Chapter 2. A Good Man Until the End

In truth, the silence that followed couldn’t have lasted very long. Though it felt like an eternity to Jane.

“As you know, Jane, Her Majesty’s wrath is beyond words.”

Duke Hastings spoke. The opening wasn’t good. However, Jane clasped her hands together and waited. Inwardly, she desperately prayed that he would grant her request.

“I can’t give you a definite answer, but I’ll try.”

“Really?”

Jane jumped in surprise, her shoulders bouncing. Even while making the request, she hadn’t expected Duke Hastings to readily agree.

Everyone who knew anything understood how much Helena Royal Strain, who became queen at a late age, detested the rebels. They had nearly prevented her from ascending the throne.

So helping Count and Countess Whitney, who had been caught supporting the rebels, wasn’t something that could be done with an ordinary heart.

Jane shed tears of gratitude and bowed repeatedly.

“Thank you…… so much. How can I ever…… repay this kindness……. Thank you, thank you. Duke, Duchess.”

Duchess Hastings looked displeased as she watched Jane, who was covered in tears.

“Stop crying.”

Duke Hastings nudged his wife’s side. He turned his head sharply with a disgruntled expression.

Duchess Hastings, who let out an inaudible sigh, came to sit beside Jane and gently stroked her back.

Jane’s crying gradually subsided. Duchess Hastings took Jane’s hand.

“Jane, since we’ve granted your request, will you grant ours?”

“Please tell me anything, Duchess. I’ll do whatever I can.”

Jane said, wiping away her tears.

“Jane, I know you’re going through a lot of hardship……”

Duchess Hastings arranged Jane’s disheveled hair with gentle hands. Her eyes naturally closed at the warmth she would only feel from a mother.

Jane didn’t know. That this warmth would soon become a blade to stab her.

“Jane, please break up with Cain.”

“……!”

Jane’s eyes widened. She thought she had misheard.

“Break up with Cain, Jane.”

Duchess Hastings spoke again with clear pronunciation, as if engraving the words into her mind.

Jane hadn’t misheard. Her eyes shook violently. She tightly gripped the hem of her dress. She felt like she would lose her mind if she didn’t hold onto something.

Cain Hastings—he was Jane’s fiancé.

Her fiancé, decided when she was six years old, and her first love.

He was kind and affectionate, and superior in every way. No amount of flowery language would be enough to describe him.

At six years old, too young to understand love, Jane fell in love with him the moment she saw him.

It was the same for Cain. She couldn’t remember exactly when his eyes, which had only treated her as a younger sister, began to show desire for a woman, but he too loved Jane.

Jane and Cain were a couple rarely seen among nobles.

It was rare to love a fiancé chosen by one’s parents.

The fact that Jane could endure this situation was actually thanks to Cain.

Because if she could just endure for two years, she could marry him, because if she collapsed, he would suffer…….

When passing through a dark tunnel, imagining the brilliant sunlight outside the tunnel gives strength. Cain was that brilliant sunlight itself to Jane.

The person who made her stand up and gave her courage.

Asking her to give him up was like asking Jane to give up on life.

Jane squirmed to pull her hand away from Duchess Hastings. However, the duchess didn’t let go of her hand.

How could hands that had been so gentle become so strong? Jane realized another fact.

“What…… what did I do wrong?”

Jane barely managed to ask in a trembling voice.

“Jane, you’re not at fault. The fault lies with ymy parents.”

“Then why……”

Jane’s voice was pitiful.

“The reason we’re making this request…… isn’t because we hate you.”

“I’ll try harder. I’ll do better.”

“Jane!”

When Jane clung to her while crying, Duchess Hastings shouted sharply. Then, as if realizing her mistake, she quickly forced a smile.

“Jane, you’re a smart child. And you love our Cain. Right?”

Even in her confusion, Jane nodded confidently. Her love for Cain was a truth without a hint of falsehood, pure love without any impurities mixed in.

Tears blurred her vision, making Duchess Hastings’s face appear hazy.

“Just as you’re the most important to ymy parents, Cain is simply the most important to us. If you let Cain go, if you make Cain give up on you, we’ll definitely save ymy parents.”

“I……”

While she was at a loss for words, Duke Hastings ran his hand through his hair and interrupted.

