Chapter 70
Lionel was satisfied with a life where he could visit Agnes whenever he felt like it.
He didn’t need to search for where Agnes was, and there was no worry about schedules getting twisted.
Even if meetings ran late or outings were extended. Eventually, when he sought her, Agnes was always somewhere inside the mansion.
Such convenience was sweeter than he had expected.
However, there was one thing that weighed on his mind.
“It has become loose again.”
Lionel’s long fingers delved into Agnes’s sleeve.
Even though it must have been tailored to fit perfectly, the width of the sleeve was larger than her wrist.
Every time he had new clothes made and fitted for her, Agnes’s body grew thin even faster than that.
Frowning, Lionel opened his mouth.
“I heard the dress to be worn at the Eve festival is almost finished, but it likely won’t fit. It would be better to have it made again.”
“No. Just doing the fitting again will be enough.”
“How troublesome. You could just wear a new one.”
“I already have more clothes than is excessive.”
Agnes shook her head firmly.
“And it’s uncomfortable to keep receiving. I am no longer doing anything useful enough to receive a price from Lionel.”
Lionel stared blankly for a moment, as if he didn’t understand those words.
A price.
Was that how she had been thinking?
He hadn’t given those things with such a particular intention, but it seemed Agnes felt more at ease defining receiving something from him as a price.
Then he had no choice but to play along.
Lionel soon approached slowly, wrapping his hand around Agnes’s neckline as he leaned his head down.
And, he lightly bit Agnes’s lower lip before letting go.
*Chu.*
A cute sound that didn’t suit them lingered between their lips before breaking off.
“Then consider it the price for the kiss.”
In an instant, Agnes felt as if the blood had drained from her entire body.
It was as if she had become a product with a price tag inside a display case.
Ironically, of all things, the words she had screamed at Lionel during the victory banquet came to mind at this moment.
“Don’t treat me like a cheap prostitute. I’ve never sold my smiles.”
‘What… am I being treated as right now?’
She wanted to turn away, but as the meaningless gifts piled up, she had no choice but to realize.
Lionel’s feelings were not the same as the feelings she harbored for him.
However, despite realizing that fact, Agnes could not let go of this malformed warmth.
She wanted to be with Lionel even in this way.
Agnes slowly closed her eyes and then opened them again.
Her pupils, opened thinly as if catching her breath, trembled.
“If it is the price for a kiss, I want to receive something other than something material.”
Lionel tilted his head.
“……? What is it that you want. Tell me.”
Agnes took a short breath.
“I want to go out.”
“That is not allowed.”
The firm refusal fell like a blade.
No room for rebuttal was permitted at all.
“……Then, I want to at least take a walk in the garden.”
“Can’t you just do that?”
“It’s not easy to move the wheelchair in the garden alone. I would like Lionel to do it with me.”
Lionel’s eyebrows twitched upward.
The servants would attend to everything, so he wondered what was so difficult.
‘Is she more fastidious than she looks?’
Well, fine. He thought she might not be pleased with the touch of the servants.
“The flowers will have all wilted anyway.”
“It’s okay even if there are no flowers. This time…… I really want to take a walk.”
“As long as you take good care of your body, a walk is something we can do anytime.”
Recalling that she was the one who broke the second promise, Agnes put strength into her voice.
“That won’t happen this time.”
“Alright then. It seems my urgent business will be finished in about five days, so let’s take a walk then.”
Even as he said this, he clicked his tongue inwardly.
Why was she like that about something like a walk, which doesn’t make money and only eats up time?
It was inefficient and absurd.
He had thought Agnes was stronger at calculation than anyone.
It seemed that only applied when looking at a trading company’s financial statements.
***
From a certain point, a strange rumor began to spread in the capital.
It was that the Duke of Valheim cherished the Duchess so much that he swept up every single luxury item imaginable.
“In the end, even if he’s a hero of the nation or whatever, the Duke had no other choice either.”
“Even if her origin is lowly, isn’t the Duchess’s beauty quite something? It seems the Duke has fallen head over heels for that face too.”
