At his sneer asking if her husband’s abilities were only that much, the woman crumpled her pretty face in an instant.
“What on earth?”
It was natural to feel upset at such words. The problem was this side, who knew that yet babbled on anyway.
“I knew you weren’t a prostitute. But are things so difficult that you have to volunteer as a nurse in a field hospital?”
“Whether I’m struggling or not, what business is it of yours, Duke?”
Her tone was faintly laced with resentment. Since he had tried to take her in that way before, he knew full well she couldn’t possibly harbor good feelings toward him.
So if you knew the mindset with which I joined this war, you’d probably try to run away from me again.
I wanted to catch Ezra, who was clearly the true culprit of the incident three years ago, and make him kneel before you. Reveal the truth of that unresolved case still tarnishing your name, and give you proper compensation.
But.
If you said I shouldn’t have done such a thing three years ago if that was the case, what could I even reply?
Back then, I was too young and immature. Maybe to the point where I didn’t know what I might do to have you. So the best I could do was not hold you back as you left with the man who would become your husband.
If I’d known I was a man who couldn’t properly take responsibility for you, I would have stolen you away by any means.
He neatly hid the dirty, pathetic feelings harbored inside and spat out only the plain result.
“Money, I’m giving.”
“Ha!”
A laugh escaped the woman’s lips as if she couldn’t believe it.
“You gave plenty back then. Just for a single kiss.”
At those words, Casar also let out a laugh. What he did to her body that day was remembered as something far stickier than just a single kiss.
That alone was enough for noble young ladies to consider their purity lost. Though compared to what he truly wanted to do, it was a drop in the bucket.
“Think whatever you like. Consider this your body price again if you want.”
Before he could finish speaking, seeing tears welling in the woman’s eyes, Casar pressed his forehead and sighed.
He never acted this way with others, even if his kindness to them was only skin-deep, yet why only with this woman.
“I hate it. I really hate it. I don’t want to receive anything from you.”
She pushed him away firmly with eyes brimming like glass beads full of tears. Still not averting her gaze, as always.
Despite knowing he shouldn’t touch another man’s woman, he furrowed his brows deeply and brought his hand to the corner of her eye.
“Go away.”
“If you really hate it.”
As Casar cornered the woman against the outer wall of the medicine storage and shifted his hand to brace it, the flustered woman cut off mid-sentence and stepped back. Though blocked by the wall, she couldn’t get far.
Tilting his head obliquely toward her, Casar uttered words he’d never said in his life. Come to think of it, it seemed he was always like this in front of this woman.
“I’ll be the one begging.”
Because even her crying face was too beautiful.
It wasn’t the first time.
Even while thinking such things, he desperately hoped the woman would avoid him. Slap him or something. Otherwise, he felt he couldn’t stop on his own.
“I’m going to kiss you, so dodge on your own.”
To swallow the lips of the woman with a considerable height difference, he bent his upper body, bracing the storage outer wall with one hand and lifting the nape of her neck with the other to face him.
In doing so, he had to painfully admit it. To the point of touching a married woman, at least regarding her, Casar de Blachnatt was trash and a beast.
“Please.”
Scathach pleaded in a watery voice toward the man. Don’t do this, every time I see you, the shame from the past resurfaces, and I feel sorry to those who cherish me.
Making her efforts futile, the man pressed his hot, fully felt red lips firmly.
It was a soft, slow kiss that could have been avoided by turning her head and firmly refusing. He probably wouldn’t have done it if she resisted to the end.
So she had no choice but to honestly admit why she didn’t avoid him despite ample warning.
I missed you.
You might have seen me as a woman you could discard in an instant, nothing at all, but I gave you every bit of my unripe heart.
That piece of green emotion stolen by you still can’t leave you, it seems.
Scathach suppressed the urge to wrap her arms around his neck and squeezed her eyes shut. As a result, the tears that lost their chance to flow down her cheeks quickly cooled in the cold wind and plopped down.
At the same time, he who had been sucking on Scathach’s lips frowned and pulled away. The duke’s lower lip was entirely stained with bright red blood.
