Chapter 47

Just as expected.

When spoken to this far, she had always been a woman with enough sense to lower herself on her own. Harold, thinking perhaps he had rushed all the way here for nothing, lifted his chin.

But the Duchess’s face, which by this point should obviously have backed down, was strange.

Just as he even began to feel humiliated by that indifferent expression, as though some dog were barking beside her, Yvonne let out a sigh as if she could hardly bear it.

“It sounds as though you are telling me to make do with the drawing room connected to my bedroom, as I have been doing now. As you know, the studio I requested from you over the past three years still has not been prepared. Yet here you are, forcing me to speak aloud of your shortcomings as a butler, which is truly awkward for me.”

What Harold had intended as a remark to remind her of her duties as Duchess instead returned as a reply criticizing his own incompetence, leaving him dumbfounded.

Then he noticed that not only the workers but even passing servants were glancing this way.

Only then did he feel that something was strange. No, ever since the Duchess had returned, he had sensed it inwardly, but now it felt as though he could feel it with his whole body.

The Duchess was trying to reclaim all of her authority now. In order to take back from him the rights that should naturally have been hers from the moment of her marriage, she was deliberately invoking rank and hierarchy where other people could see.

“The fact that you ran all the way to the company just to seek permission means either that you have forgotten a butler’s duties, or that you have no judgment.”

At the look in Yvonne’s eyes, as though asking whether she needed to explain it even further, a tainted light entered Harold’s gaze.

The air around him, humiliated by a mere young woman from an Earl’s house, was fierce, but Yvonne’s own bearing was no less cold.

Even as he told himself he must not be cowed by a woman’s force, his throat went dry without him noticing. In the end, Harold grasped the frame of his glasses and coolly feigned innocence.

“How could that be? I can only say I’m bewildered by your misunderstanding, Madam.”

“If you don’t want to be misunderstood, then mind your actions. And I believe you have something to give me.”

Yvonne extended her hand toward his face.

Reading clearly the gesture asking for the key, a stifled groan escaped Harold’s throat.

Swallowing the humiliation, he handed over the bunch of keys he had kept to his chest with pride for over twenty years.

* * *

After returning to her room, Yvonne quietly studied the key in her hand.

At the head of the golden key passed down through generations only to the lady of the house of the Polshared ducal residence, the family crest, a wolf pattern delicately engraved into it, gleamed with exquisite detail.

“For something as small as this single key, why did it take me three years to obtain it?”

There had been a time when she was hurt by the butler’s refusal to hand over this key. Though she had already formally come of age, he had looked at her as if she were some ignorant young girl, and especially when it came to this key, he always found one excuse or another not to give it to her.

The key, shining with a strange light running along its grain, belonged to a room passed down from generation to generation to the Duchess of Polshared. Inside that room were stored costly items, including jewels and swords bestowed by the royal family.

Because it was a space filled only with expensive, high-quality items, the door was always kept locked, and there was only one key capable of opening the lock, which had been made impossible to duplicate. Only the Duchess of this residence was allowed to possess it.

However, after the previous Duchess left, there had been no lady of the house, so the butler had taken over that role, and for more than a year after Yvonne married into this house, he still had not handed over the key that rightfully should have been passed to her.

In truth, Yvonne herself had not even learned of the existence of that room until well over a year after the marriage, so she could not have asked for it sooner.

But even when she learned of the room and cautiously brought it up, Harold had opposed handing it over.

‘It has only just been one year since you began bearing the name Polshared. As you know, the exemplary Duchesses of the past took pride in declaring themselves its rightful lady of the house. But Madam, do you not still lack the capacity for that.’

His tone had been gentle, but his words had quietly put Yvonne in her place.

At the time, those words had hurt her inwardly, but she had not been able to insist strongly on receiving it. He had been speaking pointedly of the Yvonne of that time, who could not even calculate properly and did not know how to read documents, but she had endured it because she did not want to cause conflict.

And in truth, he had not been entirely wrong. In the education given by the Earl and Countess, there had been no method of building knowledge beyond refinement and etiquette. All that had ever been demanded of her was to adorn herself day after day and cultivate an exterior that would sell well for a reasonable price whenever she was pushed into the marriage market.

