Chapter 132. A Peaceful and Happy Moment
Even so, why did one side of her heart continue to feel so anxious… Deborah could not understand the reason at all.
Clearly, nothing was wrong, and just as the man said that there was nothing to worry about, every situation was flowing like water.
But why, exactly…
Had her hand stopped without her realizing it because of that unknown anxiety?
The man quietly took hold of Deborah’s hand.
“Thinking back, I think I was like that too.”
“…”
“Wondering what it would feel like to put my hand in that hair, what kind of scent would come out if I buried my face in that nape, and also—”
The man’s voice, which had been reciting lowly, trailed off strangely at the end.
The man, who stood up in an instant before she had time to feel anything was odd, laid Deborah’s body down on the cloth and strode over her.
“How it would feel… if I kissed these lips.”
Deborah’s eyelashes trembled at the low voice tickling her ear.
“…So, how was it?”
At that cute reaction asking for his impression, a faint laugh flowed from between Raymond’s teeth.
“Well, how was it, I wonder.”
“…”
“It was so long ago that I feel like I can’t remember well.”
“…”
Even though it wasn’t even that long ago, Deborah could not hide her disappointment at the statement that he didn’t remember the moment they first kissed.
Raymond’s lips softly covered those pouting lips.
*Chu*— lips that touched gently and then pulled away.
“Well, I think it was good.”
At those slick words, a chuckle escaped her despite herself.
And then, their lips overlapped once more.
At the kiss that had become much denser than before, strength tightened in the hand gripping the man’s shoulder.
Slowly, very slowly.
The man, who had been indulging inside her mouth for a long time that way, only pulled his lips away with a look of regret after quite some time had passed.
“Thinking about it again, it’s certain that it was insanely good.”
“…”
“Because even back then, it was definitely in this state.”
While saying the words ‘this state,’ the man pressed his lower half, which had become firm before she knew it, against her.
Her body trembled involuntarily at that dizzying stimulation.
“Not… here.”
At the sound of her mumbling with a face ripened red, the man’s eyebrows twitched for a moment.
She wondered if he was offended by those words, but even if he were, it couldn’t be helped.
No matter how much this was the private land of the House of Cheister where not a single ant could be seen no matter where one looked, it was still strictly an outdoor location.
While thinking that such a thing wouldn’t happen, still, one never knew…
The man showed a face as if he found her extreme alertness absurd.
“You’re too much, making a person out to be someone in heat all year round.”
“…”
As she kept her mouth shut because she couldn’t bring herself to say he wasn’t, a “Ha”—an absurd laugh—burst out from the man’s mouth immediately.
Although he made a face of grievance for a moment, fortunately, the man soon lay down with his head resting on Deborah’s lap again with a nonchalant face.
And so, another idle moment passed.
“It’s nice.”
Such words suddenly flowed from the mouth of the man who was looking at the clouds drifting across the blue sky.
Deborah’s gaze moved slowly beneath that.
“The sky is clear, the wind is cool.”
“…”
“Being like this, just the two of us, in a quiet place where no one else is on a day like this.”
“…”
It was a wondrous thing.
Deborah was also just thinking that while looking at the clouds drifting far away.
That she simply wanted to stay in this peaceful and happy moment for a lifetime.
“Tell me a story about when you were young.”
“When… I was young?”
Perhaps flustered by the sudden topic, the end of her words wavered slightly.
It was a story he had never asked before, and words she had deliberately never brought up either.
It was because she knew that his feelings toward orphans or prostitutes were extremely poor due to the matter of the previous Duke, who was his father.
“How did you end up entering the orphanage?”
Whether he knew the reason for her hesitation or not, Raymond opened the conversation first.
But even so, the words did not come out easily.
It was a painful memory for her that she didn’t even want to recall, but more than that, she didn’t want to tell such a messy story to the man before her.
Because there was nothing as terrible as having to bring up and show her insignificant and shabby self with her own mouth.
“Deborah.”
At the lowly resonating voice, Deborah bit her lip hard once.
“…It’s likely a story you won’t particularly want to hear.”
“It’s not because I want to hear the story. It’s because it’s your story that I want to know.”
“…”
At the statement that he wanted to know because it was her story, Deborah was silent for a moment.
It was a feeling Deborah also knew.
Back when the matter with Jade happened, Deborah had also waited for him to be the first to tell her.
After hesitating for a long time even after that, Deborah let out a long sigh as if she had finally made up her mind.
“Was it when I was six… my mother passed away and then… I went to the orphanage for the first time.”
The man was silent for a while after hearing the words flowing out calmly.
Then, after quite a long time had passed, a short phrase flowed from the man’s mouth.
“Your father.”
This time as well, she was at a loss for words.
A father, not a biological father.
