The Trash Lady Who Stole the Duke's First Night
Chapter 19
“…Sir. Please find me an inn that serves meals. One where the meals are in… included in the room rate, without having to pay extra.”
She had intended to demand it boldly and brazenly, more than anyone else could, but her conscience betrayed her, making her words stumble and stutter.
“What do you want to eat?”
“……Steak.”
“Tell our chef.”
“Tell who?”
“The chef at the Duke's Castle. He grills it well.”
Elio blinked twice.
“You mean I should come eat steak? All the way at the Duke's Castle?”
“You’re sleeping at the Duke's Castle.”
“Tonight?”
“From now on.”
Elio jerked her head up in alarm.
“We aren't even officially married! How can I stay at the Duke's Castle for two months?”
“Why couldn't you?”
“Is it really alright to just bring any lady into the castle like that? That looks terribly immoral!”
“You and I already spent our first night together.”
Elio’s jaw dropped at the man's shameless retort.
“That was just me playing along with your brazen lie! I’ll stay at an inn for the time being, so please just arrange any house in the village for me whenever you can.”
His face remained completely blank. Flustered, Elio parted and closed her lips.
“You told me you’d take responsibility for everything I needed…!”
He gazed steadily into Elio’s eyes. His hand, gripping Elio’s jacket, twitched slightly.
“Y-you said earlier that I didn't need to greet His Grace the Duke and the Duchess. So staying in the village should be…”
“I said there was no need to greet them. I never said there was no need to stay in my castle.”
Elio looked into his pitch-black eyes and lowered her head. She muttered in a voice so faint not even an ant could hear.
“…What do you mean, your castle? It’s His Grace the Duke's castle…”
How could anyone sleep peacefully in the Duke's Castle?
A fiancée brought home by their son—no matter how temporary, the fact that they didn't even require a greeting from the lady who would stay in their castle for the time being made it blatantly clear how displeased the ducal couple were with her.
Of course, it made complete sense. Even if she had done nothing wrong, it was still an undeniable fact that her father had pulled an unforgivable stunt.
Just like those older knights, they would surely look at her with…
No, His Grace the Duke would surely be even more terrifying than that…
What good was being a devoted lover? Weren't all those devoted dukes just madmen who only cared about their own wives anyway?
Every romance novel she had read so far had been like that. It was entirely irrational, but trapped in her anxiety, Elio’s mind spun with ever-increasing dizziness.
“Stop splitting hairs. An inn is full of bastard men—”
Carlos let out an impatient sigh and slid his thumb between Elio’s bloodied lips.
Elio bit down on his thick finger, then flinched and opened her mouth.
“Open up. What are you so afraid of?”
Carlos murmured in a low, grating rasp.
“I’m no’ afwaid.”
Under a gaze so intense it felt as though he were dissecting her, Elio tried to turn her head away, but the man's unyielding grip would not let her go.
Panicking, she moved her tongue to say something, anything, and only then did he slowly withdraw his finger from her parted lips.
Elio exhaled the breath she had been holding. The sight of his thick finger glistening with her saliva sent all the blood in her body rushing straight to her face.
“H-how can a person just shove their b-bare hand into someone's mouth all the time…”
Elio swallowed hard at the sight of the Duke's Castle drawbridge drawing nearer beyond the window. Her heart pounded frantically as desperation seized her.
“Even the cheapest inn is fine. I want to live freely in the village. If I want to look into other territories to settle down in, staying in the village is much better, you know?”
The knights at the very front began crossing the drawbridge. The man, clamming up once again, offered no reply.
A surge of fiery frustration, hot as a volcano, suddenly welled up inside her, and she turned toward him.
Again? Even after escaping Aquitaine, was she supposed to live walking on eggshells all over again?
Anxiety tangled with irritation, and the words tumbled out indiscriminately.
“Honestly, it’s only natural that the Duke's Castle would be uncomfortable! There isn't just one or two people who’ll look down on me—His Grace the Duke, the Duchess, even the servants! How could I possibly spend two whole months in peace? Unless it was just the two of us, Sir…!”
Elio bit the tip of her tongue. Mortified by her own slip of the tongue, she squeezed her eyes shut.
The humid, lilac-scented breeze was scorching hot.
Carlos, who had been wiping his wet finger while watching her in silence, let out a soft chuckle.
“Just the two of us?”
❖ ❖ ❖
The doors to the Papal Chamber slammed violently against the wall.
The pen slipped, splattering ink across the parchment.
A large framed inscription reading ‘Love Shall Set You Free’ swung wildly like a seesaw. The Archangel statue wobbled and toppled over.
“Why don’t you just tear the whole place down while you’re at it!”
Having kicked open the doors and barged in at the crack of dawn, the Grand General, Roxana, bellowed even louder than the Pope and hurled a newspaper onto the desk.
“This is your doing, isn’t it, old man?”
Roxana slammed both hands down on the desk as if she meant to smash it to pieces. Having finally cornered the Pope after he had been avoiding her all this time, her temper was about to blow its lid.
“Why the hell did you raid the Aquitaine Count’s estate? And why did you notarize that damn Blue Orb?! Did you take dirty money from Count Aquitaine?”
The Pope clicked his tongue at the woman’s savagely contorted expression. He stood the fallen Archangel statue back upright and meticulously wiped the angel’s face with his sleeve.
