98.
Because it happened right in front of me, before I had any chance to do anything.
I had no choice but to see all of it head-on.
First, I saw taut abdominal muscles with not a trace of belly fat even as he sat, and a long scar running along his side.
Blood flowing from it was streaking red down his body.
Belatedly, as if trying not to show the wound, he turned his back and finished taking off his clothes.
Thanks to that, his broad back, slightly bent, was revealed before my eyes.
My gaze began at his lean, solid waist and climbed upward on its own.
The firm muscles of his back, bulging outward with each movement, seemed almost alive.
His torso thickened the higher it went, and his wide shoulders spread in an inverted triangle; dense, well-developed muscles clung there just the same.
‘It wasn’t like this when he had clothes on?!’
In his forearm, bending slightly as it moved, I could feel the grain of thick muscle…….
It was not a body shaped by training and exercise, but an exceedingly aggressive body formed by the influence of innate growth and wholly by blood-spattered battlefields.
It seemed a little tanned, too.
I swallowed hard.
Still with his back turned, he bundled up the clothes he had taken off and roughly wiped the blood around the wound.
The way he glanced at me with a slight lift of his brow seemed like something he did because he was conscious of me.
As if I had been caught doing something wrong, I hurriedly began draping the hood over my shoulders.
Then I found a suitable towel provided in the room and handed it to him.
But of course, he couldn’t very well strip off his lower garments as well, so the place where he sat was still damp with pooled water.
Only then did it occur to me that I ought to give him some privacy.
“Ah, then I’ll go out and check whether the physician is coming…….”
Just then, he suddenly lifted his head while rubbing his face dry with the towel.
Our gazes met just like that…….
“Should I just wait here?”
He nodded.
And so, in the end, I found myself sitting face-to-face in the guest drawing room, alone with the duke, who had removed his upper garments.
The room was strangely quiet.
“By the way, Your Grace, may I ask you something?”
“Go ahead.”
“That day on the street, our eyes did meet, didn’t they?”
“…….”
“And just now, too. You saw me, so why did you avoid me?”
“I didn’t avoid you.”
“Pardon?”
“Why would I avoid you?”
“You did avoid me, though. I told you, I saw it.”
“That’s not…….”
He furrowed his brow.
It seemed his wound hurt.
I immediately rose to my feet.
“Would you like to lie down? Shall I help you?”
He did not refuse. Obediently accepting my support, he lay down lengthwise on the sofa.
His legs stuck out beyond the sofa by more than a handspan and sagged onto the floor, but, well, anyway.
“Are you all right? And this wound—it happened back then, didn’t it?”
“…….”
As if he did not want to answer, he subtly averted his gaze.
‘It’s still bleeding…….’
I folded the towel and gently pressed it to the wound.
Maintaining that position, I crouched right in front of the sofa.
“……Achoo. Are you not going to answer?”
“Baron, this is hardly a serious wound.”
That much was not difficult to guess just by looking at his upper body.
After all, scars that must have been far larger and deeper than this were visible here and there.
“If it’s not serious, why won’t you answer?”
Only after speaking as if I were scolding him did I realize that I was treating him far too casually.
How should I put it? He had that sort of power.
Despite being that great duke.
And sure enough, even at my sullen attitude, he simply blinked and looked at me as though nothing were wrong.
“Yes. I was injured that day.”
To be precise, he must have been hurt in the process of capturing that pervert’s subordinate.
I did not bother to point that out aloud.
“I simply hoped you wouldn’t know.”
“Why? Because you thought I’d worry?”
“No.”
His eyes seemed to say, “Why would you worry about me?”
Even so……. We might still be in an awkward, distant superior-subordinate relationship, but…….
Did he think I was some cold-blooded person who wouldn’t even blink upon seeing him injured?
“Because you are someone who returns as much as you receive.”
“Well, I don’t think…….”
“I merely didn’t want to put you in my debt.”
For some reason, his words felt as though he were drawing a line.
“Because you would certainly try to repay it someday.”
“So what you’re saying is that you don’t want me to repay you?”
It was true that I had many things to be grateful to him for personally.
Since there was nothing I could realistically do to help him right away, time had simply passed with me remaining grateful.
But that meant that all this time, he had been trying to help me in ways that would make me feel as little gratitude toward him as possible.
‘What is that…… What is he thinking?’
I asked again.
