Chapter 28
Chuckling, Hitaon flapped his sweat-soaked shirt and sat down on a stump meant for resting.
“Still, your skill has improved greatly.”
“When you charge in as if your life depends on it, there’s no way not to improve.”
“I’m honored to have been of help in improving the young master’s swordsmanship.”
“Interpreting things the way you want to hear them is a skill in itself.”
“It seems your condition has improved lately.”
Hitaon shrugged as he drank the water handed to him. As for his condition, it had no choice but to improve. He had finally accomplished the long-desired deed. He hadn’t known that a dream becoming reality would leave behind such a lingering ecstasy. Perhaps this was how a child who had achieved their most cherished wish felt.
At the young nobles’ gathering, there were quite a few who lived for debauchery. People who wore lewd gossip like a badge, as if the only thing worth boasting about in their entire lives was that single matter.
Back then, he had wondered what the hell was so special about that act that they would sell their souls for it—he had even felt visceral disgust. Ironically, now he understood.
The flesh that coiled around him the more he touched it, the skin that flushed at every caress, the inside that had burned hotly around him—if he could taste that again, he too would gladly walk a path of thorns. It was that dangerous a game, one that made a man sell his soul.
‘It’s probably worse because I haven’t been able to do it since that day.’
The only variable on that long-awaited day had been the Nanny. Thanks to his excuses and Luirene’s quick response, they had gotten past the situation, but it had nearly exposed everything.
Considering the possibility that she might still be suspicious and had set surveillance, Hitaon hadn’t gone to see Luirene even once since that day. There was still no sign of anything unusual, so it might turn out to be a false alarm—but the world had its one-in-a-million chances.
If this secret relationship were discovered, the one who would suffer was, of course, Luirene. Even though he had been the one to seduce her first, she would be branded as the instigator. The pleasure they had shared would be dumped onto her alone as depravity and punishable responsibility.
‘I can’t let that happen.’
The Nanny had always turned a blind eye to his various minor transgressions. But this one was on a different level from the ones she had overlooked before. There was no way she, having dedicated her loyalty to this household, would stand by and watch something that could corrupt the heir’s position—even if it was only suspicion arising from a minor misunderstanding.
‘If only it had been someone else.’
The fact that it was the Nanny herself was also a problem. She was a person trusted by his mother, having served as Hitaon’s own nanny. She was the only maid his mother had brought when marrying into the marquisate, and it was clear theirs was a master-servant relationship built on deep trust since his mother’s maiden days.
In short, she was his mother’s loyal confidante.
So Hitaon was enduring. Having been born as the heir to a noble house, he had honed the virtue of patience to death—it wasn’t difficult to exercise it. He was also past the age when impulse control was weak.
What he hadn’t expected, however, was that he would have to endure with the feeling of starving day by day, as if his insides were burning away. He couldn’t shake the thought that this relationship had been driven in too deep a wedge to simply enjoy as a secret affair and then end.
“What if I’ve found a woman I want to marry?”
On the path leaving the practice grounds and returning to the main building, he muttered without realizing it. Mikale, who was attending him, looked surprised.
“Have you taken an interest in some young lady?”
“Something like that.”
It wasn’t like that at all, but Mikale, his conversation partner, had no way of knowing the details.
“Is there a need to worry? When the time comes for you to inherit the title and arrange a marriage, you could subtly ask the Marquis and Marchioness to arrange it.”
“Haha.”
“Why are you laughing?”
“Because it sounds like a very easy thing to do, the way you put it.”
Mikale, apparently having some thought, carefully ventured.
“…Does that young lady not return your feelings?”
“What? No.”
“……”
“…Or does she?”
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