Odalisque - Chapter 80

She needed to at least say she would. If she hadn’t, Brad, now cornered, might have gone mad and sold out Liv’s secrets.

If Brad said something like that, the Marquis would intervene. Rather than trying to appease him in vain, seeking the Marquis’s help seemed safer. Surely the Marquis wouldn’t want the nude painting project to become public knowledge, so he would take some sort of action.

No, even without such interests, he would help her. Because he cherished her. He said he cherished her; he had even said he disliked seeing her marred…

Caught up in these scattered thoughts, Liv almost got hit by a carriage before she realized she had been walking straight into the middle of the street.

“Where are your eyes, lady!”

The coachman’s curses echoed loudly. Liv, her face pale, hurriedly moved to the edge of the sidewalk.

She felt a slight sweat at the back of her neck, not because she had almost been run over by the carriage.

“Do you really think you could’ve become the Marquis’s mistress without my nude painting?!”

Brad’s voice, filled with rage, wouldn’t leave her ears.

Liv couldn’t deny his words. Though she tried to cover it up with the ridiculous term “extra work,” she knew exactly how the world defined her relationship with the Marquis.

She would occasionally be summoned for sex, and in exchange, she would receive his favor, various support, and money.

She knew this, but she kept trying not to think of it that way. She repeatedly told herself that she hadn’t offered her body with a merchant’s heart. She desired him—his body, or perhaps his heart.

But no matter how much she tried to dress it up, it was ultimately just rationalization.

“Shouldn’t you be grateful to me? I made it possible for you to seduce the greatest nobleman in Buerno!”

Brad wasn’t wrong.

Everyone would think that way about her. That a woman with no merits threw herself at the Marquis to seduce him. And indeed, that was the truth.

To win the Marquis’s favor, she had given everything she could, even those precious things she had long guarded with her pride intact.

She didn’t want to hear herself called a mistress.

She didn’t want to be treated like that. What she desperately wanted from the Marquis wasn’t just the right to be in his bed, or the luxurious materials she could receive from him, or the status that came from being by his side.

Liv closed her eyes tightly.

Ah, in the end, I sold my heart for cheap.

My heart is worth nothing more than a mistress’s place.

“Teacher Rodaise?”

A cautious voice called from behind her, snapping her out of her thoughts. Slowly, Liv opened her eyes and turned around. There, awkwardly standing behind her, was Camille.

“Are you all right?”

Once confirming it was indeed Liv, Camille quickly approached her. Liv, staring blankly at him, saw him add an explanation in haste.

“Ah, I happened to be passing by and saw you. I really didn’t expect to see you here.”

Whether it was coincidence or not, she didn’t care at the moment. With a detached look, Liv brushed her bangs back. She felt drained without doing anything.

“You look very pale… Are you unwell?”

“I’m fine.”

Liv answered firmly and tried to continue walking, but she had to stop again, suddenly feeling dizzy.

Seeing her sway, Camille spoke with concern, “It would be best for you to sit down and rest nearby. Allow me to assist you.”

“No, I’m—”

“You really don’t look well.”

This wasn’t because she was physically unwell. It was more of a temporary issue caused by mental shock.

Camille stepped closer, intending to support her. After a moment’s hesitation, Liv eventually accepted his outstretched hand.

Maybe it was just that too many things had happened today. Perhaps, as Camille said, if she sat somewhere and rested, she would soon feel better.

“Can you walk to the park? Or perhaps that coffeehouse over there…”

He trailed off. The reason was the carriage that noisily pulled to a stop beside them.

Both Liv and Camille turned their heads toward the carriage.

“They’re driving quite recklessly. It would be better to move away from the street,” Camille muttered with a frown, gently pulling Liv further onto the sidewalk. But Liv instead pulled her hand away from his. Her gaze remained fixed on the carriage.

“Teacher Rodaise?”

“Thank you for your help. I’m fine now.”

“What? Suddenly…”

Camille looked at her, confused, before following her gaze to the carriage.

It was an ordinary, unmarked black carriage that, at a glance, looked no different from any other hired carriage along the street.

However, upon closer inspection, each component of the carriage was clearly of high quality. Above all, the coachman made no effort to hide that he recognized Liv, giving her a nod. Liv also bowed her head slightly in return.

“…So the rumors were true?”

Camille’s muttered words were stiff with tension. Liv, wearing an expression of indifference, bid him farewell.

Camille, stunned, couldn’t even properly respond to her parting words. But just as Liv was about to turn away, he grabbed her arm.

“Are you in any danger? If you need help, just say the word.”

He glanced at the half-open carriage window before looking back at Liv.

“I will help you.”

Liv couldn’t understand his exact intentions, but one thing was certain—the concern in his offer was genuine.

Liv looked at Camille quietly, then dropped her gaze. She moved her dry lips a few times before shaking her head.

“He is a good person to me.”

“But—”

“Even if he’s not good to you, he’s good to me.”

Liv spoke with a faint smile, and Camille couldn’t hold onto her any longer. Liv gently smiled at the sight of Camille’s defeated hand dropping and turned to head for the carriage.

When she opened the door with practiced ease, she saw a familiar figure sitting inside. The man resting his chin in his hand looked at her steadily through the open door. Liv slowly climbed into the carriage while gazing at his arrogant blue eyes.

The black carriage carrying Liv departed without hesitation, leaving Camille standing alone in the street.

***

I’ll need to station a black carriage and coachman permanently.

Dimus thought this when he received the news from the guards stationed in front of Liv’s house about Brad.

It seemed he needed to tighten his control over her daily life even more.

He had left her alone, thinking she would manage on her own, but Liv still hadn’t grasped the situation.

He had explicitly told her not to worry about that painter, yet she had still gone to meet him?

Clicking his tongue, he had come to fetch her, only to find her holding hands affectionately with yet another vermin he had told her not to associate with. It was quite the spectacle.

To make matters worse, Liv, seemingly unaware of Dimus’s foul mood, even attempted a clumsy request.

“Brad’s health has improved. He wishes to finish the nude painting we were working on…”

The painter, whom Dimus thought would have been caught by his debtors by now, seemed to have slipped away like a rat. It was clear that he still hoped for something from Dimus, given that he had managed to contact Liv again.

“I believe I told you it would be best not to get involved with him.”

“You did, of course, but Brad painted my nude portrait. How could I just ignore him?”

“Are you worried that he might go mad and talk about you?”

Liv’s composed expression wavered slightly. She turned her head, seemingly in an attempt to regain her composure, but in the closed carriage, it made little difference. The half-open window had been closed shut the moment she boarded.

Dimus, watching Liv stare stubbornly at the firmly closed window, found her ridiculous and reached out. With minimal effort, he easily turned Liv’s gaze back to him.

Dimus frowned as he faced her directly. He hadn’t noticed before, as she had kept her head down or looked away the whole time since getting into the carriage, but now that he saw her up close, she looked quite unwell.

Could it be that the painter had threatened her over the nude painting?

He was cornered enough to do such a thing, and Liv, terrified at the thought of her nude painting being exposed, was certainly vulnerable to such threats.

“Should I kill him for you?”

Dimus, tilting his head slightly, spoke in a disinterested tone.