Chapter 34
Complex but blunt and simple, utterly transparent in her intentions.
“…Sylvia!”
Rossa suddenly called out sharply, biting her red lips inward. She aimed to vent frustration at Sylvia instead of her son.
Kuinan watched passively, unmoved whether Rossa barked at his wife like a mangy dog or not.
“You called…”
Smack!
Rossa’s fierce hand slapped Sylvia’s cheek. As Sylvia bowed respectfully a step forward, Rossa struck and then glared at Lancart with eyes full of reproach.
Even if Lancart temporarily lost filial piety, instinct would make him obey his mother more than the wife he disliked. Rossa wanted to confirm this, her gaze burning with jealousy and possessiveness like a woman verifying the love of a husband rather than a son.
As Rossa wished, Lancart did not move.
Though it was Sylvia’s first time being slapped by Rossa, she’d experienced something similar before, so she quickly straightened and looked humbly at the ground.
Only Lancart noticed the trembling of her clenched fists. Many watched the scene.
Rossa hadn’t come alone to greet the castle’s master. Servants, attendants, even the coachman subtly looked away, unable to bear the sight. Then Rossa shouted harshly,
“What nonsense did you feed Lancart to make him treat me like this? Have you wept and complained that I despise and mistreat you? Disappointing, Sylvia. And Lancart! Today, I’m disappointed in you too.”
Rossa’s words of disappointment toward her son were rare, countable by one hand. Her son always fulfilled his duties to her as a son. The fact he barely fulfilled husbandly duties was something she found endearing.
At her harsh rebuke, Lancart muttered a low sigh.
“Interesting…”
He muttered as he looked down at Sylvia, then chuckled softly like air leaking. Rossa turned on her heel, with her maids trailing, and strode back into the castle. Left alone at the gates with the coachman, servants, and husband, the Duchess silently gasped for breath.
“…”
“Interesting.”
After a few minutes, her husband murmured once more, then abruptly disappeared. Sylvia stroked her red cheeks, imagining herself caught in a dogfight with Rossa. If a miracle restored their homeland from monster occupation, such a thing might really happen.
‘But since such miracles won’t come, I just have to live like this.’
Before becoming a Duchess, Sylvia had never lost a fight—even against her knight sister. Now she donned the mask of a composed Duchess and slowly trudged inside the castle gates.
* * *
At midnight, someone broke into Lady Rossa’s room on the third floor of the Duke’s castle.
The intruder was tall, with dark hair and eyes that gleamed a strange blue even in the dark. His footsteps were silent; his breathing slow and resonant. He carried a faint odor like thick mud—so peculiar it might be mistaken for the smell of earth.
Slide—
Thud.
Slide—
Thud.
When only two steps from the bed, his footsteps noticeably quickened.
Savoring the moment, he deliberately made his footsteps audible, then stopped abruptly to gaze down at the woman, only to move again slowly and leisurely.
Earlier that day, the woman responsible for the scandal outside the castle gates twisted and writhed comfortably under his gaze.
She was the one who, upset by her son’s insolent behavior, had struck her daughter-in-law for no reason. Witnesses pitied the daughter-in-law and thought poorly of the woman, but this man bore her no ill will.
If he harbored resentment, he would lack the confidence to confront her. Brimming with confidence to punish whoever dared touch “his hole”, he had forgotten the incident and came late at night to remind himself of the task at hand.
‘Let’s see. Where should I break first?’
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