Chapter 48
Lionel’s fingertips slid naturally, cupping Agnes’s small face.
At that unhesitating contact, Agnes blinked briefly, unable to even catch her breath.
At that moment, a sharp voice intervened from behind.
“Duke! What brings you here?”
Chloe greeted Lionel while straightening her waist.
However, what returned to her was blatant contempt.
“Tea time, I see. Peace must be a fine thing. For a commoner to go so far as to mimic the nobility.”
Chloe momentarily scanned her surroundings.
Checking to see if the workers had overheard Lionel’s words, Chloe folded her eyes affably again as if nothing had happened.
“Don’t speak so unkindly. If my sister is the Duchess, then I am also—,”
“You must be quite dim-witted. Seeing as you are entirely incapable of learning.”
Lionel’s voice dropped another level at that brazenness.
“Didn’t I tell you before? Just because Agnes is my wife, it doesn’t mean those carrying the name Bardo have become nobles.”
As the insult she heard at the theater was brought back to life, Chloe bit her lip repeatedly, her ears turning bright red.
Her face looked as though she might pour out a torrent of spite at any moment, but she could not bring herself to do it and instead snapped at an innocent worker.
“What are you all staring at so stupidly! Get back to work!”
The several pairs of eyes that had been drawn to the tall Lionel hurriedly looked away.
Pretending not to have peeked, the workers gripped their hammers once more.
“Dear me. It seems I overestimated Bardo. Since you are this foolish, it’s only natural that you can’t remember words from a few weeks ago.”
At Lionel’s successive cynicism, Chloe forced her cheekbones upward.
“Ah, no matter if you are the Duke, aren’t your words too excessive? A person like Chloe gets her feelings hurt by this.”
Lionel snorted at those words.
“Then, should I praise someone as clever for not knowing that they shouldn’t rummage through someone else’s land at will?”
“Someone else’s land?”
Chloe shouted reflexively.
“From here,”
Lionel spread his long fingers and traced the air.
His fingertips pointed from the building with the collapsed wall to the end of the sunlit backyard.
“To here. It belongs to my wife.”
Chloe rolled her eyes as if she didn’t understand, then soon clapped her hands together.
“Oh my, the Duke must be mistaken. I am set to inherit everything in this trading company. Naturally, this place as well.”
She tilted her nose up.
“Therefore, the owner of this space is currently my father, and in the future, it is right that it becomes mine. Is it not?”
“I doubt it.”
Lionel did not hide his boredom and furrowed his brows.
“Turn around and run to Adrian Bardo to ask. He is the one who signed the documents transferring ownership of this place to Agnes.”
At those words, not only Chloe but even Agnes gasped.
It was true she was supposed to receive this place under her name, but Adrian had always been delaying the promise, saying, ‘I will do it once the trading company turns a profit.’
Yet, he had already obtained the documents. And under Lionel’s lead at that.
‘I thought he wouldn’t even care….’
Agnes tightly gripped the shawl Lionel had draped over her.
Over the sorrow she had pressed down and swallowed, a single drop of heartbeat resembling gratitude fell.
“There is no such rule!”
Chloe raised her voice.
“Everything in the Bardo trading company is mine! I can do whatever I want!”
“I like rules.”
Lionel, letting out a short laugh, approached Chloe in a single stride.
Then, due to his tall stature, a black shadow fell threateningly over Chloe’s head.
“If you feel that wronged, try doing it by the law.”
Lionel tilted his head slightly.
His blue eyes delved into Chloe from the front.
“Ah, there’s no need to go as far as the law. I can simply crush you with power.”
Chloe gasped.
A chill settled coldly down her spine.
The temperature of the gaze Lionel used when looking at Agnes and the gaze he used to look down at her was different. Too different.
The rumors that Lionel hated Agnes were certainly widespread, but meeting him face-to-face like this, she could feel it.
The people who spread such rumors clearly had not seen properly.
What he looked like when he looked at someone he truly loathed.
Chloe’s body trembled.
The deep blue eyes that everyone praised as beautiful were terrifying.
“This is what being a noble is. It’s not just about pouring tea and playing house.”
Lionel stepped half a step closer to Chloe.
“If you don’t have the power to handle it, you shouldn’t even mimic it.”
The mid-low voice stimulating the sense of hearing was terribly sweet, yet it invoked fear at the same time.
Chloe’s lips quivered.
However, unable to counter any further, she gestured to the workers.
“St-stop if that’s what you want! You there, everyone stop! I, I should be going now. Father will be looking for me!”
She turned around as if fleeing.
