When the servant came out, she saw Winifred Dawson squatting on the ground, tearfully gazing at the road outside.
She cried silently, with only a faint sniffle. The servant knelt beside her, wiping her tears with a tissue and soothing her patiently: “Miss, be good. When the sun sets, Mr. Burns will come back. How about you come inside with me?”
Winifred Dawson buried her face in her arms like a self-protective rabbit. After a while, she replied in a muffled voice, “No.”
“But if you stay here, Mr. Burns will be unhappy when he returns. He’ll scold us and ignore you.”
Winifred Dawson’s shoulders trembled slightly. She finally raised her red eyes and asked, “If I wait here… will he really be angry?”
“Yes.” The servant thought to herself that she would first coax Winifred Dawson inside and deal with the consequences later. After all, Winifred Dawson was too naive to realize she was being deceived.
“You knocked over a bowl and made a mess when you came out earlier. Mr. Burns hates wasting food the most. Let’s go back and clean it up together, okay? And have you seen the flowers Mr. Burns prepared for you this morning?”
Upon hearing this, Winifred Dawson finally reacted. She looked at the road, bit her lip, then grabbed the servant’s hand to stand up.
“Let’s go back then. I don’t want him to be unhappy. I need to clean up and see the flowers he gave me.”
Seeing that Winifred Dawson was finally cooperating, both the servant and the gatekeeper sighed in relief.
Once inside, the servant immediately locked the door.
Winifred Dawson actually started cleaning up the mess by the coffee table, using tissues to wipe up sticky porridge. Her hands were making everything even messier; especially troublesome were the rice grains and cake cream on the carpet.
Seeing this, the servant quickly fetched cleaning tools and had Winifred Dawson sit aside. She couldn’t let her do such dirty work; if Leland Burns saw her working, she might lose her job.
“Miss, where are the flowers Mr. Burns gave you? Would you like to see them?”
“The flowers are upstairs.”
Of course, she knew where the flowers were. Mentioning them was just a way to coax Winifred Dawson upstairs to rest.
“Why don’t you go upstairs and look at the flowers? I’ll bring lunch up for you later.”
“I’m not hungry; I’ve eaten enough.”
“Then how about I bring some cake and tea up in the afternoon after your nap?”
Winifred Dawson looked at her dirty hands and nodded blankly before obediently going upstairs without asking anyone to accompany her.
With only two or three people in the villa after lunch, Autumn Joy Estate felt particularly quiet inside and out. With nothing to do, both the cook and servant went to rest.
At this time, Winifred Dawson should have been napping in her room as well. She held a red camellia flower in her hand.
The beautiful camellia made her hands look even more unsightly by contrast. Her wrists were still injured from being trampled on; such injuries take time to heal. Her left hand, which used to wear a watch, now had steel pins embedded to fix bone growth.
Her eyes were still red from crying downstairs but now appeared indifferent as she lowered her head and silently counted numbers.
She counted from one to two thousand without checking the time, judging that over half an hour had passed just by counting.
Winifred Dawson put down the flower and took a roll of transparent tape from a drawer in her wardrobe, carefully hiding it in her hand. She ignored all the surveillance cameras in the hallway as she ran to the study and pressed herself against its door.
She scratched at the door handle as if trying to get inside, looking like that silly yet slightly neurotic girl from earlier. Seeming exhausted from scratching, she leaned against the door with her upper body pressed tightly against it.
In November’s winter weather, Winifred Dawson couldn’t tolerate any cold; even slight chills made her bones ache terribly-especially her fingers. Even with heating throughout the house, she wore thick and cumbersome clothes because her hands never warmed easily.
Her loose clothing concealed what she was doing from surveillance cameras; it only appeared as though she was anxiously searching for something outside a closed door.
In reality, she was using transparent tape to collect fingerprints from the handle; there was no trace of confusion in her eyes.
After carefully storing away the tape, Winifred Dawson turned around with tear-filled eyes and crouched down like she did when waiting for Leland Burns that day-curling up on the ground until she fell asleep unknowingly.
She still had nightmares-dreams of running in rain through a dark cemetery where Gregory Dawson’s figure appeared. She tried desperately to reach him but was repelled by an invisible force just as she was about to touch him.
In darkness came a hand grabbing her ankle and dragging her into a deep mud pit.
Winifred Dawson woke up from this nightmare with tears streaming down her face; she told herself to endure just a little longer-it would all be over soon.
She wouldn’t love Leland Burns; instead, she’d mimic how he once loved her-driving herself mad in pretense so convincing that even she sometimes couldn’t tell reality from acting.
Only by pretending that traumatized Winifred Dawson had suddenly “fallen in love” with Leland Burns would he lower his guard.
Leland Burns didn’t know that every night when they shared a bed-curled up in his arms listening to his heartbeat-she longed to take a knife and carve out his beating heart herself.
Choking back sobs while hugging her knees like an abandoned child: “Leland Burns… I miss you so much… why aren’t you back yet…”