Chapter 69
69
Benefactor
“Promise…….”
It was Leila’s faint whisper that roused Mathias from the mire of lingering pleasure. Still buried deep inside her, he lifted his head to find her green eyes fixed solely on him. With the hand that had finally released her hair—gripped so tightly it must have hurt—he gently cupped Leila’s still-flushed cheek.
“Mercy… the promise… please…….”
Mathias understood the scattered words she gasped out between ragged breaths, and a hollow chuckle escaped him. Even in this moment, her desperate plea from this adorable woman wasn’t entirely unwelcome, strangely enough. No matter her motive, those clear eyes holding him so fully were jewel-like in their beauty.
As Mathias simply gazed down at her in silence, Leila laboriously lifted her limp hand from the floor and clutched tightly at his arm.
Her face looked as if she’d burst into tears if he delayed even a moment longer, so Mathias finally nodded as if he couldn’t help it. Leila let out a sigh and released him with a small thud. Before her hand could even touch the floor, her eyelids fluttered shut. All that remained was Mathias, still watching her.
Just one more time.
Harboring a wish he couldn’t even understand himself, Mathias watched over Leila for a long while longer. But nothing changed. Turning her head away and squeezing her eyes shut tight, her face showed only stubborn refusal.
With another soft chuckle, Mathias seized her hair again and yanked her toward him with all his strength. Leila’s eyes flashed with fear at the pain, colliding with Mathias’s cold gaze.
He swooped down and claimed her lips in a sudden assault.
It was a fairly equitable trade.
When she awoke from her deep sleep, the entire room was already filled with bright light.
Leila struggled to sit up and leaned against the headboard. She harbored a faint hope that it had all been a nightmare, but the traces and aches from last night scattered across her body allowed no such delusion.
She blankly took in her disheveled state. She had collapsed into bed just as she’d returned from the duke’s annexe. She desperately wanted to wash away every trace of that man, but she didn’t have the strength to lift a single finger. Making it back to the cottage without passing out had been the best she could manage last night.
Gazing down at her body covered in handprints, bloodstains, and traces she didn’t even want to think about, Leila shuddered and rose from the bed. Her whole body ached as if it might shatter. The pain kept summoning memories that reddened her eyes.
It’s nothing.
As she washed her body over and over, Leila tried to compose herself.
It’ll end up being nothing in the end.
Knowing full well that could never be true, Leila clung all the more desperately to that self-deception. Thanks to it, by the time she’d changed clothes and sat at the table, she could face things with far more composure.
Eat something, recover her strength, and go see Uncle Bill.
Focusing only on the tasks right in front of her, Leila scooped food from what Madam Mona had left onto her plate. She felt like she couldn’t swallow a thing, but she forced it down with water, bit by bit. It was only after she’d managed the last piece of bread that she noticed the bundle of letters at the end of the table.
Her expression, calm until she picked them up, soon turned to stunned dismay. They were from Kyle. Unbelievable as it was, no matter how many times she checked, it was unmistakably Kyle’s handwriting—all of them letters from Kyle.
For a while, she just sat there frozen, clutching the letters, before tearing open the top envelope with trembling hands.
My dearest Leila.
That was how Kyle’s first letter, sent around the start of last autumn, began.
“Thank you so much, Your Grace. Truly, I don’t even know how to express my gratitude.”
Bill Leamer bowed his head repeatedly, his face flushed red. He looked far more haggard than just a few days ago, but his eyes, now bright with regained hope, shone much brighter than usual.
“To show such mercy…….”
Bill Leamer trailed off, his eyes reddening. Fortunately, Leila entered the police station only after he’d composed himself.
“Leila!”
Bill’s booming shout echoed through the room. Every person in the station—the Herhardt duke and lawyer who had come for Bill Leamer’s release—all turned to stare at her.
“Uncle! How in the world…….”
The elated smile that had bloomed on Leila’s face upon seeing the freed Bill Leamer vanished the instant her eyes met the Herhardt duke’s.
“Congratulations, Leila. His Grace has shown mercy to Mr. Leamer.”
A policeman approached the stiffly frozen Leila with a smile.
“Ah…… yes.”
At a loss, Leila looked back at Mathias. His gaze on her was detached, as if last night’s memories had been wiped clean.
“……Thank you truly, Your Grace.”
Suppressing the surge of overwhelming emotions, Leila bowed deeply. But no matter how hard she tried, her hands kept clenching. She swallowed dryly again and again, her eyes wavering. It must have looked awkward, but fortunately, no one seemed to notice. No one except the Herhardt duke.
While the duke’s lawyer and the policemen talked, Mathias and Leila’s eyes met again. Whether she’d changed her mind or not, Leila now glared at him, lips pressed tight.
If she wanted to put on a brave front, she should start by hiding those trembling hands.
Glancing at her pale little hands, Mathias let out a short, incredulous chuckle. The reason he’d made time for this—when he could have just sent the lawyer—was of course that woman, Leila Llewellyn, his impudent mistress.
By the time the annexe had regained its silence, not only Leila but Mathias himself was thoroughly disheveled. His shirt stained with blood, torn cufflinks, sweat-dampened hair. Surveying his state after rolling wildly on the floor with the woman, Mathias rose with a self-mocking shake of his head.
Leila lay curled into a ball on the carpet. With stockings slipped down to her knees and shoes still on—that was all she wore. The firelight from the hearth fell softly over her. Her ragged breaths came faintly amid the crackle of burning logs.
Having roughly straightened his clothes, Mathias leaned obliquely against the sofa and looked down at her. It was a relief that she stubbornly kept her back turned, hiding her face.