Her trailing skirt swept the floor and moved away.
The workers, who were staring blankly at the back of the hurriedly departing Chloe, also took the hint and hurried out.
In the backyard that had turned into ruins in an instant, only Agnes and Lionel remained.
In the blowing wind, the dust swirled in a spiral and then swept to the side.
Lionel loathed the act of crushing others in the name of nobility.
However, he was also a person who knew how to wield his family name more coldly than anyone else if necessary.
The fact that his actions a moment ago were no different from Bardo using money to suppress people made his mood hit rock bottom.
Lionel felt for his inner pocket to find a cigar out of habit, but soon stopped.
Agnes was staring blankly at the collapsed outer wall.
Her lips were tightly shut, but she looked as if she were about to cry.
“Thank you for helping me.”
However, Agnes’s voice that flowed out was the same as usual.
“I didn’t know you would have even obtained the documents for me.”
“I thought you were capable of looking after yourself. I see now that isn’t the case.”
Agnes’s eyelids quivered.
“……I must look pathetic to you too, Duke.”
“Why does that come up here?”
She knew she shouldn’t, but her mouth moved beyond Agnes’s own control.
The sorrow she thought she had endured with effort burst out toward Lionel at just that one sentence.
“I know I look useless, not even being able to protect this one small garden.”
Agnes tried to laugh.
But the laughter soon distorted.
Lionel’s thick eyebrows furrowed in displeasure.
“I forgot my own lot for a moment. I thought I had become a useful person…… I was mistaken. This is who I originally am.”
A dry laugh flowed through Agnes’s lips.
Lionel, who was fiddling with the back of his neck at the recurring sense of unease, let out a breath.
He didn’t mean to rebuke her.
It was just words that popped out because he wondered if she had been treated this way even in places where he wasn’t present.
“Agnes.”
“…….”
“Agnes Valheim, raise your head.”
The moment she heard that name, Agnes’s pupils shook.
What came out of Lionel’s mouth was not ‘Bardo,’ but ‘Valheim.’
Why……?
She couldn’t even dare to guess what the feelings of Lionel, who allowed her his own surname, might be.
When the stunned Agnes did not raise her head, Lionel gripped the armrest of the wheelchair and leaned down.
The gazes of the two met at the same height.
“Who says you are useless. You are very useful. Quite so. You are on the competent side, second only to Kalt.”
Lionel continued his words indifferently.
“In the first place, if you were useless, I wouldn’t have bothered to spend time accommodating you like I am now.”
It was a cold assessment based on facts rather than consolation, but Agnes’s heart throbbed miserably at that one remark.
Agnes struggled to lower her head.
She tried to kill and fold away the spreading heartbeat.
However, Lionel spoke again.
“And, I’ve given Andrew a heads-up to adjust the intensity of the treatment, so it will be more bearable than before.”
Agnes raised her eyes in surprise.
She never imagined Lionel would personally speak to Andrew.
It’s happening again.
Without warning, he crossed the line she had worked so hard to establish.
And he gave his warmth away at will.
No, perhaps it wasn’t warmth but coldness. It might just be that she, starved for affection, was taking the trivial words Lionel threw as warmth.
Lionel fastened Agnes’s shawl securely.
“So stop the self-pity and go inside. Before you actually catch a cold.”
His tone was still blunt,
But his fingertips were excessively gentle.
Agnes, once again, was shaken helplessly.
Agnes suddenly realized.
That the expectation she held was affection.
As Lionel tried to straighten up, Agnes instinctively grabbed his shirt collar.
Lionel looked down at that hand for a moment.
And then he slowly lifted his eyelids.
“What. Is there something you want?”
Agnes gasped. And she mustered her courage.
She wanted to check if the conclusion she had reached regarding her feelings for Lionel was correct.
“Could you…… hold me just once?”
Lionel’s eyebrows moved slightly.
“……Because it’s cold.”
It was a clumsy excuse.
Lionel twisted the corner of his mouth very slightly. Along with a sound that could be a sigh or a sneer.
Nevertheless, he reached out one arm and pulled her shoulder into an embrace.
As if organizing a single report, without emotion. Like an obligation.
Yet that embrace was so warm that Agnes had to swallow the tears welling up.
Because Lionel had said she didn’t have the right to cry.
‘Ah, what should I do.’
She had vowed several times not to be greedy.
She had made up her mind not to attach any meaning to it.
But the affection for Lionel was much greater than her heart wounded by his coldness.
She could no longer ignore it.
She……,
Liked Lionel.
Without any shame.
Like a late autumn fever. It was a terribly sweet and miserable realization.
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