* * *
Around evening, I heard through Howard that my mother was on her way back.
I immediately tossed my medicine into my mouth, grabbed two lamps filled with luminous stones, and headed down to the basement.
My excuse was to go to Locke under the pretext of catching bugs.
This time, I felt it wasn’t just my imagination—we had truly grown closer, and I wanted to talk to him more and get to know him better.
However, Locke, unaware of my feelings, was just lying on the bed.
He spoke listlessly, showing no sign of welcome.
“If anyone saw this, they’d think the Young Master was the prisoner.”
“I just couldn’t stop thinking about those mating bugs you mentioned earlier. I have to catch them before they lay eggs.”
I placed the lamps I brought at each end of the cell.
Then, brandishing the horsewhip I’d carried down, I began to smack at the bugs hiding in the shadows.
Locke just lay there, watching me intently.
Occasionally, when a spider fell from the ceiling and landed in my hair and I ran to him in a panic, he would silently pick it off for me.
“Don’t bugs gross you out?”
As he brushed his hands free of spiderwebs, he answered indifferently.
“Aren’t humans more disgusting than bugs?”
“I’ll work hard to become less disgusting,” I replied, feeling a bit stung.
His gaze flickered to my mouth.
Did I say something wrong again?
As I swallowed hard, thud—something dropped right into the gap of my slightly open blouse collar.
Goosebumps erupted from the back of my neck and spread across my entire body.
“Aaack! A bug! I think a bug went down my neck!”
I immediately started stomping my feet, grabbing the hem of my blouse and shaking it violently.
Feeling the creepy-crawly sensation of something skittering on my skin, I twisted my body around before hurriedly stripping off the blouse and throwing it aside.
Locke, who had been looking at me with pathetic eyes, quickly dropped his gaze slightly downward.
“Look, look! Is there a bug? What is it? Is it a cockroach? Or a spider?”
Letting out a short sigh, Locke reluctantly rose from the bed.
He scolded me, saying I had to stand still for him to see anything, and then he quietly pulled me by the arm.
He leaned down and slowly inspected my upper body.
Every time he exhaled, hot breath hit my skin.
It tickled, and a strange, twisting sensation stirred deep in my gut.
“Hmm.”
“What is it? What is it?”
Since Locke was taking his time, I asked repeatedly in an anxious tone. Instead of an answer, his fingertips suddenly touched my skin.
At the cold temperature of his touch, my body trembled slightly.
“What’s wrong? Is it really a bug? Did you catch it?”
“It’s not that…”
His fingertips slowly traced the ribs connecting my chest and stomach.
“You’re too thin.”
The tension I had been holding in my body suddenly snapped and vanished.
“I told you to catch the bug, not evaluate me!”
The side of his hand, following the slow movement of his fingertips, lightly brushed against my nipple.
In an instant, a strange sound—ah—escaped my lips.
I froze like a stone.
As if time had stopped, he didn’t move his hand either.
However, his breath lingered heavily against my chest.
“Why are you trembling so much?”
“It’s… it’s because it tickles when you grope me. Why ask the obvious?”
“Ah. I thought I saw something pass by here just now.”
Answering slowly, he began to slowly feel my skin again.
Delicate and sharp sensations brushed against my flesh.
Having lost the rhythm of my breathing, I avoided his gaze, feeling as though my body was beginning to boil.
The subtle awkwardness lasted for a while.
Finally, unable to take it anymore, I picked up my clothes.
“It must have fallen off already,” I said, trying to get dressed.
Even then, Locke’s eyes remained fixed on my chest.
I made a mental note never to ask Locke to catch bugs for me again.
With that vow, I shoved my body back into the blouse before even fully undoing the buttons.
When I looked at Locke while huffing in annoyance, he was rubbing his hand over his mouth before turning his head away.
For some reason, his earlobes looked exceptionally red.
Darkness settled over the garden.
Under the light of the lamps illuminating the path, a fine drizzle scattered.
Following the lined path, the Count’s elegant carriage quietly crossed the garden road.
It was definitely the carriage my mother was in.
Sitting on my bed watching the scene, I slowly closed the book I was holding and quietly stepped down.
Since I had Howard send word to the Verden Count’s estate, she should roughly know the situation at the mansion if she read the letter.
