Episode-230

Words : 1555 Updated : Sep 29th, 2025

Chapter : 459 Airin sat opposite him, a small, rigid figure perched on the very edge of the wrought-iron chair, as if ready to bolt at the slightest provocation. She had not touched the cup of fragrant jasmine tea the proprietor had placed before her. Her hands were clasped so tightly in her lap they had to be numb, and her gaze was fixed, with a fierce, unwavering intensity, on the intricate pattern of the lace doily beneath her teacup. She was a cornered fawn, her terror a palpable presence between them, a silent, sharp-edged accusation. Lloyd took a slow, deliberate sip of his own tea. The warmth, the fragrance, was a welcome, grounding sensation. He had engineered this meeting, had forced this confrontation with the gentle, unyielding pressure of social propriety. Now, he had to navigate it with a skill and a delicacy he wasn't sure he possessed. He was not just apologizing for his own actions; he was trying to lay a ghost to rest, a ghost she didn't even know existed. He set his cup down with a soft, careful click. “Airin,” he began, his voice quiet, stripped of all lordly authority, of all professorial distance. He was just a man, trying to explain an impossible, insane truth. “Thank you for coming. I know you did not want to. I know my presence... frightens you.” He saw her flinch at his words, a small, almost imperceptible tremor running through her. “And you have every right to be frightened,” he continued, his voice low, heavy with a genuine, profound shame. “My behavior in the market the other day was not just unseemly; it was inexcusable. It was the act of a man who had, for a moment, lost his mind. I terrified you. I humiliated you. And I created a public spectacle that has, I am sure, brought you a great deal of unwanted, and entirely undeserved, attention.” He looked at her bowed head, at the tension in her small shoulders. “For that,” he said, his voice thick with a sincerity that was absolute, a sincerity that came from the very core of his eighty-year-old soul, “I am truly, deeply, sorry. There is no excuse for what I did. There is no justification. I offer you my most profound, most heartfelt, apology.” He let the words hang in the quiet air between them, a simple, unadorned offering. He saw her shoulders relax, just a fraction. Her grip on her own hands loosened slightly. His direct, unvarnished acceptance of his own fault seemed to have surprised her, to have disarmed her. She had likely expected excuses, justifications, the arrogant dismissals of a nobleman who believed himself above reproach. She had not expected this. This quiet, simple, and utterly, completely, sincere shame. “But an apology,” he continued, knowing it was not enough, “is a hollow thing without an explanation. And you deserve an explanation, Airin. However strange, however... unbelievable... it may sound.” He took a deep, steadying breath. This was the tightrope. The fine line between a partial truth that might offer her some comfort, and the full, insane truth that would make her think he was not just grieving, but certifiably mad. “You see,” he began, his voice dropping, becoming more personal, more vulnerable, the memory of that moment in the market still a raw, open wound in his own mind. “When I saw you, standing at your stall... for a moment, a single, insane moment, I was not seeing you, Airin. I was seeing... a ghost.” The word, so fantastical, so out of place in this quiet, sunlit tea shop, felt like a stone in his mouth. “I was seeing the face of someone I loved,” he continued, his voice becoming a low, pained murmur, his gaze drifting away, lost in a memory that was eighty years old and as fresh as yesterday. “Someone I loved more than my own life. Someone I lost, tragically, a long, long time ago. A loss that... that I believed I had buried. A grief I thought I had tamed.” He looked back at her, his eyes holding a raw, honest pain that was not an act. “Her name was Anastasia. And you... the resemblance is not just passing. It is absolute. It is as if a master artist had painted her soul onto your face. When I saw you, when you smiled... for that one, terrible, beautiful moment, my mind... it broke. I thought I was seeing a miracle. I thought the universe, in its cruelty or its kindness, had somehow, impossibly, given her back to me.” Chapter : 460 He let out a short, bitter, self-deprecating laugh. “It was the foolish, desperate delusion of a grieving man. A ghost from my own past, reaching out, trying to touch a world that was no longer his. And in my shock, in my pain, I... I lost myself. I projected all of my own history, all of my own sorrow, onto you, a complete stranger. And that,” he concluded, his voice a quiet, raw whisper of pure regret, “was a profound, and unforgivable, cruelty. It was my ghost, Airin. My burden. Not yours. And I am so, so sorry that I forced you to carry its weight, even for a moment.” He fell silent, his confession complete. He had laid the emotional truth bare, a vulnerable, painful offering. He had not told her of other worlds, of other lives. He had simply told her the story of a man haunted by a lost love, a man whose grief had momentarily shattered his sanity. It was a story that was true, in every way that mattered. Airin was still silent, but she had finally, slowly, lifted her head. Her warm brown eyes, no longer wide with terror, were now filled with a new, complex emotion. The fear was gone, washed away by the raw, undeniable sincerity of his confession. In its place was confusion, yes. But also... a dawning, hesitant empathy. She saw not the terrifying madman from the market, but a young nobleman wrestling with a grief so profound it had broken him. She was a simple market girl, yes, from a world of turnips and radishes, not of dukes and princesses. But she understood loss. She understood pain. And she saw it, clear and unvarnished, in the dark, haunted eyes of the man sitting opposite her. A strange, unexpected flicker of pity, of sympathy, stirred within her. This powerful, wealthy, and apparently deeply troubled young lord... he was just... sad. She finally found her voice. It was still quiet, still hesitant, but the terrified edge was gone, replaced by a gentle, almost cautious, kindness. “I... I see, Professor,” she murmured, the formal title a strange, almost surreal, sound in this intensely personal moment. “I... thank you. For telling me.” She looked down at her own untouched teacup. “This... Anastasia,” she said softly. “She must have been... a very special person.” “She was,” Lloyd replied, his own voice quiet, thick with a universe of love and loss. “She was my world.” They sat in silence for another long moment, the air between them no longer charged with fear, but with a strange, sad, and shared understanding. The ghost had been named. The apology had been made. And in the space between a heartbroken soldier and a terrified market girl, a fragile, tentative bridge of empathy had been built. Lloyd felt a profound sense of relief, so potent it was almost dizzying. He had done it. He had fixed it. Or at least, begun to. But before he could offer his thanks for her understanding, before he could gracefully bring their strange, tense, and deeply emotional tea party to a close, Airin spoke again. She looked up, and her gaze, while no longer fearful, was now clear, steady, and held a surprising, almost unnerving, firmness. The shy, frightened market girl, the one who had trembled before him, was gone. In her place was a young woman of quiet, simple, but unshakeable, conviction. A woman who, it seemed, had a lesson of her own to deliver. “My lord Professor,” she began, her voice gaining a new, gentle, but firm, authority that made him sit up a little straighter. “I am... truly sorry for your loss. No one should have to carry such a heavy burden of grief.” She paused, taking a breath, as if gathering her courage for what she was about to say next. “But,” she continued, her warm brown eyes meeting his directly, holding his gaze with an unexpected intensity that he could not look away from, “she is a ghost. As you said. She is a part of your past. A beautiful, treasured part, I am sure. But she is the past.” Her gaze flickered, just for a fraction of a second, in the general direction of the distant, powerful Ferrum Estate. “And you, my lord... you are a part of the present. A very important, very powerful part of it.” She looked at him, her expression no longer one of pity, but of a strange, almost stern, wisdom. A wisdom that was far beyond her sixteen years.

Episode-230

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