Chapter 14
The atmosphere in the rest room instantly became murderous.
The dancers faces all turned pale without exception.
Only then did they realize that things had gone seriously wrong, and without exception, they began to bow their heads.
“S-Sorry! We were just going along with what Miss Floris said!”
“What? What are you all saying right now!”
As if tearing through the seething silence, infighting erupted among the dancers.
Cowardly betrayal and shifting of responsibility.
Arguing over who had dipped their feet deeper, the dancers struggled to escape the mud pit each in their own way.
Lionel stared at them and picked up the last glass on the table.
His Adam’s apple moved slowly as he emptied the whiskey.
Soon, he took out a handkerchief.
The handkerchief with which he had roughly wiped the hand that Floris had brushed against just moments ago was thrown into the trash bin, just like the jacket.
As he came out of the rest room, his adjutant, who had somehow followed him, was waiting at the door.
“What shall we do with their disposition, Colonel?”
Disposition.
Lionel stroked his jawline.
He did not feel the need to dirty his own hands directly for the kind who only gossiped lowly.
But he had no intention of letting it pass as if nothing had happened.
Insulting Agnes was an insult directed at himself, who would soon become her husband.
“It was Viscount Guten and Viscount Loren, right?”
Lionel recalled the names that Floris had casually dropped while boasting.
They were familiar names.
And it seemed the same for the adjutant.
“If it’s those two, aren’t they the ones who avoided conscription on grounds of poor health?”
“That’s right.”
Lionel fiddled with the case containing his cigarillos and spoke lowly.
“Those who are so weak that they can’t take a single step out of the bedroom apparently had the strength to go around meeting women.”
Moreover, they whined that they didn’t even have the spare money to send military funds, yet they went around sponsoring.
A hollow laugh escaped him because their shabby behavior was beyond words.
It was common for nobles to avoid conscription.
Sending a proxy or escaping with excuses like health, as now, was even considered customary.
But once you start holding them accountable, the story changes.
From lightly starting with loss of honor, to severely stripping of titles, and even further to demotion of the entire family—it could be discussed.
“Handle it according to the military service law.”
The adjutant expressed condolences to the two families who would pay the price for their shallow tricks.
And at the same time, he realized.
That the dancers inside, for recklessly running their mouths, would no longer be able to step onto the imperial stage from now on.
In a field where promising dancers fiercely climb up even over small mistakes, the future of a dancer whose sponsorship is cut off was obvious.
“As you command.”
Lionel, nodding slightly, bit a cigarillo.
His footsteps, searching for a place to light it, were deliberately rough.
His mood was hitting rock bottom moment by moment.
The sharp sound of military boots stamping on the corridor echoed.
While heading toward the terrace, his original destination, one awkwardly open waiting room door caught his eye.
Light was leaking out.
Beyond that door crack, delicate platinum-blonde hair was visible.
Lionel’s footsteps stopped on their own.
Damn it. It was Agnes.
She wasn’t there when he looked for her, but why now of all times.
Strength entered his jawline.
Agnes was sitting on the sofa.
She had her swollen ankle stretched forward and was softly narrowing her eyes in a smile.
In front of her, the male dancer who had supported Agnes on stage was stroking his reddened nape.
The two looked quite harmonious.
The appearance of breaking like a doll on stage had disappeared, and Agnes’s expression looked quite relaxed.
Between Lionel’s teeth as he stared at the two, the cigar was crushed.
His long fingers nervously unbuttoned his shirt.
It was to relieve even a little of the stuffiness tightening up to his neck.
However, the cold wind felt as his collar opened was not refreshing at all.
Instead, that emotion he had felt under the stage earlier—whether displeasure, anger, or something even more vicious—he didn’t know, but it crept up again from his chest.
That face. That gaze was the problem.
The cause of this deformed emotion came from Agnes herself.
Despite having driven countless soldiers to death with trivial greed.
Even now, pretending to be a victim, acting like an innocent lamb who knows nothing. As if she were the most wronged and weakest being in the world.
It was hypocritical.
Lionel found the cause of his displeasure in Agnes.
She is the perpetrator. Yet how can she have such an innocent face.
The ‘lowly birth’ that the dancers mentioned. That might not be wrong.
If she hadn’t been a dancer, she might have traded something in another way to stand on the imperial stage.
At that moment, the principal dancer came to Lionel’s mind.
The cheap smile of the one who had tried to lean into his arms just earlier overlapped strangely with Agnes’s smiling appearance.
‘Yeah, I’m the crazy one for worrying about someone no different.’
Lionel convinced himself that way.
He overlaid a plausible logic on his displeasure. That way, it seemed his heart would feel a bit better.
He knows it’s a cowardly act.
However, if he didn’t do this, it felt like he would commit an irreversible sin against Cedric, who had died unjustly.
For example, harboring Agnes in his heart or something.
But soon, an even greater, inexplicable displeasure flowed down his back.
The conclusion he had forcibly pressed down felt like it was instead tightening him more.
Lionel pushed away that emotion and strode toward the waiting room, grabbing the doorknob.
***
“You’re the second person to say they liked my dance.”
Agnes said, slightly curling the corners of her mouth.
“If I’m the second, then who is the first?”
Kain asked back with a playful smile, but Agnes quietly lowered her gaze instead of answering.
Her lips trembled slightly. Lionel. She couldn’t bring herself to say that name.
Reading Agnes’s troubled expression, Kain no longer asked.
“Are you going to dance again, Miss Agnes?”
Kain’s voice was bright and warm, but Agnes looked at her right leg with a skeptical face.
“……Isn’t it impossible.”
“No!
To the calm Agnes’s reaction, Kain instead jumped up.
“If you rehabilitate, you can definitely get better. I’ve seen dancers like that before. Someone who injured their leg like Miss Agnes but safely returned to the stage!”
Spilling it out without even breathing, it seemed he wanted to comfort her.
In Kain’s eyes dwelled something like audacious faith.
“I definitely want to see Miss Agnes’s dance again. And…… if I could become your partner once more like today, it would really be an honor.”
Agnes kept her mouth closed and only responded with silence.
Then Kain hurriedly added.
“If it’s okay, I can help with rehabilitation too! I’m prone to injuries, so I have a lot of rehabilitation experience. It can really help. And also-.”
At that moment, Agnes glanced at the clock.
“Time has already become like this. I think I should go now. Thank you for many things today.”
Kain stood up abruptly following Agnes.
“Then I’ll escort you.”
“It’s okay. I can go alone.”
Agnes waved her hand, but Kain said with an earnest face like a rain-soaked puppy, pleading.
“Please let me at least escort you. It’s hard for you to stand up alone even now.”
In that instant when Agnes hesitated and made a troubled expression,
Click.
The door opened, and cold night wind rushed into the waiting room.
In an instant, the warmth in the waiting room disappeared.
Kain’s neck slightly shrank from the cold air, and Agnes’s smile gradually hardened.
“I won’t decline the escort.”
Lionel, approaching with long strides, naturally. Occupied the spot next to Agnes and stood.
Below Lionel’s expressionless face, his sharply clenched jawline stood out.
Emerald-like transparent wall eyes scanned Agnes and Kain in turn and fell away.
Containing extremely displeased air.
“I don’t like getting involved in unsavory rumors before even getting married.”
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