The Trash Lady Who Stole the Duke's First Night
Chapter 23
The knight chuckled and waved his hand dismissively.
“Come now, Sir. That stuff is pure poison. It tears a woman’s womb to shreds, you know. Good heavens, our Commander isn’t the type to feed anyone something like that! Do you have any idea how potent that drug is? It utterly ruins a woman’s life.”
“My word… It was such a dreadful medicine, then.”
Grita sighed deeply in pity.
“It must never be used.”
Having dismounted her horse, Elio hastily gathered her oversized raincoat and took a step back.
“I-I’m a woman too, you know!”
At her out-of-the-blue remark, Carlos raised an eyebrow and pulled her slipped hood back over her head.
“What are you on about? Wear your raincoat properly.”
Her words had tumbled out sounding completely foolish.
“This isn’t mine, so it’s way too big… Anyway, b-barging into a lady’s room uninvited is your fault, Sir. Not that I’m holding that much of a grudge against you, though.”
“Whose raincoat is that, anyway? And are you saying you do hold a grudge against me?”
“Do you have no conscience, Sir? How could I not hold anything against you? …Though, of course, it’s not a lot. And the raincoat is just borrowed from the knights.”
Carlos quietly stared down at the woman, who looked practically swallowed whole by the oversized men’s clothes.
“Commander! How about a sparring match for the first time in a while! Fifteen against one! Let’s sweat out the hangover!”
Elio raised her head at the shouts of the regular knights gathering after finishing their training preparations. They grinned broadly and gave playful salutes.
A breathless laugh slipped past her lips at how friendly they acted just because they had gotten dead drunk together the night before. Perhaps they knew it wasn’t her fault, as they seemed to harbor no ill feelings about her father sabotaging Carlos’s wedding.
…Or do they know I’ll be leaving soon?
Elio stole a glance at the sullen Carlos, then deliberately flashed a bright smile.
“A-Ah, hello. You drank quite a lot yesterday—are your stomachs all right?”
“Go inside. We’re about to train.”
Regardless of how brightly Elio spoke, Carlos took the shirt handed to him by a squire and dismissed her as if swatting away a pestering bug.
“Grita. Did you get the swords sharpened at the smithy?”
Carlos nudged Elio toward the annex and casually sifted through the squires’ swords, which had been sharpened keen enough to slice off a finger. Elio furrowed her brow and peered at the boys’ swords.
“S-Sir. Um, I can hold a sword like that too…”
“What are you doing? I told you to go inside.”
At Carlos’s cold urging, Elio’s teal eyes narrowed in a petulant pout.
“Yes. The rest of the swords will be sent over tomorrow. Everyone, over here! Change your clothes and fall into line!”
“Commander! Should we bring the squires in too? Twenty to one? Hey, where do you little punks think you’re running off to!”
Elio looked at the swarming regular knights, the squires bickering with them, and Grita laughing while organizing the ranks, before whipping her head around.
“I told you to go in.”
She spoke clearly and sharply to the man who kept pushing her back.
“Fine! I wouldn’t want to watch you embarrass yourself, Sir, so I’ll be going inside now! Well, everyone has to lose sometimes, after all.”
Popping his left shoulder with a crack, Carlos raised his brows, momentarily failing to grasp her meaning. He stared down at the flushed woman, then let out a sharp chuckle and shook out his wet hair.
“You think I’ll lose?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you said you trusted me.”
“No! I don’t trust you.”
Elio retorted coldly and turned to walk toward the annex, only for her wrist to be caught.
“Why are you sulking?”
“Me? When did I ever sulk?”
“Commander, when are we starting! If you’re going to keep flirting with the lady, should we just have at it ourselves?”
Carlos pulled off his shirt in one fluid motion. Slipping into the thin cotton undershirt in his hand, he cracked his thick neck with a loud pop.
As Elio took a step back, her face burning red, Carlos twitched his brow again and took hold of her wrist.
“Stay and watch.”
The rain thickened, turning the ground to mud.
Without even wiping away the mud splattered on her hand, Elio stood frozen like a stunned owlet, merely blinking her large eyes.
Was it really permissible for a knights’ sparring match to be this vulgar?
The sight of muscular men tangling together in a bare-knuckle brawl looked no different from back-alley mercenaries—no, a dogfight between pit bulls.
Elio nervously tracked the singular, overwhelmingly muscular man through the fray.
They grappled, hoisted, and slammed each other into the dirt, and before long, bursts of laughter, groans of pain, boos, and cheers all erupted at once.
“Whoa, Commander! You’re ruthless today!”
Sweltering heat and the stench of sweat mingled with the falling rain. As the massive lumps of mud all lay sprawled on the ground, gasping for breath and chuckling among themselves…
The most imposing mud doll standing tall among them wiped the sludge from the back of his neck and stared fixedly at her.
Watching the man covered in mud from head to toe, the corners of Elio’s mouth twitched. When her eyes met his raised brow, she turned on her heel and scurried off toward the stables as if fleeing for her life.
Slumping down at the base of a stable pillar, Elio glanced up at Carlos’s face, who had pursued her as if hunting down a thief.
