Chapter 056. I Can Put You to Sleep
The lips that hesitated for a moment soon began to move slowly.
“……No.”
At that one-beat delayed answer, a low laugh escaped from Raymond’s teeth.
In the atmosphere where the tense air seemed to loosen slightly, Deborah quietly looked up at the man’s face.
“……Why are you-”
Why are you wandering the corridor at this late hour, her lips that were about to ask that closed again.
Thinking about it, in Elpengreen, where on earth was there a place he couldn’t go.
As if reading that thought, the man’s voice, which had been staring at her closed lips, resonated even more softly in the darkness.
“I can’t sleep either.”
A low voice resonating in the dim corridor.
“Aren’t you going to ask why?”
“…….”
At the voice that seemed like whispering right by her ear, a faint current suddenly ran down her spine in that moment.
At the words asking if she wasn’t curious about the reason, Deborah seemed to hesitate for a moment but soon quietly shook her head.
It was an action born from the thought that somehow she shouldn’t ask.
As if it was the expected reaction, the man lightly smiled without saying anything else this time as well.
And the silence that came again.
In fact, it was a situation where there wasn’t really anything more to say.
What kind of story could there be for the duke and a lowly maid like herself to stand facing each other and share.
That too, while standing in the dim corridor with the lights off at this hour when everyone was asleep.
Perhaps because her thoughts reached that point, an unexpected anxiety suddenly began to surge.
If someone like her or him who couldn’t sleep happened to pass by this corridor and saw this scene by chance…….
Just imagining the vulgar words that would circulate through the mansion made her heart sink in an instant.
So now she should go back, as she organized her thoughts and was about to open her mouth.
“If you can’t sleep, I-”
The man who broke the short silence suddenly closed the distance sharply.
Forgetting what she was about to say, waiting for the next words from his mouth as if entranced-
“Can put you to sleep.”
“…….”
At the words tickling her ear as if whispering a secret, her breath suddenly caught with a gasp.
No, more than that.
Put to…… sleep?
What she had just heard, her heart was pounding madly and her mind felt blank as if emptied.
Looking down at Deborah who was stiffening, not knowing how to react, a sudden chuckle escaped from the man’s mouth.
“Why are you so surprised.”
“…….”
A tone even lighter than before.
Only then did Deborah realize that the words the man had said to her were just a silly joke.
And she had been flustered like a fool without even realizing it…….
Deborah’s cheeks, hidden by the darkness, flushed red like a ripe fruit.
“Now go up and sleep, that’s enough wandering.”
At the words said while taking one step back, Deborah nodded briefly.
Even without those exact words, Deborah had been thinking the same until just a moment ago.
If it weren’t for the man’s sudden remark, she might have finished the greeting and been climbing the stairs to the second floor by now-
“……Then, rest well.”
At the polite bow and greeting, the opponent just nodded slightly, and no more words were heard.
Deborah turned around just like that and walked forward.
As she walked, ignoring the back that was tugging at her nerves as best she could, she stepped quickly toward the stairs only.
As if someone was chasing her from behind.
Even though she hurried like that and finally arrived at the stairs, the moment she was about to place her foot on the first step, she inevitably hesitated again.
The hand gripping the railing tensed with undue force.
‘No…… just go up, don’t look back…….’
She knew she shouldn’t look back, that if she looked back now, perhaps her life might be swept into a turmoil she couldn’t handle in the future-
She knew……, she knew it all, yet Deborah was hesitating like a fool right now.
In truth, she knew it all. No, she couldn’t not know.
Why the man was standing alone in the dark second-floor corridor at this late hour.
As if waiting for someone to come down from the third floor, why he was standing at the bottom of those stairs.
How could she not know.
She had only pretended not to know out of fear of all that would change because of it, but she alone couldn’t not know, unlike others.
“…….”
Deborah, clenching her hand tightly, hesitated like that for a long time and eventually turned her head.
And-
At the end of that gaze, she saw the man still standing in that exact spot.
