Translator: Nox

Chapter 8

The first sensation was terrifyingly soft. Despite his assumption that it would be repulsive, Vanessa felt like a cozy, sweet marsh.

Every time he drew in her small, flickering tongue, she seemed to spill sweet nectar. Her grey eyes, which had widened in surprise at his bold intrusion, began to haze over with heat. He slowly devoured the woman’s gasping breath.

The scent that bloomed each time her lips were gently crushed was strikingly similar to summer roses.

“Mmm…”

The moment their tongues tangled a little deeper, a faint tremor ran down Vanessa’s spine, and a small sob escaped her. Each time she was thoroughly explored and tasted, her small hands fluttered awkwardly in the air, unable to find anything to hold onto. Her reaction, struggling against an unfamiliar desire, was utterly innocent.

Theodore firmly caught her slender wrists and pulled them to his waist. The way her body yielded softly into his embrace was profoundly satisfying.

To him, women were easy yet audacious, materialistic and dull. They would blush at his outward appearance, offer bold sympathy for his unfortunate family history, and act as if they would strip off their very undergarments if he so much as reached out a hand.

And then, suddenly, they would tremble with flushed cheeks. They would shed tears diligently, unable to fully hide the calculation that they couldn’t be treated as cheap women.

“Haa…”

The woman panting in his arms was surely no different. Her reaction—acting innocent and ignorant—was refreshing, but there was only one possible ending. If he trampled her pride by saying he felt nothing, her next move would be to slap his face. If he were unlucky, she might burst into tears.

Theodore suppressed a sigh and released her with a measured politeness.

“Ah…”

Vanessa’s wet lips trembled with the lingering sensation. Her shimmering grey eyes and flushed cheeks seemed to radiate the scent of sunlight. Her fresh face, filled with expectation, gazed up at him quietly.

“How was it?”

The boundless confidence that it must have been good was both ridiculous and cute. It momentarily stole his words.

“Was it okay?”

Yes. Theodore readily admitted it to himself. Vanessa Siren Somerset was as enchanting as a magical creature and as sweetly ripe as a midsummer fruit.

He pressed his thumb against Vanessa’s soft lips and thought leisurely.

Do I desire this woman?

Perhaps.

Is that desire so irreplaceable that it’s worth enduring troublesome consequences?

No.

The conclusion came easily. It was time to wake from the spell cast by the summer garden.

“I’m not sure.”

Theodore twisted his lips into a slight, cynical smirk. His blue eyes, devoid of emotion, slowly scanned Vanessa from head to toe. He took his time—enough for her shoulders to tremble with humiliation.

“It seems it’s simply impossible.”

The woman’s face, which had still been clinging to a shred of hope, froze instantly. Her sharp eyes rounded as if she couldn’t believe what she had just heard.

“That’s impossible.”

Her voice was vacant, as if she hadn’t yet returned to reality. He waited patiently for Vanessa to come to her senses and strike his cheek.

On the surface, Vanessa was his employer’s niece. And Theodore, currently known as ‘River Ross,’ had no intention of ending this deviation for the time being. In that case, it was cleanest to make the employer’s niece give up on her own. So, here…

“Do it again.”

“…What?”

“I’m confident I can do better this time.”

Vanessa closed the distance he had painstakingly created in just a few strides. Her grey eyes were blazing as if she had never been shocked at all, fueled by a stubbornness and competitiveness that bordered on childish.

The woman’s soft arms wrapped around his neck. Unlike the rose scent emanating from her supple body, her aura was as gallant as a general heading into battle. Was this a seduction, or was she throwing down a gauntlet to an enemy commander? Then again, to this woman, there was likely no difference. Theodore grabbed both of her wrists and pulled them away from him.

“Get a hold of yourself.”

“I appreciate the concern, but I’m perfectly sane.”

“Will anything change if we do it again?”

“I wasn’t prepared because it was my first time. It will definitely be different this time.”

“Didn’t you hear me? I said I felt nothing.”

At those words, Vanessa tilted her head, lost in deep thought. It was as if she found that simple statement difficult to comprehend. Then, a suspicious gaze swept over him from top to bottom.

He realized for the first time that a beautiful woman merely looking at him could make him feel this strange. Then, she blurted out:

“River Ross. By any chance, do you have some… difficulties with your sex life?”

“Sex… what?”

“Your sex life.”

There wasn’t a trace of shame on the woman’s clear face as she enunciated those words so precisely. Theodore blinked his blue eyes and then let out a hollow laugh.

