Chapter 60
60
I Won’t Hurt You
Only when her back touched the soft bed did Leila realize where she was and what was about to happen.
“N-No! Get away! I don’t want this!”
Leila forgot the pain in her injured body and struggled wildly. The pristine white sheets of the annex bedroom, which were rarely used and always impeccably crisp, became a wrinkled mess in an instant.
“Stay still.”
Mathias’s hand gripped Leila’s arm.
“Ah!”
It was her injured arm, and Leila let out a sharp scream. Mathias reflexively furrowed his brow.
As soon as he released the arm he’d been holding, Leila twisted her body away. She nearly tumbled off the bed, but Mathias swiftly pulled her back into his embrace. Realizing this, Leila began to thrash again.
“Let go! Let me go!”
“If you move carelessly, the pain will get worse.”
“No! No! I don’t want this!”
Leila wailed and pushed him away. That stubborn rejection, those screams, grated deeply on Mathias’s nerves. Was that why? The rage that should have been directed at Riet von Lindman, his damned cousin, erupted toward the woman in his arms.
While Mathias took a moment to catch his breath, Leila finally escaped his hold. Looking down at her crawling away awkwardly across the rumpled sheets, Mathias let out a sigh-like scoff.
He was just worried about her injured body.
In some ways, this woman was pathetically stubborn and obsessively private; she would never mention the accident or her wounds to Bill Lemmer. That weighed on him, conjuring the image of himself coming to the annex with medicine, writing that pathetic letter trying to summon her somehow, and sending off the pigeon with it tied to its leg.
As Mathias let out another quiet laugh, Leila crawled to the edge of the bed. But in that instant, her body floated up into the air. It happened so suddenly she didn’t even have time to scream.
“Please don’t do this. I beg you.”
She flailed her limbs in a desperate plea to escape, but it was futile. Mathias straddled her waist and pinned both her arms to the bed with all his strength. Leila, fluttering weakly like a butterfly impaled alive, was soon overcome by a horrifying sense of helplessness and began to sob.
“It h-hurts… Sob… It hurts so much…”
It wasn’t a lie. Even amid the paralyzing terror, the pain in her back and shoulders only grew more vivid.
“Your Grace, it hurts so much.”
Leila wept even more pitifully as she gazed up at the duke’s face through her tear-distorted vision. As if savoring the sight, the duke stared down at her without moving a muscle.
“Did Riet touch you?”
Mathias tilted his head slightly and asked in a low voice. The hair falling over his forehead shifted, revealing his eyes clearly.
Even amid her mindless sobbing, Leila instinctively shook her head. She hated the Lindman Marquis for what he’d done, but she couldn’t let this man know about it.
No, that wasn’t right. He’d approached her suddenly and spoken to her, and she’d run away in fear. That was all.
Mathias listened quietly to Leila’s words, which came in broken spurts between her sobs. Just when it seemed she was calming, she burst into fresh tears, then sniffled repeatedly. At some point, she fell silent. Her exhausted, dazed face glistened with tears.
Mathias’s hand, which had been gripping and pressing down her arm, now touched her small one. The grip enclosing it was no longer rough.
“Stay still, Leila.”
As Mathias’s fingers slowly intertwined with hers, Leila’s limp body flinched and stiffened.
“I won’t hurt you.”
He whispered, lowering his head a little deeper.
Leila’s mind raced in sequence: the man still straddling her, herself firmly bound by him, and this remote annex by the forest riverbank where they were alone. What if she pushed the duke away and fled quickly out that door? But such futile imaginings only brought greater despair.
“…Really?”
Knowing it was foolish, Leila still asked desperately.
The only hope Leila could cling to right now was, ridiculously, the duke. More precisely, the bare minimum mercy from this man who had her perfectly in his grasp yet merely watched.
Mathias didn’t answer right away, and Leila gazed at his face with desperate eyes. Her sobs had stopped, but her soaked lashes still trembled.
After gazing down at her face as if appreciating it, Mathias finally nodded. Leila let out a thin sigh of relief.
Mathias used the hand that had released her to rummage into his jacket pocket and pull out the handkerchief he’d stuffed in haphazardly. Now that both her arms were free, Leila didn’t move a muscle. She merely stared at him desperately, as if trying to remind him of his promise.
Mathias slowly wiped the tear-streaked mess of Leila’s face with the handkerchief. When the startled Leila tried to turn her head away, he held her chin with one hand, forcing her to look at him. Her emerald eyes were even more beautiful when wet.
Only after wiping the cold sweat from her forehead and smoothing back her stray hairs did Mathias rise. Leila, who had lain there like the dead enduring his touch, cautiously followed his movements with her gaze. Stepping off the bed, Mathias picked up the box from the nightstand and turned back. It was a medicine box.
“Show me your wounds.”
He said, sitting on the edge of the bed. Leila, still lying in the same position, just shook her head.
“I’m fine. I’m not hurt.”
“It hurts, doesn’t it?”
“That’s…”
Leila trailed off and averted her eyes. Instead of drawing her gaze back, Mathias undid the buttons on her blouse sleeve. He rolled it up to her elbow in one swift motion, and Leila panicked, flailing about.
“Not the arm.”