Her tousled long hair covered her bare back and shoulders completely. Beneath it, her snow-white hips and thighs bore his red handprints and bloodstains. He quite liked how easily marks lingered on her body.
Changing his mind about calling her name, Mathias impatiently pulled out a cigarette and put it between his lips—unusually hasty for him. But the thought to light it didn’t follow.
Mathias’s gaze, which had slowly trailed to Leila’s toes, crept back up to her head even more slowly. Her utter stillness grated on his nerves. If he wanted, he could pull her up with one hand alone, but that wasn’t what he desired.
In the end, Mathias crumpled the unlit cigarette and tossed it into the ashtray. He was pathetic, lacking even the patience to endure the short distance from the drawing room to the bedroom. It wouldn’t have changed much, but at least he wouldn’t have felt this filthy seeing her sprawled on the floor like that.
He resolved to force her up and stood, but in the end, Mathias couldn’t bring himself to touch Leila. The sound of his single step forward was enough to make her freeze rigid. At her incredible stubbornness in refusing to turn even then, Mathias let out a silent, hollow laugh.
He tossed his jacket, draped over the wingchair’s back, onto the trembling Leila. She flinched sharply but, as expected, didn’t turn her head. It was getting hard to tell who was the one being trampled and humiliated.
Taking a deep breath to suppress the wretched mood, Mathias headed to the bathroom. Leila was irritatingly frustrating, yet he also felt at a loss for what to do. Strangest of all was how satisfying and enjoyable it still felt. By the time he finished his shower and emerged, he even thought of trying to soothe her once. The shock of facing the empty drawing room hit him all the harder for it.
Leila had run away on her own.
Faced with the reality that he couldn’t find her anywhere in the annexe, Mathias finally had to accept that humiliating conclusion. A few buttons torn from her blouse, the soiled carpet, and a few strands of golden hair were the only traces she’d left.
Seeing his jacket neatly draped over the wingchair’s back again, a crooked smile even tugged at his lips. He could vividly picture Leila Llewellyn fleeing down the frozen winter forest path in that state, clutching the gaping front of her buttonless blouse closed. Her heart must have hated being near him that much.
Last night, Mathias hadn’t chased after Leila because he knew full well his patience had reached its limit. If they’d met again, well, he wouldn’t have treated her kindly.
Now, with Leila right before his eyes, that judgment felt confirmed. The same sense of being left alone as that previous night lingered, even after so much time had passed.
“You’ve made a truly grand decision, Your Grace. As expected of the head of the esteemed Herhardt family, respected far and wide.”
The policeman’s admiring words pulled Mathias’s thoughts back to reality.
Wrapping up the conversation with an appropriately modest reply, Mathias left the station around then. Bill Leamer and Leila, along with the policemen, followed in a line behind him. His attendants and driver hurried from the waiting car to greet their master.
“Your Grace, this grace—I’ll never forget it until the day I die, no, even after death. I mean it. Truly.”
Bill Leamer bowed his head once more.
“No need, Mr. Leamer.”
Delivering his calm response, Mathias briefly glanced at his woman standing beside the gardener. Leila looked back at him with eyes glittering prettily. Or rather, glaring would be far more accurate.
“See you back in Arbis.”
With that short farewell, Mathias got into the car. Right up to the last moment, Leila didn’t muster so much as a forced smile.
Drawing his gaze from the car window, Mathias’s lips curved softly.
He was determined to see that woman utterly undone before him.
“You’re staying here from now on? How?”
Leila asked in disbelief. Bill Leamer stroked her head affectionately, unable to hide his joy. The two, who had walked together from the town, had now reached the road where Arbis’s main gate came into view.
“Thanks to His Grace’s consideration.”
“What?”
“He’s allowed me to keep living in the hunting lodge as before and work for Arbis.”
“But…….”
“I have some pride, so of course I refused at first. How could I go back to work as if nothing happened after causing such a huge mess? But His Grace said that helping restore the greenhouse I ruined to its former state would be the greatest atonement. And since I was the one who tended Arbis’s Paradise, I should be the one to bring it back. Hearing it, that made sense too.”
Even thinking back, those words moved him deeply, reddening Bill Leamer’s eyes. The days when he’d thought he was surely headed to prison had been utter hell. The fear of ruining his own life paled next to the guilt of leaving Leila all alone.
“Will both madams allow it?”
“Lady Norma gladly gave permission, and Madam eventually agreed after His Grace’s persuasion. Truly, all of this is thanks to him—he’s our benefactor, Leila.”
Benefactor.
At that word, so ill-suited to that cruel man, Leila suddenly felt dizzy.
I absolutely can’t let Uncle Bill find out.
Repeating that vow, she barely steadied her heart, but she couldn’t calm her anxiously pounding pulse.
“This place where I’ve devoted decades feels like a part of my own body—the gardens and greenhouses of Arbis. The guilt of destroying it myself nearly became indelible, but restoring the greenhouse to how it was will at least lift the heaviest burden from my heart. It’s also the way to repay such a great kindness.”
“……Yes, Uncle.”
Afraid her trembling voice would give her away, Leila answered curtly.
“So, Leila, don’t worry anymore. For your sake too, I’ll be careful—twice as careful—and do even better than before.”
Stopping before Arbis’s main gate, Bill Leamer gently squeezed Leila’s shoulders. Vitality had already returned to his battered face.
“Bill! You’re really back!”
The servants, who had heard the news and gathered to wait, rushed over in a group. Thanks to them, Leila caught her breath for a moment and gazed absently at Arbis’s entrance—its ornate iron bars like finely crafted artwork.
In her dazed eyes, the golden lettering gleamed splendidly.
