Acidity of Regret Ch 37
- Dec 30, 2025
- 6 min read
The physician stared at the Grand Duchess, her face a mask of uneasy hesitation, before she finally found her voice.
[Physician] “I don’t know the particulars of the rift between you and the Grand Duke, My Lady, but many marriages find a second life in a child. Perhaps this is an opportunity for—”
[Vanessa] “...Because you don’t know.”
[Physician] “Pardon?”
[Vanessa] “You can only say that because you are blind to the truth.”
Vanessa wasn’t looking at her. Her gaze was fixed on the floor, where the pulverized remains of a deep red rose lay smeared against the stone. Once, that color had represented the heat of her devotion; now, it looked like nothing more than a fresh, visceral bloodstain.
[Vanessa] “You have no idea what has passed between us.”
The petals, crushed into a shapeless pulp, felt like an epitaph for her own heart—something that had been beautiful once, only to be trampled into the dirt.
The physician looked into Vanessa’s emerald eyes and saw only a hollow, lifeless void. Recognizing the silent dismissal, the woman bowed her head and beat a hasty retreat from the room.
Left alone, Vanessa collapsed onto the bed and stared at the ceiling.
The physician had promised silence, but discovery was inevitable. Declan received a detailed report on her health every week. Between her sudden aversion to food and the way she spent her days buried in sleep to avoid him, it wouldn't take a genius to connect the dots.
She had tried to convince herself it was merely the weight of her grief—a dissociative haze to escape the nightmare—but it wasn't.
It was the enemy’s seed taking root.
He did this on purpose.
The realization was a cold blade to the gut.
Declan didn't make mistakes. He had orchestrated this life. He had spent months claiming he wanted no heir, only to force this upon her now.
He didn't want a child; he wanted a shackle. He knew her love was dead, so he had replaced it with a blood-tie she could never sever.
The terror in her mind was too vast to leave room for maternal instinct. He was a monster—the cold-blooded executioner the rumors had always claimed he was.
The weight in her womb felt like lead, pulling her down into the silt.
You can never be happy.
The whisper was so clear she almost turned her head to see who had spoken.
It sounded like her father’s final gasp, like Elliot’s desperate warning. Or perhaps it was simply the dark, oily despair rising from the bottom of her soul.
Sophie, the new kitchen maid, swallowed hard as she clutched the silver tray.
The knights guarding the door were twice her height and half as friendly. Their cold, predatory gazes made her knees go weak.
[Sophie] “I... I’ve brought some refreshments for the Grand Duchess.”
The knights exchanged a brief, silent look before the heavy doors groaned open.
Sophie stepped into a bedchamber large enough to house a small village. Behind her, the door shut with a heavy, final thud, sealing her inside. She took a shaky breath and moved deeper into the room.
As a low-ranking maid, she had no business being in the ducal wing. But after the physician had emerged from the room earlier that morning, she had requested that someone bring up a tray of sweets.
With the primary ladies-in-waiting mysteriously absent and no one else volunteering to face the "Ice Duchess," Sophie had stepped up.
Among the staff, Vanessa’s reputation was polarizing. Many still viewed her as the high-born traitor who had been dragged to the duchy in chains, and they resented her elevation to Grand Duchess.
But she looked so broken at breakfast.
Sophie’s heart had gone out to her. She scanned the vast room, but it appeared empty until a flash of gold caught her eye.
Vanessa was standing on the terrace, the wind whipping her hair into a frantic halo.
Up close, her beauty was startling. Her eyes were like polished gems, and her profile was so perfectly sculpted it seemed like the work of a master artist.
Sophie felt her heart skip a beat; she understood for a moment why the Grand Duke was so obsessed.
But the atmosphere around the woman was suffocating. There was a tragic, jagged edge to her beauty that made Sophie feel as if she were standing on the edge of a cliff.
Sophie tried to speak, but the words died in her throat. The Duchess looked so perilously fragile.
Then, Sophie’s eyes nearly bulged out of her head. Vanessa’s legs gave out, and she collapsed onto the stone tiles.
Thinking she had fainted, Sophie dropped the tray and started to run, but she froze when she saw what Vanessa was doing.
Vanessa was balled into a frantic crouch, her fists raining down on her own stomach.