“They say carriages go in and out of the Duke’s residence countless times lately. Supposedly it’s all things to adorn the Duchess or something.”
The rumor that started from whispering spread as fast as the wind.
The dignity of the war hero and the nobility of the Valheim family became a laughingstock in an instant.
And the one most enraged by such false rumors was none other than Nora.
Nora, who burst into the kitchen while a meal was being prepared, gulped down cold water.
*Bang!*
At the glass she slammed down with force, a maid peeling potatoes was startled and watched her reaction.
“How dare those sorts of things carelessly mention Valheim?”
There was no end to the rumors she had heard.
Among them, especially,
— They even say he’s playing the piano again to soothe the Duchess’s mood —.
That rumor was truly offensive.
Nora gripped the ring on her finger tightly as if to crush it.
“Piano. How did I make him quit that?”
To Nora, the piano was by no means a noble art.
It was nothing more than a cheap trick performed by wandering clowns or traveling poets to curry favor in front of women.
The fact that the successor of the Duke of Valheim would do such a thing was a disgrace to Nora in itself.
So, when the young Lionel began to fall for the piano, Nora cunningly cut off those buds.
She subtly told the previous Duke that the dignity of the nobility was collapsing, and eventually, the piano was smashed to pieces.
After the piano was broken, Lionel never touched the keys again. At least not inside the Duke’s residence.
However, upon returning to the Duke’s residence recently, she often heard the sound of a piano secretly from the annex.
She was displeased, but as long as those notes didn’t cross the walls of the Duke’s residence, she had reasonably feigned ignorance.
Because Lionel was no longer a young child she could teach.
But finally, the sound of the piano crossed the walls and spread into the streets. With the modifier “Agnes” attached in front of it.
Nora staggered and held her forehead.
Teaching etiquette, refining speech, fixing attire.
She had tried to make Agnes a proper noblewoman by sacrificing herself.
But a lowly birth could not be helped.
Look, in the end, hasn’t she brought about such noise?
“I must correct it before it goes further astray.”
The moment those words fell, Nora’s warped sense of responsibility took full shape.
Since the cause of all this trouble was Agnes. If Lionel’s interest toward Agnes cooled, the rumors would naturally subside.
A good way to cut off Lionel’s favor toward Agnes flashed through her mind.
Suddenly stretching her lips into a smile, Nora beckoned the maid standing nearby with a flick of her finger.
“Did word come from the boutique shop that prepared the dress to be worn at the Eve festival?”
“Yes. Even without that, they asked for a date they could visit the mansion, saying a fitting is needed before the final adjustment.”
“Is that so? That’s good then. Then tell them to visit in four days.”
“In four days?”
Though not as much as Nora, the maid who had worked at the Duke’s residence for quite a while hesitated.
It was because four days later was none other than the birthday of the deceased Cedric.
“Are you really calling people on that day?”
“Yes. Lady Agnes said that day was convenient.”
***
A few days later.
Agnes’s eyes widened at the dresses and shoes suddenly flooding into her room.
Boxes containing dresses were lined up to the end of the hallway,
And maids were moving busily, arranging ribbons or unraveling silk packaging.
“What is all this?”
When Agnes asked, the maids looked at each other and glossed over it.
“They came from the boutique shop. It’s for the fitting of the other dresses you ordered last time and the dress you will wear at the Eve festival.”
“Is that today?”
Thinking about it, she remembered telling Lionel, who said a new dress had to be tailored a few days ago, that just doing the fitting again would be enough.
She hadn’t set a separate schedule after that. It seemed Lionel had given the instructions.
“Then shall we look at the dress you will wear at the Eve festival first, Lady Agnes?”
Nora’s voice was excessively sweet.
Agnes felt a sense of déjà vu that was somehow uncomfortable, but she eventually nodded.
Since no one eyes.8oned to Agnes the fact that today was Cedric’s birthday.
It was impossible for Agnes to find the cause of the strangeness within the silence surrounding her.
Thus, Agnes merely gazed at the flooding items of clothing with her usual uninspired eyes.
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