The Trash Lady Who Stole the Duke's First Night
Chapter 2
Facing his coldly twisted expression so close, Elio found her breath catching in her throat. Had she wounded this lofty knight’s pride?
“Um, please don’t misunderstand first. I didn’t come here to try to use my body on a pious, great knight like you, Sir.”
“Indeed. As if you could have come to seduce anyone looking like that.”
“Exactly. That’s why I came looking like this.”
Watching his gaze for the contempt that would surely follow, Elio hitched her skirt up to her thighs with trembling hands.
“S-So, with a…”
She wanted to add that she would never dare dream of seducing him with such a wretched, bruised body, that she wasn’t that delusional of a person, that she just wanted him to have a little pity on her.
But at the man’s gaze, which had turned twice as menacing, her mouth went completely dry. She felt as though she might choke and faint on the spot. It looked as if he were ready to strike down her hideous state with a greatsword.
“I-I have a favor to ask. That’s why I came.”
She hurriedly smoothed down the dress she had pulled up. Then, she let out the true reason she had sought out Carlos, which she had been swallowing back.
“I swear I won’t be a burden. Could you please take me with you on your journey back? If you just help me cross the Ogre Mountain Range, I’ll go my own way after that.”
Her father was right. Meeting him was a godsent opportunity.
A chance to run away.
It was impossible to escape the territory surrounded by the Ogre Mountain Range on her own. Even if she had to take the hand of the God of Death, she had to cross it. She had to escape, no matter what.
“Of course, I’ll pay for it. You know how rare a Healing Potion is, right? I know how to make them. I’ll make as many as you want.”
Elio grew desperate to prove her worth. Her chest heaved as if her heart were about to burst out.
Quickly pulling back her robe, she took out a small vial from the pocket of her wet dress.
“I made all of this myself. Please try it. It’s truly a top-grade potion. It’s a liquid formula, so it’s easy to apply, too.”
Carlos took the potion in his hand. Elio’s face brightened, and she held out her hands.
“I’ll give you plenty! At least ten… no, twenty or more!”
Carlos, who had been shaking the vial as if measuring it, uncorked it and dumped the entire contents onto a handkerchief.
“Y-You’re going to try that much at once? It’s concentrated, so even a few drops—”
Suddenly, a large hand closed in before her eyes, and she squeezed them shut in fright.
A damp press.
“……Ah?”
The soaking wet handkerchief rested against her bruised cheek. Cradling her chin in his hand, Carlos looked into her wavering eyes.
“Does it hurt?”
Of course it hurts…!
In her fluster, Elio met the man’s pitch-black eyes before quickly dropping her gaze to his feet.
“No? Are you testing it on my bruises? The potion is so effective that bruises heal right away if you just rub it in.”
Carlos knelt on one knee and slowly rubbed her cheek again.
An awkward silence fell, filled only with the sound of their breathing.
Clasping her fingertips together, Elio swallowed hard, staring only at the blazing fireplace.
His scar-covered hand moved as delicately as if stroking the downy hair of a newborn.
Why was he doing this? She searched his callous face with confused eyes and bit her lip.
Maybe I look pitiful to him. Maybe he has at least a shred of chivalry.
Her tense eyes shifted cautiously, glittering like those of someone who had barely managed to find hope.
“…How is it? Do you like—”
Just then, the doorknob clicked and turned.
In an instant, Carlos blocked her from view. Elio looked up with wide eyes at the man obscuring her sight.
The door was thrown open violently enough to rattle the windows, and a grief-stricken shriek rang out, striking her ears.
“How dare you! To ravish a maiden!!”
At the deafening, out-of-nowhere bellow, Elio popped her head out from behind Carlos.
“Father…?”
Standing in the doorway, the Count’s mouth twitched the moment he saw her draped in the oversized nightgown. Behind his face, contorted from trying desperately to hold back a smirk, pure white clerical vestments came into view.
The moment Elio saw the priest with his hands clasped behind his back, sweeping his gaze down her and Carlos, her breath seized as if she had fallen off a cliff. A wave of dizziness washed over her, as though all the blood had drained from her body in an instant.
Ravished… A priest barging in out of nowhere…
It could only be seen as a scheme daring to frame Schuppenhardt.
This was not something a sane person would pull off. She shuddered and felt nauseated at her father’s sheer stupidity. This wasn’t seizing a chance to take him as a son-in-law; it was practically begging to be killed.
“Forcing a maiden into spending the night cannot be overlooked!!”
The Count yelled at the top of his lungs with bloodshot eyes, prodding the priest’s ribs. Holding the Holy Book and a Blue Orb, the priest took a stride forward.
“In accordance with Chapter 25, Verse 12 of the Holy Book, I shall verify the evidence of the first night. Everything that transpires here today will be recorded without exception upon the Blue Orb.”
The priest walked toward the bed, his vestments fluttering. Just how high-ranking of a cleric had her father bribed? As many as four crescent moon insignias were embedded across his chest.
Biting her trembling lip, Elio looked at Carlos.
He took a slow drag from the cigar resting in the overflowing ashtray. His cool face, utterly devoid of readable emotion, was so cold that it felt rather like an active volcano on the verge of erupting.
“There is blood.”
Elio turned her eyes in horror. The bedsheet the priest had lifted was smeared with bright red blood and dried white liquid.