Her wrists were thin, her strikes seemingly weak, but the raw, frantic desperation behind the movements turned Sophie’s blood to ice.
Vanessa looked like a woman trying to beat the life out of a demon hiding inside her. If she had been holding a knife instead of her bare hands...
[Sophie] “My Lady!”
Sophie sprinted onto the terrace and caught Vanessa’s wrists just as she was about to strike again.
The green eyes that turned to meet hers were swimming in a sea of agony so deep it was almost incomprehensible.
[Vanessa] “Let go! Get off me!”
[Sophie] “My Lady, stop! Please, stop!”
Sophie threw her weight into it, pinning Vanessa’s arms down to prevent her from harming herself further.
[Sophie] “What is it? Are you in pain? I’ll call the physician back, just please—”
[Vanessa] “It has to go.”
[Sophie] “Pardon?”
[Vanessa] “It shouldn't be here... this thing... it has to go...”
Vanessa’s face was the color of parchment. She looked like someone who had survived a thousand storms only to be drowned by a single drop of rain.
This thing?
Sophie’s gaze flickered to Vanessa’s flat stomach. She understood immediately.
She’s pregnant. She’s carrying his child. But why would she...
The memory of the breakfast table flashed through Sophie’s mind.
Give me a divorce.
Vanessa didn't love the Duke; she hated him. Sophie didn't know the politics of the high court, but she could see the visceral rejection in the woman’s eyes.
Vanessa went limp, her strength spent. She stared into the middle distance, her breath coming in ragged hitches.
[Vanessa] “Don't tell him... please... don't tell him...”
The plea was a jagged shard of glass.
Sophie looked at the Duchess’ tear-streaked face and felt a sudden, fierce protectiveness. She looked so small. So alone.
[Sophie] “The baby hasn't done anything wrong, My Lady.”
Vanessa’s eyes flickered, a spark of awareness returning to her gaze.
Sophie didn't know the whole story, but she knew the Duchess had lost her entire family to the purge. She knew she was a survivor in a house of wolves.
[Sophie] “This baby... it could be your new family.”
[Vanessa] “...”
[Sophie] “Maybe your parents, the ones who became stars in the sky... maybe they sent this child to you. A gift so you wouldn't have to be alone anymore.”
Sophie spoke with a desperate, quiet sincerity.
“Vanessa.”
The word echoed in Vanessa’s mind—not Sophie’s voice, but the ghost of her mother, the Countess. A memory she had buried deep beneath her grief clawed its way to the surface.
“Vanessa, listen to me. On the day you were born, I was so exhausted I could barely breathe, but I couldn't take my eyes off you. You were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.”
“Your father... he was so afraid of breaking you, he didn't move for an hour. Your birth was the happiest day our family ever knew.”
The Countess had told her that story often, even from her deathbed. She had said the bells of the temple had rung for hours in celebration.
“One day, when you have your own child, you’ll understand. It will be the greatest joy of your life.”
Vanessa felt a sudden, crushing grip on her arm. She realized she was the one squeezing Sophie’s sleeve, her knuckles white.
A sob that had been building for years finally broke, and she buried her face in the maid’s shoulder.
[Vanessa] “I’m sorry... I’m so sorry...”
She had wanted this once. She had begged Declan for a child like a naive girl dreaming of a fairy tale. She had thought a baby would complete her world.
And then Declan had refused her. And then the truth had come out.
How could she have tried to erase this life? How could she have tried to kill the only thing left that belonged to her?
Sophie was right. The child was innocent. It was a tiny, flickering light in a world of absolute darkness.
The hatred and revulsion she felt for Declan’s part in this didn't vanish, but it was eclipsed by a fierce, maternal territorialism.
This wasn't his shackle.
It was her baby.
It was her new family.
In that moment, her despair transformed into a cold, hard mission. She couldn't let Declan use this child as a tool. She couldn't let him touch something this pure with his blood-stained hands.
Escape.
Vanessa curled her body around her stomach, shielding it from the world. The wind died down, and a stray beam of sunlight hit the terrace, illuminating her.
Yes.
For the first time since the massacre, she had a reason to fight.
I have to run away.
She would never let him discover this precious being.
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