In a dry tone, he grabbed the hem of her skirt, which was hiked up to her knees, as if ready to lift it at any moment.
“M-My back! My back hurts!”
Leila cried out urgently to the duke, who seemed ready to strip her bare to find the injury.
“My shoulder and back… they’re a little hurt. But treatment…”
“Take it off.”
At Mathias’s curt command after releasing the skirt, Leila bolted upright as if springing to life. She shook her head in denial of the words she didn’t want to accept, but Mathias showed no intention of relenting.
“If you hate me seeing it, I’ll call the doctor.”
Narrowing his eyes at her, Mathias tapped the edge of the box with his fingertips.
“Dr. Etman.”
At the name he uttered, Leila shook her head frantically. Rather than let Kyle’s father see her like this—tossed onto the duke’s bed in the dead of night—she’d prefer to throw herself into the Shulter River.
“Choose, Leila.”
Mathias’s voice had softened now, as if bestowing a favor.
“Undress, or meet Dr. Etman. Your choice.”
Faced with only one real option, Leila fell into a long silence.
It was a somewhat tedious wait, but Mathias waited patiently. He liked the way her eyes looked at him. Already brimming as if ready to spill over, yet filled with stubborn resolve not to cry. Beautiful eyes that doubted and feared even as they trusted and pleaded.
“Promise…”
Leila finally opened her tightly shut eyes and parted her lips. But the only word she could utter was that one.
The duke always got what he wanted, no matter what it took. Leila knew that all too well. Just as he always had, he would this time too. Continuing her pointless resistance and refusal would only prolong the time she had to endure him. It might even lead to the worst possible outcome.
Her own powerlessness was so absurd that Leila burst into tears again. Silent tears soaked the front of her blouse. Mathias sat watching her just as before.
You must be enjoying this. Because I’m crying.
Biting her lip to swallow her sobs, Leila turned her back to him and sat facing away. With each button she undid, her tears grew hotter and thicker. As if hiding them from him was her last shred of pride, Leila stubbornly kept her head bowed as she removed the blouse.
The smooth fabric slid over even smoother skin in a brief moment. But in Mathias’s mind, the scene seemed to drift outside normal time, flowing agonizingly slowly. Perhaps that was why every detail burned itself so vividly into his memory. Her slender neck and shoulders, so fragile they might snap under a firm grip; her back with its soft lines. And the bruises marring that pale, delicate body.
For a long while, Mathias simply stared at her swollen, bruised back. No wonder she’d cried like a child about the pain. The blotchy bruises staining her white skin stretched from her shoulder blades down to her waist.
Mathias swallowed dryly, his Adam’s apple moving slowly. It was astounding—pitiable, even—that she’d jumped up and pedaled away on her bicycle in this state.
If he’d left her alone, she would have hidden it and suffered in silence.
The thought sparked something like fury. To dispel the emotion, Mathias reached out toward her bruise-covered back.
“Ah…!”
Leila flinched and screamed, curling in as if the mere touch hurt.
“If the pain gets worse, tell me.”
Mathias carefully probed her bones and muscles to assess the injury. Whenever Leila let out a groan, he paused and waited. Fortunately, her shoulder and arm moved without issue. Her ribs and spine seemed undamaged too. The furrow between Mathias’s brows finally eased once he confirmed it.
About to call her name, Mathias instead cupped her bruised shoulder blade. Leila was still trembling with her head deeply bowed.
Like soothing a frightened young animal, Mathias gently stroked the wounded woman’s body. Her frame was so slender it made him wonder if she was eating properly, but the feel of her under his hand was incredibly soft and pliant. Realizing anew just how small she was, a low sigh escaped him.
“Leila.”
At the sound of her name, Leila startled and lifted her head. A large gold-framed mirror hung above the mantelpiece of the fireplace. Only when she confronted her reflection in it, defenselessly exposed, did Leila realize.
Before the shame and self-loathing could fade, her eyes met the duke’s in the mirror. Those blue eyes she’d seen countless times suddenly felt unfamiliar. That was why. Even trembling in fear, she didn’t look away.
Why…?
Leila gazed into Mathias’s reflected eyes as if questioning. They were innocent and clear.
Ha.
With a self-mocking sigh, Mathias shifted his gaze to her bruised shoulder. His breath heated his lips, drying them. Only when he looked back up and met Leila’s eyes in the mirror did he realize he was the one who had looked away first. It was something that had never happened in all the long years he’d known Leila Llewellyn.
Damn it.
A curse nearly slipped out, yet his breath remained hot.
Mathias lowered his lips—lips that seemed poised to sigh again—to kiss Leila’s shoulder. As if ignoring the strange feeling. Or as if consoling the wound. Whichever it was, it wasn’t like him, but he didn’t care.
“It’s okay.”
Mathias whispered low into the ear of Leila, who was wriggling to pull away. His voice, lower and huskier than usual with a faint heat, felt utterly foreign.
Leila hurriedly lowered her eyes, unable to look in the mirror any longer. Then she saw the large hand encircling her bare waist. She tried desperately to pry it off, but to no avail. Mathias gripped her hand firmly too and continued his careful kisses.
Leila squeezed her eyes shut instead.
The duke’s lips and breath on her throbbing wounds felt as soft as a feather.
