Chapter 032. Reckless and Vulgar
The moment everyone else had left, the only sound on the quiet forest path was the rustling of leaves.
As if time had stopped, the stillness was finally broken when Raymond opened his mouth.
“What in the world are you doing?”
At the voice that spoke each word deliberately, laced with coldness, Deborah’s body flinched for a moment.
She knew she should say something—apologize, explain that she truly didn’t know he’d come this way—but it was as if her mouth had been sealed shut, and no words came out.
All she could do was bite her lips tightly and clutch the hem of her skirt with force; there was nothing else she could manage.
Raymond’s gaze, as he looked at Deborah, grew even more fierce and intense.
It was only natural, considering the absurd situation that had just unfolded because of the woman before him.
An uninvited guest suddenly appearing on a leisurely stroll.
Up to that point, he could have brushed it off with a laugh.
Setting aside who she was, it was something he could have easily ignored and passed by.
Even though her drenched appearance, as if she’d been playing in water, wasn’t exactly pleasant to look at, it was something he wouldn’t have paid any mind to under normal circumstances.
It would have been entirely possible to overlook it, had the gazes of the men looking at the woman not shifted so strangely. Surely.
“How on earth have you been carrying yourself outside to act so recklessly and vulgarly in every move you make?”
“……”
“Should I keep tolerating you despite this? When you’re so irritating every time I see you, why should I?”
With each unfiltered word he spat out, the woman’s pale face grew whiter, almost ghostly.
While there was a strange sense of satisfaction in seeing that, a part of his chest stung for a moment.
In that moment, Raymond thought to himself.
He could no longer keep this troublesome woman in his sight.
He could now guess what this confusion he felt was.
The moment the men’s gazes were wholly fixed on the woman’s nearly transparent figure, that thought became even clearer.
He could no longer pretend to ignore or overlook what he had tried so hard to dismiss.
So, perhaps now was the most appropriate time.
As if he had made up his mind, Raymond’s eyes coldly scanned the pale face of the woman.
“I’ll inform Lady Charlotte, so pack your things and leave.”
He should have fired her long ago.
That day when she caused a commotion at the banquet, no matter what Robin said, he should have pushed through with that decision.
No—on the day he returned to Elfengrin, the moment his gaze was stolen in the study, he should have realized it then.
Thinking it wasn’t too late even now, Raymond delivered those words like a final notice and brushed past the woman, who stood frozen like a plaster statue.
How many steps had he taken forward?
What halted his purposeful stride was a faint voice coming from a few steps behind.
“W-Wait… Just a moment…”
He could have ignored it and kept going, but Raymond’s body stopped in place as if reacting to the sound.
Damn it.
Muttering a low curse, Raymond exhaled deeply and turned around.
When had she ever stood still? The woman, now standing right in front of him, looked extremely anxious and desperate.
After watching her golden eyes dart around frantically for a moment, Raymond raised his chin, and Deborah finally began to move her lips slowly.
“What… what should I do?”
At the question asked with clear eyes, Raymond’s eyebrow twitched slightly in a faint spasm.
What Deborah had just said was undoubtedly a simple question directed at an employer who had just informed her of her dismissal.
A question about how she could reverse his decision and stay in this place—
Raymond wasn’t unaware of that.
No, anyone could tell from that desperate expression how frantic she was.
He knew, he knew it all—but the problem was that his crazed mind, his thoughts, interpreted the woman’s words as a sweet temptation.
And as if waiting for it, certain images rapidly flashed through his mind.
Scenes, for instance, of the kind he had always despised…
As his mind was flooded with base imaginings in an instant, Raymond’s face grew increasingly grim.
Mistaking it for a sign of rejection, Deborah, in her anxiety, took a bold step closer.
As a result, the distance between them narrowed to a precarious degree, but Deborah didn’t notice.
She was that desperate and urgent.
“I-I’ll… make sure this never happens again.”
“……”
“Today… while I was doing laundry in the washroom… they said if I went out to the forest, I wouldn’t run into anyone, so…”
“……”
Her words, as scattered as her trembling eyes, wandered aimlessly in the air, unsure of what would change his mind.
“So please… please take back your decision to fire me… please…”
“……”
It was a strange thing.
If it were the usual Raymond, he would have simply ignored someone clinging to him to reverse a decision already made.
No, the very act of turning back because she called out to him was absurd in itself.
So why, why on earth,
Was he being swayed like a madman by the words of this lowly maid?
The ridiculous truth was that, even as he thought himself insane, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the woman’s gaze directed at him.
Her skin, so pale it was almost transparent; her long, chocolate-colored eyelashes, damp from water; and the mysterious golden eyes beneath them.
The delicate, round nose, and the vivid red lips visible below it.
Even the fine hairs visible beneath her earlobe—every single detail held his gaze captive.
“……”
“……”
A suffocating silence settled between them.
Deborah’s expression, anxiously awaiting Raymond’s response, shifted at the same moment.
They were so close their bodies nearly touched, so close that the sound of the other’s breathing brushed against their ears.
Realizing she was standing face-to-face with the duke at such a distance, Deborah’s startled face moved to pull back.
But before she could, a hand reached out and firmly gripped her waist.
With a short gasp of “Ah,” her body was pulled forward, and in an instant, their bodies pressed together.
The hand gripping her waist, the firm sensation of the man’s body against her skin.
Her heart raced, her blood surged through her veins, and her mind spun with dizziness.
How had she suddenly ended up in this situation? Why had it come to this? Various thoughts flooded her confused mind, but only for a moment—
Her entire body froze, as if paralyzed, under the blue eyes hovering over her face, unable to think of anything else.
How much time had passed like that?
Their gazes, which had been wandering over each other’s faces, stopped simultaneously, as if by agreement, near each other’s lips.
“……”
“……”
Thump, thump—the sound of her wildly beating heart echoed like thunder.
As Raymond’s head slowly lowered, Deborah’s lips, as if entranced, began to part naturally.
The distance grew closer and closer, and just as their breaths were about to intertwine in the gap—
Flutter—
The sudden sound of flapping wings broke the precarious silence, echoing loudly through the forest.
It was the sound of a bird, perched on a tree, taking flight into the sky.
At that sound, Deborah’s hazy, dreamlike gaze shook greatly, snapping back to reality.
In that brief moment, amid the confusion of what had just happened, one thing was vividly clear.
The man’s blue eyes, now as cold as frost.
“……”
It was a reminder that, just as she had returned to reality, he too had fully awakened.
The taut muscles of his jaw, the deeply furrowed brow, and the trembling gaze.
Every single one of his actions told Deborah that he regretted what he had just done.
The moment she realized this, a sharp pain throbbed in one corner of her heart.
It was an emotion she hadn’t even been conscious of, so she couldn’t manage to hide her wounded expression.
But fortunately, her feelings went unnoticed by him in the end.
As the hand gripping her waist released, the duke turned and strode away.
Deborah stood there, dazed, watching the man’s figure grow smaller until it disappeared from view.
For a long while.
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By Anna 💓
Greetings, I hope you’re doing okay. I’d like to propose some novels that I’ve translated that may interest you:
The goal is five divorces.
The Ruffian and the Mad Warrior Get Married.
