never willingly recalled her pain or sought comfort.

Lara despised anyone bringing up her past. Except for when she was very young and talked about her deceased parents with her adoptive father, she had never spoken of it.

But Valerie and Gladys had no such reservations. Especially Gladys, who would mock her at every chance. Valerie and her noble family were even worse.

No matter what status Lara had attained, to them, she remained nothing more than a household servant. A woman who had crawled her way up through seduction and happened to become Empress, but was unworthy of sharing in their glory.

And Lara agreed. Even if she had lain with Alec and carried his child, she never thought they were the same. She knew that. And yet, she still wanted to be by his side. That’s why she hadn’t left when Valerie told her to. As long as she didn’t hear it from Alec’s own lips, she wanted to stay.

“There was an old woman. She was the one who gave my father a proper burial. Her skin was dark, wrinkled with age.”

“…….”

“One of her eyes was blind from a whip, and her left arm had been crushed under the overseer’s boot, never healing properly. But still, she was the best worker among us. Skilled and fast.”

Alec’s gaze was calm. Lara gently stroked the wet corners of his eyes.

“My father was beheaded for organizing the farm slaves without the overseer’s permission. It happened on the day I washed Valerie’s feet and wiped her bedroom floor with a dry cloth.”

Lara purposely mentioned washing Valerie’s feet. She wanted Alec to withdraw his affections.

She truly wished that Alec would love that woman instead. It would hurt, but if even now, he could find a way to be with the woman who was once supposed to be his fiancée, she could let him go.

If he had chosen Valerie instead of her from the start, if he had fallen in love with her and married her, his life would have been easier. Lara knew how difficult it had been to love her.

It would have been simpler if they had both met partners of their own class. If she had met a man who wasn’t royalty, her life wouldn’t have been so exhausting. But she didn’t think love alone had ruined her life.

It wasn’t just Valerie or the Marquis of Opreze who had made her miserable. It was all those who opposed her rise in status, who refused to let her be part of their world. And that wasn’t something Alec alone could change.

“My father was dragged away by his hair by the overseer. He looked just like a cow being led to slaughter.”

Lara retraced her hazy memories. Though much of her past was blurred, her father’s death was seared into her mind. The face of a man slaughtered like an animal. The weather that day. The people who stood by and watched. The world that had crumbled.

“I don’t know how my mother managed to get his body back. Someone must have taken a beating for it.”

“Lara.”

“You don’t know the life of a slave.”

“I love you.”

Lara smiled sadly. Those words held no meaning.

“You don’t know me. You want me to tell you what happened with Lawrence?”

“…….”

“There’s nothing to say. He was, as you know, the Marquis’s illegitimate son. Valerie’s half-brother. The Marquis never considered him human.”

Alec looked at her in silence. Lara gazed at him with cold indifference and continued.

“To him, I was merely property born of a dog giving birth to pups, and his bastard son was just an animal wearing human skin. That’s the kind of man he was. My love, you are no different from him.”

“No.”

“To me, you are just one of the many people who have tormented me. Just like the Marquis’s sons, who, even at seven years old, would shove their hands under my dress and play with me. No, you ruined my life even worse than they did.”

Without pause, Lara cut Alec down with her words. Yet, there was no satisfaction in it. She only looked at him with pure hatred.

She had loved this man so much it was sickening. And after enduring so much, she withdrew her hand from him. But Alec caught it again, kissed the back of her hand, and whispered.

“Tell me more.”

“…….”

“Please.”