The Trash Lady Who Stole the Duke's First Night
Chapter 38
“Sir is definitely trying to tease and torment me again.”
In a corner of the training grounds after morning drills had ended, a sweat-drenched Elio squeezed in among the female knights resting in the lush foliage and caught her breath.
“I couldn’t sleep a wink last night! But he slept so peacefully, then got up at dawn and disappeared. Leaving me all alone.”
Her face flushed red, Elio threw her sword onto the ground.
It was a stark contrast to last night, when she had resolutely declared she would pass the test no matter what and parted ways after asking him to treat her not as Carlos’s fiancée, but as a fellow knight during training.
“…Did you sleep with the Commander?”
Salah whispered, arching a brow.
“Yes! I was so nervous I couldn’t even sleep. But he slept totally comfortably all by himself and woke up at dawn, I tell you! I mean, if he was going to sleep that well, why did he call me into his room in the first place? Isn’t all that talk about trauma a complete lie? What on earth is he even testing like this?”
“No, what I mean is… Did you actually sleep with him?”
Elio stopped her huffing and blinked.
“I told you, I did?”
“Of course she didn’t. She doesn’t have the vibe of a woman who spent the night with a man at all.”
At the other female knight’s indifferent remark, Elio’s face flushed crimson.
“Of course I didn’t!”
Salah rested her muscular arms on her thighs and tilted her head.
“What’s so obvious about that? You’re his fiancée who even pledged the first night. Back in Cyprus, they do it four times a day. Morning, noon, evening, and night.”
“No, naturally… yesterday was to protect him, so it was basically on duty….”
Elio stammered under Salah’s deadpan gaze. Was she joking or serious? Everything the female knights said sounded like a joke, yet at the same time completely genuine.
“If eyes meet and hearts align on duty, you press lips together and all that. Anyway, the Commander is really so rigid. He takes after His Grace the Duke far too much.”
The knight lying down next to Salah yawning giggled and retorted.
“Hey, where on earth does His Grace look rigid? Still waters run deep—he seduced Madam when she was engaged to the Emperor and got her pregnant right away! He’s a man of lightning speed, I tell you.”
“Exactly. Who knows, maybe our Commander will suddenly get the wrong woman pregnant before marriage too….”
The female knight glanced at Elio and swallowed her words.
“The Duchess was engaged to His Majesty the Emperor?”
When Elio, who had been completely bewildered by the knights’ conversation, asked back, the female knight shrugged.
“You didn’t know? But what good is an engagement? The Emperor got Madam’s younger sister pregnant, and Madam ran off with His Grace the Duke. Man, there’s never been a mess quite like that.”
Just as Elio was about to ask more, the knights let out a resounding chorus of exclamations all at once.
“Holy shit. Look at that. Our Commander is twenty-six now—isn’t he right in his prime, overflowing with lust? When a man’s blood is boiling like crazy, his muscles get defined like that. Did you see those insane back muscles? His lats are no joke.”
The female knight, who clicked her tongue complaining that she was in her thirties now and didn’t build muscle like she used to, let out another exclamation.
Following the female knights’ gazes in a daze, Elio’s jaw dropped.
Under the scorching sun, Carlos, who had been overseeing the young knights’ free sparring, was laughing as he held a water hose and sprayed down the knights’ backs.
Shirtless, Carlos swept back his wet, disheveled black hair. He had rolled his trousers all the way up above his thighs as well.
Elio’s frozen eyes trembled. Just how much had he swung a sword for those chiseled chest muscles to look even thicker than before? His taut, bulging thighs seemed thicker than her waist. She felt as though she had seen a physique like that in the statue section of the Schweiz Central Museum. Was it the God of War?
Salah, unable to stifle her laughter, giggled and whispered into Elio’s ear, which had turned redder than a beet.
“What? Seeing our Commander as a man now? Guess it’s not such a forced engagement after all?”
❖ ❖ ❖
“In two weeks, we embark on the 28th Great Subjugation. Signs of a mass goblin migration have been discovered to the east, so….”
Elio blankly let Carlos’s words wash over her, instinctively taking in both him and Grita in a single view.
The Knight Order’s conference room in the Duke’s annex.
Carlos pointed to the large map hanging on the front wall as he explained the regular sector subjugations and the plan for the Great Subjugation. A calm explanation followed detailing the annihilation of monsters moving along the Dragon Mountains toward the Northern Continent Holy Land.
Dozens of knights sat scattered across the floor, focused on his words, while squires listened intently, taking notes in their notebooks.
Her fear of participating in the subjugation was quickly jumbled with another thought.
Me…? Seeing that man as a man…?
With her red cheeks still burning, Elio let out an incredulous laugh to herself before flinching and turning her head. She smiled at the cute young squire boy who was worriedly dabbing the cold sweat from her forehead, reassuring him that she was fine.
…Was Carlos this cute and youthful in his teens, too?
Since he was said to have first set out in search of the Evil Dragon at the age of sixteen, even in his teens he was likely far from cute.
Why on earth had he chased after a fallen dragon from such a young age? At first, she had thought he was a man obsessed with honor, but the more she watched him by his side, the more he seemed like someone who didn’t care about others’ opinions at all, only deepening her questions.
