Chapter 10 Is This What You Got Married For?
Late at night.
Pride entered the mansion, making little noise.
He was late getting home.
“And my wife?”
“She has taken to her quarters.”
He asked in a low voice, and the escort who opened the door to greet him answered quickly.
He see.
He would have joined her for dinner if he could, but tonight had been particularly time-consuming to sort out the situation.
‘Because of those insignificant worms.’
His eyes narrowed and his escort tensed at his side.
Pride strode up the stairs, roughly loosening the tie of his new uniform.
He doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing, but the reactionary forces in District 3 are growing in number.
Like those rats in the gutter that he can’t catch, but they just keep coming back for more.
‘One of these days, I’m going to have to grab a blade and wipe them out.’
That was the most effective way to kill them.
But as they approached the gate, Pride’s wild, glittering eyes calmed.
Like a madman on a tranquiliser.
Or like a tamed animal approaching its trainer.
Very quietly, almost eerily so, he pushed open the door to the quarters and stepped inside.
A bed with a half-drawn canopy.
And there, lying beneath a thin quilt, her body curved in soft curves.
His wife, a holy woman, lay there.
Filling the room with the sweet scent of her body.
The scent alone was enough to bring him to ecstasy.
As he approached the bed with a mesmerized gaze, Pride paused.
he could smell the unwashed blood on his hands as he gripped his tie.
He’d soaped and scrubbed them several times before coming to the manor, but the amount of blood he’d been covered in today must have been too much.
With the smell of blood all over him, he cannot commit the impiety of lying next to a saint.
He need to calm down, … a little.
He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, trying to hide the ferocity in them.
He need to cool his head with some cold water.
Determined, he quietly made his way to the bathroom next door to their room.
His hands were as dexterous as ever as he stripped off his clothes.
In an instant, he was naked, and he poured cold water over his head as if it were holy water.
The muscles of his massive body twitched in spasms of their own accord, and his head throbbed.
The excitement of the nearly full day’s battle still hadn’t fully worn off.
He picked it up again, this time filled with cold water to cool his refusal to calm down.
But then.
As if sensing something, he spun around in an incredibly swift motion.
Drrrrk-.
The closed bathroom door had opened, just in time.
There, frozen in place by the doorknob, was his saint.
Wavy red hair, emerald eyes that he had always thought were more beautiful than jewels.
Pride stared down at her, not flinching or showing the slightest sign of surprise.
Her gaze, at first blankly meeting his eyes, then naturally dropped downward.
Her face turned as red as her hair, and the shawl she had wrapped around herself fell to the floor, as if she were terribly embarrassed.
Pride couldn’t help the smile that crept onto his lips.
***
Delphine froze in place, not bothering to pick up the fallen shawl.
She didn’t hear a sound.
Not her entrance, not the sound of the water running in the bathroom.
Tonight, for some reason, she couldn’t fall asleep easily.
For the past two nights, she’d woken up with no memory of falling asleep, even with a strange man in her bed.
She tossed and turned for a while, finally falling asleep.
She woke up again, close to dawn.
Her face was covered in a cold sweat.
In her dream, Pembroke Manor was covered in blood.
‘I need to wash my face…’
She opened the bathroom door, still exhausted from the nightmare, and saw a naked man.
At first, she didn’t know what to make of it.
It was the same as the first night. Muscles and scars dotting his massive body.
But then her gaze drifted downward.
Delphine’s eyes widened in horror, and she dropped the shawl she wore over her nightgown.
She had been trained as a bride for the nobility, and she knew there were differences between male and female bodies.
‘… But you didn’t tell me it would be this big, Anna!’
Knowing the outline of the first night’s proceedings, she felt like screaming for a moment.
The man looked down into her pale face and a small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
However, unlike his upturned mouth, his eyes were not smiling at all.
Intensely burning, bronze-coloured eyes scanned her features with a relentless intensity.
Delphine’s face flushed a deeper shade of red under his gaze.
It was as if their positions had been reversed, even though it was he who stood naked and she who was thinly clad.
“Uh, my mistake.”
Delphine blurted out, unable to stand the tension.
“I was just going to wash my face… Oops!”
She stumbled.
It wasn’t a quick or urgent move.
And yet, Delphine felt a tremendous amount of pressure.
Why?
Was it the fire in her eyes that belied her relaxed body language?
When he took a step forward, she took a step back.
But the difference in step width due to the length of their legs meant that within a few steps, they were almost touching.
“I, I have to go now…”
She stuttered.
Her hand reached back to grab the bathroom door knob in a desperate attempt to free herself.
Delphine sucked in a sharp breath at the heat of the man’s body against her bare skin.
Slowly, he lowered his head, his gaze fixed on her eyes.
His eyes, boiling hot, drew closer and closer.
She felt a strange tightening in her stomach at the intensity of his penetrating gaze.
What is this feeling? Why am I doing this?
Is this how a hunter feels in the presence of a beast?
Delphine shuddered with fear and nervousness at the unfamiliar sensation.
Finally, unable to think of running away, unable to muster the courage to push him away, naked as he was, she said sobbingly.
“Ow, it hurts.”
He wasn’t actually gripping her hand that hard.
But was it the heat that radiated from him, or the tingling sensations that plagued her body?
His touch against her bare skin felt almost violent.
To her surprise, his hand was quickly withdrawn.
Even more surprising, the man’s eyes widened in confusion.
“Lord… Pride?”
As she awkwardly spoke his name, the man swept his large hand across her face.
Beneath it, a gravelly voice muttered something resembling an expletive.
Delphine’s eyes widened in disbelief at the sight.
If anyone should be feeling dejected in this situation, it was her.
But why he was acting as if she had been molested was beyond her.
Delphine thought back to her thoughts from earlier in the day in the iris-filled garden.
This man is a mystery.
“… Don’t take this the wrong way.”
The man looked up again, his face regaining some of its composure.
What misunderstanding?
When Delphine raised one eyebrow, he added, looking troubled.
“I didn’t marry you for this.”
“I wonder if this is… why you were in such a hurry to marry me.”
“You didn’t seek a wife, you sought a courtesan… to satisfy your nightly lusts.”
She wondered if he cared what she said.
But it still left her with the question that had plagued her for the past three days.
So why had he married her?
If not to get drunk?
But she didn’t have the courage to ask that question in the presence of a naked man.
Delphine gave a small nod.
The man let go of her hand and didn’t turn around.
His posture and demeanor were so regal that it was hard to tell who was still naked.
“Are you going to stay like that?”
He asked lightly, seeming to have regained his composure and his usual graceful demeanor.
Delphine was taken aback by his words and stormed out of the bathroom.
***
Why did he marry her?
Not to take himself, …if he was not even Ioannes?
But the opportunity to ask that question never came again.
A week passed.
For all that time no man entered the mansion.
For someone who preached about the need to be faithful to one’s home after marriage, he was quite unfaithful.
Her husband’s absence from the house after only three days of marriage had the hired men watching her every day.
“How promising.”
“Yes, that’s what it means to be trusted by the Emperor.”
“It’s not good for him to stay at home too much, My Lady. Believe me!”
It was time for the now routine garden walk.
As she strolled along, her maids chattered and defended their new master.
“Never mind, I’m fine, I don’t need to make excuses for him.”
Delphine stopped suddenly and gazed out over the desolate winter garden.
The irises that had once bloomed in abundance had only lasted a few days before they all withered in unison.
And the flowers were not the only thing that had changed in the past week.
Ten days had passed since her father’s treason.
Spending time away from the man who had caused her so much confusion, Delphine slowly began to come to terms with the situation.
And finally, she was determined.
Determined to uncover the man’s identity.