“Vanessa. Has it never occurred to you that you might just lack any particular charm?”

“Are you serious?”

“If I wanted a woman who was only pretty, I would have bought a pretty doll to hold a long time ago.”

The face of the woman who had just been talking about sex lives flushed crimson. It was as if she had never heard such a lowly remark in her life. Then, she suddenly seemed to grasp the exact meaning of his words.

“That’s impossible.”

Her suddenly distraught face was amusing. So was the way she repeated the same words like someone who had encountered a great loss or despair. He had found her constant chattering annoying, but seeing her like that, she was a little…

It’s a meaningless sentiment now.

He leisurely stubbed out his finished cigarette on his case and walked past her. The scent lingering on his lips was briefly bothersome, but that was all.

---

“She’s watching from over there again.”

At ‘River Ross’s’ remark, Theodore looked up from planting a sapling. Turning his gaze in the direction the sergeant was pointing, he locked eyes with a small face watching them. Seeing her hide like a startled cat when she realized she’d been caught, a dry laugh escaped him in spite of himself.

It had been a week since that day, and the woman continued to hover around him at a distance. Whenever he looked up from his work, she was always there in the direction he felt a gaze. That woman, Vanessa. One day she was hiding behind a tree, another day she was at a second-story window, and today she was at the entrance to the garden…

By this point, Theodore had to admit he had somewhat underestimated Vanessa’s tenacity.

“Are you going to just leave her be?”

Theodore shrugged at the words of the real River Ross, who had come to stand beside him.

“What else should I do? She is the employer’s niece.”

“How about revealing your identity? If telling the Lady is too much, then perhaps dropping a hint to the Earl of Somerset…”

“That would be the day the Dowager Duchess finds out where I am. I’d be dragged straight to the altar.”

“Do you hate marriage that much?”

“I hate the hatred, contempt, and deception that would follow.”

It was an excessively cynical perspective for a man of marriageable age to recite. Even after hearing the clear answer, River Ross hesitated for a long time. It seemed he had more to say but couldn’t bring himself to speak. Noticing this, Theodore turned to him.

“If you have something to say, say it.”

“Well… even if you continue to hide your status, how about at least moving your quarters?”

“My quarters? Why?”

“It bothers me that you’re staying in the storehouse. No matter how much we cleaned it up, the Rose Garden itself is a place that’s barely been touched by people. Why don’t you use my uncle’s cabin alone, and my uncle and I can use the storehouse?”

“Mr. Ross just had back surgery last week. You want me to take a patient’s bed and sleep comfortably alone?”

“Everything must be so inconvenient for you.”

“It’s livable. It’s wider than a cabin on a ship, and it’s even fixed to the ground.”

“What about staying at a nearby villa…?”

Faced with his superior’s unimpressed gaze, River Ross barely swallowed his foolish words. If he were to set foot in any villa or estate belonging to the Battenberg family, the Duke’s whereabouts would be headlined in the next day’s newspaper.

In that sense, Gloucester in the south, which had no connections at all, was the best choice for Theodore. An earldom that had once been of the high nobility but had now fallen so far they couldn’t even set foot in the capital. An Earl who had been disowned by his family over a decade ago, ousted from social circles, and had never stepped foot near the capital since.

A backwater countryside where a newspaper brought by a postman from a nearby city once a week was the only news, and everything was old-fashioned. There were a few minor inconveniences, but… in this day and age, it was an incomparable place.

Sometimes, there was a pleasure in a simple life. Moving one’s body, washing, eating, sleeping, and waking when the sun rose… Perhaps even the Dowager Duchess would welcome her grandson’s wholesome deviation with open arms. She was of a noble temperament who particularly loathed the way young aristocrats frequented social clubs.

Theodore gave his loyal subordinate’s shoulder an encouraging pat and walked toward a peach tree that was beginning to bear fruit. For a while, they silently and leisurely thinned out the fruits that were small, insect-eaten, or not growing evenly.

Growing fruit trees in a garden was considered an unrefined act, but this was a family that fell far short of formality in all sorts of miscellaneous ways anyway.

The famous paintings hanging in every hallway were all replicas, the carpets and curtains were of low quality and coarse, and it seemed they had long ago sold off every last piece of silver tableware. At this point, growing their own fruit was hardly a flaw.

In this castle, there was only one thing that could be considered the real deal. Lady Vanessa, who had been the talk of all Ingram since she was six or seven years old with that pretty face of hers.

“Oh?”

When Theodore instinctively looked up at River Ross’s startled exclamation, that ‘real deal’ was limping toward them.