“A punishment perfectly suited for trash like you.”

Ian Dalton uncrossed his legs and slowly rose from his seat.

“Uncle.”

Henry Fairfax called out to Ian, his voice trembling. Ian walked toward the door.

“Uncle!”

Ian left the room as if he hadn’t heard a thing. In truth, Henry’s voice meant as little to him as the creaking of an ungreased hinge.

Henry was left alone. In his bedroom, and in his life.

Only then did he realize he had lost the most important person in his life. His uncle, Ian Dalton, who had given him unconditional love.

Ian would soon have a child, and that child would more than fill the void left by Henry. But in Henry’s life, no one would ever fill the emptiness left by his uncle. That void would remain a gaping hole in Henry Fairfax’s heart until the day he died, a constant ache.

This, too, was the punishment Henry had to bear for his own foolishness.

That night, an unexpected visitor came to Henry’s room. It was his mother.

Henry was surprised by her visit but not particularly pleased. To him, his mother was not someone he could rely on.

The nurse yielded her place to the lady and left the room. But instead of sitting in the chair by the bed, Mrs. Fairfax sat on the sofa by the fireplace, where the fire was burning. It was nearly ten steps away from the bed.

Leaning back on the sofa, she looked at Henry, who was lying down, staring at the ceiling.

“Henry.”

“…”

“I heard from your uncle that you forgave the thief.”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure you won’t regret it?”

“I won’t regret it. After all…”

Henry was not accustomed to lying without practice. He softened his voice.

“…he was just a poor thief. Maybe it’s my fault for getting into this state, for stubbornly chasing after someone like that.”

A brief silence followed. Mrs. Fairfax spoke again.

“Then why do you keep crying?”

“…”

For the past five days, Henry had often wept without reason. Even when the nurse tried to console him, even when the doctor and the officer shook their heads in discomfort, even when George Fairfax came to wipe his tears, he couldn’t stop crying.

He sensed the end. His uncle had found out everything. It was a complete rupture with both his aunt and his uncle.

His premonition proved true, and today, his uncle had declared the end of their relationship. He had lost his uncle, who had been a friend, a father, a brother, and a mentor in life.

Because of me. All because of worthless me.

Drowning in self-loathing, Henry’s heart hit rock bottom, and he cried more today than ever before. He had shed so many tears that the nurse had to change his pillowcase.

To his mother’s question about why he was crying, his dried-up tear ducts released yet another trickle. Henry covered his face with his hands. His palms stung against his eyes, his battered body made worse by the reckless tears.

“Mother… please, I beg you, don’t ask any more about the thief incident. I don’t want to think about it. That incident… it’s something I regret so much I can’t bear to dwell on it.”

Looking at her sobbing son, Mrs. Fairfax recalled her meeting with Ian.

Upon arriving at Dunville Park, Ian had met with Henry first and learned why Henry refused to give a statement. It was because he was ashamed of being beaten nearly to death while trying to confront the thief.

Ian had told his nephew about the kind of person the thief was, and Henry had decided to show mercy.

Considering Henry’s character, it was a plausible story. But her intuition told her there was an entirely different truth hidden in this matter.

As if to confirm her instincts, Olivia Fairfax, who had returned after seeing Ian off, grumbled to her mother.

“Even when I pressed my ear against the door while Uncle and Henry were talking, I couldn’t hear a thing. It was like they were writing notes to each other! And you know, after Uncle left the room, Henry was crying even harder than usual. Mrs. Layden said she had to stuff cotton in her ears.”

Hearing all this, Mrs. Fairfax had no choice but to visit her son’s room late at night.

“Henry, I’ll ask you one question tonight, and I won’t ask again.”

As Henry sniffled, waiting for his mother to leave, Mrs. Fairfax finally voiced the question she had hesitated to ask dozens of times.

“Has someone… violated you?”

Henry’s sobbing stopped. His breathing, both in and out, ceased.

Silence. It spoke a horrific truth to both Henry and Mrs. Fairfax.

“Oh, God,” Mrs. Fairfax murmured softly.

