No One Ever Loved Me - Chapter 115

It was Ricardo who looked embarrassed, but strangely, I was the one who felt flustered.

He knew exactly what his face looked like, yet made no effort to hide it. He acted as if stopping mid-step had been a complete coincidence, utterly unfazed.

What bigger waste of time is there than questioning someone who clearly has nothing to hide?

I quietly resumed walking, matching my steps to Ricardo’s. And yet, despite my body moving forward mechanically, my attention kept pulling back to the spot where he had suddenly stopped—as though something had been left behind there.

“Inner beauty matters, but it shouldn’t be the only thing we look at. Just like how something that looks delicious usually tastes good too, Lia.”

“Are you aware that you’re comparing yourself to food right now?”

“It’s a bias to think only food can be described as ‘delicious.’ Take gemstones, for example. The more finely cut they are, the more they sparkle.”

“Gemstones? I’d rather stick with food. At least try to pretend you’re humble, Ricardo.”

To be fair, if Ricardo were a gemstone, he’d be of such rare quality that talking about carats would be meaningless. And if he were food, he’d be a luxurious dessert crafted by a master over three sleepless nights.

Regardless of what lay beneath, Ricardo was the kind of man whose beauty was so striking, even the notoriously difficult Queen once joked that simply placing him in a room could save on lighting.

“Well, since you’re so keen to be an ingredient—meat or vegetable—did you know that younger ones are always more tender and less bitter?”

“In that case, someone who only looks good on the outside would be perfect for a scam artist. You buy a fruit thinking it’s freshly picked, but the moment you cut it open, the inside’s rotten. I can already see the poor fool’s dumbfounded face.”

“You do realize that someone the Duchess trusts enough to run her personal errands can’t exactly be ‘incompetent,’ right?”

“I’m not so sure. But if youth is the preference, then I definitely qualify for the preliminaries.”

According to her diary, Cecilia had been twenty-one. And since Ricardo had lost all claim to privacy the moment, he entered House Bastian as the Duke’s illegitimate son, I happened to know he was twenty-five.

Even if someone assumed I preferred younger men, Ricardo didn’t meet the minimum requirement to pass that preliminary round.

“You do know you’re four years older than me, right?”

“By Countess Linton’s standards, maybe.”

Ricardo held his ground with pride.

According to his logic, I was a divine being sent down to earth solely for him, and naturally, gods existed far longer than mere mortals—meaning he was clearly the younger one between us.

Who was it that once said, “Arguments only work between people of similar intellect”? Whoever it was, they’d definitely dealt with someone like this before.

Before the Queen “fixed” him, he hadn’t been quite this delusional. But now, trying to deny the fanatical devotion that was growing stronger by the day meant accepting his absurd contradictions too. He had evolved beyond the ideal fanatic—he’d become a full-blown fool.

“Let me say this, hoping your memory still works: I didn’t descend from the heavens. If anything, I’m more like a ghost squatting in the body of the dead Cecilia. When I took over her body, you didn’t even know me. If you go around calling this creepy phenomenon a miracle, Cecilia might just come back from the dead out of sheer indignation—so watch your mouth.”

I was about to face the Duchess of Bastian. The last thing I needed was for my pitiful excuse of a support—an illegitimate son who gave up his pride just to stay close—to be exposed as a fanatic lunatic.

Ricardo only scoffed at the veiled threat, but at least it shut him up, which was more than I expected.

“And for the record, the only thing I couldn’t remember was her name. I do remember that Cecilia and I were the same age. So if your ridiculous fantasy involves some kind of audition, you’re disqualified.”

Most of my past memories had faded over time, but my mother’s face remained sharp in my mind. So did the documents I had to fill out when settling her affairs after she made her terrible mistake.

I wrote down our relationship, her birth year and death year, and my personal information—over and over again.

I’d come to this world before the year even had time to turn. In other words, I died the same year my mother did.

