Chapter 38
“Understood.”
Before long, the servant returned with three more bottles of wine. They were all different types. She tried not to show it, but she couldn’t help her eyes from darting toward them.
“Just look. It won’t wear out.”
David chuckled. He was quick to smile.
“……This is the wrong strategy, Grand Duke.”
“Hmm, what is?”
“It would have been easier to win my favor by gifting me a box of wine rather than inviting me and drinking with me.”
“Aha, how generous you are. You’re even letting me see the answer key after I gave the wrong answer.”
David took a gulp of wine, his gaze fixed on Cecilia.
“But who am I doing this for by just giving it to you?”
“…….”
“Drinking it with a man like Rogerick Montieux would just make me feel resentful.”
“But you would have gained my trust.”
“Something like, ‘Grand Duke Raphaeli turned out to be quite the gentleman’?”
David shook his head.
“Come now, Lady Cecilia. If I wanted that, would I be doing this?”
“…….”
“Everyone else isn’t a gentleman, so why should I be elegant? If I save face, everything I want will be stolen from me. Who would I complain to then?”
“Do you think I’ll be stolen by someone?”
“That’s…….”
David’s blue eyes rolled playfully.
“A difficult question to answer.”
What kind of nonsense was that now?
She no longer had the energy to even understand. But perhaps because the wine tasted so good, she was willing to listen.
Cecilia habitually drank the wine. She had no idea how many glasses she had already had. She only knew that she had emptied the first bottle, which was magnificent, and had started on the second.
The second one was a much heavier wine. It had a stronger bitterness than sweetness, but its flavors were so extravagant that it went down smoothly.
David, who had been staring at Cecilia, bent down and closed the distance.
“How do you like my villa? Do you like it?”
“To be honest… it’s gloomy.”
“Is that so.”
“You didn’t do any renovations? It looks like you didn’t even think about decorating it.”
“What an eye you have. You’ve seen right through me.”
“But it does suit Your Grace’s jet-black taste.”
“My taste?”
Cecilia nodded.
“You only ever wear gloomy clothes.”
“Ah, that’s true. Do they look bad?”
“Rather than bad…….”
There must be something better.
Cecilia’s eyes scanned his body.
He had unbuttoned two of the buttons he usually kept fully buttoned. The sleeves were so tight that his arms looked like they would burst, as if they were intentionally tailored that way. The curve of his chest, which moved up and down slightly with every breath, was addictive.
Color wasn’t the issue. He was a man whose clothes ruined his aesthetics. If she stripped him, he would be an even more perfect body.
She wondered if all the flashy accessories he wore were a form of effort to somehow distract attention from that explicitly s****l body.
Of course, it seemed to have failed.
“I don’t know, I’m not sure.”
“If you drink one more glass, you’ll remember and tell me. Drink up.”
“…Are you saying I’m drunk?”
“Oh, you’re not?”
“Ha.”
That was a ridiculous thing to say. She had a high alcohol tolerance. She was a heavy drinker who had never lost a drinking contest, even against men three times her size. There was no way she would get drunk from a single bottle of a wine that was just over ten percent alcohol.
David smiled broadly as he watched Cecilia empty her glass defiantly.
“Since you say you’re in your right mind, I should give you a gift that you’ll recognize.”
David returned with a small box.
“Here, open it.”
The cute box, richly decorated with a ribbon, was too small. Cecilia, who had been expecting a rifle, frowned slightly.
Then, would it be a handgun? Maybe. A rifle would be too much for Cecilia to handle.
Cecilia, with her heart a little thumping, untied the ribbon and opened the lid.
And then she froze.
“It made me think of you when I saw it.”
David smiled. But Cecilia couldn’t for the life of her.
Inside was neither a rifle nor a handgun. It was a hairpin.
“…….”
And two of them, in the shape of a comb.
‘…F**k. Why would you think of me when you saw this?’
She felt her blood run cold.
‘Did he notice?’
Her gaze involuntarily went to David.
Someone might think it was a coincidence.
But a coincidence isn’t something like this. You’d call it a coincidence to luckily find an emergency umbrella in your bag on a rainy day.
What were the odds that a man who knew there was a dead coachman, and yet concealed that fact, would give the woman who killed that coachman that murder weapon as a gift?
“Are you speechless because you like it so much?”
David smiled annoyingly, grabbed the hairpins, and stood up.
“Would you turn around? I want to put it in myself.”
“……Grand Duke.”
“Come on. I’m surprisingly good at this kind of thing.”
His voice, unsuited to him, was so sweet it felt like it would melt.
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