Chapter 64
Agnes’s lips were excessively soft.
Lionel couldn’t understand why he hadn’t realized this fact before.
Even though these were the lips he had met on their first night. Even though it was a body he had held.
The rounded back of her head that fit perfectly into his palm.
Her earlobes that made her whole body shrink when he caressed them while kissing.
The sweet breath entering his mouth.
There was nothing about her that wasn’t addictive.
The kiss grew deeper.
Their breathing synchronized, and even the sound of water dripping from the bathtub followed that rhythm.
Fine droplets of water splashed between their deeply intertwined breaths.
Agnes’s body temperature, her skin, her breathing. They slowly crumbled Lionel’s rationality.
Lionel felt a thirst as if his throat were parched.
To quench that thirst, Lionel lifted Agnes, who was sitting in the wheelchair, and placed her on his lap.
“Hng—,”
A short breath escaped from Agnes.
As her small tongue retreated as if fleeing, Lionel tilted his head further to the side.
The shadows of the two people, intertwined in the steam, wavered like waves.
The lace of her dress, which had spilled into the bathtub, swayed on the water.
Agnes’s fingertips lost their way and fumbled in the air before gripping the edge of the bathtub.
There, a faint soot mark left by Lionel’s cigar in the past remained.
Agnes’s hand slipped over it.
When his vision began to spin from the lack of breath, Lionel pulled his lips away very slowly.
“……Shall I stop.”
In the damp air, Lionel’s voice mixed with the sound of the water.
Agnes’s eyelashes trembled minutely.
Agnes hesitated for a moment, then shook her head very slightly.
At that, Lionel swallowed Agnes’s breath once more.
The second kiss was slower and deeper than the first.
As Agnes clung to him, an indescribable sense of satisfaction rose incessantly within Lionel.
Yes, let’s admit it.
The fact that he had taken Agnes into his heart.
It was a damnable thing.
He didn’t know it would be like this, and he had been confident it couldn’t be like this, but in the end, it turned out this way.
‘I can no longer face Cedric.’
Memories of the battlefield where he lost his brother flashed by.
And over that, the breath of Agnes, held in his arms now, overlapped.
Guilt rushed in.
Nonetheless, Lionel pulled Agnes in tighter.
However, the emotion he felt was not something like the pure love the world spoke of.
This was a thick, unpleasant emotion mixed with love and hate.
Contradictory feelings boiled within him—wishing Agnes would crumble because of him, while simultaneously wanting her to smile because of him.
Once he became aware of it, his heart beat disgustingly every time he looked at Agnes.
Unpleasantly enough that he wanted to tear it out.
Regardless, Lionel wanted to monopolize Agnes.
He hated the thought of Agnes’s transparent eyes turning toward someone other than himself.
‘Should I tell her to quit the merchant company?’
The information Agnes provided was useful.
But it was not very pleasant that Agnes had to face strangers every time because of that job.
Especially since Kain was among them.
He knew well. That the look in Kain’s eyes when he watched Agnes was directed toward a member of the opposite sex.
Since Agnes was coordinating the contract with Lucian. She would inevitably encounter Kain often in the future.
‘To think that man was the grandson of Lucian.’
Feeling his stomach churn, Lionel intentionally left a bite mark on the nape of Agnes’s neck.
Lionel knew that Agnes quite liked her work at the merchant company.
Nonetheless, the impulse to break Agnes’s wings, seat her inside the Duke’s mansion, and make her wait endlessly for only him surged up.
Wouldn’t that be fair?
Since the woman who took his brother’s life had now made him harbor such desire for her, she had to take that much responsibility.
‘They say it is human instinct to be drawn to beautiful things.’
Lionel moved down along Agnes’s shivering neckline and buried the bridge of his nose in the hollow above her collarbone.
He loathed himself for being consumed by instinct to the point that his reason became blurred.
‘I think I understand the feelings of those who collect works of art.’
He didn’t want to show Agnes’s current face, these eyes, or this expression to anyone.
He wanted to lock Agnes in a glass case and take her out to see her whenever he felt like it in his own private space.
