Chapter 71

The moment the man’s breath against her lips turned rough, she knew she’d succeeded in catching his attention. Edmund stubbed out the cigarette at once and lifted Blair into his arms. Biting down on her lips as if pouncing on them, he pushed his still-hot length deep inside her. As it forced its way through the tight space and filled her, a lewd moan slipped from between Blair’s lips.

“…Haah.”

She wrapped her slender arms around him tightly. As he drove deep inside, she deliberately leaned to his ear and whispered. Harder, just like you said, since I’m a slut, deeper, make it hurt more…. Then their positions reversed.

Just as Blair wanted, the man whose eyes rolled back tore off his usual neat mask completely. Grabbing her hair, he began to slam into her as if tearing her apart. She welcomed it without reserve. Didn’t they say a mask worn too long becomes skin? If so, then right now, they were ripping off their refined faces and pretenses and holding each other in their perfect, bare truth.

Blair thought this, this right here, could only be love.

***

Thin dawn light seeped through the windowpane.

Along with birdsong, the sound of a hired carriage’s wheels rolling over cobblestones drifted faintly in. As the early morning’s lively air flowed into the inn room where last night’s heat had faded, Edmund slowly lifted his head. Having barely slept at all, he’d lost all sense of time and was doing nothing but watching the woman with her eyes closed.

It was an unfamiliar peace. Last night’s passion felt like a dream. Blair slept soundly beside him, her breathing steady and even. Edmund carefully reached out toward her face. He brushed aside a few strands of golden-brown hair stuck to her forehead and slowly traced her skin with his knuckles. The soft fuzz along her earlobe, her small nostrils, cheeks flushed more deeply than usual. With delicate lashes casting shadows as she slept, she looked far younger than when she was awake.

When his gaze dropped to her slightly parted lips, a dark shadow settled in Edmund’s eyes. The moment he realized he wanted to kiss Blair, he withdrew the hand that had been gently touching her. Even with her lying close enough to reach if he stretched out his hand, even after spending the entire night doing things far more obscene than a kiss, he couldn’t bring himself to touch her again. By what right now? He had no such qualification.

Suddenly, memories of last night resurfaced. A night when the reason and logic he took such pride in collapsed, leaving him chasing nothing but raw desire. He clearly remembered the moment he was swept up by the stubborn instinct to make this woman his.

“…I’ve lost my mind.”

What was it he had despised his whole life? His father, who reduced women to tools of lust. A man who, with a barren legal wife, forced mistresses into the house to carry on the line, killing several souls in the process. And the product of that was him. He’d believed that a man’s desire for a woman was nothing more than disgusting breeding instinct and cruel selfishness.

Yet in the end, hadn’t he done the same thing himself?

If there was a difference, it was that his father justified his desire for the sake of the family. Compared to that, Edmund had simply wanted one woman. He thought that was an even uglier excuse.

Edmund wanted to cloud over Blair’s warm body and breath, and claim that soft form as his own. Contracts and justifications meant nothing. The blood he loathed so much was alive and moving inside him just the same.

Even as he despised himself, his gaze went back to her. Her face, eyes closed so demurely, looked peaceful, deepening his guilt. Red bruises formed along the smooth curve of her neck, reaching down to her collarbone. If he threw back the blanket, even more blatant traces would show. The mere thought wrapped him in a strange sense of satisfaction. Was this normal? Could such contradictory emotions twist together inside one person at the same time?

“Mmm….”

Just then, Blair shifted. As the blanket slipped, pale dawn light spread over the white swell of her chest. Edmund deliberately pulled his eyes away. As he covered her again, she cracked her eyes open.

“…Edmund.”

Even half asleep, her voice was unexpectedly clear. Blair blinked her heavy lids, then a soft smile bloomed in her hazel eyes as she looked at him. The solemn expression he’d been holding onto crumbled helplessly at the sight of her.

“How long have you been awake?”

“Not long. You could sleep a bit more.”

“No… you’re up too.”

Then Blair gave a small cough, as if her bare body felt cold. Without hesitation, Edmund sat up, took the water bottle from the side table with one hand, poured it, and handed her the glass.

Then, perhaps feeling the chill of her naked body, Blair gave a small cough. Edmund rose without hesitation, picked up the water bottle from the side table with one hand, poured some water, and handed her the glass.

“Thank you.”

Blair, receiving the glass, also sat up. The blanket he’d carefully placed over her slid down, revealing her snow-white naked body. Lusciously full breasts and a slender waist. That beautiful body, marked in places by the crimson traces he’d left behind.

