Indecent sounds spilled uncontrollably from between her lips, causing Kaela to cover her mouth. But Peon, who immediately followed, removed her hand again.
“No, don’t. I said I want to hear everything.”
“But, it’s not proper…”
“Who cares if your husband is being wild?”
His eyes had literally rolled back. Throwing away all the self-control and self-reproach he had maintained until the very end, Peon devoured his wife bit by bit, pulling Kaela even closer without losing his composure or disturbing his breathing.
He interlaced her small hands one by one to prevent her from covering her mouth, and enjoyably admired her beautiful face as it trembled and fell backwards.
Kaela, placed on the bed still dripping wet, was soft, moist, and sweet.
Peon, who had only been tough, dry, and desolate, couldn’t help but crave her with crazed eyes. He left marks all over her fair skin that would turn red if grabbed, and made the calm and quiet Grand Duchess moan in ecstasy.
“Beautiful.”
Peon murmured, licking her lips with his thick tongue as he looked down at her.
“You, you are too beautiful.”
What should I do because you’re so beautiful? Holding even her small foot in one hand and kissing her ankle, he seemed out of his mind. Kaela recalled the night she had stolen just once. Peon had said the same thing then too.
[You’re as beautiful as a fairy.]
It was a painful confession made while trembling, not even recognizing who was in front of him in his dazed state. It must be a habit of his.
“Everything is beautiful. How did you even…”
No. This man who was admiring and calling every part of her body beautiful, even parts that couldn’t be called beautiful, while simultaneously worrying that she was too small, was completely different from that man back then.
Unlike the Peon then, who was severely ill and pickled in alcohol and drugs, drifting in and out of consciousness, the current Peon seemed to have his reason intact while being crazy.
Kaela wanted to say something. She wanted to utter words like “just a little slower,” or “don’t do that there,” or “that’s enough now.”
But the man who had gently melted away Kaela’s embarrassment at the lewd sounds and ultimately made her crave him to the point of tingling, didn’t even allow her the chance to say such things.
It would have been better to beg and plead. Her brain felt like it was melting from the heat.
“Stop, please…!”
He wasn’t a very skilled person. Rather, he seemed afraid of making mistakes. He endured clumsily and roughly, cherishing her until Kaela fully accepted him, gritting his teeth. He endured so much that Kaela felt like she would rather die.
“Give me a little more.”
Peon murmured, pressing his lips tightly against her hot flesh. His smooth black hair scattered between her fingers.
Her small hands, which she had forcibly removed because she couldn’t dare to grab, twitched in the air. Peon let out a chuckle tinged with a strange tension. Kaela shuddered as she felt all of this through her skin.
“Why? You can grab my hair.”
You should grab it and threaten me to do it well.
The voice teaching such nonsense was muffled. Her reddened heels scraped against the bed sheets. Peon was quick to get used to things once he grasped them, and applied them ingeniously. It was the same now.
Kaela gasped for breath. Even though Peon wasn’t kissing her right now, her small chest swelled.
Peon had already learned how to kindly regulate Kaela’s breathing every time he kissed her. So her rapid breathing was entirely her own fault.
It was the fault of her who trembled violently in pleasure at the slightest stimulation. Kaela’s clear eyes grew hazy and tears welled up. She gripped his hand, which was too big and painful, until her knuckles turned white, then finally let go.
“Kaela.”
The fact that he clearly called her name was more stimulating than anything else, giving her an intense pleasure that was almost frightening. It wasn’t a case of mistaking her for someone else. Peon wanted Kaela, not Beatrice.
As he raised his head and moved up, she did something bold that she had never done before, sobbing.
Her slender arms embraced and pulled Peon closer. He gladly allowed himself to be drawn in by the fragile force. His handsome face glistened with moisture. He wiped away the tears falling from Kaela’s eyes.
“Are you scared?”
The usually cold and indifferent man checked on her with great care. Kaela shook her head slightly in his hand.
“I see.”
“Please…”
Between gasping breaths and a melting consciousness, Kaela barely managed to form a word.
“What?”
“Your Highness, ah…”
The man worshipping her with his entire body gently stroked her body with his long fingers, disliking the formal title. He had been so attentive for so long that even the slightest touch made her body jump. Peon was also finding it hard to hold back, but he disliked that form of address.
“I don’t know who you’re calling, Kaela.”
“Hng…”
Kaela cried. Her head felt like it was about to burst. Should she just embrace him?
“Your Highness, please…”
No, he didn’t like it. His wife was someone who built walls and drew lines by elevating her speech and form of address.
