“I’ve never heard of a home tutor signing a lifetime contract.”
Home tutors were contract workers.
Even if they stayed for several years, they would eventually leave.
Most home tutors were hired for young children, so it was natural for them to leave when the children grew up.
“I am not a growing child.”
The Duke asked why home tutors were contract workers, and Carol answered without hesitation.
“There’s not an infinite amount of things for me to teach.”
“But wouldn’t you stay for other reasons?”
“…”
When the home tutor and the student part ways, the two have nothing, but the Duke spoke as if there should be something, which was strange.
“If you wish for occasional visits…”
Honestly, it was enjoyable. Even if she wasn’t a home tutor, if he met the heroine like fate and settled down, then she thought it would be okay to visit once in a while.
However, the Duke clicked his tongue slightly as if he was dissatisfied with Carol’s answer.
“…Some birds imprint the first life they see after hatching from an egg as their parent.”
“…”
“The first person I properly faced after being born a monster was you, teacher.”
Carol thought that if she were the female protagonist, she might have taken his words as a confession.
She looked at his unfocused gaze. If their eyes had met, if she had been pierced by that gaze, what answer would she have given?
It’s just a hypothetical situation. Carol’s eyelashes fluttered.
“…Duke.”
She opened her mouth as if she had something to say, but the words mixed up in her mouth and she didn’t know what to say.
“I didn’t mean to burden you.”
“…”
“It may seem sudden and excessive, but please understand a little.”
The Duke covered his face with one hand and raised the other to apologize to Carol. It was a very polite and sad apology.
All he had left was money, and indeed, money could be a very good weapon.
But the Duke didn’t intend to say it like that. He rarely regretted his actions.
Perhaps because it was night, his faint reason was pierced by Carol’s words and his true feelings suddenly came out.
The Duke reached out and drank tea.
It was a very double-minded thought, but he was glad that she was not bought with money, though he wished she could be. The Duke quickly regained his composure by tapping the sofa with his fingers.
Carol also sat back on the edge of the sofa in the meantime.
Carol made a verbal mistake, and so did he.
“No, it’s okay.”
It was an unspoken agreement.
So the conversation just now became as if it never happened.
To protect his employees and himself, the Duke had designated a wider personal area than others.
‘It’s a ridiculously small space compared to what I have…’
Anyway, the Duke made it so that others couldn’t enter that distance.
So he was just interested in herself, who had inadvertently invaded a step.
His feelings are very small and momentary.
“It’s snowing.”
Carol suddenly looked at the window over his shoulder and said.
Thick snow began to fall between the deep darkness. The thickness of the snowflakes was unusual.
“It seems to be snowing a lot.”
“Yes. It would be nice if it stopped soon.”
There was still a lot of time left to ask to finish the class early.
“By the way, I think I heard that you’re originally hired as a resident home tutor…”
She naturally moved the conversation to another topic. Carol sighed with relief and answered his question sincerely.
“That’s right, but it’s impossible for me to be a resident home tutor.”
“Why?”
“Because of my family.”
“A harmonious family?”
“Well, and my younger siblings are still minors, so they need a guardian.”
Even though she called them younger siblings, they were about 0.7 feet taller than her, but to Carol’s eyes, they still needed to be protected.
“Ah, siblings.”
“Yes.”
“Is there no other guardian?”
“I’m the only adult.”
The Duke nodded, squinting his eyes.
‘It looks like a relieved expression…’
There was no part in the current conversation where he could be relieved. Carol tilted her head, but soon decided it was her misunderstanding.
Fortunately, the two were able to continue the conversation as if nothing had happened.
“Then it can’t be helped. Are you on good terms with your siblings?”
“Good. But I’m the guardian and my siblings are overprotective of me, so that’s a bit of a complaint.”
“Come to think of it, I also have… cough.”
The Duke coughed in the middle of his speech. Reflexively, he covered his face just before the cough and felt something strange. His keen sense of smell detected a foul odor.
