Chapter 35
“Just what kind of woman is this ‘decent woman’ you have in mind?”
Ezekail seized on her words and threw the question back at her. Though he was not satisfied with Rose’s cautious answer, his attitude suggested he would at least hear her out.
Rose hesitated before opening her mouth.
“……A woman who can be of great help to you, Major.”
It would not be easy to meet such a person in their current situation, but should a threat from Akenaus arise, he needed a woman with a family that could offer practical assistance, rather than someone like her who would only be a burden.
“You understand well. Yes, that’s you.”
“I don’t have any strength that would be of help to you, Major.”
“Your heart.”
Ezekail raised his head. Fixing his gaze on her as though he could see, he added,
“You only need to give me your heart. Just as you are now.”
For a fleeting moment, the light in his eyes ran deep. Strangely so.
What was her heart, exactly?
What had he sensed in her?
She suddenly found herself chewing over these thoughts carefully.
Ezekail was a man incapable of simple, straightforward emotions. That contradiction always left her confused. Akenaus, by contrast, was easy to deal with because his feelings were simple and direct. She only had to hate and resent him. But with Ezekail, merely thinking of his existence demanded several times the emotional toll compared to Akenaus.
If even this feeling was love, then how unworthy a first love she was experiencing.
It was fortunate he could not see her expression properly. She could hide the trembling of her hands and silence the trembling of her voice, but there was no way to conceal the trembling of her gaze. She had acted suspiciously several times, but because his eyes were not whole, she had managed to avoid suspicion.
The man who had asked for her heart resumed the exploration he had momentarily paused. He lifted her breasts and kissed beneath them, savoring every inch. He grasped her leg, tracing the round, protruding kneecap with his finger before working his way back up her calf and thigh.
Every motion—spreading his hand to wrap fully around her ankle, carefully caressing her leg and pelvis—felt like an attempt to meticulously gauge and memorize her shape, so Rose could not relax.
“Is it because you drank lemon tea? You smell strongly of lemons.”
She forced a smile at his casually thrown remark.
“……It’s much better than smelling bad.”
“I don’t know about that. I prefer your natural scent. But your body odor is faint. Other smells cling to you easily. The first day you entered my bedroom, you smelled of rainwater and soap. It was only when you were locked in a room and came out covered in sweat, rolling about, that I properly smelled your true scent for the first time, I think….”
The moment he touched her entrance, cold sweat broke out. It felt as though the lemon slice pushed deep inside kept betraying its presence.
Only when the man who had carefully caressed her entire body finally covered her with his large frame did she feel relief.
Because once pleasure drew near, her mind would quickly be thrown into disarray.
Time would vanish in thick chunks, leaving no room to suspect or remember anything.
Rose embraced Ezekail’s head, pressing her lower body closer so that he would enter her quickly.
She wanted him to empty her of this complicated inner turmoil and shake her relentlessly.
The first insertion always brought with it a dull, heavy shock. Rose had already experienced enough to know that this, at least, never got better no matter what.
He did his best to detect her pain. He would trace her lips with his fingers to check if she was biting them from the hurt, or pause his hips if he heard her draw a deep breath.
“It’s fine. It has to hurt at least once anyway. If so, I’d rather you came in quickly, all the way….”
She grew anxious that he might notice something catching inside if he inserted slowly. Rose gripped his forearm and pulled him close to her.
“You’ll get hurt like that.”
“I’m fine—ahk….”
She had to hurry and grow accustomed to his body. Rose breathed slowly, relaxing herself to match the tip that rubbed persistently against her entrance. Along with the aching sensation of being spread open, her entrance clamped around the head of his member. Even that alone brought a sweet, coiling pain.
“Unh, ah….”
“…Ha.”
They moaned simultaneously.
Grinding and rubbing little by little to widen her entrance, he finally pushed through the narrow passage.
“Ah, ah!”
A rapturous yet stinging pleasure flashed through her.
Rose gasped for breath. A heavy fullness rose in her belly. The sensation of being completely joined as one resembled fulfillment.
How wonderful it would be if time stopped just like this.
Without past or future, how wonderful it would be to remain in this moment, this present.
Pushed about aimlessly by the stimulus beginning to swell in size, Rose harbored a vain hope.
After several slow thrusts, her body steadily grew wet. The wet, slapping sounds and the increasingly smooth lubrication would conceal the secret she harbored.
Rose prayed that the lemon slice blocking the mouth of her womb would serve its purpose fully.
Her stamina was completely depleted after several rounds of intercourse. Rose, about to lose consciousness from fatigue, opened her hazy eyes at the hand stroking her face.
Ezekail asked in a low voice.
“Did I wake you?”
“No, not yet……. Are you unable to sleep again?”
“No. If I close my eyes, I think I would fall asleep right away.”
“Then why……?”