“Hanging. And ymy parents’ heads will be displayed on the outskirts of the castle.”

His voice was excessively dry as he spoke of the punishment Count and Countess Whitney would receive.

Jane’s complexion turned pale.

She let go of all the many words she had thought of to change Duke and Duchess Hastings’s minds.

She had received indescribable love from her parents.

Jillian had breastfed, which was taboo among noble ladies, and James had stopped going to gentlemen’s clubs after Jane was born, personally teaching and playing with Jane.

Jane had gained not only material abundance from her parents but also spiritual fulfillment.

Thanks to this, hadn’t she called herself a child favored by God?

For Jane, abandoning her parents was not an option.

Jane nodded with the feeling of tearing out her heart.

“……I’ll break up.”

Jane barely managed to answer.

“I won’t see you out.”

Duke Hastings’s order to leave fell as if he had been waiting for it.

＊＊＊

Jane returned home and immediately wrote a letter to Cain. She included the content that Duke and Duchess Hastings had requested.

She hadn’t known that writing the three words ‘let’s break up’ would be so difficult.

Jane cried looking at the dozens of crumpled papers rolling on the floor.

Letters ruined because tears made the writing smear, because she couldn’t put down her pen after placing a period and the ink spread, because her hands trembled.

‘I hope he doesn’t come.’

But she didn’t have high expectations. Since yesterday, situations had always flowed opposite to Jane’s thoughts.

Sure enough, despite her earnest prayers, Cain came rushing over like lightning.

Jane shut herself in her room to avoid seeing him.

“Jane, what’s wrong? Open the door.”

Cain knocked on Jane’s bedroom door.

“Go away, Cain!”

Jane stood with her back against the door and absolutely refused to open it.

“You have something to say to me, Jane. Are you serious about breaking up?”

“Yes, I’m serious.”

Jane bit her lower lip hard before lying. Her lip, which she had been chewing relentlessly for days, finally split.

“There must be a reason, Jane! Please, Jane, open the door.”

“I’ve grown to hate you!”

Jane sat down while gripping the doorknob tightly. She gritted her teeth to keep from crying.

“Miss……”

Jane’s maid Elle looked down pitifully at her as she cried without tears.

“Jane, let’s at least see each other’s faces and talk.”

Cain was persistent.

“I’ll wait until you come out.”

There was rustling from outside the door. It was the sound of Cain sitting in the hallway, expecting a long wait.

After that, the hallway became quiet. Cain truly intended to wait until Jane came out.

Elle, who had been restless, spoke.

“Miss, you should go out.”

“If I go out? What should I say when I go out?”

Elle also found it difficult to choose readily. If Jane chose Cain, Count and Countess Whitney would die, and if she chose Count and Countess Whitney, Jane’s heart would die.

“Sorry, Elle. I’ve made you worry too.”

Seeing Elle, who couldn’t answer and was choking up, Jane made up her mind firmly.

After much deliberation, Jane stood up. Before going out, she looked in the mirror.

Her reflection in the mirror was truly shabby. Her rough skin and face full of tear stains looked unsightly.

Normally, she would never show Cain such an appearance.

‘Actually, this is better. If he sees me like this and loses interest, that would be good.’

Jane grabbed the doorknob. She took a deep breath. Her hand, which had been slowly turning the doorknob, stopped.

Her love for Cain held her back.

‘I don’t want to break up. But what happens if we don’t break up?’

Jane questioned herself and chuckled bitterly. It was a laugh heavily tinged with helplessness.

The only thing she could do right now for her family and parents was to break up with Cain.

The phantom of her parents crying desperately appeared in her mind.

Jane’s lips tightened. There was no more time to hesitate. Jane opened the door.

Cain was in front of the door.

He seemed to have rushed over frantically upon receiving the message, still not having groomed himself. Sweat he hadn’t had time to wipe ran down his forehead.

Even so, he was magnificent.

His neat and elegant features and brilliantly shining blonde hair were dazzling just to look at.

His eyes sparkled like a sea with glittering waves. Whenever she met those eyes, Jane would helplessly be drawn into him.

Why did he have to be so handsome even on a day like today?

Jane hated him—no, wanted to hate him—even in his shirt with a couple of buttons undone, which was different from usual but still looked wonderful.

