There Is No Paradise Where You Escaped - Chapter 85

Charlotte dangled from the window ledge, roughly gauging how much snow had piled up. Since the evening they’d arrived in Rottermond, the snow had steadily accumulated, blanketing the land in a pure white glow. Even without the sun, it was so bright it made her squint.

      Plenty enough. I can build a snowman.

Having found little joy in Rottermond, Charlotte felt a rare surge of excitement. She couldn’t wait to bundle up warmly and rush outside.

She wanted to stomp endlessly on the crisp, crunchy snow, roll up snowballs, and build a snowman as tall as Edwin.

For that, she’d need a tall servant to place the head. Since Joseph wasn’t here, the only servant even close to his height was Peter. After telling a maid to arrange for Peter to come in the afternoon, she hummed a tune and resumed her knitting.

      Would Vivianne like building a snowman?

Her plans for the afternoon included Vivianne. Charlotte had assumed she’d enjoy it too, but the more she thought about it, the more uncertain she became. After all, Vivianne was a noblewoman. Rolling around in wet snow wasn’t something nobles did; they were the type to simply enjoy looking at a finished snowman.

Charlotte suddenly felt the stark difference in their social status, and her mood darkened.

      What if she says no?

That became Charlotte’s biggest worry. But her desire to be with Vivianne outweighed the fear of rejection. If Vivianne didn’t want to touch the snow, she could at least watch.

With her afternoon plans now fully laid out, Charlotte looked pleased.

She spent the late morning and early afternoon knitting, and as the outing time approached, she noticed the falling snowflakes had become slightly smaller.

Charlotte meticulously bundled up in warm clothes and set out to find Vivianne. She worried she might run into Susanna while wandering around the manor.

Susanna usually stayed in the second-floor parlor during the winter. The room was small, and once a fire was lit, it became the warmest spot in the manor. As long as Charlotte avoided that room, she likely wouldn’t have to see her.

Charlotte was in a hurry to find Vivianne. She wanted to get buried in the falling snow and build a giant snowman.

────── ✾ ──────

Susanna picked up the teacup in front of her. Realizing the tea had gone cold, her eyes twisted with displeasure. She set the cup down without hesitation and adjusted her shawl so tightly that not even the thinnest breeze could penetrate it.

“Windler is my husband’s illegitimate child.”

Her calm tone caught Vivianne completely off guard.

“How could that be…?”

Vivianne’s thoughts grew tangled, unable to clear the fog shrouding the Baytness family. She couldn’t make sense of how the illegitimate child of someone’s husband had become a ward—or how even her adopted son had become entangled in that responsibility.

“Before marrying me, my husband had a lover.”

Forcing herself to revisit memories she’d rather forget, Susanna inevitably conjured her husband’s face. As a naive young girl, she had adored him without question. Others might have called him plain, but to her, he was the most handsome man in the world. Even the little habit he had of snapping his fingers seemed more dignified than anything a king could do.

She had become the wife of such a man, and she believed—without the slightest doubt—that they would build a happy life together, filled with kindness and affection.

But five months into their marriage, the truth came crashing down: her husband had a lover. She had been fully immersed in the bliss of newlywed life when this misfortune struck like a blow to the chest.

“That woman… she was a maid in the Baron’s household.”

Emma Windler.

A name Susanna would never forget—even in the grave.

Discovering the nature of their relationship had been even more devastating. One night, she’d found herself unable to sleep. Hoping a walk would clear her mind, she stepped into a hallway, only to be drawn toward the sound of voices, a man’s and a woman’s, coming from a nearby vacant room.

Susanna nearly dropped her lantern when she realized who it was: her husband and Emma, the maid.

Her husband was apologizing to the sulky Emma, promising he would never share a bed with his wife again. Emma, speaking casually, ordered him merely to be careful until after he had fulfilled his duty to produce a child. She clearly had no doubt that his love for her would remain unchanged.

“Even after marrying me, my husband didn’t end things with that maid. He kept her close and carried on their affair in secret.”

Susanna had wished desperately that it was all just a dream. But by the time she realized her marriage had been built on a lie, it was already too late. She was already his wife. There was no escaping.

A week was enough time to drown in sorrow. At one point, she even tried to believe in her husband again—the man who kissed her and offered words of comfort with a hypocritical face whenever she seemed upset.

She had a duty to protect her family.

“I drove the maid out while my husband was away. Maybe separating them like that ended up being my form of revenge.”

At the time, Susanna hadn’t thought of it as revenge. She simply felt they had to be torn apart.

When her husband returned home and several days passed without Emma appearing, he eventually asked—subtly—what had happened. She didn’t say she’d expelled Emma. Instead, she gently took his hand and placed it over her belly.

“I’m pregnant. I’m carrying your child.”

Her first child.

Her one true love, her angel—the only one she could believe in.

A child must always come before a lover. That was something no one could dispute.

Her husband knew. He knew Susanna had learned everything and that she had sent Emma away. But he never once blamed her for it. He didn’t say a word of reproach.

He had longed for the child, and when he finally met the baby—who looked just like him—he even cried tears of joy.

“I thought that was the end of it. That things with her were over. I really believed we had returned to a picture-perfect family. But back then… Frederick, my son, was only ten years old.”

It happened the day after a heavy rainstorm.

Her husband had gone out, saying he wanted to get some fresh air with Frederick by the river. But while they were out, someone suddenly called for him, and he left immediately, leaving the child in a servant’s care.

Susanna closed her eyes tightly.

If I had just let him be with that woman, would this have happened?

If he hadn’t left Frederick behind to answer her call, could he have saved our son from falling into that overflowing river?

Was it because none of the servants knew how to swim?

Or was it the fact that my husband did know how to swim that made our child’s death an even deeper wound?

