11 - The Time of the Blind Beast (15+ Revised Edition)
Chapter 11
“My age… you mean?”
Rose blinked her eyes wide in surprise.
Ezekiel tilted the corner of his mouth.
“Then who else would there be?”
Rose keenly felt anew how little interest he had in his employees. When she took the job at the mansion, she had disclosed her name, age, hometown, and other basic personal details to Madam Serva.
“I am nineteen.”
As she answered, Rose swallowed a sliver of anxiety. Ezekiel was tracking a woman in her late teens to early twenties. She couldn't predict what emotions her age, which fit this description perfectly, might evoke in him.
Perhaps suspicion,
Perhaps displeasure.
Perhaps discomfort.
Perhaps…
“You haven’t graduated by nineteen?”
However, Ezekiel pointed out something entirely different.
Rose was one of the oldest students at the school. Though it wasn't her fault, she felt inexplicably embarrassed.
She fumbled with her tongue.
“…Yes, I started late… and because of the tuition fees.”
“It must be a shame you won’t graduate this time either.”
Rose quickly shook her head. The headscarf wrapped around her thick tresses rustled with a dry sound.
“No, I’m not disappointed. Not at all.”
The emphasis on "not at all" carried weight.
Ezekiel’s face remained close to expressionless. His unfocused eyes slowly roamed around her. The sensation of never quite meeting his gaze felt foreign.
“What do you look like?”
As she followed his vacant stare for a moment, an unexpected question returned.
“What?”
“You said you saw me at Milena Girls’ School. I vaguely recall the battle you mentioned, but I don’t remember the faces of the students from that school at all.”
“Ah…”
It was natural. The reason Rose remembered him was that the sight of the officer leading the charge and commanding the operation was incredibly striking. Rose was certain that both the teachers and students must have been staring at Ezekiel blindly.
Even from that distance, she had to squint and focus to make out his features. Moreover, he was busy concentrating on commanding his soldiers, so he would have had even less time to notice the faces of students clinging to windowsills and rooftops.
“I have an ordinary face.”
Ezekiel let out a soft chuckle.
“I don’t know if that’s modesty or deception. Serva never spared praise, calling you a pretty, kind, and diligent young lady.”
She was suddenly speechless. While it might have been a playful remark for him, Rose, in her precarious position, felt anxious, as if every word he uttered was probing her. She knew she was being overly sensitive, like a thief worried about their own guilt.
She tried her best to appear composed.
“The Madam must have thought very highly of me.”
“Hmm. Shall we see if that’s true?”
Ezekiel tilted his head, his tone devoid of inflection.
At the clearly implied gesture, she faltered for a moment. It wasn’t because she recalled how coldly and mercilessly he had exposed and probed her body before. It was a search she had proposed herself to dispel suspicion, and she had braced herself to endure whatever happened…
More than anything, she had no rights. No right to feel wronged, no right to feel scared, no right to feel humiliated, no right to any of those things against him.
For she herself was the one who had reduced this man to ruins.
But now, worry held her back.
Could he recognize her face just by touch?
Rose quickly closed her eyes and fumbled with her hands, tracing her face. She felt the bone structure, the shape of her eyebrows, the bridge of her nose from between her brows to her nostrils.
A wry smile escaped her lips. Here she was, acting so suspiciously right in front of him, and he knew nothing. It was truly deception.
Amidst a subtle sense of self-reproach, Rose took a step closer to him.
Sensing her presence, the man’s hand swept through the air. She brought her face close to his hand.
Last time, his touch had been a search of intimate corners of her body, but today’s purpose was different. His fingers, warmed by his body, slowly traced the outline of Rose’s face from the periphery.
“Is this the cheek?”
“Yes.”
The woman replied in a whisper.
Ezekiel slowly stroked the soft, yielding skin. It seemed impossible to meticulously map Rose’s face solely by touch. In fact, it would require the talent of a great painter or sculptor. Like that great artist who said he merely revealed the form trapped within the marble.
However, there were aspects she felt anew through his touch. New facets she hadn't paid much attention to last time.
A face that fit in one hand, soft skin, earlobes that were plump and made one want to roll them around, eyelashes that tickled her palm with the same subtle tremor as her eyelids closing… and…
As his fingers traced the contour of her forehead, her headscarf slipped off. Her coiled hair tumbled down all at once.
A soft texture brushed against the back of his hand. He cupped a handful of her hair.
“Your hair is long.”
She knew it was long, but it was more than she had imagined. The hair he held slipped through his fingers for a long time before reaching its end.
“It’s easier to tie up when I grow it long, for wearing a headscarf.”
“What color is it?”
Her heart gave a sudden jolt.
Rose glanced sideways at her chestnut-colored hair.
“Honestly, if Rose’s hair wasn’t red, I might have suspected her as the culprit.”
Madam Serva had called her hair red.
Unlike ordinary brown hair mixed with yellow, her hair was a brown with a hint of purple. Most people called it chestnut, like Ezekiel’s, while some referred to it as reddish-brown. However, it was far from what was commonly described as red hair.
Had he mistaken it in the dim light of night, or could he not distinguish colors properly?
There was a student at Milena Girls’ School like that. Someone who saw the world in a different color.
That student’s peculiarity was discovered by sheer chance. In fact, until her friends noticed something odd, the student herself hadn’t realized her vision was different from others. From her perspective, she was perfectly normal.
It was possible.
Madam Serva could very well be mistaken.
“My hair color is…”
Suddenly, her pulse throbbed ominously.
“…I am investigating the ‘late teens to early twenties, beautiful woman with chestnut hair and hazel eyes’ you described.”
Her lips didn’t move.
If he asked about her hair color, the next question would be about her eye color. Those two are usually the most distinctive colors of a person’s face.
“Even you, Ezekiel, saw the woman’s face directly, yet you couldn’t apprehend her because you had no way to describe her. How hellish must that feel. The culprit might be right beside you.”
She had already revealed her age.
A nineteen-year-old woman with chestnut hair and hazel eyes was within his grasp. While it had somehow passed earlier, would it pass again this time?
“Do you know who ruined my eyes? It was a maid, just like you.”
Now was the chance to atone to him.
The first time she saw a man without sharp edges.
The first time she was having a proper conversation.
“…It’s red.”
The answer came out almost unconsciously.
If he were to ask someone about her, that person would undoubtedly be Madam Serva. Ezekiel did not engage in unnecessary conversation with any employees other than Madam Serva.
“If it’s red hair, are the eyes green? It’s quite common for them to be born that way.”
Her heart pounded terribly.
“Yes.”
“So your name must be Rose, then.”
He didn’t doubt her at all. His reaction was even tinged with a hint of curiosity.
Rose nodded to indicate her assent. She dared not open her mouth, for there was no guarantee her voice wouldn’t tremble.
The lie had begun.
