I May Be A Villainess, But I Won't Live My Life That Way - Chapter 46

Chapter 46

The hospital director shooed her out of the director’s office, telling her to go to the bathroom and not to worry about me.

In the quiet director’s office, I came across the guestbook with the room number where Megi was hospitalized.

I slowly flipped through the pages and checked Megi’s admission date. Well, there was really no need to check.

Until now, various names had lined up, but suddenly, at one moment, only one name was listed as if it had self-replicated.

Maria Bellona.

Did I want to use the same last name as hers only when visiting Megi?

Maria had left the surname Bellona, not Wensbury.

In this case, the hospital director probably had no idea if Megi had any connection to Wensbury.

Perhaps he thought of Maria as some aristocrat’s nanny he didn’t know well.

It was almost every day. There was only one day missing, and I looked into when that was.

It was Maria’s debutante day.

Other than that, every day, sometimes even twice a day, Maria visited Megi.

If Megi hadn’t died, Maria would probably have come here today too.

In the sunny hospital room, she would have spent time with her mother, who had a warmer smile than the sunlight.

“Hu…”

Suddenly, the weight of Megi’s death felt too heavy, and I sighed.

And even though I couldn’t believe it myself, I understood Maria’s emotions.

If someone killed my father, my mother, and I knew who it was, I would go to hell to find him.

And I would definitely put an end to him.

Whether one can kill a person or not is a different issue.

Losing someone you love is.

“Ah!”

As I turned the page, recent dates and blank spaces appeared.

And instead of the word ‘Maria Bellona,’ something else was visible.

What appeared first was a black ink stain. The visiting time and the visitor’s name were entirely blacked out.

I flipped through the pages hoping to find something in the future, but the next page was also entirely black without anything visible.

Perhaps this was a record of my visit.

And then, on the day Megi died, there was one more person who visited besides me.

“Wensbury….”

It was not Maria who finally appeared, but another name.

And that was all. Only the surname remained; there was no name.

It was late evening.

Dinner had already been eaten, but when the other person hadn’t yet gone to bed, it wouldn’t be rude and wouldn’t raise any questions.

I called back the hospital director who had been dismissed.

“Who came and left this?” I asked the director, pointing to the last remaining surname, Wensbury.

“Well,” he said, “since her daughter is a Wensbury, isn’t it her daughter who has been there?”

“Maria didn’t use Wensbury’s name when visiting here. She left her pre-adopted name, Maria Bellona.”

As a sign to check with his eyes, I flipped the pages back to show the hospital director Maria’s names.

“Um… then…”

The hospital director blinked. It seemed like he had been thinking it was Maria all along.

Either that or he simply had no thoughts on the matter.

“Who wrote this? Is there someone else who does the writing?”

“Yes. At the entrance, the guide asks visitors for their names and purpose, and records them along with the visiting time.”

“Why didn’t they ask me?”

“They probably asked the maid who came with you. If they couldn’t ask for your name, they usually write down ‘John Smith,’ but if possible, they ask everyone. It’s a hospital, you never know.”

“Okay. Then let’s meet the guide who wrote this. Can we do that now?”

“Yes, of course.”

The hospital director, now fully turned towards Croft, didn’t argue with me any further.

After a while, a young woman with a frightened expression entered the director’s office with the director.

“You, you were looking for me.”

Her voice, as shaky as her expression, trembled like a newborn lamb.

“I have something to ask.”

I looked at her with as gentle a voice and gaze as possible, considering her feelings.

“Heuk… I-I, I don’t know anything.”

But as soon as our eyes met, she burst into tears. Just like our previous housemaids.

So, I decided to deal with her like I did with our housemaids.

“I’ll only ask what you know. If you don’t know, just say you don’t.”

I just said what I had to say. Typically, the maids would choose one of the two.

Either cry while answering or answer while crying.

Asking a crying woman why she’s crying was difficult, and nudging her would only make her cry more.

So, my conclusion was to finish the business as quickly as possible. That way, the crying women would feel better since the frightening me would disappear.

“Is this something you wrote?”

“Heuk heuk, yes.”

The guide, crying as well, nodded.

“Who was it?”

“I don’t really know.”

“Why?”

“Well, that… I’m sorry, heuk heuk.”

She suddenly started crying even more.

It didn’t look good.

“You wrote it, so why don’t you know?”

“The servant asked me for Mrs. Megi’s room, so I gave it to him, and when he said I should know who the visitor was, that’s all he could tell me.”