“When my son was drowning in that river, my husband… was receiving that woman’s child into the world. A daughter. A beautiful girl who looked just like the woman he loved.”

“…”

“Yes. That child… is Windler.”

Vivianne couldn’t even breathe.

The firewood’s flickering light in Susanna’s eyes seemed to burn right through her heart.

It was a story so tragic that even offering comfort seemed impossible.

No words could ever carry the weight of Susanna’s sorrow and grief.

“What fault could Windler possibly have? It’s not like she asked to be born. If my connection to her had ended there, I wouldn’t have come to despise her so much for crawling out of the fires of hell using my child as a stepping stone.”

Frederick died.

Perhaps what truly drove Susanna half-mad with grief wasn’t so much that her husband had sacrificed their own child for the sake of accepting some illegitimate child, but rather that—after the child’s death—there was nowhere left to lean on. Susanna found herself briefly wondering if that was the real reason.

After Frederick’s funeral, her husband disappeared. As a result, Emma was left all alone as well. He had caused everything with such irresponsibility and then vanished just as irresponsibly. Aside from the occasional return to the house to prove he was still alive, Susanna never saw his face.

But then, one day, he began staying at the manor again. And not long after, he brought home a little girl.

That woman is dead.

The moment Susanna looked into the eyes of the child—eyes identical to Emma Windler’s—she knew.

“My husband wanted to become Windler’s guardian. He wanted to make sure she could grow up safely in this manor. I opposed it. There was no reason I should agree.”

Even when Frederick died, she hadn’t quarreled with her husband. But ever since he brought Charlotte Windler home, they had argued nearly every day. And with each argument, her resentment toward Charlotte only deepened.

Susanna hated her. She despised her. That devil who had taken her precious child. A monster. A disgusting bastard.

But even all those words weren’t enough to describe the wickedness packed into that little girl.

“In the midst of all that, I met Eddie. And little by little, the pain Frederick left behind began to wash away. So, I decided to adopt Eddie.”

And this time, her husband opposed it. He raised his voice, saying she couldn’t adopt a vulgar orphan who had wandered in from the Port of Olren. And so, endless arguments followed, day after day.

Then one day—surprisingly—after meeting Edwin a few times, her husband proposed a deal.

“He agreed to it. But on one condition.”

“… A condition?”

“In Neway, unlike Preston, bastards can never inherit their father’s surname. My husband wanted to give Windler his surname—through my adopted son, the one he once called vulgar.”

The condition was this: in exchange for allowing her to adopt Edwin, he would marry Windler to him as soon as she came of age.

A contradictory and petty man—that’s how Susanna now judged her husband. And she didn’t regret it one bit.

“Even in the will he left before his death, he made that clear. He wrote that Edwin should act as Windler’s guardian until she came of age, and once she did, he was to marry her.”

A low rumble of thunder seemed to echo beyond the silent window. Vivianne, overwhelmed by the chaos and noise in her mind, couldn’t escape the shock.

“I never had any intention of honoring it from the start. What fool would entrust the life of my second son to the Windler who stole my first son’s life whole? But still, I went along with deceiving my husband… because, in his own way, he treated Edwin well. I don’t know what my husband truly felt, but I think he often thought of Frederick when he looked at Edwin.”

That was the end of Susanna’s story.

From beginning to end, her words had been calm and composed. But Vivianne couldn’t begin to imagine the pain and sorrow buried within her heart. Betrayal from her husband, the death of her child—Susanna had lived through unimaginable hardship.

No one could blame her for the hatred she now carried.

“Some people would say this: What sin could a newborn have committed? Sure. To others, it’s no sin. It’s pitiful, even. But to me, it’s a sin. A vulgar sin, born at the cost of my son’s life. So, in a way, I’ve earned the right to hate. But now…”

Susanna’s voice plummeted like a drop off a cliff, sending a chill down Vivianne’s spine.

“… Now, I think I’m starting to hate you, Miss Aveline.”

“…”

“To my eyes, you are the same shadow of death of my second son.”

Vivianne Aveline was always a blade to someone. Her very existence clawed at hearts and left deep wounds.

────── ✾ ──────

When the conversation ended, Vivianne rose from her seat.

Charlotte, who had been eavesdropping, was startled. She clamped both hands over her mouth to stifle a gasp that felt like it might burst out. She hurried away, her steps quickening, with no destination in mind.

The baron’s daughter? Me… I was supposed to be the duke’s wife?

Vivianne was nowhere to be found, no matter where Charlotte searched in the manor. If Sophie had been around, she might’ve asked about her whereabouts, but Sophie, too, was nowhere to be seen.

The last place left was the small parlor on the second floor, the one Susanna usually claimed as her own. Charlotte was only meant to check if Vivianne was with Susanna; she would leave quietly and try again tomorrow.

That was when she saw them—Vivianne and Susanna, together—and just as quietly, she turned to leave.

The moment she stepped outside the manor, a cold snowflake landed on the bridge of her nose.

The sky was a dark gray, and the pure white snow falling from it felt strangely fake.

“How dare you have feelings for Eddie? Someone like you, a wretch like you—how dare you?”

That day, when Susanna discovered her feelings for Edwin, her face was so fierce that she looked as though she might strangle Charlotte on the spot.

“Pathetic and ridiculous. Do you think you could ever be Eddie’s wife? No. You can’t. You’ll never come close. Nobody could imagine you near Eddie.”

But contrary to Susanna’s words, Charlotte had always been the one meant to be Edwin’s wife from the beginning.

It wasn’t something she reached for; it had always been hers. Not a greedy desire, but her rightful place.

Cold snowflakes fell onto her hot, streaming tears, but the warmth didn’t fade from her face. Instead, only the snowflakes melted against her skin.