…Simply for the safety of the Empire’s people?
…If so, would he not hate a dragon that isn’t fallen…? Would he find it fascinating and adore it, perhaps…? Or would he find it disgusting…?
“My Lady, are you all right? Your cold sweat….”
The young squire tilted his head toward her.
“Aquitaine. Eyes front. Focus.”
Frowning, Elio snapped her head up.
“Grita. Nirta. Hebron.”
The man’s smooth, low baritone struck her ears. For a moment, Elio let out a hollow laugh.
Why does he only call me by my last name?
“You three will lead the Vanguard Unit. Grita will assist by my side. The rear unit will focus on cutting off escape routes with Leon. Personnel distribution between the front and rear remains the same as last time.”
“Yes, Commander.”
Elio momentarily crumpled the notepad in her hands. Grita’s strong physique, upright posture, and upright demeanor as her hazel eyes curved in reply looked so cool—enough that even if she were a man, she would have fallen for her.
She couldn’t hear what came after. The man who had been giving Grita forceful orders—almost as if declaring he wanted to pin her under him and hold her right now—turned his head.
He looked at her, sitting ungracefully in the far-left corner at the very back of the conference room like an abandoned stranger.
The moment she locked eyes squarely with his cold gaze across the dozens of knights, Elio flinched and dropped her pen.
“Salah and Patrick will lead Rear Squads 1 and 2.”
She swallowed hard at the man’s deep voice ringing loudly in her ears.
“……Put Aquitaine in Rear Squad 1. Everyone else remains the same as last time.”
Only at the very end of countless orders was her family name finally called.
My family name again.
Having finished speaking, Carlos turned his back. He left the conference room alongside a delightfully smiling, strong Grita Hoffmann and five or six dignified regular knights.
Elio pressed down on her half-torn thumbnail and moistened her lips. While the squires noisily chattered and exchanged greetings, Elio merely bowed her head slightly in acknowledgment.
The conference room, large enough to hold hundreds of people, quickly fell silent, and blood trickled from Elio’s torn thumbnail.
Ruminating over Carlos leaving the room smiling side by side with Grita, and Grita’s subtle gaze directed at Carlos throughout training, Elio belatedly pulled herself up.
Shouldn’t I clearly define the relationship between Grita and Carlos? I can’t… I can’t go creating unnecessary awkwardness between us.
Her footsteps echoed loudly in the quiet conference room. Had he already gone to the main building?
Elio flung the door open, intending to chase after Carlos.
“Carl…!”
“Yeah.”
In the empty hallway, he was leaning against the wall, tilting his head slightly toward her. Elio sucked in a startled breath.
“What took you so long?”
Carlos, who had been quietly holding an unlit cigar in his mouth, slipped it between his fingers and bent his waist slightly forward.
“W-What are you doing? Why are you still here?”
The knights who had left with Carlos were nowhere to be seen; he was all alone.
He chuckled softly and picked up the crumpled notebook in her hand.
“You’re the one who took forever. What were you doing until everyone else left?”
As she looked around, the empty hallway and conference room came into view. A muggy breeze blew through the open window in the corridor, fluttering the man’s hair.
“You didn’t take any notes at all.”
Carlos raised an eyebrow and looked down at her intently.
“…Were you waiting for me?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?”
Carlos stared at Elio steadily before extending an arm. He lifted the woman’s hand, which was trembling with nowhere to go.
When Elio tried to pull her hand away, Carlos simply pulled her wrist and stepped back into the conference room.
Thud. Carlos shut the conference room door, lifted Elio up, and seated her on his desk. Elio looked up at him with wide eyes.
Carlos brushed back his bangs and sat in the leather chair. Holding Elio’s wrist in one hand, he rummaged through a drawer and took out a potion.
“Are you scared?”
The man asked in a low voice as he poured the potion onto his handkerchief.
“No? Sc-Scared of what…?”
Carlos placed the potion-soaked handkerchief over Elio’s thumb.
Elio squirmed to pull her hand back, but Carlos did not let go and raised his head.
“Your finger. Why did you keep picking at it?”
Elio flinched and tugged her hand back, but Carlos didn’t budge.
“If you’re scared, you don’t have to go on the subjugation.”
Looking at Carlos’s expressionless face, Elio hastily shook her head.
“It’s not because I’m scared! I’m going on the subjugation. I’m not afraid. I’ve done plenty of real combat practice with unnie. I learned so many offensive techniques, too. We practiced swordsmanship together right up until the day before unnie left… and I, I even caught a snake once!”
Carlos silently listened to the woman’s flustered chattering before muttering with a troubled air, almost to himself.
“……A snake….”
“It wasn’t a small snake! It was a huge snake, like a monster!”
Elio drew a circle in the air with her hands. Carlos let out a sigh of a laugh, conceding she did well, and pressed the handkerchief against Elio’s half-torn thumbnail as he slowly spoke.
At the same time, Elio rubbed her burning nape and opened her hesitant mouth.
“I think Sir Grita likes you.”
“Did you say that woman you called unnie was just a wanderer?”
“What?”
“What?”