The Trash Lady Who Stole the Duke's First Night
Chapter 31
“What.”
“What what?”
“…What are you staring at?”
“I’m looking straight ahead. Where else would I look?”
“……”
After stuffing a handful of green grapes into her mouth and watching for an opportunity, Elio finally mimicked him.
“…What are you doing?”
“Practicing pretending to cherish you. It’s hard for me. In a relationship between a man and a woman, that is. Doing things you don’t mean.”
Biting her lip demurely, Elio wiped away a tiny speck of a water droplet clinging to the very tip of his chin. As she pursed her lips in concentration, Carlos let out a low sigh.
“Why does looking after a kid require any deep meaning?”
When her fingertips grazed his lips, the muscles of his chest tightened as if ready to burst.
❖ ❖ ❖
“This girl is an Aquitaine?”
The Imperial Princess wrinkled the bridge of her nose, staring down at the young lady in the newspaper. Aside from her pure, delicate face, slender limbs, and striking curves that were bound to drive men mad with desire…
What truly shocked her were facial features identical to someone in her memory.
“No matter how many times I look at it, don’t you think it’s uncanny? She looks exactly like Yunus.”
The moment the Imperial Princess saw the portrait, she had searched her memory, prompted by a strange sense of déjà vu. After turning the image over in her mind late into the night, she had suddenly remembered Yunus, the Commander of the Robitan Knights around that age, and his three-year-old daughter.
“Are we certain both Yunus and Valentin are dead? They’re not secretly alive somewhere, are they?”
At the Imperial Princess’s irritated question, the nanny let out a deep sigh.
“…Sir Yunus is definitely dead, Your Highness. His body was recovered, after all.”
“Why on earth couldn’t they fight back against an Evil Dragon?”
Like a monologue, the Imperial Princess murmured an unresolved question she hadn’t spoken aloud in years.
Yunus, Commander of the Robitan Knights, who had set out on a retreat to guard the Young Duke, and all of his knights had perished. His wife, Valentin, and their only daughter were presumed dead after going missing.
The nine-year-old Young Duke had sustained fatal injuries, hovering on the brink of death.
The bloody massacre that the ducal house had hushed up was officially recorded as a massive ambush by a ferocious Evil Dragon.
“What do you think, Nanny? Do you think this is a coincidence? A woman of the exact same age, with the exact same face. If Yunus’s daughter had grown up, she would look just like this.”
“…How could I possibly know? That was seventeen years ago.”
The nanny glanced at the portrait, her voice trembling. She couldn’t even remember a face from seventeen years ago, but she found it just as baffling. Why had Valentin, Yunus, and the Lobitan Order been wiped out as if caught completely off guard?
When whispers circulated that a Dragon living in human form through polymorph had suddenly turned into an Evil Dragon and attacked, the Magic Tower offered no explanation.
They merely stated that they felt a deep sense of responsibility for failing to prevent the Evil Dragon’s atrocities and the hundreds of casualties that followed.
After issuing that brief statement, the Magic Tower closed its doors indefinitely.
People sighed with pity, wondering if the old Master of the Magic Tower had succumbed to despair after losing both his daughter and granddaughter at once. Even if she was an estranged daughter, losing a child first would be agonizing.
And on top of that, losing his young granddaughter, too.
On the other hand, some clicked their tongues, claiming that a man who hadn’t even visited when his daughter married or when his granddaughter was born couldn’t possibly feel any grief. There was no way he felt any familial affection.
“Cal doted on that child so much. Anyone watching would’ve thought Elio was his younger sister, not me.”
The Imperial Princess twisted her lips into a smirk and set down her whiskey glass.
“You see, I don’t believe in coincidences. Do you know why half the people who die in the imperial family end up dead? They die in ‘accidents’ that happen by sheer coincidence. As for the other half, well, they die in damn coups.”
“……”
“And yet, by coincidence, that baby…”
The Imperial Princess stopped abruptly and burst into a cackle, her eyes curving. She could still clearly picture the foolish Cal who used to carry that three-year-old baby everywhere on his back, coddling her endlessly.
“He ran into that baby by coincidence after seventeen years, and brought her back as his fiancée by coincidence? Wow, how amusing. Isn’t it?”
Cackling, the Imperial Princess took a sip of her whiskey.
The nanny bowed even lower, clasping her hands together. She pulled her head in, chilled by the eerie sound of the rain, which felt like the weeping ghosts of those who had died in that tragedy seventeen years ago.
“Still, Nanny. Regardless, it was eventually revealed that Valentin was the Empress’s person, and it’s a fact she married Yunus to act as a spy, isn’t it?”
“Your Highness, that is—!”
“What nerve, honestly. How could a spy think of choosing the Commander of the Robitan Knights as her husband? I suppose you need that kind of audacity to pull off espionage.”
“Your Highness! That is merely a suspicion…!”
“Suspicion, my foot. If she hadn’t been killed by the Evil Dragon, Valentin would have killed Cal long ago. Valentin wasn’t exactly known for a gentle temper, was she?”
The nanny shook her head in fluster.
“Your Highness, you shouldn’t say such things so carelessly! Accusing someone of attempted murder of a noble is an insult to Lady Valentin…”
The Imperial Princess scoffed, cutting the nanny off.
“Is he trying to take revenge on the daughter now? Was he bitter that Valentin, who raised him like a mother, turned out to be a traitor?”
“The—the Young Duke doesn’t strike me as someone with that kind of nature.”