“Ahahaha!”
She clutched her stomach and burst into laughter all over again.
Her clear, ringing laughter echoed through the refreshing roar of the downpour.
“Ahahaha!”
Carlos let out a low chuckle and looked down at Elio. She had laughed until her cheeks were flushed pink, tiny tears pooling in her sparkling eyes.
“Just how long are you going to keep laughing?”
“No… it’s just, how you look, Sir…”
Elio wiped away the tear lingering at the corner of her eye, her face glowing bright red, and looked at Carlos’s mud-caked face.
“I come back victorious, and all you do is laugh.”
Carlos plopped down beside her, speaking in a low, husky voice. Elio’s laughter ceased.
She flinched at the man who had turned his head away, then quickly tugged at the hem of his sleeve.
“I-It’s not because you look funny.”
Carlos turned his gaze back to the woman repeatedly tugging at his clothes.
“It’s because I’m happy. Really. Even if there were a hundred of them, I knew you’d win, Sir! Do you always spar like this every dawn? No wonder you were so incredibly fast…!”
The woman whispered while tugging his sleeve, and when he remained utterly silent, she began inching backward as if ready to bolt.
Clicking his tongue at the rapid about-face of this retreating rabbit, Carlos slowly leaned his large frame down and tilted his cheek toward her.
“I wiped your face myself, didn’t I?”
“Pardon?”
He tapped his cheek, a smirk tugging at his lips as he looked at the cowering rabbit.
“The mud. Are you just going to leave it there?”
Elio’s face instantly scrunched up.
Reluctantly taking the handkerchief, her hands trembled faintly. As she hesitated and then gingerly began wiping his cheek, the sound of her swallowing hard seemed far too loud.
Every time her hand flinched near his lips, a wave of petty annoyance welled up. Was he not the type of man to put her on the spot just because she had laughed a little?
“I take it that woman didn’t teach you how to ride a horse?”
His gaze was fixed straight upon her. Avoiding his eyes, Elio stared only at his sharply chiseled jawline.
“No. I never had a horse. Older Sister had one, but whenever I tried to ride it, the horse hated it so much that I never could.”
“There are no horses at the Count’s estate?”
“Father has them. Not me. Perhaps he was afraid I might ride off and run away, because Father never allowed me to set a single foot in the stables.”
Elio let out a faint smile.
Carlos stared quietly at her creased eyes.
“Now I’ll be able to go anywhere! I was actually worried about how I’d leave when the time comes to leave Schuppenhardt.”
Elio continued with a sheepish grin. Carlos quietly lifted the corner of his mouth.
“You don’t even know how to gallop.”
“I can just practice! I might be a little slow to learn, but I’m a complete workaholic when it comes to practicing!”
Her flushed cheeks moved daintily with every word she spoke.
“How much does a horse usually cost? Are they very expensive…?”
“Expensive, yes.”
“How much?”
“Ten million Shillings.”
Though, of course, there were ones worth a hundred thousand Shillings too.
Elio stopped wiping his cheek and blinked her eyes wide in astonishment.
“By any chance, um… when we part ways… is there no such thing as a parting gift? Like, a h-horse, perhaps…?”
Carlos gently took Elio by the chin, lifting her face toward him.
“My, you certainly are shameless, my lady.”
With a crimson face, Elio moistened her dry lips and shifted her eyes toward the pillar.
“If a horse is that expensive, what am I supposed to do when I have to leave the territory after we split up? It’s not like I can leave on foot.”
Carlos chuckled softly and took the handkerchief from her hand.
“Don’t people usually think of taking a carriage?”
“Riding a horse seems much more fun. You get to see all kinds of scenery that way!”
Elio looked up at the eaves, her teal eyes shining brightly.
As the rain thickened again with a heavy rush, the scent of grass deepened.
Resting his arms on his knees and leaning his chin on them, Carlos gazed at Elio.
Staring at the clear streams of rain as though they were precious gems, the woman’s eyes sparkled with vivid vitality.
She stretched her small, delicate hand out into the rain, fidgeting with the droplets for a while before turning her attention to examining the tiny weeds and pebbles on the ground.
A soft smirk curled Carlos’s lips.
“What. Was looking at me not entertaining enough?”
“Pardon?”
Without realizing it, Elio pulled up a rain-soaked weed by its roots.
“After checking me out so thoroughly in the carriage…”
The corners of his lips curved lazily.
“Was the view not to your liking?”
He glanced down at his chest, then at his thighs, before raising his eyes back to her.
Following his gaze, Elio unwittingly traced his solid, muscular body and caught her breath.
Drip, drip. Water droplets falling from his black hair trickled down his thick, long neck and ran between the cleft of his broad chest.
Elio stared blankly at the path of that droplet.
“Doesn’t seem like you were disappointed.”
With her face flushed as red as a cooked sausage, Elio shouted flusteredly,
“When did I ever check you out, Sir!”
“Ah. You didn’t?”
Carlos chuckled with a grin and slowly straightened his back. He ran a hand through his damp hair, shaking it out.
“So, when are you going to show me the purification?”