“You don’t call me that, Kaela.”
My wife. He kissed her softly, not granting any of her wishes. Kaela kept leaning into him, still crying. Peon whispered as he embraced her.
“Call me like you used to.”
It was a plea. As he caressed her back, he pleaded. Peon wasn’t spending this night as a Grand Duke.
“What did you use to call me?”
It was such a long time ago for him. Unfortunately, it was the same for Kaela. She tried her best to move her confused mind.
What did I call him? Her small, pursed lips barely formed the old term of address. He could tell just from the shape of her lips.
“Yes. That’s right.”
He finally answered. As he replied, he tightly embraced his wife, whom he loved deeply but couldn’t dare to confess his love to.
In Kaela’s tears, which should have been filled only with joy, other emotions were mixed. Perhaps today might be the last. Both of them knew well that this relationship might have an expiration date, which made them more desperate.
If today was the last, he couldn’t let go even more. Kaela awkwardly and shyly reached out to pull him closer.
“…Oppa.”
Peon oppa. She called him as a new bride who had lost her father once affectionately called her husband, her only new family. Kaela called out this term of address, barely able to utter it in her delirious state.
“Oppa, ah…”
“Does it hurt?”
Her blue eyes lost focus. Her lips, constantly colliding and moving, repeated the same word. Peon smiled.
“Ah. You’re being needy.”
How can she be this pretty and cute at the same time? He lowered his body more and kissed every corner of Kaela’s whimpering face.
Her small hands carefully felt and clung to his thick forearms that had come closer. She could have just hugged him tightly, but even in her state of lost reason, Kaela couldn’t approach Peon as much as she wanted.
Did she still think of him as someone else’s man?
“I’m yours, Kaela.”
I’m sorry I still can’t give you confidence. It hurt him deeply. Her small face, which had been thrashing about mindlessly, suddenly stopped, and her eyes opened wide. A silent moan burst from between her luscious lips.
From the start, Kaela was too small compared to Peon, and Peon was objectively too big.
So he was considerate again and again to the point where sweat beaded on his forehead, but at some point, all reason evaporated from his condensed pupils, leaving only animalistic instinct.
Her small hands, which couldn’t even pull strongly before, gradually moved up to pull him, and eventually, unable to pull anymore, ended up leaving scratches on his splitting back muscles with raised nails.
A bright red, small mark. It was the first mark she had ever left on him. The muscles that had been tense and then trembling contracted and then moved more violently.
The veins bulged on the back of his large hand resting beside her round shoulder. Bestial moans filled the room.
****
As soon as the battle ended, the Grand Duke returned and locked himself in a room with the Grand Duchess. All sorts of instructions came out of that room, while only food and water went in. No one else entered or left.
Cecile and Denise walked around with bright smiles, Marie was excited along with her sisters though she didn’t know why, and Lady Silenster energetically led the work inside the castle.
Sir Renard, who could be said to have contributed the most, wore a constant smirk. Except for the families of the fallen soldiers, there was no one to be sad about, as they had won the battle.
However, there were people with gloomy expressions inside the castle.
“There’s no other way.”
Beatrice, who had suffered a great humiliation that shouldn’t have happened last night and confirmed that she had no influence over Peon, gritted her teeth.
“Then… what should we do?”
The butler asked with a pale face, then tightly shut his eyes.
Last night, as soon as he returned, Peon had a long conversation with the Emperor’s inspector.
Why would the inspector, who needed to report the incident to the Emperor, have a long talk with Peon? Anyone could see it was because the inspector, having nothing else to do during the five days of battle, had been poring over the butler’s confiscated ledgers.
They had hidden things well enough. There were plenty of numbers that could be manipulated – supplies, costs of buying supplies, received budget, military funds, last year’s remaining balance – and there were many excuses to give if caught.
However, everything was too suspicious to be dismissed with such excuses. Everything pointed to Butler Rolf Anderson, the Baron. At a time when he should be embraced and respected for his endless devotion to Lusenford, he was being attacked from all sides.
The Southern-born Grand Duchess, who didn’t know much and wasn’t from a well-known family, had suddenly appointed Lady Silenster as the head maid and arbitrarily changed the head chef, and was now controlling the Grand Duke.
“His Highness has been bewitched by that Southern woman.”
Beatrice frowned deeply. It was something she hated to hear.
“Yes. That’s the problem.”
Peon had said that even if Kaela went out and bore an illegitimate child, he would raise it himself. Coincidentally, only the butler and Beatrice here had heard that.