It was just a feeling, but I was fairly certain Cecilia hadn’t taken over my body.

Maybe it was because I’d already experienced death once, but I knew this instinct wasn’t just wishful thinking.

Someone as innocent as Cecilia surely made it safely to heaven.

And that would mean someone like me—tainted, sinful—wasn’t allowed even in hell. I had to live again and pay the price.

I never believed in religion, but what had happened to me couldn’t be explained by science. There had been no rebirth, but I was living an entirely different life with memories from my past. The only conclusion I could reach was this: it was a warning. A punishment. My penance for my sins.

“I almost forgot. I’ve paid off the debt.”

After spiraling into those bleak thoughts, I suddenly remembered something I still hadn’t said to Ricardo.

“Debt?”

“To Cecilia. I made a one-sided contract with her—assuming she couldn’t rest in peace because some worthless spirit had stolen her body. I swore I’d grant her final wish. And even that felt insufficient, so I added revenge on top, with interest.”

Joanna had forever lost the chance to win her beloved daughter’s heart. Ayla, too, would never fully escape the sting of Joanna’s first rejection, no matter how much maternal love she tried to prove. Even at her happiest, the pain would always linger.

“So now… I am Cecilia.”

It felt freeing to say it out loud. I probably would’ve felt the same even if I’d confessed it to a brick wall. But Ricardo—delusions aside—was someone who understood my thoughts more clearly than most.

“Cecilia.”

As expected, Ricardo abandoned his usual, insistent nickname and called me by my full name.

“My Cecilia.”

“No. You’re Ricardo. And if you really feel the need to claim ownership of something, you should be saying ‘my Ricardo,’ not mine.”

The man who had, just moments ago, seemed perceptive enough to understand my every thought, now wore an utterly childlike grin that didn’t suit him at all.

“My Ricardo, huh?”

“I meant you should refer to yourself that way, not me.”

“My Ricardo…”

“Ricardo, are you really going to act like you don’t understand?”

The garden of the Bastian estate was as vast as its lands, and so our silly banter went on endlessly, with no destination in sight—

Until the Duchess of Bastian appeared, seated not at a table, but on a thick mat spread beneath a neatly trimmed tree, without even a table to speak of.

“I greet the Duchess. I’m afraid I got lost—this garden is so expansive. Please forgive me.”

“Spare me the formalities, Lady Cecilia. I’d wager that young duke dragged you through the thorniest path on purpose, so I’d rather not scold the wrong person.”

The Duchess shot a disapproving glance at Ricardo and gestured for me alone to sit.

Despite calling it a mere mat, it had been properly layered to block the chill from the ground and was topped with a soft cushion.

Only one.

“Please, sit, Lady Cecilia.”

I sat without hesitation. Ricardo followed sulkily, stepped on the edge of the mat, and then—with a sharp look from the Duchess—slid off and sat on the grass instead.

“You never show up when I call, yet now, when you’re not even invited, you barge right in.”

“I figured Her Grace wouldn’t be alone.”

“Do you think I’d invite a guest and allow an uninvited mongrel to tag along?”

“I’ve seen enough mongrels barge in uninvited with muddy feet and bark loudly anyway, Duchess.”

Ricardo dropped onto the grass without a second thought, even if it stained his clothes. It was… a more cordial relationship than I had expected.

“Let me explain, Lady Cecilia. He turned out this way because I couldn’t keep him close and raise him myself. No matter what the Duke said, I should’ve insisted. Boys only learn how to be decent humans with a little discipline. I let him loose too soon, and look—how could he not end up like this?”

On the surface, it sounded like she was criticizing him. But if you looked deeper, it was more of a defense: that his flaws stemmed from her inability to raise him properly.

“Calling me a mongrel again—Your Grace hasn’t changed. I’m doing twice as well as most men, being both a proper human and a proper gentleman.”