That gaze still directed this way.
The considerable distance added with the darkness made it impossible to tell what expression the man was making now.
But somehow, she felt like she knew.
What expression he was looking at her with now.
It was what she had seen constantly embraced in the man’s arms in that study today, no, already yesterday.
Those eyes flickering with a blue flame as if burning.
Even from far away, it felt like his hot breath, his gaze, was running through her entire body.
Like that, in the darkness, how long did that suffocating standoff continue.
Suddenly, the man’s body moved greatly.
Deborah just watched blankly as the man, who had been standing motionless like frozen, approached with large strides.
Until the man who finally came right in front of her grabbed her wrist and walked off somewhere again-
Deborah just followed silently behind him.
* * *
“If you can’t sleep, I- can put you to sleep.”
At just those words, the woman stiffened, and he couldn’t bear to show it in front of her.
The dark desire inside him.
From the incident in the study as a boundary, he imagined it every minute and second.
Imagining laying the woman on his bed, stripping her clothes, devouring her maddeningly beautiful breasts, then pushing himself between her legs and moving like a mad dog.
Such imaginations eventually led to bitter self-loathing, but once started, the imaginations repeated endlessly in his mind without tiring.
Raymond knew well the men who used the power they had to oppress and toy with women who had nothing.
He didn’t even need to go far; it was common among the upper class in Ruveik.
Raymond despised such things.
Threatening powerless women, luring innocent women who didn’t know anything yet with what he had.
He had dismissed that dirty and vulgar behavior as revolting.
Yet here he was, himself, who had been like that, now thinking he wanted to have that woman even by doing so.
If she refused saying she didn’t like it, then oppress her with force, if she hesitated, just give her what she wanted, there was himself in his head chattering incessantly like that.
So he let her go.
Like an idiot, standing at the bottom of those stairs waiting all along, and in the end, even spouting jokes like a fool.
Then, when sending her off gracefully, she should go without looking back.
But she stubbornly turned around and looked this way in the end, and he could no longer endure it.
No, he no longer wanted to endure it.
Now that he knew she was just hesitating a little, and that she felt the same as him, there was no more hesitation or roughness.
As much as his impatient heart, his steps quickened angrily.
It was obvious she would have trouble keeping up with that stride, but the woman said not a word.
Where are we going now, please go a bit slower, she could have asked, but she just followed in silence with small steps.
Passing the long corridor like that, the place they finally arrived at was naturally in front of the bedroom.
Raymond’s movement, which seemed like he would enter without hesitation, suddenly stopped in front of it for some reason.
Over the hand gripping the doorknob, veins bulged with tense force.
After stopping like that for a while, the action Raymond showed was turning the gripped doorknob to fling the door inward.
Creak-
In the quiet dawn, the sound of the door opening echoed eerily down the corridor.
As the bedroom door opened, Raymond finally turned his body and looked down at Deborah’s face standing behind him.
“Choose.”
“…….”
“Whether to cross this door, or not.”
“…….”
If there was even a little dislike, she wouldn’t have followed this far so obediently.
She was just a bit surprised at first, but she accepted both kisses without refusing.
The fact that he was being drawn in so defenselessly to the point of amazement to himself wasn’t only his alone.
Nevertheless, he wanted to let her choose.
No, he wanted her to choose for herself.
That she too desired what would happen after crossing this door now, Raymond wanted to confirm that fact.
Without any coercion, without any hesitation, purely because the woman herself wanted it, to cross that line.
The woman seemed momentarily flustered by the unexpected situation, but that too was only for a moment.
Soon, as if firming her resolve, the woman slowly, very cautiously stepped forward and crossed the door right in front of his eyes.
Haa…… In that moment, a sigh-like groan escaped long from Raymond’s teeth.
And,
“……Clearly, you chose this. Right now.”
With those words as the end, Raymond finally pulled the open doorknob.
A moment later, the sound of the bedroom door closing firmly behind the two of them was heard.
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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.