“Why don’t you want me to repay you?”
“Because I don’t want your heart to grow weak.”
He looked at me with a faint smile.
He was lying on the sofa, and I was crouched in front of him.
Before I knew it, our faces were close together.
“I’ll hold this now, so go sit comfortably.”
He reached out as if to take the towel I was pressing against his wound.
“Ah, it’s all right. I’ll…….”
Then our fingertips overlapped ever so slightly.
For an instant, my desire to pull my hand away and my desire to defend the towel clashed, and the latter won.
The duke did not withdraw his hand either.
I continued speaking.
“That doesn’t seem to have worked very well. I’m already deeply indebted to Your Grace, and I’m…… grateful.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“You haven’t done anything? Shall I list them out for you?”
I tugged at the hem of my skirt and sat down fully on the floor in front of the sofa.
He merely turned his gaze and stared at me intently.
Even though I had set the stage myself, now that I had to chatter on alone, my throat somehow felt blocked.
My face felt a little hot, too.
But there was something I had wanted to say to him for some time.
“Do you remember?”
“…….”
“The day you took me to the hunting grounds, you asked me. Whether there were still people in the life I wanted.”
If there were, then he told me not to let those people forget me.
Only now had I gained enough faith to answer with confidence.
“There were. I didn’t know it either……. But there were.”
Thinking about it, it was strange.
When I first realized that the three of them had drunk the potion, I had certainly felt as if I had fallen into hell.
Yet before I knew it, many things had changed.
And in a good direction, at that.
It was not difficult to trace my memories back to where it had begun.
The day he took me to the hunting grounds, as if he had been waiting for me to come to him.
That day, I met Daena there.
When I thought of how unpleasant we had been to each other back then.
The fact that Daena had come to visit the mansion the day before yesterday and eaten up all the lemon sorbet on my bed felt almost astonishing.
And after I became entangled in Idan’s affairs, a connection that had once been severed was tied again.
Now, when the weather was fine, I could receive letters from Romi saying it was fine, and when it was not, saying it was not, written in all manner of affectionate, excited tones.
I tried imagining what would come after everything was resolved.
Life after I proved my innocence and revealed the pervert’s identity.
Of course, it was not as though I had never done so before.
But whenever I did, it always came down to one question.
Even if the truth came to light, would those nobles, with their towering pride, truly be willing to admit their mistake?
It was obvious that, in the end, I would never be accepted by them.
For what reason would they want to keep someone close who reminded them of their own failings at every moment?
There was a part of me that was disappointed despite expecting nothing, and so, at times, I could do nothing about the skepticism that surged up within me.
In that way, there had been times when I thought the only answer was to hide away somewhere no one could hurt me.
And yet the reality that unfolded before me was different from what I had imagined.
Though I had not proven a single thing about my innocence, the former imperial princess apologized to me, and Romi took my hand without hesitation.
Though nothing had changed, at some point the mansion began to feel like a place where people lived.
Even if the memory of the potion still seemed to pierce my heart like a thorn.
Now I knew who it was that had led me this far.
He could perhaps have remained the only person I had.
He could have personally cleared away all those misfortunes and made me depend on him.
Because he had the power to do so.
But he did not.
“Your Grace, you were truly good to me.”
“…….”
“People often focus on the love that shows on the surface when someone drinks the potion, but I think a little differently.”
“…….”
“Love is simply the occasion that best reveals what kind of person someone truly is.”
Certainly, his true feelings were not easy to see.
But they were definitely there.
“Your Grace, do you dislike the very idea of me repaying you? Or……”
“…….”
“Is there a repayment you don’t want to receive from me?”
The moment I saw the look in his eyes, I knew I had found the right answer.
“Then tell me yourself what repayment you want, Your Grace.”
“…….”
“There’s no one here but you and me……”
The duke’s gaze moved.
He looked down at our hands, still half-entwined, and his thick fingers slid between mine as though rubbing against them.
He gently drew my hand toward him.
It did not even feel as though he were pulling me.
His dark gaze remained fixed on me, binding me completely.
I could not bring myself to look away.
He came close enough that the back of my hand brushed the corner of his mouth.
Each time his breath touched me, my skin burned as though scalded by fire.
At some point, his gaze lowered languidly.
After staring intently at my hand, he looked at me again.
“Teach me to dance.”
It was a whisper like a kiss.