Reborn to Flee My Fiance's Obsession (Fiona and Soren) novel Chapter 324

Fiona arrived just in time to hear that line. Before he could go saying more, she cut in, "What kind of tea would Lord Soren like?"

"Whatever Ms. Fiona wants me to drink, I'll drink." Soren caught the meaning and did not bring it up again.

Fiona paused to think for a moment, then said, "My mother just got some new tea leaves in her room. Would Lord Soren like to come with me to the second branch?"

There was no need to keep the matter of saving him hidden anymore, but it still needed a little smoothing over.

So Soren followed her out.

"Lord Soren is a lot easier to deal with now," Joanna said.

"Looks to me like it's only with Fiona." Mrs. Niven's voice carried a trace of unease.

Joanna spoke more carefully then. "But Fiona's... marriage is already settled."

Mrs. Niven frowned, only hoping that was not where this was heading.

Joanna, though, still had a little bitterness sitting in her chest. Her own daughter's marriage was a complete mess right now, while Fiona's prospects seemed almost too good.

But then she thought of how Fiona had done everything she could for her daughter over Elijah's matter, and that small urge to compare them faded away.

In the end, Fiona doing well was good for the Niven family, and good for Aiden and Rita too.

*****

"Who told Lord Soren he could come here without letting me know first?" Fiona asked on the way to the second branch, settling the score with him as they walked.

"Didn't Mrs. Niven send someone to tell you?"

"Couldn't Lord Soren have had Harriet come tell me?" What she meant was simple enough. If she hadn't agreed, then he had no business coming to the Niven family.

Soren said, "If I did it that way, you wouldn't have seen me."

He had that exactly right. Fiona hadn't wanted to see him today.

"Ms. Chambers had to return to Jexburgh now too, so I couldn't very well leave her to come back alone. That's why I brought her.

As for that life-saving debt, if anyone deserves her thanks, it should be Quentin. He was the one who carried her back to the tent, and he was the one who treated her wounds."

Fiona said, "And yet for Lord Soren's sake, she even gave up being the talented lady."

"I never needed her sacrifice.

It didn't help me in the slightest. What you did for me was real. Without Fiona, there wouldn't be a Soren standing here today.

And you were the one who risked yourself to save my life. If anyone made a sacrifice, it was you."

Put plainly, Hillary's sacrifice had been nothing more than something she could use to move herself. Fiona's sacrifice had truly saved Soren's life.

Not just his life.

His soul too. Without that thread of warmth, he didn't dare think about what kind of dried-up, rotted man he might have become.

Soren had also figured out some things. There was a reason Fiona pushed back against him so hard.

What waited for him back at the estate was his own father and Vincent, the people closest to him, and the very same people who wanted him dead. No wonder that place had become something he couldn't bring himself to step into.

If it was his home, then it wasn't a place that sheltered him.

If it wasn't his home, then in a world this wide, where was Soren supposed to go?

He seemed almost like an orphan, a drifting thing with no roots.

Back in that past life, when he walked into that estate under those same circumstances, what must that have been like for him—so bleak, and yet still carrying a little hope?

In the end, it was those of the Zonfrillo household who had chilled his heart all over again.

That was why, inside the estate, he never went to Winnifred's place.

He never joined the family reunion dinner either. Even during the New Year, he always had some important matter to attend to.

More than that, aside from Penelope and Naomi, he never said one extra word to anyone else.

Toward everything, he carried that same distant, uncaring air.

Then Fiona suddenly remembered the first year after their marriage.

That night, after she'd finished the New Year's Eve dinner at the estate and returned to Radiant Lodge, he had already been there. At the time, she'd only casually asked when he'd gotten back, and he'd answered in that flat way of his that he'd just arrived.

"Have you eaten, Lord Soren?" Fiona had asked him then.

"You don't need to worry about me," Soren had said.