She had only bitten lightly in an attempt to escape him, but the blood spread widely on her soaked lips. At the sudden visual shock, Scathach’s eyes widened instead.
He stared at Scathach with a blank face for a moment before smirking.
“Why are you more surprised.”
“I didn’t know blood would come out this much.”
“Well, if my blood stops your tears. It’s a decent deal.”
Tears fell drop by drop again from Scathach, who couldn’t honestly explain that she cried because of herself, not him.
Maybe because the voice he used to speak to her was too gentle.
“Hic.”
“I said not to cry, and you cry again.”
He wiped the tears pooled in Scathach’s eyes with his finger. His long, straight fingers, unsuited to the battlefield, had become a bit harder than back then.
“Just leave me alone. Like until now. I’ve been doing fine as if I didn’t exist.”
“I can’t do that.”
Trapping Scathach, who couldn’t even refuse his touch, between the wall and himself, he slowly bent his upper body again and licked her lips. As a result, blood transferred to Scathach’s lips too.
“Now that I know you’re here, I can’t. Scathach.”
“.”
“Run away, like back then. That’s the only way to escape me.”
I told Nemed off grandly asking if he thought I was as much a fool as back then, yet here I am enchanted by this beautiful man and falling for the same thing again, really, the only conclusion is that fools are everywhere.
Thinking I’d forgotten the incident in Lindkoem was all a delusion. Tears welled up at his hot kiss.
Like back then, no, the moment a body much harder and stronger than back then appeared before me, not a speck of will to resist remained.
Because it felt impossible to win?
No, it wasn’t that feeling. Rather.
“If you’re going to do this, why.”
Was I always this weak to the mood? Or because of the strange hope that maybe there’s a bit of sincerity in what this man does. A needless question slipped out.
Why back then, did you let me go like that.
“Why so.”
Scathach slowly took in the man waiting for her words to continue. The man who thrilled her for the first and last time seemed quite impressive. Seeing those memories revive as they were.
Dark black hair with night fallen over it, enchanting red eyes gazing at her, straight nose bridge, flawless skin, things like the red blood starting to rise again from the kiss moments ago.
“I’m listening.”
And in this moment eye to eye with the man listening to her story, the heavy, woody scent of the man standing close, the faint light leaking from the lantern, the sound of falling leaves brushing past the storage door.
After standing face to face with him for a while exchanging deep gazes, Scathach burst into laughter. At the same time, tears pooled full in her amber eyes. Scathach, shivering as if chilled, shook her head with a clear laugh.
“As expected, I won’t. With the Duke, nothing.”
“Scathach.”
“Lady Scathach?”
Overlapping with the duke’s low voice that sounded terribly affectionate was Lugaid, coming out of the storage carrying an armful of boxes.
“Your Excellency the Admiral!”
Lugaid’s eyes widened hugely; upon seeing the admiral, he quickly set down the boxes and raised his hand to his eyebrow in salute.
Unable to lower his still-saluting hand due to the admiral’s unreadable expression, tension gradually filled Lugaid’s eyes.
But what fully occupied Lugaid’s mind now was the scene he had just witnessed.
Her large eyes moist with tears, and the admiral’s behavior as if devouring that deer-like woman.
The admiral’s hand that had been bracing the wall as if trapping the woman in his arms returned brazenly and elegantly to its place as if nothing happened after Lugaid appeared.
Clearly, as Lugaid called her name, the admiral also called Scathach, her name. As if they had known each other all along.
Seeing Lugaid in casual clothes rather than uniform, the admiral tilted his head obliquely.
Though no particular emotion or expression showed, the aura from the admiral carried a pressure like a beast baring its fangs.
“You’re from the Blachnatt division. Doesn’t seem like night watch, what are you doing here at this hour.”
“I, I was organizing the storage!”
The woman who said she was going to the medicine storage and the man waiting there under the pretext of organizing. His eyes full of ulterior motives toward the woman, impossible not to notice.
“So that’s the reason for going to the medicine storage?”
Looking at the duke gazing at him with crooked, cold eyes, Scathach was now beyond dumbfounded.
Why are you angry. What are you to me anyway.
