Lucas didn’t drink, instead just staring blankly at me.
Wondering if he suspected it might be poisoned, I took a sip of my own tea and then placed it in front of him.
I then pulled his teacup over to me and drank it all down.
“Master, shouldn’t that originally be a task for a slave like me?”
“Then why were you just watching instead of drinking up quickly?”
“I am sorry.”
Apologizing over such a trivial matter rubbed me the wrong way as well.
“You can’t even tell apart a joke. Why should you have to taste my tea first in my own office? Even if it looks lacking in your eyes, this is a Count’s estate, and I am the one managing it. Such a thing will never happen.”
“I did not intend to displease you. I am sorry.”
Lucas apologized again.
Now my head was starting to throb, so I pressed firmly between my brows.
I hadn’t intended to bicker over something like this. I only wanted to ask why he hadn’t spoken up.
Not knowing the reason, Lucas could only tentatively read my expression.
I could feel the butler watching anxiously as well.
“Could you step out for a moment? I wish to speak with Lucas alone.”
“Please call for me whenever you need me.”
The butler left the office.
Once we were left alone, Lucas grew even more tense as he spoke.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“Take off your clothes.”
Lucas looked around the room with a bizarre expression before speaking.
“I did not realize you had such preferences, Master……”
“Quit joking and take them off quickly.”
Realizing he couldn’t bypass this situation, Lucas removed his shirt.
His entire body was covered in bruises.
If he had just spoken up, I could have prevented this beforehand; it made me feel so upset and angry that he had chosen to just take the hits instead.
“Stay still. I’m going to apply the medicine.”
Holding the medicine the butler had brought, I sat down beside Lucas.
As I applied the ointment to his wounds, there were so many injuries that it felt like I would have to use up an entire container.
“Do you still have no intention of telling me who did it?”
“I do not.”
Lucas spoke firmly.
I had no choice but to force an answer out of him by revealing what I had witnessed.
“Actually, I found out who did it. I know the reason too.”
“…….”
“However, I don’t understand why you refused to speak.”
Lucas didn’t open his mouth.
If it wasn’t that he didn’t trust me, could it be that he thought he didn’t deserve help because he was a slave?
Did he think he deserved to be treated this way?
If so, that was a misguided thought.
Even if it had been another slave instead of Lucas, I would have helped them all the same.
I tried to soothe Lucas first.
“I am grateful to you. You’re helping well with the knight order’s training, and you play well with Leon too. I am very pleased that a reliable and talented individual has joined us.”
“Thank you.”
The medicine was fully applied.
Lucas put his clothes back on.
I returned to my seat.
Once back, I said what I had originally intended to say.
“If you just keep doing exactly as you are now, I couldn’t ask for anything more. There is no longer any need for you to attend to me at night. Isn’t that the very reason you were being mistreated anyway? So from now on……”
The moment I was about to tell him not to come to the bedroom starting today, Lucas’s dissatisfied face caught my eye.
Out of sheer bewilderment, I couldn’t help but ask.
“Do you perhaps want to keep attending to me at night?”
“Yes. I wish to keep attending to you.”
“Even though you’re being beaten up because of it?”
“Yes.”
Lucas was uncharacteristically steadfast.
Why on earth did he say he wanted to keep attending to me at night?
There was no way he actually liked me.
How could feelings develop when it had only been a few days since we met?
It was absolutely not an emotional reason.
‘Could it be…….’
I spoke up on impulse.
“If I knew the reason you were being bullied, I would have made you stop attending to me at night. Is that why you didn’t tell me?”
“…….”
Lucas stubbornly refused to open his mouth. It was the correct answer.
“Because you need to attend to me at night to seduce me? And you’ll only be able to get my help once you succeed in seducing me?”
Lucas remained completely still, his face frozen rigid.
I finally understood the reason he had hidden.
To think he had been taking beatings for the past week over something like that made a surge of anger boil up inside me.
“Am I a fool? Do you think I’ll just fall for it if you try to seduce me and hand everything over to you? Do you have any sense at all?”
“Count.”
“Even so, you just stood there and took all those hits for it?”
“I am sorry. But……”
Lucas tried to make an excuse.
No matter what excuse he intended to give, I didn’t want to hear any more of it. I felt utterly disappointed.
“Stop your nightly attendance to me. Since you are injured, rest in your room for three days. I will inform Leon and the knight order.”
“Count!”
Without listening, I stood up from my seat.
I had spent so much time agonizing and worrying over why he was getting hurt like that without saying a word, yet he had been harboring completely different thoughts the entire time, which made me unbearably furious.
I got up and personally opened the door for him, but Lucas rushed over and knelt right in front of me.
“I, I was wrong. I am sorry.”
“Get out.”
“Please help me just this once. Just once is enough, My Lord. The treason charge is a frame-up. Because of that false accusation, countless people have been turned into slaves. I must take responsibility for those people.”
Lucas begged desperately.
Not for his own sake, but for others.
Knowing the plot of the novel, I bit my lip.
If reality progressed exactly as it did in the novel, things would turn out that way even if I didn’t help.
But what if this was merely a coincidence that happened to be similar to the novel in my dream?
What if his false charge was never cleared because of that?
What if I had already altered the course of events, causing the attempt to clear his name to fail even if I did help?
I didn’t know the reason why I had treated him so cruelly in the original text.
And it wasn’t as if I didn’t have people I needed to take responsibility for myself.
Treating him well was something I could do without any burden.
I couldn’t provide anything beyond that.
I couldn’t offer help for an matter where the outcome remained entirely unknown.
“I know nothing about that. I am only responsible for you as a single individual.”
I spoke with absolute finality.
Refusing to give up, Lucas poured out his sorrow as if spitting it out.
“How could I possibly live comfortably here? Knowing how the others are living, how could I eat and sleep with peace of mind? I beg of you like this. Please help me just this once.”
Lucas slammed his forehead against the floor.
He struck it so hard that the floor gradually became stained with blood.
It felt as though the sorrow overflowing from his body was seeping out to drench the very ground.
“I will pretend I didn’t hear that.”
“Count!”
The voice calling out to me sounded exactly like a sob.
I called the butler in and pushed the task of resolving this situation onto him.
The butler looked at me with a pained expression before quickly masking it, helping Lucas up to lead him out of the office.
Left entirely alone, the office fell completely silent.
Only the bloodstain remaining on the floor spoke of what had just transpired.
I ordered a servant to come in and wipe away the blood.
Of all people, the very servant who had mistreated Lucas came in to clean the bloodstain.
I wanted to cry, and I missed my older brother.
