Chapter 13

As for the man, hearing her words, he only tilted his head and smiled.

“I was wondering.”

“……Wondering?”

“Since you never came looking, I thought you had forgotten me.”

As he said that, the man drooped his brows.

“Ah…….”

“So that was it. You thought I was a dream.”

Honestly, it would not have been strange if he had felt offended.

But there was no sign of that at all in him.

If anything, he only gave off a strong sense of relief.

“That’s a relief, Ailey.”

With those words, the man smiled with an unbearably sweet face.

“That you didn’t simply have your fill of me and throw me away.”

“H-have a fill…… and throw……?”

While Ailey stammered, the man smiled again.

His face was so holy that even the strangely vulgar and indecent words clinging to the end sounded almost like a hallucination.

“I’m so happy to meet you like this.”

At the end of those words, spoken as though he truly meant them, his lips landed once more on her palm.

Sunlight spilling through the corridor window formed a natural halo behind him.

Ailey thought blankly.

‘That face really had not been a dream?’

She was so startled all over again that she only stood there, unable even to think of pushing him away.

“You can see the next exhibit down this corridor…….”

A rush of voices approached.

It sounded like the docent introducing the pieces that would soon go to auction, and the nobles following after him.

‘……People!’

The moment Ailey realized that someone was finally passing by, and that she could get out of here now.

“Shh.”

“Ah!”

As though they had to avoid those people, the man swept Ailey up into his arms.

Then he casually opened one of the corridor doors that was not locked and stepped inside.

It was a room furnished with a simple tea table and a sofa.

Ailey, startled, murmured,

“Huh? W-wait a moment…….”

“No, Ailey.”

“But I need to follow those people…….”

The moment he heard that, the man’s brows drooped.

His face looked so sad that it almost naturally seemed filled with melancholy, and Ailey could do nothing but falter again.

In the meantime, the man rubbed his cheek lightly against hers and whispered.

“You know what kind of rumors that pack of wolves would spread.”

“Rumors?”

Ailey widened her eyes to show she did not understand.

She was very aware of the softness of his cheek pressing against hers, but his voice was so serious that it was difficult to brush it aside.

“I know now what they always say about you, Ailey.”

As he said that, the man let out a sorrowful sigh.

At that moment, what stabbed through Ailey’s head were the sharp words of other people.

“Could it be that Baron Temish’s daughter actually has some flaw?”

“That must be why her fiancé keeps wandering outside.”

“I heard her temperament is quite awful.”

“And so vain too. Apparently she tormented and drove out a maid Kalan once glanced at.”

She had heard that sort of mocking gossip mixed with lies countless times ever since becoming engaged to Kalan.

More precisely, after the two of them remained engaged into adulthood…….

And even after that, when the marriage still did not properly proceed.

“There must be something wrong somewhere, so even the Ledaire family is hesitating.”

In truth, Ailey had known too.

That despite Kalan’s wandering habits, the Ledaire family had at some point stopped even feeling sorry toward her, and beyond that, just as people said, had become passive about properly moving the marriage forward.

‘Because my family was not really a beneficial match in many ways.’

The position of Baron Temish’s house had always been awkward at best.

Its status was not high, nor was its wealth considerable.

There had even long been rumors that the engagement between the two houses existed only because of some contract made long ago between Baron Temish and Marquis Ledaire in their younger days.

Some even speculated that very contract was why the Baron kept wandering outside.

But unlike the rumors, Ailey had no flaw serious enough to break off a marriage.

And since Kalan himself did not seem to have any wish to call off the engagement, the relationship between the two continued.

If anything, perhaps that itself had begun to displease the Ledaire family.

‘Very, very occasionally…….’

There were times when it almost felt as though the Ledaire family wanted Ailey to be the one to bring up breaking the engagement first, unable to bear Kalan’s affairs any longer.

‘Ah.’

Like that, the man’s words made her remember what she had been trying to forget.

The things she had passed over as though they were nothing now belatedly felt as though they were catching under her feet, like thorns had embedded themselves.

It felt as though tiny shards of broken glass were piercing her chest.

‘Why.’

Why bring up something she had tried to bury and make her heart hurt like this.

Just as she was about to grow irritated at the man for it.

The man whispered in a voice even angrier than Ailey herself.

“Ailey, you’re not someone who should hear such things.”

“…….”

“If it were me, I would never have let you hear words like that.”

As he said that, the hand drawing her into his arms was warm and gentle.

Ailey sucked in a shallow breath and looked up at him.

In those blue eyes tinged with gray, passion, some unknowable anger, and tenderness were all mixed together.

Like flower buds crushed to make pigment.

They were eyes she simply could not look away from.

“If people who speak such nasty things were to see you in a place this secluded…….”

At those next words, Ailey gave a start.

Was this place really that secluded?

‘If a docent was passing through, then wasn’t it actually fairly close to the hall?’

Maybe she had not wandered nearly as far as she had thought.

Maybe this place was in fact part of the area opened for the exhibition too……

But such thoughts scattered all at once at the man’s next words.

“If they saw you alone with another man who is not your fiancé.”

“…….”

“What kind of absurd rumors do you think they would spread?”

It did not feel as though the man was saying something unreasonable.

And the voice of reason that said this was broad daylight in the Imperial Inner Palace, a place close to the exhibition rooms, and that no such rumors would spread simply because a man and woman were standing in a corridor talking, that voice too gradually faded away.

For some reason, the man’s words felt right.

‘Right. Another false rumor might spread again…….’

All that remained was the thought that they truly must not be discovered.

As she unconsciously held her breath and darted her eyes around, the man kissed the side of her forehead as though he found even that adorable.

“Stay here until those wolves who spread ugly rumors are gone.”

“…….”

“Huh? Ailey.”

As he said that, the hand that had been subtly rubbing at her waist slowly crept upward toward her chest.

The movement was so natural, so fl*id, that Ailey only realized their position when that hand fully took hold of her br*ast and pressed at its peak.

“Ah!”

Only then did she realize that she was pressed back against the wall, held within the man’s arms.

And he was touching her body as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

‘This is…….’

Surely this was not.

That night at the ball, when she had been drunk, came back to her at once.

The pressure and pleasure that had overwhelmed her body then made her body flinch on its own.

You’re beautiful, Ailey.

You’re lovely.

Those whispers she had heard poured over her for the first time in her life, and the man’s hands that had touched her as though cherishing her.

The moment she remembered that, dampness gathered between her legs.

It was a deeply embarrassing thing.

‘I should refuse…… but…….’

Perhaps because she was flustered by the unexpected situation.

Or because her body had been overwhelmed by the memory of that time.

She could not bring herself to actively push the man away or reject him.

……No, if anything, it almost felt as though part of her was slightly expecting this.