When he removed his hand, a thick liquid fell from his palm to the floor.
At the same time, he felt a heat rising from within him, spreading through his blood vessels.
“Duke?”
She quickly approached him, her scent even obscured by the smell of blood. She paused, then touched his forehead with one hand.
“Oh my.”
“I’m fine.”
Soon, Carol’s complexion turned pale as she confirmed the blood pooled in his hand.
“You have…a high fever.”
Carol’s voice trembled like a trembling reed. She needed to take action, but her mind was stiff and she couldn’t move.
“Get the servant from outside…”
The Duke, who had made her dumbfounded, calmly asked Carol, as if this situation was a familiar one.
“Yes, yes. I’ll bring them right away.”
Thud thud thud.
Her hurried footsteps faded away. The Duke listened to her receding footsteps and leaned his neck against the back of the sofa.
Whoosh.
The snow outside the window was getting heavier.
****
Bang!
The door opened violently.
Mrs. Wells frowned at the rude sound of the door opening late at night.
Feeling that she couldn’t continue knitting, she put her knitting on her lap.
Then she put down her magnifying glasses on the side table. At this time, there was only one person who would come to the servant’s lounge.
“Miss Carol?”
“Mrs. Wells…!”
But soon, at the desperate voice, Mrs. Wells quickly turned around.
“…Calm down first.”
Carol, who had run with a tear-stained face, clung to Mrs. Wells’ arm as if she had forgotten to breathe.
Feeling that something was unusual, Mrs. Wells comforted Carol instead of pointing out that she had suddenly opened the door, and urged Carol to answer.
“What happened?”
“The Duke…”
At Carol’s words, Mrs. Wells’ complexion hardened.
****
Mrs. Wells said she would call the doctor, so Carol arrived at the Duke’s room first. As she entered the room, there was a pool of blood on the sofa. The trail of blood stopped in front of the bed.
“Duke?”
Carol shuffled her feet. He didn’t answer. It felt like the distance between the two had returned to the first day.
He was in bed, and she was standing outside, unable to do anything. She grabbed and released the curtain around the bed repeatedly.
Grrr.
Instead of an answer, a beast-like, rough breath was heard. Carol paced nervously near the Duke’s bed.
“Mrs. Wells has gone to bring the doctor, so please wait a little.”
The curse did not just rob one of the senses and turn one into a beast.
Severe pain. As if burning the skin with a hot iron, the pain came without warning.
When the thread of reason thinned at night, he forgot how to endure the pain and gnashed his teeth in anger.
In [The Reason for Pointing a Sword at Your Throat], the Duke’s misfortune is described at great length.
How brilliant and overwhelming a ruler he was, how much that ruler fell to the abyss.
How much the rampage and the deeds he committed afterwards destroyed the Duke.
But now, the pain that occasionally comes as a price for turning from a human into a beast was described very briefly.
It was just text. Those who experienced the reality did not know how long and painful a momentary description could be.
Even if it was not described long in text, the pain was a real pain for him, which did not disappear or shorten.
There were things she didn’t know before she met him.
Because she would cross the long tunnel like darkness someday, because death would be close to rest for him.
‘In fact, I knew very well that he wanted to live.’
She felt guilty enough to pierce her lungs for thinking of ignoring him for a moment and only looking after her own safety.
“I, ask you to leave.”
A voice like scraping metal. It was clearly worse than before.
“Duke? Are you okay?”
“I don’t want to, show this, state.”
“If anything happens…!”
“There’s probably nothing you can do.”
“…”
His voice cut off. Every breath he exhaled was heavy.
“So please leave.”
It was a clear expulsion order.
She understood. Being here would only be a hindrance. What he needed was a narcotic painkiller.
She was nothing to him, so she couldn’t help in any way.
“But…”
She still wanted to stay by his side.
Fortunately or unfortunately, before Carol could utter those words.
Knock knock.
There was a knock from outside the room.
“It’s Julian.”
It was the doctor.
Thank you for the chapter ❤️