“What in the…! No!! R-Really, nothing happened between us! I’m the one who trespassed into this room first—”
The priest cut off Elio’s scream-like cry.
“The lady’s honor will be protected. For this is not the lady’s fault.”
Elio stared blankly at the brazenness of the priest, who was smiling benevolently. Then whose fault was this fabricated consummation supposed to be? At that moment, she heard Carlos’s eerily slow breathing, and terror washed over her that her head might be lopped off this very second for the crime of framing him.
“In accordance with Chapter 25, Verse 15 of the Holy Book, if one entices an unmarried maiden and forces her into bed, he must pay the full bride price and take her as his wife.”
The windows rattled, and the priest’s stern proclamation rang out like tinnitus.
“If you do not acknowledge and take responsibility for forcing the consummation with the Lady of Aquitaine, I shall officially refer this matter to a tribunal. Until a verdict is rendered, the wedding schedule with Her Highness the Imperial Princess will be postponed indefinitely.”
At the words that made her world go dark, Elio’s palms grew drenched with sweat. To think he had been facing an impending marriage to the Imperial Princess.
She could not even begin to fathom who wished to tarnish this man’s honor and concoct a scandal about him assaulting a noble lady.
A stained bedsheet was merely an excuse for a sordid scandal. A rustic bumpkin Count and a ruined noble lady were being used in the power struggle of the Emperor’s Faction.
Cold sweat trickled down her back. Caught in a clash of giants, her own neck was at risk of being cleanly severed if she wasn’t careful.
A lady from the backwaters could just be killed in secret, couldn’t she…?
As she gnawed on her fingernails, frantically spinning her blank mind—
“It seems to me that I’m the victim of this first night.”
Carlos’s sneering reply rang out. Holding her breath, Elio parted her lips at words she could not fathom in the slightest.
As if this were an unexpected reaction for him as well, the priest’s face twisted as he gauged Carlos’s demeanor.
“…So first of all… are you acknowledging that you shared the first night with the Lady of Aquitaine…? If so, the wedding schedule with Her Highness the Imperial Princess will be annulled immediately. I shall deliver an official statement to the Imperial Family.”
“Right. It seems Aquitaine served me quite a rare Illicit Liquor.”
Carlos spoke with a mocking sneer in a husky, raspy voice. At his sinister tone, which made it clear he wasn’t referring to ordinary alcohol, Elio was struck speechless. As she fumbled and grabbed his sleeve, a gaze as vast and deep as the night sea ensnared her.
Just what kind of liquor had her father poured him…?
“Are you trying to make excuses, claiming my daughter spiked your drink? Nonsense! My daughter would never do such a thing!”
The Count bellowed as if in anguish. Elio looked at her father with a bewildered expression.
Her father twisted his mouth as if in torment, his murky eyes flashing.
“…Still, hearing that you will take responsibility for a woman who has lost her chastity eases my worries as a father. Regardless, you forced the consummation… So shouldn’t you provide a settlement fee in addition to the bride price?”
Jolted to her senses as though struck by lightning, Elio shook her head frantically at the nonsense of daring to mention a settlement fee. Whoever the puppet master behind her father was, they would surely discard him once his usefulness was done.
She poured out her words in a rapid-fire rush, pleading with Carlos, who stood tall like the Grim Reaper.
“I-I don’t need a bride price or a settlement fee! Truly, nothing happened between us, did it? Coercion? Who would believe that? A mere bedsheet couldn’t possibly serve as evidence either! Even if I am summoned to a tribunal, I will only testify to the truth, so you don’t have to worry. I will never say anything disadvantageous to you, Sir!”
“Elio! Shut your—ahem. You stay out of this. Your father will handle—!”
“I swear! You don’t need to take responsibility for me! Don’t worry, I really will testify only to the truth! If you just help me cross the O-Ogre Mountain Range…!”
“Elio!! Can’t you stay still?! Do you think you can leave without your father’s permission?! An unmarried daughter belongs entirely to her father!”
The Count reached out his arm as if to strike her across the head.
At the same time, Carlos turned around.
As his shadow fell over her, Elio’s throat tightened. The man she thought would be her lifeline felt as if he might choke the life out of her this very instant.
Standing with his back to her father to block him, the man swept his gaze slowly down her body, cigar smoke drifting from his tilted lips.
“Permission, is it? Count. Why do I need your permission? I clearly said that I was the one forced.”
“……!”
He was the one forced? What on earth had he been trying to say all this time?
Only when she trembled to the tips of her fingers under the weight of the man’s blade-like, inscrutable gaze did his lips part slowly once more.
“Confoundingly enough, I was the one violated… yet since our prospective cardinal here notarizes it so strictly and tells me to take responsibility, I cannot simply ignore relations shared with a noble lady. I am deeply conflicted. Should I take responsibility for the woman who stole my first night and meekly take her to my territory?”
The corners of his eyes curved, twisting fiercely.
“Or. For the crime of feeding me vulgar Illicit Liquor that only thrives in the underworld. Under guilt by association, would it be more fitting to bind both this woman and the Count like dogs and escort you all under guard?”
Carlos’s dark, sunken gaze drifted past the Count, whose face was flushing red and purple, and slowly came to rest on Elio once more. The instant her eyes met his, Elio froze stiff.
“What does my impudent lady desire?”
