Duke, Please Let Go of My Ankle! - Chapter 35 - 4. The Signal Dodori Sends
Merry Christmas to all my readers! To celebrate, I’m treating you to extra chapter updates. Please enjoy this special release of four bonus chapters! °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°
(Lurelia’s Christmas Bonus – Update 2/4 🎉)
♡ To all readers who purchased these chapters before Christmas: I can’t express this enough – Thank you for your support. (*ˊᗜˋ*)/ᵗᑋᵃᐢᵏ ᵞᵒᵘ*
After Claude and Emilia disappeared, an awkward silence fell over the table.
Audrey was still in shock.
The image of Emilia stroking Claude’s arm and urging him to leave quickly wouldn’t leave her eyes.
‘I, I…… was so happy even with just a brush of fingertips, so I didn’t know what to do.’
Audrey had only managed to hold his hand under the pretext of reading his palm. Or more accurately, she had just touched it.
But for Emilia, everything seemed easy and natural.
Placing her hand on his shoulder, leaning on him, even gently stroking his arm.
‘This isn’t even a fair game……’
Audrey had completely lost her will to fight.
She felt foolish for momentarily thinking that her jealousy strategy had succeeded.
Meanwhile, the hot guys and two women who had already made eye contact were exchanging subtle signals.
“We’ve finished our meal, so how about we split into pairs now?”
“Good idea. To get to know each other, you need romantic time alone, baby.”
“Now we’re finally heading to our private paradise.”
“Um, are you okay with this?”
“Huh……? Oh, yes.”
Audrey, who had been sitting in a daze, found herself agreeing before she knew it.
Everything went smoothly after that.
As if they had planned it beforehand, it was agreed that the women would choose the men’s belongings.
“You go first and choose one.”
Audrey was the first to go.
Although it wasn’t the time to be leisurely choosing objects, she looked them over anyway.
Two bibs, one acorn-shaped brooch, and a dagger conspicuously placed in front of her.
‘This isn’t some spot-the-difference game!’
The faces of the owners seemed to overlap with the objects.
Was it just her imagination that the answer seemed predetermined?
“Go ahead and choose.”
“……”
Her hand, naturally reaching for the acorn-shaped brooch, hesitated.
‘Oh no! I shouldn’t choose my Brother, right?’
If she did, what would be the point of bringing her brother to the blind date?
Arnold looked disappointed, but this was all for his sake.
Then the bibs caught her eye.
Immediately, heated gazes flew at her from all directions.
‘Not the bibs, not the bibs!’
‘Please go for the one next to it……’
The hot guys already had their matches.
“……”
Audrey’s gaze circled back to the dagger in front of her.
Even knowing this was her only option, she couldn’t bring herself to reach for it.
This made Duke Frith anxious.
‘Yes, that’s it! Just pick it up. That’s all you need to do.’
He stared at Dodori’s fingertips without blinking once.
He was practically advertising that the object was his.
Especially when Dodori’s fingertips seemed about to miss the dagger, his gaze darted towards it, unnecessarily frightening.
“I’ll take.”
“……”
“Th-this one.”
In the end, Audrey had no choice.
Choosing the bib would have made her feel like a terrible person.
Unaware of these circumstances, Derek clenched both fists under the table.
‘This is fate!’
How could she have picked his item out of so many? How did she know?
This could only be explained as destiny.
It seemed the two of them were fated to love each other from birth.
***
“Today was fun. Now it’s time to part ways and follow our compass of destiny!”
“Drey, won’t you come with your Brother?”
“……What are you saying? Go have a cozy time with Miss Rosy.”
“It’ll be more fun if the four of us play together. Hm?”
“I’m afraid that won’t work.”
Duke Frith immediately drew the line.
It was unlike the person who had been exceptionally lenient towards Arnold throughout the blind date.
“Chess is a game for two, you see. We’re going to play chess.”
“But if we divide into teams-“
“It would halve the fun.”
“……”
Arnold’s insistence was neatly settled by Duke Frith.
“Get in.”
“……Yes.”
Audrey gave up the carriage to her Brother and instead boarded her boss’s carriage.
“Is there anywhere in particular you’d like to-!”
“……!”
─Rustle.
The two, who were about to sit across from each other without thinking, jumped in surprise when their knees touched.
Duke Frith stuck to the window, and Audrey to the door, looking like magnets with the same poles facing each other.
“Let’s…… switch seats.”
“I-I-I’m f-fine here.”
Derek imagined the worst-case scenario.
What if Dodori rolled out of the door? What if she fell from the moving carriage?
“Your entire body would be shattered to pieces.”
“Eek!”
However, Audrey, thoroughly frightened, burrowed into the corner of the carriage.
‘Ah, no! We definitely had a contract……!’
What was this sudden death threat about?
Threatening to shatter her entire body just for not switching seats!
What a capricious man. He was utterly unpredictable.
‘Perhaps…… he wanted to be paired with someone else?’