“Yes, that ‘gentleman’ bit. You skipped over the human part and rushed into being a man, and that’s exactly why I had to summon Lady Cecilia to apologize.”

Ricardo didn’t even blink at her nagging—he was clearly used to it.

One reprimanded him for his unruly behavior, the other intentionally stirred the pot with sarcastic comebacks. There wasn’t a trace of hostility you’d expect from a noble forced to raise a bastard child.

“Didn’t you once tell me that Ricardo—no, Sir Ricardo—wasn’t allowed to live at the estate because you opposed it, Duchess?”

I clearly remembered him telling me that in the early days. That the Duchess, being of delicate constitution, could not bear her husband’s temper and had no choice but to accept the illegitimate child—but refused to let him live under the same roof, securing a separate residence instead.

That story had garnered sympathy from noblewomen like the Marchioness of Frederica, earning signatures in support of making the illegitimate child the young duke.

“Ah.”

“Ah?”

“Well… At the time, I thought you were Countess Linton. Later, I was so overwhelmed by the realization that Lia existed that I forgot to explain properly.”

The Duchess’s fan snapped sharply through the air, aimed at Ricardo.

He caught it mid-flight—as if he’d anticipated it—and returned it with a graceful hand, further fanning her fury.

“Unbelievable. You used me as a pawn? Lady Cecilia, can you believe this boy? This is why I insisted he should be locked in the house for at least three years! Now look at him, running around trying to act like a man!”

“I heard Your Grace was frail, but that doesn’t seem to be the case at all.”

My comment silenced her. I looked between the two of them, who exchanged glances with matching expressions, as if tossing blame back and forth.

So, aside from the part where Ricardo and the Duke disliked each other, the rest of the tragic backstory had been more or less fabricated.

“I am frail, Lady Cecilia.”

“You look quite healthy to me.”

“It only looks that way. You wouldn’t believe how rotten I am on the inside.”

The Duchess was unlike any noblewoman I had ever seen in the capital.

Even Marchioness Frederica dyed her hair a natural brown each month, but the Duchess made no attempt to hide her silver strands.

In a society obsessed with appearances, the Duchess of Bastian must’ve been considered something of an eccentric.

“Most of that rot inside me is thanks to that mongrel.”

“Let’s be fair. Maybe a fraction, but certainly not the majority. The rest likely belongs to the aging Duke.”

“That old Duke has long since been given up on—nothing left inside him to rot. But you? You’ve been tormenting a perfectly decent lady so much I can’t even show my face in public anymore!”

Ricardo turned to me like a sulky seven-year-old, clearly looking for me to take his side. But no way I was going to claim he hadn’t made my life difficult—unless I’d gone completely mad.

“I’m not exactly ‘perfectly decent,’ but yes—Sir Ricardo did make my life difficult.”

“You’re perfectly decent.”

“Indeed, Lady Cecilia is a fine lady.”

The two of them refuting my words in perfect harmony—it was like watching a mother and son. I couldn’t help but feel slightly deflated.

So this was the Duchess I’d spent an hour calming Ricardo down about? Honestly, that hour now felt like a waste.

“That brings me to my point. What exactly are your intentions toward this mongrel?”

“…Pardon?”

Ricardo ran a hand through his hair, as if he’d seen this coming. He didn’t bother denying anything—on the contrary, he looked rather hopeful.

“Listen, Lady Cecilia. Ricardo might be the kind of fruit that’s visually stunning but a little too ripe to actually eat—but wouldn’t you rather have something beautiful to look at than nothing at all? This world is overflowing with rotten things, inside and out. But he—he’s still presentable enough to stand beside and show off.”

The Duchess gripped my hands tightly as she launched into a passionate pitch, praising Ricardo as an ideal “display piece,” at least on the outside.

Watching Ricardo shift angles and show off his profile from every side, perfectly timed with her gestures, I found myself thinking:

Maybe it would’ve been better if the Duke had just come storming in, barking furiously.

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