Perhaps that was the essence of the emotion he was feeling now.
An utterly human greed to possess something beautiful.
This is not love.
Love cannot be this foul.
Lionel lowered his head.
Agnes’s hair scattered over the water filled in the tub.
Watching Agnes catch her breath heavily, a strange heat bloomed in his chest once more.
Just because he had realized his feelings for Agnes didn’t mean she had become a priority in his life.
It didn’t mean he had come to trust her either.
He simply admitted the fact that he could no longer turn away from this emotion.
Nothing more, and nothing less.
☆☆
Leaving Agnes asleep on his bed, Lionel turned off the lamp.
The light in the room slowly went out, leaving only the sound of gentle breathing.
Coming out into the hallway, Lionel rotated his stiff shoulder.
Thanks to Agnes’s persistence, he had received treatment, but the wound still throbbed.
Lionel narrowed his long eyes and commanded Simon, who was standing at the door.
“Bring that maid.”
Since the earlier commotion had already reached Simon’s ears, there was no need for a separate explanation.
Simon, realizing that ‘that maid’ was Jessie, moved immediately.
Before long, Simon, Jessie, and Nora stood before him with stiffened faces.
“A… a… Duke! P-please forgive me…!”
Jessie fell flat at Lionel’s feet.
In contrast, Madam Nora was looking at Jessie composedly.
Jessie recalled what Nora had said just before she was dragged here.
“If you say anything foolish to the
Duke, I will have no choice but to mention that you dared to mistreat Lady Agnes.”
“I, I never mistreated Lady Agnes!”
“The other servants all saw it, so where do you get off denying it?”
Jessie felt it was unfair, but the other servants were already on Nora’s side.
There was no one to prove her
innocence.
The fact that the fireplace in Agnes’s room had gone cold, and that the bedding hadn’t been changed on time. It was all framed as Jessie’s doing.
Resistance meant immediate ruin.
Jessie vividly remembered the fate of the colleagues who were kicked out after neglecting Agnes while she was asleep in front of the office last time.
A servant kicked out without a letter of recommendation could never work again.
Nora promised to give her a letter of recommendation if she just let this matter pass quietly, and Jessie
eventually clung to that promise.
She knelt and lowered her head as if resigned.
“I forgot. I failed to deliver the note given by the knight on time. I have committed a sin punishable by death.”
Lionel lowered his eyes for a moment, then asked back in a cold voice.
“Forgot? Do you think that makes
sense?”
“T-to tell the truth, I was jealous… so I did it. L-Lady Agnes is a commoner no different from me… but it made my stomach turn that she luckily became a noble… so… I’m sorry!”
“That’s a somewhat sincere excuse.”
*Sizzle*—.
Lionel lit a cigar and took a deep drag.
The cigar held between his lips, which were redder than usual, glowed bright red every time he inhaled and then faded.
Lionel blew out a long cloud of smoke and merely lowered his gaze.
“Should I gouge out the eyes that saw but pretended not to? Or should I cut out the tongue that heard but did not relay?”
There was no emotion on his expressionless face.
Jessie’s shoulders trembled violently at that cold-laden gaze.
At that moment, Nora took a step forward.
“Leave such messy business to me, Duke.”
“Leave it to you.”
A dimple deepened on Lionel’s right cheek, which held a sneer.
“You have to be trustworthy for that. You can’t even keep a single servant in line properly.”
“So please let this Nora finish it. Is it not largely my responsibility that this child committed such an insolent act?”
With plausible words, Nora eventually secured the right to dispose of Jessie.
Of course, it wasn’t that Lionel was swayed by Nora’s words. It was simply because he didn’t feel the value in enduring the hassle of personally getting involved in such trivial matters.
Of course, Nora and Simon could not escape responsibility for the lack of management either.
They were also given salary reductions and light punishments respectively.
And throughout this entire process, Agnes’s will was not reflected even once.
As if Agnes’s opinion wasn’t important in the first place, everything was settled with a single gesture from Lionel, the master of the mansion.
Vainly, and simply.
☆▪︎▪︎▪︎☆
