“But I wasn’t intentionally trying to seduce you.”
“You came into a man’s bedroom in the middle of the night dressed in a dirty spit and kissed him, but it wasn’t seduction, ha… A convenient excuse.”
“Ah, no, I really tried to match our mouths just once. Really.”
She tried hard to explain, but Killian laughed and shook his head. Well, from his point of view, it’s tempting… It may have looked like she tempted him. And it seemed clear to her what he thought of her. A prostitute who seduced him with her body to cover her lies! And… In her previous life, she never thought she would get such a great title…
“I think I know a little bit about how it works now. Since Killian Ludwig is a caught fish, are you going to focus on other prey now?”
“What? Haha, Killian! What kind of imagination are you stretching? Any other prey? So, do I have any prey here that I can catch?”
She laughed at his ridiculous assumption, and then Killian gnashed his teeth and he came closer. It was only then that she realized that his breathing was quite rough.
“I have heard rumors that you are a good hunter. You use your strengths so well.”
“Hunter?”
His lips suddenly touched the nape of her neck.
“Where do you think I heard that Edith Rigelhoff’s flesh was so smooth and fragrant?”
“Ah!”
As he ran his lips over the nape of her neck, he bit her shoulder.
“At a club where young men gather, you were a hot topic. Do you know?”
It didn’t hurt where he bit it, but it felt like it was on the verge of something, and she was short of breath.
“Even if I didn’t want to hear it, the story always comes out. How tempting you are, how many men have fallen for you…”
That was a bit embarrassing. No matter how much she searched Edith’s memories, she had never crossed the line with a man. Of course, there were times when she gently seduced them, and there were times when she pretended not to know how she gently kneaded them, but she never allowed more than that. That was also Count Rigelhoff’s guideline. He didn’t know where to sell her, but it was because the price would drop if she wasn’t a virgin. So, all the guys who gave her name and spread stories must have been bluffing.
But who will listen to her?
“So… How easy would it have been to seduce a man?”
“Oh, no, no…!”
“The more you do this, the more you know that a man loses his temper.”
He impatiently pulled down her bedclothes. As she listened to his insulting words, a strange feeling of anticipation rose up, so she couldn’t actively stop him. However, Killian, who she thought would run wild at any moment, suddenly stopped.
“Key, Killian…?”
His gaze was fixed over her shoulder.
‘What? Did I do something to break the mood?’
It must have been because she was in a state of excitement that she had such thoughts. However, Killian seemed to be frozen because his excitement, which had been burning up until now, could not disappear in an instant. He hurriedly got off her bed, lit a nearby lamp, and started looking behind her shoulder again. And only then did she realize what he was looking at.
“This… This is by no means an accidental bump.”
He was looking down at the bruise Sophia had created.
“Killian, this, this, so…”
She opened her mouth to make an excuse, but the truth was, she didn’t know what to say either. When he made her lay down and pulled her bedsheet down even further, the words Sophia had said echoed in her head.
“If they know that you are a discarded hand in Count Rigelhoff’s family, all you have left is to be discarded here as well…”
It was dizzying. She believed in the big flow of the original work, but when this situation came up, her anxiety rose. In the original story, Edith was not beaten by Sophia, and no evidence of being persecuted was revealed. But how would the story change when Killian found out that the bruises that must have been made countless times on her body were Sofia’s work?
Killian looked at her back and was silent for a long time. No, there was no slight movement.
“Killian…”
She tried to get herself up again, but he turned her over, brushed her hair, pulled down the bed linen, and checked her body thoroughly. She couldn’t see what her back was like, but seeing Killian so serious, it looked pretty flashy. After giving up and relaxing her body, Killian calmly dressed me again.
‘The atmosphere was nice. damn.’
So close. It was ecstatic to overlap bodies with Killian, but in fact, for now, it’s just… Her body temperature was desperate. If he hugged her, she thought that the embers of courage that had gone out could be revived a little…
“I apologize for losing my temper.”