Jane, who had been about to reach for her handkerchief out of habit, clenched her fist.

“Jane!”

Cain, who had jumped up, reached out to Jane. Since he had become an adult two years ago, their greetings had changed from light kisses to deep embraces.

Jane twisted her body to avoid Cain’s hand. Cain awkwardly lowered his hand and forced a smile.

She needed to say something, but she felt dazed as if she had been hit hard in the head with a blunt object.

Only after repeatedly running his dry hands over his face did Cain come to his senses. He barely managed to open his mouth.

“I knew you’d come out, Jane. It’s been really hard, hasn’t it? Everything will be okay now. So don’t say things you don’t mean.”

“No. I mean it when I say let’s break up.”

Jane kept her head down.

“You mean it…… why?”

Jane bit her lower lip.

The time he waited for her answer felt like an eternity. Cain rubbed his sweaty hands on his pants.

“If I tell you the reason, will you break up with me?”

Cain hesitated. He sighed as if frustrated and gave a somewhat delayed answer.

“Yes, Jane. Yeah, I will.”

Cain spoke as if soothing Jane. He firmly believed that once this situation passed, she would return to him.

Foolishly, sadly.

Jane took a deep breath. She didn’t think Cain would easily accept the breakup.

If the situation were reversed, she wouldn’t have given up on Cain until the end either.

So Jane had thought of a reason to cruelly push Cain away in advance.

The only reason she hadn’t said it from the beginning was because it would obviously be hurtful to both her, who had to say it, and Cain, who had to hear it.

Not just hurtful.

Those words would carve out Cain and Jane’s hearts.

But for her parents’ sake, Jane opened her mouth with the feeling of hanging herself.

“What can you do for me?”

Cain was momentarily flustered.

“Anything. I can do anything.”

Jane bit her lower lip.

“No. You can’t do anything. Because you don’t have anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“Can you get my parents out of prison, Cain?”

“That’s……”

“See? You can’t, right? Then, can you at least collect signatures to save my parents? You can’t. You can’t do it.”

Jane didn’t truly want Cain to start a petition campaign. If he did, she would rather stop him. She didn’t want to put him in danger.

“Cain, what I loved wasn’t you. It was your family’s power.”

Words she didn’t mean flowed out smoothly. But instead of her mouth loosening, Jane’s heart hardened.

‘Cain, please curse at me now. Please condemn me, say you hate me, that I’m bad.’

Jane prayed while gripping the area near her heart tightly. But Cain disappointed her expectations.

“You hate me because I’m incompetent?”

“Yes, I hate you.”

“The Hastings family isn’t enough?”

“The family isn’t yours.”

Cain was at a loss for words. He had lived thinking the Hastings family was himself. But hearing Jane’s words, that was true.

He couldn’t give Jane what she wanted. A gaping hole opened in his heart. Helplessness dominated his body.

But he couldn’t let Jane go like this. Although he didn’t have the power to save Count and Countess Whitney, he could at least take responsibility for her alone.

If only Jane wanted it.

“Look me straight in the eye and tell me, Jane. Do you really want to break up with me?”

Jane squeezed her eyes shut and then lifted her head. Cain quietly looked at her. Jane looked like she would break if touched. He wanted to immediately hold Jane in his arms and comfort her.

“Do you want to break up with me, Jane?”

“Yes, I want to break up. I don’t want to see your face.”

Jane answered immediately as if she had practiced.

Cain’s jaw tightened. He repeatedly ran his hands over his face, which showed deep thought. He turned around, clenched and unclenched his fists, and shook his shirt collar as if his chest felt tight.

“You mean it.”

Cain muttered as if talking to himself. Then, having finished thinking, he turned toward Jane.

“Can’t I wait?”

“……”

Cain’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down greatly.

“I must have hurt you. I’m sorry, Jane.”

Cain apologized instead of resenting. Deep resignation appeared in Cain’s eyes.

Cain turned around, leaving Jane in the hallway.

It was completely over.

Jane’s mouth fell open. No sound flowed from her throat, but she screamed.

He was a good man until the end.

But Jane had changed everything. The good Cain disappeared from the world. By Jane completely abandoning him.

And the next day, Jane killed the part of herself that had loved Cain.

The execution date for Count and Countess Whitney was decided.