“Did you not personally see who came?”

“No.”

The guide wiped away tears and nodded.

“So, it might not be someone from the Wensbury family? Maybe the maid wrote it without permission?”

“N-no, that’s not the case. I didn’t see the person who came, but I saw the Wensbury Marquis’s carriage entering the hospital at that time.”

“A carriage?”

“Yes. So, knowing the maid’s words weren’t false, I just wrote down the surname. If there were any issues, they could send someone to the Wensbury Marquis. I thought it wouldn’t be a problem.”

Either to appeal that she did nothing wrong or in haste, she quickly added, “I didn’t know who it was. I just wrote what the maid told me.”

“Then, you’re not sure who it is, but it’s definite that someone from the Wensbury Marquis’s household visited?”

“Yes. I remember clearly because the Wensbury crest is a pretty pattern with a deer, which I like.”

Her crying had stopped, perhaps due to her concentrating hard on explaining.

“Come over here for a moment.”

I beckoned her to my side.

Instantly, her expression became as frightened as a deer she supposedly liked.

“Yes, yes? Oh, I’ve been completely honest about everything I know.”

Her voice sounded like it was about to burst into tears again.

When I stayed silent, she hesitantly approached my side.

“Thank you for being honest.”

I handed her a silver coin.

She approached me with a crying expression, but upon seeing the unexpected silver coin, her eyes widened.

“Also, what I asked you about today is a secret. Understand?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Your answering my questions is also naturally a secret.”

“Yes, yes!”

She nodded vigorously, and as she extended her hand to take the coin, I dropped it.

The guide grasped it tightly, no longer crying or trembling.

She suddenly held a large sum of money, smiled as if delighted.

Panya was right.

I was a frightening person to those who did wrong, but to those who didn’t, I wasn’t terrifying at all.

Moreover, to those who helped me, I could be as kind as anyone.

Who could it be?

The only thing dominating my mind as the carriage returned was that question.

In reality, the Wensbury family was sparse.

Being a family with no heirs, it was common for adult males to die in war. The same went for the Winkaiser family.

The Wensbury Marquis wasn’t the eldest son either, but he inherited the title after his two older brothers died and was now the current Marquis.

Between him and the Marquise, there was only one son, Raintar.

The lack of offspring seemed to disappoint the Wensbury Marquis, but it wasn’t something he could control.

Perhaps that’s why the Marquis of Wensbury was so willing to adopt his illegitimate daughter, Maria.

The Marquis of Wensbury, the Marquise of Wensbury, Raintar, and Maria.

“Hmm…”

For now, it wasn’t Maria.

That day, she had visited once in the morning.

Although Maria had been coming twice a day, there was no reason for her to suddenly bring a servant with her under the name Wensbury, especially when she had always visited alone under the name Maria Bellona.

Moreover, it didn’t make sense for Maria, who had been devoted to her mother even after adoption, to suddenly kill her.

So, the remaining suspects were the Wensbury Marquis, the Wensbury Marquise, and Raintar.

The most suspicious seemed to be the Marquise.

It would undoubtedly have been stressful for her when her husband’s illegitimate child suddenly appeared, and adopting the child into the family might have been a source of considerable stress.

Additionally, the timing coincided with Megi’s recovery.

From the Marquise’s perspective, if Megi, the government official who was her husband’s lover, fully recovered and Maria asserted any rights with her support, it would indeed be a difficult situation.

No, it might just be annoying for her that Megi was still alive.

“And.”

Wensbury Marquis.

What puzzled me as I reviewed the guestbook was that the Marquis had never visited the hospital.

He might have forgotten the woman he once shared a bed with.

I couldn’t understand that as myself, but in any case, there were numerous cases proving it was possible regardless of gender.

However, knowing that she had given birth to his child and even being in the same city, knowing that she was in pain, it was strange that the Marquis hadn’t visited even once.

There might have been some complicated past between them.

“Lastly.”

Raintar.

Did he have a reason to kill the biological mother of his half-sister? I wasn’t sure.

‘But could he?’ I thought it was possible.

It could be a mother’s request, a flaw in the family’s reputation, and… there could be thousands of reasons I didn’t know.

The human heart is a mystery.

Even the kind Maria could change, so there was no reason Raintar couldn’t.

“Alright. The human heart is a mystery.”

I added one more person to the list of suspects—Maria Wensbury.

“Smile Love”