“Nature, please. He has a nastier temper than I do. He’s just an insensitive blockhead.”
The Imperial Princess didn’t even pretend to listen, her eyes narrowing into crescents.
“Nanny, bring me some new stationery and our fastest carrier pigeon. You know that scented paper. Hmm… Should I write on green paper, just like the one Cal used? A matching couple’s letter?”
At the Imperial Princess’s giggling voice, the nanny looked up at her with anxious eyes.
“Who are you planning to write to…?”
“I have to let that Aquitaine girl know right away!”
“Your Highness, please. Do not provoke Sir Carlos while he is at peace. Please restrain yourself instead of unnecessarily stirring up a bloodbath—”
“Who said anything about touching my brother? I have to tell Aquitaine. Who her real mother is!”
A glint of sheer amusement flashed in the Imperial Princess’s eyes as a wide, silent grin spread across her lips.
“That her mother was the Empress’s informant and a spy who tried to kill Cal! That she was one hell of a woman!”
❖ ❖ ❖
“What are you doing? Why aren’t you sitting down?”
Having finished their slightly drawn-out dinner, Carlos, who had spent quite some time smoking a cigar in the yard, pushed back his damp hair and looked at her.
Elio rubbed the tip of her nose against the heavy scent of cigars. What on earth was he so displeased about?
She stared fixedly at the man who had smoked three cigars in a single sitting, wondering if he was trying to suffocate himself on tobacco smoke.
“Are you going to keep standing there?”
“…I think the sofa is too small.”
Elio rolled her eyes, pointlessly brushing dust off the two-seater sofa. With a man of such massive stature in the room, the house felt so cramped that she was confused about where she was even supposed to sit in the living room.
“You’re small too, so it fits. Come here. Keep these safe so you can hang the curtains back up if they fall.”
Placing the leftover curtain rings into a box, the man gestured to her. Absurdly enough, he looked as natural as if this were his own home.
Elio knitted her brows and perched on the edge of the sofa. She smoothed her bare knees, then clapped her hands together awkwardly as if just remembering something.
“By the way, why did Sir Grita come instead? I mean, I was just wondering why Sir Grita suddenly made the delivery so late at night. Sir Grita needs to rest too, but she seems to work late into the night. You should have let her go early.”
“I was busy receiving an unexpected guest.”
At the concise reply that was no different from what Grita had told her, Elio nodded instinctively. But immediately, more questions bubbled up.
‘Why did you make Sir Grita do it? Were the two of you together this whole time late at night? Who was the guest that made you dress in full uniform?’
She wanted to ask, but her heart squirmed with doubt over whether she had any right to be curious about such things.
…She wasn’t his real fiancée, after all.
“…Sir. The Lobitan knights all guess that our relationship is only temporary, don’t they?”
Carlos raised an eyebrow.
“Well, when Sir Grita delivered the food earlier, she said she would introduce me to a decent person among her seniors or juniors. She told me to let her know if I was interested.”
As she leaned forward slightly with apparent interest, Carlos let out a harsh sigh and rose to his feet. Tugging loose the knot of his cravat, he walked toward the window.
“There isn’t a single decent guy among Grita’s seniors or juniors. If you want an introduction, get it from me.”
“Then who would you introduce me to? A peer of yours? Even if our engagement was only for show, if I dated your friend… wouldn’t that be a little awkward? Do your friends also know that we’re going to break up?”
Carlos unbuttoned the top of his shirt and locked the double latches of the window.
“Sleep with all the windows closed. Don’t go opening the door for strange men.”
“Sir. I’m not a fool. Why would I open the door for just any man?”
Elio furrowed her brows deeply.
Just what did Grita and this man take her for? Did they think she was an idiot just because she grew up confined to Aquitaine? Her voice rose because of this man who kept treating her like a pathetic child.
“I may look unreliable to you, but I have enough skill to look after myself. There is nothing about me to pity.”
Startled as the man headed toward the front door, Elio hurried after him with quick, short steps.
“As you know, I know how to make potions, and I’ve studied a lot of basic magic, haven’t I? I’ll soon find a good job on my own. I know how to earn my own money, so what’s there to pity?”
“Why work? Is the money I gave you not enough?”
“No, you gave me more than enough. It’s not lacking, but I need to learn to earn my own living. I can’t rely on you for the rest of my life.”
As the man merely checked the front door latch with rough, rattling jerks, his indifferent back caused Elio’s words to tumble out faster and faster.
“And the fact that I grew up confined only to Aquitaine isn’t something to pity, either. Most ladies haven’t lived independently or traveled by the age of twenty. If I had been a knight like Sir Grita, I would have gained all sorts of experiences too.”
Coming right up behind the broad back of the man who wasn’t even pretending to listen, Elio smiled brightly as if sharing great news.
“Since mercenaries who hunt monsters frequent the inns, it seems the inns want bedroom purification services. They might just need me, don’t you think?”
Still not answering, Carlos gripped the front doorknob as if ready to rip it off, rattling it roughly back and forth to inspect the joints. The muscles in his upper arms swelled taut.
“It’s almost finalized! The innkeeper looked favorably on me, saying I seemed sharp. He said I’d easily handle the mercenaries’ tempers while purifying the rooms well. Of course, I’ll do it without letting anyone find out that I’m your fiancée!”
Carlos yanked the front door open so violently it looked as though he might tear it completely off its hinges.
“Let them find out. Don’t hide it from anyone.”