Dirty Heart - Chapter 20

A shadow fell over Lionel’s head as he lay stretched out on a bench in the garden. The butler had approached, holding a parasol above him.

“Young Master. I must remind you again, prolonged exposure to sunlight is dangerous for your health.”

Lionel, who had been resting with his eyes closed, slowly pushed himself up. Looking at the butler’s expression filled with worry, he asked casually, “Did you tell Courtney that I’m sick?”

He and Courtney had been in a cold war for an entire week. He’d deliberately stayed away, waiting for the woman who dared call him a monster to come crawling back first. Yet she remained completely silent.

But the longer their standoff continued, the harder it became for him to hide his growing impatience.

So the best idea he could come up with was to pretend to be ill. Courtney could never tolerate seeing him suffer. He’d been certain she would rush to his side immediately. However,

“Well….”

The butler lowered his eyes awkwardly.

“Don’t tell me she heard I was sick and still didn’t come?”

Lionel’s pale face hardened even further.

“Tell her I’m coughing up blood. No, better yet, say I’m hovering at death’s door.”

As the situation escalated to more extreme suggestions, the butler hurriedly shook his head.

“That’s not the issue. Miss Courtney is not currently in the servants’ quarters.”

“Not there?”

“Of course, you have absolutely nothing to worry about. As always, staff members are following her.”

Courtney herself didn’t know it, but from the moment she stepped beyond the ducal residence, her every movement was reported to the higher-ups. The duke had assigned people to shadow her in order to prevent any unforeseen complications.

Though in reality, most of her outings consisted of stopping by the post office to send parcels to the orphanage or visiting a small shop on the corner to buy snacks for the children.

“So where did she go?”

“She headed toward a nearby church.”

“A church?”

Lionel’s brows twitched faintly. Could it be that she ran to a church because of that orphan? Was she so overwhelmed with pity that she sought comfort from God on the brat’s behalf?

“You monster without a shred of compassion!”

Recalling Courtney’s tearful outburst, Lionel clenched both fists tightly. For a woman of such lowly status to possess such excessive compassion was nothing but troublesome.

“Monster, huh.”

Muttering to himself, Lionel rose fully to his feet. A childish impulse stirred within him. He wanted to prove that he was not a monster.

Meow-.

At that moment, a thin, pitiful cry reached his ears. His gaze shifted toward one corner of the garden.

As expected, beneath a rose bush, a small kitten was curled up, trembling. Its ribs were starkly visible, clearly abandoned by its mother.

Sensing someone’s presence, the kitten flinched and shrank further into itself. It hissed weakly, baring its tiny teeth in instinctive fear.

“Come here.”

Though his tone was undeniably commanding, Lionel’s voice carried an oddly calming quality rather than intimidation.

“It’s alright.”

When he whispered again, the kitten quickly lowered its guard and crept into his arms.

Lionel quietly stroked the kitten’s gaunt back before turning to the butler and giving an order.

“That orphanage director from before. Find out where she is now.”

“…Pardon? Why the orphanage director all of a sudden…?”

“Tell her I’ll add another ten million krangs as payment. In exchange, she must hand over the brat who went with her.”

Leaving the butler’s puzzled gaze behind, Lionel looked down at the small lifeform in his arms. Each time its fragile breath brushed against his fingertips, a strange emotion stirred inside him.

Yes, why should this be difficult? If he simply brought that troublesome brat back, Courtney would return to his arms as if nothing had happened.

Her image, teary-eyed, whispering “thank you” and “I’m sorry about last time,” was vivid before his eyes. At that moment, Lionel’s heart thumped strangely.

‘If I give her a surprise gift, she’ll be overjoyed.’

He even imagined Courtney running toward him with a radiant smile, but his expression soon hardened coldly.

‘Have I lost my mind?’

It was absurd. Since when had he begun to be swayed by the emotions of something as insignificant as a mere maid?

Courtney Balkan. Before long, she would disappear completely from this world.

The moment he reminded himself that she was nothing more than a necessary component for a heart transplant, Lionel’s gaze sank into stillness.

***

Upon arriving at the church, Courtney first took time to mourn the head maid Ella and Vicky.

Neither had been particularly close to Courtney, but they were still people who’d shared the same space and breathed the same air. This was her final act of goodwill.

“May you be reborn as good people in your next life.”

The moment her mourning ended, she immediately began considering her survival plan.

Her ambitious plan to become the most promiscuous woman in the Empire and defile her heart had made no meaningful progress.

She tried every form of seduction toward the male servants of the ducal residence, yet none fell into her trap. She hadn’t managed even a single secret rendezvous, let alone a scandal.

“Oh, God.”

Gazing up at the church’s majestic ceiling, she closed her eyes tightly. Then she offered a desperate prayer to the one and only god of the Empire, who must reside somewhere high above.

“Please save me. If you made me possess Courtney’s body, there must be a reason, right? You didn’t have to make such a kind woman suffer such a miserable fate… did you?”

Her prayer was so fervent that the fingertips of her clasped hands turned deathly pale.

Time passed, and the candles illuminating the church began to extinguish one by one. Having sat there so long, her back stiffened like a stone pillar.

“…!”

In an instant, her pupils dilated. Coming here to seek God had been the right decision. After desperately begging for help for so long, realization finally struck her.

Why did the number of men she slept with matter so much? Even Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, was falsely accused of indulging in orgies, yet those were merely baseless rumors fabricated long after her death.

In other words, regardless of the truth, she just needed to make everyone in this world think Courtney Balkan was a promiscuous woman. Rumors naturally grew larger than reality.

‘That’s it. I just need to spread rumors.’

If the rumors spread far enough to reach the duke’s ears, he would surely fall into deep hesitation.

Would he proceed with the surgery as planned, even accepting the side effects? Or would he abandon the defiled heart and seek another method instead?

She knew well that regardless of whether he chose the former or the latter, she would not be free from death. In one way or another, Courtney’s life stood directly adjacent to it.

That was precisely why she needed to spread rumors. And not just any rumors. They had to be the most extreme and shocking kind.

If the entire nation became eyes watching Courtney Balkan’s every movement, no one would be able to touch her carelessly.

Courtney’s eyes flashed sharply as her resolve solidified.

As night fully fell, the church grew crowded with people who had come to give their confessions.

From noble ladies dressed in lavish gowns to commoners exhausted from their daily labor, countless people stood in line regardless of status, all hoping to cleanse themselves of long-buried sins.

Soon, from within the confessional booth, a man’s trembling voice seeped out.

“Father. I am a sinner. I lost my parents at a young age….”

Though the people waiting their turn wore solemn expressions as if uninterested, in truth, their ears strained to catch every single word spoken by the person ahead of them.

In fact, since ancient times, confessionals had been fertile ground for gossip.

Rumors of a young noblewoman who committed adultery with a servant before her marriage, of a noble lady who fell into gambling and squandered her family’s fortune, of a neighbor who frequented brothels while his wife carried his child. All manner of filthy scandals began here.

Within the safety of the enclosed space, people poured out secrets they would never dare speak aloud under normal circumstances, their emotions heightened. And those stories always found their way into the outside world through mysterious channels.

It had even reached the point where journalists attended confession regularly to uncover scandals. Though the church claimed to strictly prohibit such behavior, in reality, it had never truly been eliminated.

Having made her decision, Courtney joined the confession line. After waiting for a long time, her turn finally arrived.

“Father, I have come to confess my sins.”

Inside the small, dim confessional, Courtney’s plan for survival was about to begin in earnest.