Episode 66. Reunion in the Parlor
I was in a rather unpleasant mood.
Was it from the moment Cecilia, who had been fussing as if she had met an old friend from afar, took the marquis’s daughter and left the room?
Or perhaps from when I unexpectedly ended up touring the mansion alone with Marquis Constantine.?
Or maybe it was from the moment his suspicious demeanor—unclear whether he was showing me the mansion or the people in it—started to irritate me?
By the time I had quietly stacked up those inexplicable feelings of annoyance and displeasure—
—“We should stop here. I’d like to look around more, but everyone must be waiting inside.”
The tour of the marquis’s mansion ended more blandly than I had expected.
Thinking it was time to have the prepared luncheon together and wrap up today’s invitation at an appropriate point, I stepped briskly into the parlor—
and froze on the spot.
Even though the person had her back to the entrance, I knew instantly who it was.
Those wavy, chocolate-colored locks. The small shoulders, and beneath them, the slender waist that curved softly down.
Her stiff posture, unable even to turn around, pierced straight into my vision.
Even as I half-heartedly responded to Cecilia’s questions, my gaze was nailed to that unmoving back.
Why on earth was she here? For a moment, I almost grabbed her arm to demand an explanation.
A fickle woman who could flip like the back of a hand in just a few hours—I had no need for someone like that.
The way she stood rigidly, as if that night
had been a mistake, made a cold blue spark flare up inside me.
Who did she think she was, anyway?
If she wanted to pretend nothing had happened, I had no reason to refuse.
She was just a woman with a peculiar sort of atmosphere—one that drew my eyes and stirred my interest, that was all.
Even if it had been only one night, hadn’t I explored every inch of that body until it was burned into my memory?
So I thought that perhaps now, that insane thirst would finally settle.
That I could return cleanly to the way things had been.
At that moment, I truly believed so.
But…
I hadn’t even seen her face properly, nor heard her voice, yet the moment I saw that small back, my breath caught.
Just the fact that she was in the same room sent an indescribable current tingling through my fingertips.
An impulse surged within me—to grab that woman, who still wouldn’t look my way, and drag her up to the second-floor bedroom.
No, it didn’t matter where.
If only I could run my hand through those luscious brown strands, part her soft lips, and devour the inside as I pleased.
If only I could bury myself deep between those long, shapely legs that had made me groan the first time I saw them—
To thrust in again and again until that scorching, spine-tingling scream broke free—
Ha. A dry laugh escaped me.
In broad daylight, and with my soon-to-be fiancée present, what sort of filthy fantasies was I indulging in?
Hadn’t I assured myself I’d cleanly excised all of this?
That I’d gone more than a week without seeking her and was perfectly fine, proving it had been nothing more than a fleeting indulgence?
And yet, the moment I saw her again, I understood completely.
Nothing had ended.
Even if she didn’t know it, inside me, I had not prepared in the slightest to end this relationship.
“Then, shall we move to the dining room now, brother?”
At that clear, ringing voice, everyone’s eyes turned to Raymond, who had been addressed.
Lost in thought, Raymond belatedly glanced toward Greg standing beside him.
“Where is Mother right now?”
The reason Eleanor von Chastier was not present was that she had excused herself earlier, telling the younger ones to chat comfortably among themselves.
But to move to the dining room for lunch, the hostess must accompany them.
Even if today’s meal was an informal luncheon, since marriage discussions were involved, that was the proper etiquette.
“The Madam is in the garden.”
“Then, shall we all—”
Setting aside the unresolved issue for now, Raymond spoke, thinking he should at least bring the current situation to order.
Just as he tried to ignore the woman who kept making his nerves tense and move quickly to the dining room—
He suddenly saw Marquis Constantine’s face, always wearing the same fixed smile, twitching violently as if convulsing.
That alone was strange enough, but even more—
the moment Raymond realized that the person the marquis’s gaze was fixed on was Deborah, his brow twitched visibly.
It seemed he wasn’t the only one who noticed the suspicious scene;
the ever-smiling Olivia, who had been beaming since stepping into the parlor, lost her smile for the first time.
“…Father?”
At her voice, the marquis’s eyes—quivering as if he’d seen a ghost—snapped back to their usual expression in an instant.
However, since his gaze remained fixed in the same direction, Olivia’s eyes naturally followed his.
A father whose attention was caught by a young maid.
Even someone as naive as she was couldn’t help but imagine something strange.
By the time even Cecilia began to have odd thoughts, the marquis hurriedly opened his mouth to patch things up.
“Ah, she just looks so much like someone I used to know…”
“A person who… looks alike?”
While her gaze still carried suspicion, Olivia’s small lips parted slightly.
Unable to answer immediately to the question thrown back at him, the marquis fell silent for a brief moment.
The golden eyes of the marquis, which had seemed lost in thought, began to slowly observe the person before him in more detail this time.
Caught off guard by the sudden situation, Deborah’s eyes began to dart about restlessly.
Then, her gaze unintentionally met Raymond’s face—the very one she had been consciously avoiding—but it only lasted for a fleeting moment before she quickly looked away.
“Yes, she looks very much like… the maid I knew since I was young.”
“A maid? Who are you talking about…?”
Hearing the answer, Olivia’s expression became even more puzzled.
No matter how much she tried to recall, having been born and raised in the marquis’ estate, there was no one among the maids she could remember who resembled the one standing before her.
If her father had been so surprised upon seeing her, surely she would have known that person as well.
The answer that resolved her doubt came once again from the marquis’s lips.
“Olivia, you wouldn’t know. She died—no, before you were even born.”
At those dreadful words, Olivia’s eyes widened in shock.
“It seems she was a servant you cared for quite a lot.”
At the sudden voice laced with a hint of amusement, Deborah’s shoulders flinched.
Hearing Raymond, who had been silently observing until now, speak up, the marquis gave a low, awkward cough.
“What’s there to say about caring for a servant? It’s just that I was surprised for a moment because it’s the first time I’ve seen someone so… similar to someone who passed away a long time ago.”
Thus, the marquis hastily wrapped up the situation, saying there was nothing to be concerned about.
Fortunately, perhaps because the misunderstanding was cleared, Olivia’s face, which had seemed so suspicious a moment ago, returned to its usual bright expression.
However, if there was a problem, it was that only two people—the very ones who had met each other’s eyes moments ago—now wore completely different
expressions from before.
Of course, those expressions were hidden behind well-crafted masks, invisible to the outside.
From the instant he met those fleeting, shimmering golden eyes, Raymond felt his chest stir.
It was the same feeling he had grown sick of over the past few days.
Restlessness and an inexplicable, burning thirst.
Even though the very cause and cure of that thirst stood right before him, he could do nothing—this moment, this situation, only made his throat burn all the more.
How he had managed to endure this unbearable thirst for over a week was beyond even his own understanding—it was that intense and consuming.
At that very moment, he felt such a fierce urge to bury his face into that sweet-scented neck and bite down that the veins in his own neck pulsed violently.
It was a dangerously tense moment, one where acting on it would hardly seem strange—
“Brother.”
At the sound of that voice calling out to him, everything froze as if it had been a lie.
The immense heat that had surged to consume his whole body seemed to stop in an instant.
“……”
Raymond swiftly composed himself so that no one would notice anything.
Moments later, he turned to everyone with a faint smile.
“Then, shall we get going?”
On his face, not a trace remained of the intense emotion from just moments before.
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By Anna 💓
Hi ! Sorry for being late 😭I will publish 5 more chapters in 3/4 days🫶
I would like to suggest to you some of the novels that I translate:
Pieces of Broken Glass Shoes
The Ruffian and the Mad Warrior Get Married