To Deborah, it was such a vivid and unfamiliar word that for a moment, her mind became complicated about how she should answer.
She didn’t want to attach the word father to a person whose face she didn’t even know, but she couldn’t reveal such inner thoughts before the man.
Deborah slowly opened her mouth, leaving her reluctant feelings behind.
“I don’t know well… because I lived only with my mother from the moment I was born…”
While saying that, she wondered why her face felt so hot.
The fact that she didn’t even know her father’s face was honestly not a boast, but she had never been this ashamed of it before.
But now, at this moment, she felt so humiliated and ashamed that she could hardly lift her face before him.
She was extremely tense, wondering what if he continued to ask about her biological father, but fortunately, the man’s question flowed in a different direction.
“Then, did you stay there from the time you entered back then?”
At the question of whether she had stayed in one place throughout, Deborah nodded and said yes.
“How was life at the orphanage?”
“…Um, it was just like that.”
When talking about her childhood, she actually knew from the start that the story would inevitably have to come out.
Even so, when the moment to actually talk about that time arrived, the words did not come out readily.
How on earth should she explain it?
How should she even describe the stories of those disastrous moments—being cold, hungry, and exposed to violence to the point that bruises never faded every day…
So the man, too, could not have been unaware that many things were contained within those glossed-over, omitted words.
But this time too, the man did not dig deeper and moved on to the next thing.
However—
“Then, what is the reason you came to leave there? I think I heard from Charlotte before that you came to Elpengreen because there were certain circumstances.”
*Thump*—!
In an instant, her heart dropped rapidly to the floor.
At the same time, memories she had completely forgotten rose quickly to the surface.
—Did you really not know that Ludmilla was holding a grudge against you and doing a background check? I don’t know what or how much she found out, but she said you have a hidden past. You’ll know better than anyone what that means.
How could she have forgotten that until now?
How on earth could she have forgotten something that important…
She said Ludmilla had done a background check on her. That she knew her past.
What did she know and how, was it true that she really knew, and if she knew, exactly how much did she know?
While she was worrying about such things, he had been away due to the Crown Prince’s return to the palace, and she had completely forgotten about it because she was called by the Grand Duchess that day.
Even after that, she had been stupidly forgetting while worrying about where to eat and live after leaving Elpengreen, and while staying at Jade’s house looking for a job, and even after returning to Elpengreen following the man who came to find her.
Perfectly, as if it were something that never happened.
“What’s wrong.”
A look of being turned pale and completely stiffened.
Only then did the man notice something was strange and sat his upper body straight up.
Looking at the man’s serious face as he softly cupped her cheeks, Deborah finally shook her head with a startle.
“…N-no. It’s nothing. I was just… thinking about something for a moment.”
“What.”
“I… I just thought of Teacher Helena…”
Unable to meet the eyes that were staring intently, Deborah’s pupils wavered frantically here and there.
“Now that I think of it, you said she went on missionary work to Balteon.”
“…Yes.”
Her heart skipped beats like crazy, fearing he might find it suspicious, but he fortunately showed no particular suspicion at those words she used as an excuse.
Perhaps, it might be because he remembered her saying before that she was like family to her.
“Don’t worry, missionary work doesn’t end in such a short time, but it’s Balteon. It’s geographically close, so you can visit anytime you set your mind to it.”
“…”
“If you really miss her, you can even go together with me once.”
So telling her there was no need to worry like that, Deborah thought while looking at that softly smiling face.
That she didn’t want to lose this person.
Whatever form it took was fine.
As long as he smiled at her like this and she could be by his side like this, she didn’t care even if she became a person everyone pointed fingers at.
It was a moment when she finally understood her mother, who had lived as a single mother pointed at by everyone and had missed the man who didn’t seek her out until the very moment her breath stopped.
It was a feeling so different from a while ago when she had set sharp edges in her gaze toward her, saying she would not live like that.
‘It’s okay… nothing will happen…’
That it was okay, that it would be okay— Deborah continued to repeat it as if soothing herself.
If Ludmilla really knew that fact, there was no way she would have kept her mouth shut until now.
She would have been sharpening her blade to kick her out, and she would have let it out several times over already.
Isn’t that why she even did a background check on her?
‘Yes, that must be it… Ludmilla definitely doesn’t know about that matter…’
As she thought so, the waves of her anxious heart began to gradually subside.
Since she would be leaving Elpengreen and moving elsewhere before long, she thought all such anxieties would be completely washed away by then.
Once her heart had calmed down to some extent, Deborah nodded toward the man.
While being held in the arms of the man who hugged her tightly, Deborah shook off even the remaining debris of anxiety cleanly.
A moment so happy she wished time would stop as it was.
However, she did not even guess back then that that happiness would soon become a terrible nightmare.
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Thanks for the kofi luvtheory🫶💓