It starts now.
After checking my appearance in the mirror, I left the room.
I was halfway down the stairs, dressed properly, when Mother entered the foyer with my sister.
I sped up to greet her, but I suddenly froze mid-step.
‘What?’
I stared at the foyer again, unable to believe my eyes.
…I hadn’t seen it wrong.
Cassian was walking through the door that hadn’t closed yet.
He looked at me with a cold gaze, brushing the raindrops off his shoulders.
Then, he pulled the corners of his mouth into a smirk—as if he had read my entire hand.
I wondered why there had been no news of him even though it was long past the time he should have returned.
It seemed he had headed to the Verden estate to meet Mother.
That hyena-like bastard.
‘I’ll have to stay sharp.’
Mother gave an order to Howard, who had come to take her coat.
“It is late, so I will hear the details after I wake tomorrow. Increase the guard in the basement and ensure no one is allowed to come and go. Make that clear.”
Adding that “no one” included everyone except herself, Mother showed a firm attitude and headed straight to her room.
I had been waiting for her return, but since she spoke like that, I had no choice.
I just had to wait.
Several hours passed after Mother’s return, and around dawn…
I woke up naturally at the faint sound of horses neighing outside and bolted upright in bed.
It was undoubtedly the news I had been waiting for.
I rushed to my desk and once again meticulously checked the records of the incident I had organized throughout the night.
“Mother, what did you just say?”
After breakfast, Mother called me and Cassian to the drawing room of the annex.
Until then, I thought she was simply trying to handle the murder quietly to keep it out of the public eye.
However, the first thing that came out of Mother’s mouth—the thing I expected to be about the crime—was the scandal between me and Locke.
“I heard that Locke harbored feelings for you that he should not have. That those feelings went too far, leading him to take you outside, which worsened your illness.”
‘This is Cassian’s doing. That despicable jerk.’
“Mother, did you not see the letter I sent?”
I asked Mother with a disappointed expression, as I had expected the murder to be mentioned first.
There was a possibility that Cassian had intercepted the letter.
But Mother only let out a deep sigh at my question.
“Isn’t it right to answer my question first, Cedric?”
Her voice was calm, but there was a significant weight of pressure behind it.
“……I apologize, Mother. If it’s an answer regarding my illness, it wasn’t Locke who worsened it, but my brother. If Brother hadn’t dragged my personal servant to Allure’s territory and left him alone inside the barrier, I would never have had to go out in the rain.”
“You speak as if I intentionally put your servant in danger. Is that what the fellow told you? That I abandoned him there? Were the two of you so close that you share such grievances?”
Cassian sneered.
“No. I inferred it from your behavior—pretending to know nothing when I said he was missing. As the person who took him to the hunting grounds himself, there’s no way you wouldn’t know why he wasn’t visible, yet you lied to me.”
Cassian waved his hand as if telling me not to make a fuss over nothing.
“It wasn’t pretending; I truly didn’t know. As soon as the rain started, I had a knight send Aiden and Locke back to the mansion first. When the fellow I expected to be at the mansion wasn’t there, I could only assume he had run off with someone else.”
His brazen lying didn’t stop there.
“By the way, how much guts does he have to think about staying in the monster’s territory even after hearing my order to withdraw? And the same goes for you, entering a monster’s territory in a downpour just because a servant disappeared. Ah! Perhaps that was your secret meeting spot?”
I didn’t know how far he intended to take these shameful speculations.
I was so dumbfounded that I could only let out a hollow laugh.
“You’re laughing after shaking the authority of the Hestian family by messing around with a street beggar?”
“Enough.”
At Mother’s firm voice, Cassian, who had been rambling relentlessly, shut his mouth.
Tension settled over the drawing room.
How long had we sat like that? The taut tension was broken by a knock at the door.
“Enter.”
The door opened, and Locke was dragged in, his arms held by knights.
Forced to his knees before Mother, he quietly bowed his head in the silence.
“I heard that someone began placing roses on Cedric’s table a while ago. I was told that person was you. Did you act knowing the meaning of offering a rose?”
“I apologize, but I did not know.”
Locke answered calmly, without a hint of nervousness.
* * *