Henry was thrown into confusion. How could his mother know about Celine?

Did Uncle tell her? No, that’s impossible. No matter how much he hates me now.

Even though his relationship with his uncle was utterly broken, Henry’s trust in Ian remained unshaken. Ian wouldn’t have revealed his deepest wound to others out of spite.

Maybe she found out through her cards. Mother’s readings are eerily accurate.

He had always feared his secrets would be exposed through his mother’s card readings. Now, that fear had become reality. His mother knew everything.

He couldn’t bring himself to look at her. If he could, he would have bitten his tongue and died. It was so humiliating, so shameful.

“Mother, please, don’t say anything. I can never speak about that matter, not even in death.”

“…”

Mrs. Fairfax looked up at the ceiling. She could hear her son’s stifled sobs.

Ian must know everything. Henry had confessed it all to him, and together they had agreed to keep silent about the thief. He hadn’t dared tell the rest of the family—not even his own mother.

Mrs. Fairfax understood Henry’s heart. For the twenty-four years since his birth, the distance between them had been exactly like the space between her on the sofa by the fireplace and Henry on the bed.

When she gave birth to her first son, she struggled to feel affection for him. The agony of a life-threatening childbirth, followed by puerperal fever, nearly made her one of the countless mothers who died giving birth.

When she finally recovered, she noticed her son’s existence. She tried to love the child who had nearly killed her. She dismissed the wet nurse and fed and cared for him herself. The more time they spent together, the more she found him endearing.

But just as the child began calling her “Mother,” her husband fell from a horse and injured his back. Unable to leave his bed on his own, he sank into depression. It was only natural for a man of such an active nature to feel despair in such a state.

She sought out renowned doctors across the country and summoned apothecaries. She also had to manage the family’s finances and household. There was no time to spare for her son.

By the time Robert miraculously recovered through spa treatments in Bath, Henry was ready to enter public school. He left for boarding school, and each time he returned for holidays, another sibling had been born. Instead of staying at the noisy Dunville Park, filled with the cries of his younger siblings, Henry stayed with his uncle at Whitefield.

By the time Henry had grown into an adult, and his mother had grown old, an unbridgeable gap had formed between them. There was affection, but it was like a dish missing its main ingredient. That ingredient was time.

Mrs. Fairfax looked at her son, who was crying with his face covered. Henry was a good son. He had understood his mother’s preoccupation with nursing his father during his formative years and had grown up quietly and brilliantly without causing trouble.

Yet someone had laid a dark hand on such a child. And it had broken him.

Her heart shattered.

But she was not one to give in to emotions easily. What her son needed now was not comfort but guidance. That was the way to save him.

“Don’t speak of your wounds. You don’t want to talk about it, and I don’t want to hear what neither of us wants to say. Just lie there and listen to your mother.”

At her words, Henry felt a quiet relief. He had been terrified she would press him for answers.

“I know you’re drowning in self-blame. You must feel worthless. The incident, and letting yourself be put in that situation—it must all feel like your fault. Victims, especially kind ones, often blame themselves. But Henry, you went through this because you were such a good person.”

Mrs. Fairfax continued in a calm, steady tone.

“You are a good person, Henry. You were the son who wrote to your mother every month from boarding school. You were the boy who, despite your fear of heights, climbed a tree to return a fallen baby bird to its nest. You never passed a beggar without giving, and you got beaten up trying to save a flower girl from a harassing customer.”

Henry listened quietly to his mother’s words. Though her voice was impassive, it carried care and love.

“You must feel broken and defiled. If that’s how you feel, let yourself feel it. Think of yourself as broken and defiled. The Venus de Milo was unearthed with broken arms and scratches, yet it remains the Venus de Milo. You are the same. Scratched and broken, you are still Henry Fairfax.”

“…”

“No adult lives without being broken or defiled in some way. But if you lose yourself, you become an empty shell wandering the world without a soul. Don’t lose yourself. Don’t let someone’s misuse of you make you abandon yourself. Don’t punish yourself by destroying who you are. Do you understand?”