“Oh no! We are a couple, a couple. I know it’s his, the wife’s duty…”
Knowing her wifely duty, Killian would have liked to do some of his husbandly duty, but the atmosphere was not enough.
“A couple…”
There was no more heat in Killian’s voice. He seemed to have regained his cold sanity. It was clear that soon there would be questions she could not answer.
“Yes, we are a couple anyway. So let me ask you. Who did this?”
Sure enough, he asked right away. She couldn’t answer. Because of that damn restriction, even trying to name Sofia made her tongue harden first. As she was silently averting her gaze, Killian swept her hair behind her ear. It was definitely softer than before.
“Thank you for the answer.”
She said nothing, but he heard an answer from her silence. Then, with a determined face, he got down from the bed. He didn’t feel any remorse for her at all. It’s as if he didn’t even feel a physical need for her, so she was impatient.
“Killian… that… I know it’s inappropriate in this situation, but I just… Can you hug me?”
“Is that to distract me?”
“No, not like that… just… just Just because I want to…?”
He kissed her just because he wanted to. Couldn’t she do the same? … couldn’t he?
“I am not a beast enough to hug a woman covered in bruises. Just have a good night’s sleep today.”
Oh, also… Killian left with a more angry face than when he entered. And she was left alone in a room surrounded by silence.
‘It looks like the steam has leaked.’
With a body like this, she couldn’t even stand in for Lise. She felt sick to her stomach, probably because Killian gave her a bedclothes and didn’t even cover her with a blanket.
‘Oh, it’s cold…’
It’s summer, but it’s cold. Every time she met Killian, she confirmed that his heart wasn’t going to her, and yet she became more and more greedy, and the loneliness pierced her. She had no hope but Killian, but she was sad because she was close to despair for him. She was sad that he didn’t give her a warm hug.
‘He’d rather have been ignoring me the first time. These days, he seems to care strangely, so I have high expectations for nothing.’
She tried to breathe, but the water that formed around her eyes quickly dripped. She urgently wiped her tears with her sleeve.
‘Ah, why am I so embarrassed? I can’t be weak. No one else will take care of me here. Therefore… I can’t be weak.’
She tried to hold it in, biting her molars, but tears quickly wet her eyelashes and cheeks.
‘Oh, you fool… Stupid, stupid, stupid!’
She put her head on the pillow and closed her eyes. She wished she could wake up in her cheap self-made room tomorrow morning. Killian was a brilliant light that made her heart flutter just by looking at it, but she thought it would be better to live a dull life without knowing that light than to suffer like this. Maybe it was because her heart was empty, or maybe it was because she had a fever from crying, so she couldn’t continue her thoughts and fell asleep.
* * *
Killian decided to let go of the idea of knowing Edith.
Edith wasn’t the person he thought she was. Really, as much as hir fingertips!
“Do you think I would do something like that in a situation where everyone is suspicious of me because of the peach pie incident?”
He was somewhat surprised by Edith’s question as if it was absurd. Maybe it was because everyone in the Ludwig household was ignoring her, as she too had noticed. In fact, he thought she would be foolish enough to do it again even under suspicion. She proudly asserted her innocence and even asked for a guard to be assigned if so suspected. She didn’t make that much effort, and even gave a tingling warning not to easily drive herself into a criminal.
‘Edith is right. We were suspicious of Edith whenever something happened, without making the slightest effort.’
Upon realizing that fact, Killian felt puzzled before the shame or embarrassment.
‘Why did we do that?’
As he realized, it was something he couldn’t understand. The Ludwigs had never used such lax tactics, whether on the battlefield or in politics.
‘Why didn’t I feel any discomfort until Edith pointed this out?’
He felt like he was possessed by a ghost. But when Edith asked for more maids, he did not seem to have blunted her sense of self, for he doubted that the maid from the Rigelhofs had reacted to her keenly.
Anyway, the surprises for Edith continued.
How do you feel?