She recalled the blood-red eyes that had stared at her as if to devour her the moment she chose the dagger.
Yes. Those were definitely eyes full of resentment.
“……”
Audrey quietly stood up and changed seats. She didn’t want to upset him unnecessarily.
‘I take back what I said about a leashed hunting dog being just a fierce-looking dog.’
A hunting dog is just a hunting dog after all.
Audrey realized that the ‘Chief Mage contract’ she had believed in like a talisman actually guaranteed nothing.
So the only option was to quickly go home before being bitten by the hunting dog.
“Is there anywhere you’d like to go?”
“No!”
“……”
Audrey refused immediately.
But feeling she might have been too rude, she added a lengthy excuse.
“I, I have a curfew.”
“What time?”
“Um, well, nine o’clock?”
“It’s now seven-thirty.”
“But somehow I feel like it might be eight o’clock today!”
“I see.”
Derek nodded seriously.
Isn’t that how curfews usually change, fluctuating like this?
He didn’t want to trouble Dodori with unnecessary greed. That would be selfishness, not love.
“Let’s go to the Kevelson Count’s residence.”
“Yes. We’ll depart now.”
After the carriage started, both were silent for a long time.
Being trapped in the enclosed carriage made even their breathing sound awkward.
The two, stiff as boards and staring at the empty seat across, looked like wooden dolls.
‘How should I start the conversation?’
But Derek was carefully choosing his words internally.
He had made a resolution after hearing about Dodori’s blind date yesterday.
Of course, he knew he was the guilty one and had no excuses even with ten mouths.
But he felt anxious that if he just waited for Dodori to understand his true feelings, he might stupidly lose her.
‘If she’s this pretty and cute in my eyes, surely others see her the same way.’
After all, Derek wasn’t the only one with eyes.
The more terrifying fact was that this blind date might not be the last.
Derek admitted he had been foolish.
‘Even the greatest love is useless if not expressed.’
He wasn’t playing charades with Dodori.
So instead of waiting for her to understand his true feelings, he sometimes needed to be honest.
Now was that moment.
“You are absolutely not a useless parasite.”
“……Pardon?”
“Neither a grub nor a grasshopper.”
Audrey blinked in confusion.
The sudden insect talk after so long seemed out of place.
Duke Frith was staring straight ahead with a stiff face.
“I wanted to apologize. For not recognizing you and hurting you with my words.”
“……”
“For hurting your feelings.”
“Oh, my feelings weren’t that hurt……”
“You don’t have to pretend to be okay. I understand now that I’ve put myself in your shoes.”
Duke Frith smiled bitterly.
“How painful it is to be rejected by the one you love.”
“……What?”
What on earth was he talking about?
Audrey was dumbfounded, wondering if she had misheard something.
It seemed like an apology, but somehow the nuance was strange.
“I go to heaven and hell thousands of times a day. You must have felt the same.”
“……No, wait.”
“Knowing how you feel, I can’t bring myself to force anything. I can only say that I’ll wait.”
Green eyes awkwardly glanced sideways at the other person.
Somehow, it felt uneasy.
“But I want you to know just one thing.”
“……”
“Even if you were the one who started it, now I like you more.”
“……!”
“So I’ll wait. Until the day comes when we can read letters together and laugh.”
Ah, Audrey felt like she might faint at any moment.
***
After the sudden bomb of a confession, the carriage was enveloped in awkward silence.
Her eyes, trembling as if in an earthquake, were filled with shock and fear.
Audrey couldn’t figure out where to start correcting this absurd misunderstanding.
‘He said it was a threatening letter, that I’d pay a bloody price!’
Now she understood why Duke Frith had been so desperately searching.
It was to punish her thoroughly with a confession!
‘What should I do?’
In the end, Audrey had ended up confessing to the wrong man.
She wanted to blurt out right away that it wasn’t true, that she wasn’t crazy, that she liked someone else, but…
‘What if I’m charged with insolence on top of everything else?’
She had no defense even if her head were to roll for attempting to scam a duke with a letter.
While Audrey was agonizing without being able to make a single excuse, the carriage arrived at the Kevelson Count’s residence.
─Screech.
“One moment.”
“……?”
As soon as the door opened, Duke Frith unexpectedly cut in.
Getting out of the carriage first, he stamped the ground once with his shoe.
He couldn’t risk Dodori’s wheat bread-like feet getting pierced by a stone.
“It’s fine now. You can get out.”
Then he abruptly extended his hand to her as she was about to step out of the carriage.
But just as Audrey was about to get out, Derek withdrew his hand as if teasing her.
‘What a lecherous pervert!’
He belatedly realized his mistake.
Didn’t he look like someone desperate to hold Dodori’s hand?
Instead, he offered his bent arm.
It was as if he was welcoming a royal envoy.
T/n: I don’t know whether I should laugh or feel sorry for him. Gosh this is so good
Translator
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
arwendolyn
My poor guy 😭