“So we need to take drastic measures too.”
“Pardon?”
Drastic measures? The butler looked at Beatrice with fearful eyes, sure that she must have learned something terrifying in Crania.
Despite his fear, his eyes were full of hope. If it was Beatrice, who had a firm grip on Crania’s social circles that the people of Lusenford secretly admired, she might be able to resolve this situation somehow.
She handed the butler two crystal bottles, one slightly larger than the other. Both contained liquids.
“What is this?”
“Poison.”
“What?”
Beatrice glared at the butler, frowning again.
“We’ve come this far, so stop saying stupid things. We don’t have time. If they strike first, it’s over for you, butler. Don’t you understand? Even Doris was almost killed and was only exiled because Kaela told them not to kill her. Do you want to be exiled too? Imagine being thrown out with nothing, today or tomorrow.”
The butler was suddenly at a loss for words. Looking at his aged face that had turned ashen, Beatrice snapped at him.
“Do you understand now? If you just stand there wringing your hands and wondering what to do, you’ll only end up being victimized. If they’ve already made their move, we need to move too. It’s already too late, so we have no choice but to use more severe and extreme methods.”
More severe and extreme methods.
The butler swallowed hard. He didn’t even know if the former head maid was alive or dead. No one had cared about her.
She might have lost her life to the foreigners who moved south during this battle, barely surviving with the help of relatives in a cold place.
The butler didn’t want to end up like that. There was no greater humiliation than being driven out—he, the pillar of the Anderson family, who had been guarding the north for generations, because of a woman from the south with a strange accent. Even in death, he must not become like Doris Windgood.
“What’s in the crystal is evidence. Don’t even think about touching it. Just present it as evidence as it is. And use what’s in the small bottle.”
“How?”
Beatrice looked at the butler with an expression that suggested he was asking the obvious.
“You eat half, and Peon eats half.”
The butler was so shocked he couldn’t even answer. Beatrice slapped him across the face. The sound of the slap echoed, but no one heard it.
“Wake up! The inspector will leave for Crania soon. Once he reaches Crania, it’s over. Understand?”
No, he didn’t understand. The butler was looking at Beatrice with a dazed expression. Why couldn’t he understand right away? Lusenford is crawling with idiots. Beatrice was dying of frustration.
“What’s in this crystal bottle is poison. They say Kaela brought it from the south. It was part of her dowry. But the chef has changed, right? If there was even a little poison in the food you or Peon ate, who could be blamed?”
Only when explained in such detail did he barely understand. Beatrice was dissatisfied with everything here, wondering why they couldn’t act on their own.
“B-but, that’s too risky…”
“So, would you rather be exiled? It’s the same whether you die this way or that. If it goes well, Kaela dies by Peon’s hand. If it doesn’t or if you do nothing, the butler gets exiled or dies.”
The butler couldn’t say anything.
“Don’t give me nonsense about the situation not being that serious. You already know it is. I’ll help you, so it can work out.”
Saying this, Beatrice grumbled. The humiliation she suffered from Peon last night added fuel to the bedroom issue she had with Kaela when she first arrived here.
Not only kicking her out but kicking her leg for being an obstacle to closing the door! Beatrice could never forgive Peon.
“I’ve already taken some steps.”
Even while enduring that humiliation, she diligently poured poison into Peon’s ears. Beatrice, who had instinctively clung to Peon since childhood, learned and perfected the art of lacing her words with poison as she grew older.
Honestly, it doesn’t make sense for an adult man to be captivated by constantly repeated phrases like “You shouldn’t betray me” and “We are one body.”
But when you add sorcery to it, it’s a different story. Moreover, with the Emperor actually having a tight grip on the Empress, Peon had no choice but to comply given the circumstances.
She could never forgive him for daring to disobey when she had been manipulating him so well, like an easy toy.
Her plan was to make Peon deal with Kaela, whom he was currently hanging around with, by his own hands, and then make him lick Beatrice’s feet while crawling on the ground. If the stupid dog dared to rebel, he would need proper education.
“Start from today. If not now, it’s over.”
Beatrice pushed the weak-willed butler.
“Do you think Isidore, who’s not a fool but the heir to the Marquis Alemich title, can’t properly read a single ledger? How many inspectors did he bring that they couldn’t see that? How dare you take a noble for a fool? You’re already out of Peon’s favor. Move quickly.”
Because if he stayed still, Peon would cut off his head.
thsanks for the update