-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: Bullseye
-----------------------------------------------------------------
✵ ✵ ✵
Eric was dreaming. A dream about a woman.
Emily Orleans. Eric’s birth mother and the late Duchess.
The dream was likely set about twenty years ago.
A four-year-old Eric had thrown a small stone at a friend who had snatched his toy, leaving a bruise on the friend’s face.
“Eric. Why did you hit your friend?”
Emily spoke to Eric with a stern expression he had never seen before.
Thoroughly intimidated, Eric stared at the ground, crushing the weeds beneath his feet.
Emily didn’t hug him or ruffle his hair as she usually did. Annoyed by this, Eric pouted.
Emily asked again.
“I asked why you hit your friend, Eric.”
Eric was irritated. With everything. So he snapped.
“He touched my rocking horse first! It was his fault! You said it’s stupid to just stand there when a friend takes my things or hits me!”
Eric shouted, unable to contain his anger, but when he looked up and saw Emily’s face turn pale, he covered his mouth.
*I… did something wrong.*
Just as Eric thought this, Emily, with tears welling in her eyes, asked him.
“Who… who told you that?”
Emily gripped Eric’s shoulders tightly.
“Who told you that! Answer me, Eric!”
Eric tilted his head and looked up at Emily.
“Fa-Father…”
In that instant, Emily’s expression froze.
Even now, Eric couldn’t understand why Emily had been so terrified that day.
His father’s advice to respond to violence with violence wasn’t exactly right, but it wasn’t far from the old-fashioned educational methods of aristocratic fathers.
So Eric remembered it as the time his mother’s madness had likely begun.
“N-No… If someone steals your things or hits you, you must protest. You have to protest with words… The truly foolish thing is to pay them back in kind…”
Nevertheless, Eric still remembered his mother’s tearful face.
“But Father said being nice is just being weak, and being weak is bad…”
“No.”
He remembered his mother’s resolute eyes. Those deep brown eyes.
“Living a good life is never a foolish thing. The problem is a world where good people are not rewarded.”
And he remembered the echo of the words she spoke as she looked straight at him with those eyes.
They were words that would remain in Eric’s soul for a long time.
The moment Eric reached out to see his mother more closely, the dream showed him another woman.
Imeline Wedgwood.
This time, the setting was about two months ago.
It was when Helena Wedgwood, Philip Wedgwood, and Imeline Wedgwood had been invited to the Orleans estate by the Duke.
When Eric first saw Imeline Wedgwood, he hadn’t thought of her as a “crazy woman” or a “strange woman” like he did now.
A naive-looking expression, slightly stooped shoulders, a small voice.
The woman with round, sparkling eyes looked apologetic and flustered when the servants brought tea or showed them around the house. At that time, Eric’s gaze was constantly drawn to Imeline.
*Why is she so flustered by everything?*
He felt frustrated, and even angry, with Imeline for not being able to stand up to the servants who were subtly looking down on her.
Her mother, Helena Wedgwood, seemed solely focused on capturing the Duke’s attention, paying no mind to Imeline.
*A woman blinded by the prospect of marrying into a ducal family, more so than by her own daughter.*
Philip was not much different. He was only interested in coveting the ducal family’s possessions and paid little attention to his sister’s timidness.
Even when Lily had to reprimand a servant on Imeline’s behalf after she was doused in hot water—whether by the servant’s mistake or intent—while his father was away, Helena and Philip showed no reaction.
Imeline, with a cowed expression, said.
“I-It can happen. Everyone makes mistakes.”
“You’re so kind, Lady Imeline.”
In that moment, Eric saw Imeline’s expression harden at Lily’s words. Her face at that instant was, how should he put it…
It was so cold it was as if her innocent country girl persona up to that point had been a complete lie.
Imeline stared at Lily, who was busy wiping down her dress, and muttered, showing her undisguised contempt.
“Kindness… is something only the powerful can afford, isn’t it?”
She seemed to believe Eric was too far away to have heard.
A woman who hated being called kind. And yet, a woman who put on every possible act of kindness.
Eric returned to his office, feeling an unsettling discomfort toward this strange woman.
*‘Being too kind is bad…’*
The image of a thoroughly intimidated Imeline overlapped with his father’s words from his childhood.
He stood up from his seat. In any case, if a servant had intentionally poured tea on a guest of the ducal family, it was an issue that had to be addressed.
It was when Eric went near the stables, where the head maid had said the servant in question would be.
“I oughta just!”
Philip’s voice rang out.
