Chapter 11
She moved her finger back and forth, just as she had taught Duke Drexton. The sense of insufficiency seemed to ease a little. But at the same time, a strange sense of defeat and frustration began to surge up. It was a mix of emotions.
That everything she had built up over her entire life could collapse in an instant like this. And that the years she had lived chastely until now felt like a loss. Knowing it shouldn’t be this way, yet still craving it. Is this why lust is counted among the seven deadly sins.
‘No.’
Julia soothed herself.
‘This is all, for the sake of the lesson…’
“Ah…”
Sensation mattered more than words of self-comfort. Julia stopped thinking and thrust her fingers into her s*x until they throbbed with pain. Only then did she barely manage to put on her nightclothes, crawl into bed, and fall asleep. She didn’t manage to wash as she had originally planned.
Her sleep was exceedingly sweet.
When she woke in the morning and blankly stared out the window, feeling the dried fluid stuck to her thighs, a sense of embarrassment washed over her.
Julia covered her face and her shoulders shook. From the fingertips that had given her pleasure came a subtle scent.
* * *
Beyond the window, the fragile winter sunlight shone on Julia’s dark brown hair and her pale, rounded shoulders.
As if it knew exactly what she had done.
Julia hunched her shoulders. Yesterday felt as though she had been under some sort of spell.
As she sat there at a loss, a sudden knock sounded.
Knock, knock.
Julia startled and couldn’t even answer.
“Missus Devel, are you awake?”
It was the voice of Head Maid Mary Hoover.
Should I pretend to be asleep?
No, that would look even more suspicious.
What Julia had done last night, returning to her bedroom and pleasuring herself, was something only Julia and God knew. Holding her breath here for no reason would be the same as announcing that she had something to hide.
Right now, Julia’s thinking was so hypersensitive it bordered on strange. She was jumping far ahead.
Just because she had slept in a bit, there was no way the head maid would leap to thinking, ‘That woman must surely have comforted herself alone.’
Yet Julia’s mind, which had crumbled like spun sugar, was that sensitive.
“Yes, I’m awake, I just got up. Please don’t open the door. I can change my clothes by myself.”
She had answered to avoid suspicion, but Julia’s voice trembled noticeably. On top of that, she rambled unnecessarily.
Because of that, Mary Hoover on the other side of the door began to wonder if something might be wrong with Julia. The head maid narrowed her eyes.
“Are you quite alright?”
At the question, Julia flinched.
“Of course. There’s no reason I wouldn’t be. Yesterday’s first lesson was conducted entirely on an academic level and we filled the full hour properly. Duke Drexton left first, and I tidied up around me before returning and going to bed.”
“…Yes.”
Mary let out a small sigh that Julia couldn’t hear, at Julia’s stream of unasked-for explanation.
“His Grace will be out all day today. It is for an inspection of the territory. He asked me to convey that it will be difficult to dine together this evening. There will likewise be no lesson today.”
Julia was startled again by Mary’s words.
If there hadn’t been a territorial inspection, had Duke Drexton intended to dine with Julia again today.
But for what reason.
She couldn’t read his intentions at all.
As Julia stood there, too flustered to respond, Mary continued speaking from beyond the door.
“So, if it would be alright, he asked whether you might join him for breakfast.”
Breakfast together.
Julia’s face, and even her chest, flushed hot. Then in the next moment, it felt as though her heart dropped all the way to the pit of her stomach, and her whole body went cold.
She had no confidence she could face the Duke’s face while still unable to settle what had happened last night. And she was afraid of what Duke Drexton might say when he saw her.
Nervously chewing on her lip, Julia suddenly looked down between her legs.
At the inner thighs where dried, pale fluid had lifted like scales.
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