Just as she was about to retort sharply, another face suddenly popped out from inside the storage.
“Mr. Lugaid, hurry and throw out the trash and come back, huh? Scathach!”
Ériu, who had come out without waking her on purpose, exclaimed joyfully upon seeing Scathach’s face. At the same time, Ériu realized who her friend had been with.
Though it was their first actual meeting, rare black hair and red eyes could only mean that family.
“Y-Your Excellency the Admiral?”
Even the Blachnatt admiral called the lion of the battlefield respected doctors and nurses in field hospitals and treated them accordingly, so his reputation couldn’t be bad, Ériu greeted with a bright expression.
The admiral returned the greeting with his usual gentlemanly gesture.
“No wonder! You weren’t in the storage. I told you to wake me. Idiot Scathach! Mr. Lugaid even brought a night lantern! You must have gone out alone, got lost, and owed His Excellency the Admiral a favor, right?”
“Ah.”
Toward Scathach, who couldn’t easily respond to Ériu’s words, the duke cast his gaze obliquely downward. When their eyes met and Scathach’s brows twitched and narrowed, he let out a shallow sigh.
“I’ve met your colleague too, so then.”
The violent man who had been acting arbitrarily moments ago was gone, replaced by the Blachnatt duke renowned for being cold yet gentlemanly.
That difference was unbearably funny, and Scathach burst into laughter.
The admiral stared blankly at Scathach chuckling like a mad person and was about to reach out to her unknowingly when Ériu clapped her hands, drawing the two men’s attention.
“Mr. Lugaid, hurry and throw out the trash and go now. The rest is organizing medicines, so Scathach and I can do it just the two of us.”
“What kind of relationship?”
After sending the two men away and bringing Scathach into the storage, Ériu asked with hands on her hips. Her face full of playfulness.
“Did lovers quarrel? Or is it the admiral’s one-sided feelings?”
“We’re not in any relationship.”
“Not in any relationship, yet you kissed?”
“Huh?”
Scathach’s eyes widened in shock, her face turning pale.
“H-How.”
“Hm? You’d know if you look in a mirror, right? Both of you have blood on your lips.”
Her heart started pounding wildly. Feeling like her shame was exposed, Scathach’s complexion turned ashen.
The villagers in Lindkoem who pointed fingers calling her a mistress one by one began to revive. If the contempt and humiliation that vividly returned in every nightmare came at her again.
“T-There. It’s not, not like that.”
Ériu looked back at the pale, trembling Scathach, startled, then hugged her tightly.
“Huh? What’s wrong, why? Sorry. If you hate it, I won’t ask anymore!”
“Hic.”
The warmth felt in Ériu’s embrace was so comforting that Scathach poured out tears. Seeing Scathach’s tears, Ériu roughly grasped the situation.
The admiral’s gaze toward Scathach was clear. But Scathach’s reaction wasn’t what would come from a normal lover relationship.
The admiral must have fallen for beautiful Scathach at first sight and forcibly kissed her under cover of darkness.
“Ériu. I, I feel so stupid.”
Recalling herself who couldn’t even think to refuse him at all, feeling utterly pathetic, Scathach just shed tears.
“No way. Our Scathach is so sharp and smart. Don’t blame yourself! Stop!”
Ériu. I’m not the kind, sharp girl you think. Forgetting my own position, I’m an idiot who can’t forget or push away a man I shouldn’t harbor in my heart.
Unable to voice such feelings, after crying for a long while, Scathach sniffled and wiped her tears.
“Scathach, you’re not an idiot. If someone bothers you, slap them hard!”
Imagining slapping the duke’s cheek at Ériu’s consoling words, Scathach burst into laughter with tears still hanging.
“Ahh, really. You’re laughing now. Idiot, ah, no. Cancel! Don’t cry and cheer up. Got it?”
“Yeah. I will.”
Seeing Ériu who always cared for her, not a drop of blood related, like a sister, somehow reminded her of Nemed. People who cherished Scathach as Scathach, not as a commoner woman like you.
So, no more being swayed by the duke. The tremor and unfamiliar chest pain felt when facing him. I can endure it nonchalantly.