“Whoa, whoa. If you hit her, it’ll leave a mark, you know?”
Helena’s voice followed. It was two tones lower than the voice she had used in front of his father. Then came the trembling voice of a maid.
“I-It’s a misunderstanding, Lady Helena.”
“Misunderstanding, my foot. I saw everything. I saw you spill tea on my daughter and snicker.”
Eric stopped in his tracks.
“If you keep messing around like that… I’ll tell everyone what you’ve been doing in the stables with the Duke’s stable hand…?”
The maid’s face turned deathly pale.
“Y-You don’t have any proof!”
“Proof? I don’t need proof. We can just make up proof and witnesses from now on. What do you think is more important to the Duke than the truth? The honor of his family.”
Helena shoved her face right in front of the maid’s and said.
“How dare you touch Helena’s daughter. You’re just an accessory to the ducal estate. You and I are both accessories, so let’s try to help each other out from now on, shall we?”
As the maid collapsed and began to cry, Philip and Helena nonchalantly returned to the mansion. They seemed unaware that Eric had been watching them.
Imeline, who appeared to have been standing guard at the back door, saw the two of them and said this.
“I told you to just let it go. It’s better to…”
His mother’s words, that kindness must be rewarded, echoed in his ears.
According to those words, Imeline was someone who absolutely had to be punished.
✵ ✵ ✵
Eric’s eyes fluttered open.
I was sprawled on the bed, watching Eric, whose hands and feet were bound, and gave him a little wave.
“You’re quite the sleepyhead, Young Master.”
Eric flinched and violently shook his bound hands. But there was no way the sturdy restraints would come loose.
“My, they sell all sorts of interesting tools in the capital. Especially the kind that fulfill the fantasies of noble gentlemen.”
I pointed to the restraints confining Eric’s hands.
“Are you insane? Why did you take my clothes off!”
Eric let out a groan as he looked down at his bare torso.
The defined abdominal muscles on his firm torso were sculpted like a statue.
Wow…
Things you could never find on Philip. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Eric as I spoke.
“From the moment I first saw you, Young Lord Eric Orleans, I’ve always thought it. You’d look better with your clothes off than on. Just like this.”
Eric’s expression changed to one of a person feeling a chill. He seemed to have finally realized where he was trapped.
This was one of the many rooms on the upper floor of the Rose that Blooms at Night, enclosed on all four sides with a plush bed.
I sat down next to Eric.
“I was right after all. You look much better this way than in that arrogant uniform of yours, Young Lord.”
When I tried to brush Eric’s hair back with a gentle touch, he writhed as if he would bite me. Oh my, how scary. It seems I’ve tied up a wild beast, not a person.
I quickly pulled my hand back and said, trying to calm the young lord.
“Calm down a little. Let’s talk, just talk.”
“You want to talk, so you knock me out and tie me up?”
Eric said, his face contorted as if he was about to go mad with rage.
Ah, that’s a bit unfair. I wasn’t the one who made him inhale the poison gas; he did that to himself. All I did was tie him up.
My whole body ached from the effort of moving the unconscious Orleans.
They say you need stamina to do bad things. Since I mostly just acted as a lookout when Mom and Philip were up to no good, my stamina was at rock bottom.
“I don’t like to curse. Untie me while I’m asking nicely, Miss Imeline.”
“I doubt you’re very good at cursing in the first place…”
I scratched my chin, ignoring Eric’s words.
There was no time to get into a war of words with him.
I glanced at the window, where the morning sun was beginning to stream in.
Two days left.
In two days, my mother would be dragged to her wedding with the Duke of Orleans like a lamb to the slaughter.
I thrust the documents I had placed beside the bed in front of Eric’s eyes.
“You recognized what this was, didn’t you? That’s why you brought it out. You must have snuck into the Duke’s office that day and slipped it out.”
Eric’s pupils trembled violently. But it was only for a moment; he began searching for an excuse.
Instead of listening to his excuse, I held the documents and paced around the room.
“I did some thinking last night. Why would Young Lord Eric Orleans steal documents that could be a weakness for his own ducal family? And why would he bring them to a place like this? And… what does that have to do with Prince Robert’s political rival, Princess Ella, who is mentioned in these documents.”
I deliberately lowered my voice on the last sentence and made a finger gun at Eric.
Right now, I was practically holding a gun to his head.
I narrowed my eyes and smiled at Eric. He glared at me with a nauseated expression, as if he were about to throw up.
“Bullseye, right?”