Seeing that, Roxana elbowed the Archangel statue aside and snarled even louder.
“I asked if you took dirty money from Count Aquitaine!”
“Now, now! I did not!”
The Pope raised his voice as though on the verge of losing his temper.
“I took it from the Empress!”
Roxana muttered a furious “Fuck,” ripped off her Grand General badge, threw it, and kicked the Pope’s desk hard enough to splinter it.
The Pope clicked his tongue at the barbaric display and lightly patted the woman’s bulging bicep with a flyswatter.
“They say the Emperor intends to marry Carlos to the Imperial Princess and pass the throne to Carlos. The Empress went completely out of her mind… and offered a very generous, sacred donation to ruin the marriage… Oops.”
The Pope waved the flyswatter through the air.
He saw no reason to mention that he had played both sides and taken gold from Carlos as well.
“Whether you took it from the Empress or whoever the hell else! Why did you have to drag Elly into a mess with that Schuppenhardt bastard?!”
“What does it matter if Aquitaine is entangled with Schuppenhardt? Tsk. Where the money flows, there lies divine purpose. What can I do when the Holy Spirit dwells most abundantly in the Empress’s purse?”
No one was ignorant of the fact that the Papal Faction maintained a filthy cartel with the Empress and the First Imperial Prince, but those who knew that Pope Gregory was the mastermind behind all the underhanded schemes could be counted on one hand.
An easygoing, genial smile at all times, paired with ambiguous political maneuvers that made it impossible to tell if he was truly on the Empress’s side or simply thoughtless.
A man who cared only for selling Archangel souvenirs and sponsoring romance plays, easily swayed by the trivial whims of the public.
Both the Emperor's Faction and the Papal Faction failed to form a definitive judgment on the 24th Pope, Gregory, often evaluating him as a weak, gray-zone figure devoid of principles or conviction.
Utterly appalled, Roxana dragged a rough hand down her face and dropped onto the sofa.
“Advance my vacation time. There’s somewhere I need to go.”
“Heheheh.”
The Pope let out a benevolent laugh. Setting down the flyswatter, he scooped up a puppy that had been squirming around and lapping up milk.
“There now. Say hello. It’s your friend! Woof, woof, woof!”
“Instead, send me to Schuppenhardt and I’ll inflict a fatal wound on him.”
“On whom?”
“Carlos—shit.”
The woman dodged a book, thick as a deadly weapon, that came flying straight at her head.
“Do you think you are an assassin? Talking such senseless nonsense. Tsk. Do not go venting the grudge you bear against the first Duke of Schuppenhardt on the wrong person.”
The Pope, who had been picking out another book to throw, ultimately raised the flyswatter and gave the woman—who continued to glare at him with murderous eyes—a gentle pat.
“Be on your way now. Just who did you inherit such a temper from? Why must you be so terribly foul?”
“Excuse me? Aren't you the old man constantly sending assassins alongside the Empress?”
The woman scoffed in disbelief, then lowered her voice as she continued.
“I heard every last assassin sent to Schuppenhardt was wiped out without exception. You don’t have anyone left to send anyway. That’s why I’m going. I’ll go and attack him myself.”
“Do you think the Empress is staying quiet lately for no reason? What business do you have stepping in!”
With her face thoroughly twisted in disgust, the woman clicked her tongue and sank deeper into the sofa.
“There’s something I need to take back from that bastard.”
“What is this bastard trying to steal now?”
“Steal? What do you mean, steal? That bastard stole what was mine.”
The woman ruffled her short black hair, clenching her jaw tight.
…That goddamn Schuppenhardt.
Through teeth grinding with fury, she muttered,
“I’m going to Schuppenhardt right now, so you handle the monsters yourself, old man…”
“Going where? You mean to go to another dimension?”
The Pope blinked naively and asked in return.
Watching her freeze, her fists clenching tight enough to shatter bone, he threw both hands up in the air and burst into hearty, gleeful laughter.
“Yes, yes! Go ahead and defy the word of God once again while you’re at it! Eh? Interfere in the life of a child who has come of age, disrupt everything, and ruin it! Go on, sweep it all away, slaughter them all, and throw that dog-like temper of yours around, you wretched fool!”
“You know full well who Aquitaine is, old man! She’s the only proper dragon left! We have to keep her alive!”
“And what of it? What does that matter? Whether she lives or dies, it is that child’s life.”
As if refusing to engage any further, the Pope waved his hand dismissively and swiveled his chair around. Lifting a piping-hot bowl resting atop a sturdy Holy Book being used as a trivet by the window, he stirred the beef stew.
“Do not meddle in that child’s life any longer. Dragons release their young into the wild the moment they give birth, so why do you cling so fiercely to a child you didn't even bear?! You must let her grow according to nature's course! Are you projecting yourself onto that child?”
“Nature's course? What the hell is nature's course? Falling into corruption because of a human you love—is that nature's course? Being betrayed by a human and dying—is that nature's course? And of all people, with a Schuppenhardt!”
“Even if she is entangled with Schuppenhardt.”
The Pope cut off the woman’s furious words with ruthless finality. From the window of the highest tower in the Papal territory, he looked down at the houses clustered tightly below like ants.
Near the hazy horizon, the Dragon Mountains of Schuppenhardt came into view.
The Pope narrowed his pupils and scooped up a generous mouthful of beef stew.
“…If she is meant to survive, she will.”