Her breasts, subjected to particularly relentless torment compared to other parts, bore truly merciless marks. His sucking had left her nipples raw and swollen, and on her left breast, the imprint of his grasp remained as a deep blue bruise.

Back when he attended a boarding school in Borsa, he once heard something like this. A man who grew up without maternal affection would inevitably become pathologically obsessed with a woman’s breasts. He scoffed at it as nonsense the moment he heard it, but looking at Blair dirtied with all kinds of marks, the words dug into his chest with a chill.

From the moment Edmund was brought into the world, his mother was someone discarded after being used up. A powerless, sickly woman who had been forced to give birth, all she could give her son was perhaps the silent act of stroking his head. Looking back, he’d never known the warmth of a woman’s body in his entire life.

If so, was he filling that lack with Blair?

“Are you uncomfortable anywhere?”

When he asked quietly, the woman who was gulping down water looked at him. Her face, reddening shyly as she remembered the night before, was lovely. Edmund swallowed dryly.

“I’m fine. What about you?”

“You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Still….”

Trailing off, Blair wiped her wet lips with the back of her hand. Watching the meaningless gesture, heat pooled again until his lower body ached. He couldn’t believe it himself. Was it inevitable for a man to be swept up in lust at the sight of a naked woman? Unaware of this disgusting truth, Blair smiled faintly.

“I don’t want to go back to the mansion.”

“But we have to.”

The one who didn’t want to wake from this sweet dream was probably him more than her, but he deliberately didn’t indulge her. He pushed the blanket aside and got up, picking up the clothes scattered around and starting to dress. As he slipped his arms into his shirt, Edmund looked back at Blair, who was sitting against the headboard.

“I’ll go down first.”

“….”

“Shall we eat after we return to the mansion?”

Blair didn’t answer right away and only looked up at him. She bit her lower lip as if worrying at it. It was the expression she wore when she felt disappointed.

But a woman who knew when to return to reality soon nodded.

“Yes, let’s do that.”

“You can sleep more, so come down to the first floor before eight.”

“Alright.”

Though not dressed as immaculately as usual, Edmund, now back in his noble attire, strode purposefully across the room. Without looking back, he flung open the bedroom door and slammed it shut. After pausing briefly in the hallway to catch his breath, he turned toward the stairs. It was time to put the mask back on and return to his place.

***

On the way back to the ducal residence, Blair didn’t exchange a single word with Edmund from the moment they left the inn.

Of course, he’d escorted her properly, asking politely if they should leave now when they met in the tavern on the first floor, but that was all. Edmund seemed slightly unsettled for some reason. No, it felt subtly different from simple irritation. It was closer to anxiety.

Was that even possible? It was hard to believe that such a large, solid man, a man known for his composure, could show anxiety.

Blair let the silence linger in the carriage for a while. Then she recalled someone she had pushed aside in her mind and finally spoke.

“Edmund, I… I met the Countess of Gillingham not long ago.”

He, who had been staring out the window, met her eyes.

“You did.”

“I happened to see the Viscount of Underhill’s daughter while walking in the riverside park with her. Nicoletta Underhill.”

“Isaac Dorman’s mistress?”

“Yes. Did something bad happen to her?”

“She met the ending everyone expected. I didn’t know it would sink that far, though.”

Without even lifting an eyebrow, Edmund relayed Nicoletta’s recent situation.

“I heard she was discarded the moment your engagement to Dorman was broken. To Isaac Dorman, she was nothing more than a diversion. After that, she caught a social disease (a sexually transmitted disease) and couldn’t even seek a proper match. She was forced into a marriage with a distant relative, but apparently that caused discord within the family, and their business collapsed as well.”

His voice was dry, as if he were reading printed letters from a report. The ugly sight of Nicoletta she’d encountered by the Ridgeway River came to mind, tangling Blair’s feelings even further.

She hadn’t made a good impression from their first meeting, but did she really have to meet such a miserable end? The thought that this could have been her own fate made her feel dizzy. It was all misfortune that stemmed from Isaac Dorman.

“That’s horrific. I feel sorry for Nicoletta, but how can Isaac Dorman be so vile?”

“But if he weren’t vile, you wouldn’t be sitting beside me now, would you?”

“….”

“Of course, I have no intention of letting Dorman live in comfort without facing judgment. He’ll pay properly for pointing a gun at my wife.”