So for two years, Yvonne had studied secretly, poring over books related to figures and accounts. She still was not all that confident, but she was no longer the same as she had been back then, when she had never received the ordinary education noble children did.

“I’ve been too soft all this time.”

Everything she had endured out of affection for Carlisle, hoping that someday he would remember her, suddenly felt hollow in the face of this single key in her hand.

From childhood, Yvonne had known that to obtain something, one had to give up or sacrifice something else. It was the same as when she had been protected by the children called the leaders, while at the same time having to do as they told her.

To protect the children of Euphoria, she had to walk of her own will into the house of Earl Sellus, from which she had once fled so desperately, and in order to provide them with a good quality of life, she had to endure the *buse of the Earl and Countess.

This marriage had been no different.

Now that things had gone awry from the plans she had calculated after the divorce, for the time being she had to act as though she were following Carlisle’s wishes and buy time to prepare for what came later.

That was why this time, merely enduring and bearing it blindly as she had before would not be enough.

This time, she intended to act differently, whether it was constantly watching other people’s moods or behaving with a half-abandoned heart while looking only for his affection. Even her life in this mansion, which she had neglected because she planned to leave before long, would now be lived differently than before.

Even if everything she enjoyed now belonged to that man Carlisle, she had to use it.

Because she was not, by nature, a good person.

As she steeled her resolve again, she heard the sound of the door opening. Turning, Yvonne quickly concealed the surprise on her face when she saw Carlisle standing there.

Loosening the tie fastened up to the end of his throat, Carlisle strode inside.

“You’re bolder than you look. I hear you tore down the annex.”

“The butler went to you and complained, didn’t he? I heard he went all the way to the company and made a whole fuss.”

“If you’ve made a deal, then show some sincerity. Don’t waste your energy testing strength against an old butler.”

“It seems you never considered that the butler acted entirely on his own.”

At the tone that treated it as nothing more than stubbornness over a trivial matter, Yvonne let out a bitter laugh.

She had never expected anything from him in the first place, so she turned her head away, when Carlisle, striding closer, fixed his indifferent gaze on her face.

“Did you hear it from Ethan?”

“What are you talking about all of a sudden?”

“……”

Staring fixedly at Yvonne’s face, he closed the lips he had been about to part.

What was that. Why stop in the middle of speaking.

Carlisle, arrogant and straightforward by nature, was never a man to trail off or stop midway once he had begun.

That made her look at him with puzzlement, when suddenly he took off his outer coat and dropped it to one side. Then he slowly began unfastening the top button of his shirt. Yvonne’s eyes widened at the sight of the firm upper abdominal muscles revealed through the half-open shirt.

“What are you doing?”

One corner of his mouth tilted up at an angle.

“I told you. The heir comes first.”

Yvonne’s eyes trembled slightly as she belatedly recalled the deal that she would bear him an heir. Before she could even voice a refusal, Carlisle, having removed his upper garments, pushed her body down and settled himself into place.

“Wait a moment. Do you really mean to do this every day? Like this…. Mm….”

The words trailing from her were scattered by the lips that suddenly pressed against hers.

When Yvonne’s startled lips parted, Carlisle opened the gap and thr*st in his tongue, wrapping around and sucking at the sensitive flesh. After drawing in the timid tip of her tongue and licking over every bit of the soft membrane inside her small mouth, his lips slowly slid away. The hot sensation that traced down her smooth neck and clung along the soft curve of her chest made her body tremble.

“Mmm, ah…”

A large hand slowly caressed the body pulled tightly into his arms. Her heart began to beat rapidly at the trail of that hand as it slid down over her thigh. The kiss that swept over the delicate flesh inside her mouth and sucked until the root of her tongue tingled was one thing, but the force of one hand kneading her br*ast could not be ignored either.

Watching her trembling eyes, Carlisle drove his tongue into her small lips while at the same time stripping away the robe wrapped around her body.

At last, the white skin revealed beneath shone beautifully. The tips of his thick-jointed fingers greedily grasped the soft flesh.

A jolt like an electric shock struck through her tensed body. Carlisle slowly curved his lips upward as he took in the sight of her flinching bare body.

“Better for us both to enjoy it than for me to just force it in from the start.”