Because she had just been pulled back from the threshold of sleep, her voice kept dropping lower.
“Listening to your even breathing, I suddenly found everything wondrous. I no longer crave alcohol or opium, and most of my pain has disappeared. The cold and heat have retreated too. It has been so long since my mind and body were this peaceful.”
Rose placed her hand over his reflexively.
“It seems you have fully recovered. I’m relieved.”
Ezekail caught her hand and stroked the back of it.
“Yes. It is a relief. So now I can send a letter to Dr. Briman, Rose.”
Her mind snapped awake in an instant.
The inevitable had finally come. It was time to begin the treatment.
Rose stared into Ezekail’s unfocused eyes.
Could light return to those eyes?
A future she had only put off because it was too difficult to imagine had suddenly drawn near.
A faint tremor ran through her fingertips as if it were some distant past. She hurriedly tried to pull her hand away and hide it, but Ezekail did not miss the fleeting tremor that brushed past him.
“Why, are you scared? Though you did try to talk me out of it, saying it was dangerous.”
Rose faltered briefly. She wanted to say no. She knew the role he expected of her. To be a source of support for him, she ought to muster courage and tell him it would be fine.
But with her trembling hand already exposed, hiding her honest feelings would be useless.
Rose answered in a low voice.
“Yes, I’m scared.”
She was scared.
She was scared that his sight would return.
She was scared that his sight would not return.
“You have a lot of fear but also a lot of caution, while I have no caution but also no fear. That is why we seem to complement each other.”
Ezekail laughed briefly.
“I truly look forward to it; I can hardly wait. The results I will prove to you, I mean. That ‘Major Valdemara’ never fights a losing battle. Perhaps because you worry as much as I should, I’m not afraid at all. I somehow have a feeling it will succeed.”
Then he declared to her in a serene voice.
“Rose, when my sight returns, you will be the first face I see.”
6. The Uninvited Guest
“Who is that person?”
Just as usual, while gathering lemons and taking a seat in the corner of the kitchen, Rose spotted an unfamiliar man lingering at the back door. Anna glanced at the person Rose indicated with a look.
“Ah, what was it. He came to supply groceries.”
“Suddenly? Weren’t the merchants who trade with the mansion already fixed?”
“I heard he’s going to start bringing fresh, high-quality fruit. You like fruit, after all. And with you constantly making lemon tea and all……. The master ordered that fruit be received every day so we don’t run out.”
Though she left her meals unfinished, she had picked through the fruit to eat, and it seemed he had been listening to that as well.
While living in a dormitory with students the age of her younger siblings, Rose had developed a fondness for fruit and sweet desserts. Especially as spring turned to summer, the students would go out with baskets to pick wild strawberries. Baking pies or making jam with them had been a daily occurrence.
“You know the master has been more easygoing these days?”
Anna did not seem inclined to lower her voice.
“The day before yesterday, the chef made a mistake and swapped the salt and sugar in the food. But when the food tasted strange, he just had them check if it had spoiled and bring it out again. If it were in the past, he would have flipped the table, roaring about how he was surrounded by tongueless fools. It’s probably thanks to you.”
Rose realized immediately when that had happened. There was a morning when, having been tormented by the man who pressed against her the moment she opened her eyes, she had no strength left to get up and had fallen back asleep, while Ezekail had taken his lunch separately with Lady Serba attending him.
“Did he?”
She hadn’t heard about it and had no idea. The matter had passed so lightly.
“Yeah, we tasted it afterward and broke out in cold sweat, wondering how he didn’t get angry. We were all surprised.”
Seeing Anna’s fascinated expression, Rose simply nodded vaguely.
But in truth, wasn’t this closer to his original personality?
If he were a man fastidious about the taste of food and sensitive to his environment, he would never have been able to endure lurking in trenches for days in extreme conditions or subsisting on hard, tasteless military-issued biscuits.
Born and raised in a distinguished family, his tastes were naturally refined, but he possessed an endurance unswayed by such things, which must be why he made a name for himself as a soldier. He was impervious to cold and heat and endured pain and hunger well. In fact, while they had been confined together due to his opium withdrawal, Ezekail had only warned Rose, “If you don’t let me go, you might get hurt too,” rather than pressing or whining at her to do something about it immediately.
If he had disliked extreme heat and cold and been unwilling to give up a comfortable bed and delicious meals, he would have tried to remain in Clerice like Akenaus, engaging in sordid, watchful scheming to send the other to the army in his place. But Ezekail had cleanly volunteered for enlistment long ago.
In other words, what Ezekail had been unable to endure all this time was not the presence or absence of flavor, but the attitude and sincerity of the employees.
Because he could not see, he could not trust whether the employees’ mistakes were truly mistakes or intentional mockery of his blindness, so he had deliberately acted angrier.
“But is it okay for me to keep speaking so casually to you like this?”
Anna said, her eyes going wide.