Chapter 9 – A Thief Who Learned Too Late

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁣⁣⁠⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁠⁠⁣⁣⁠⁣⁣⁣⁣⁠⁣⁣⁠⁣⁠⁣⁠⁣⁠⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁠⁣⁣⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁣⁠⁣⁣⁣⁠⁠⁠⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁠⁣⁠“Miss, Miss Ailey!”

“Mmh, mm…….”

“Please wake up! There’s almost no time left!”

Flutter.

At the repeated urging falling one after another, the silver lashes that had been tightly closed slowly lifted.

“You’ll be late at this rate!”

Buried deep in the bed, Ailey only got up after the maid urged her once more.

The cold morning air stirred reality awake and returned Ailey to her everyday life.

“…….”

Ailey rubbed at her thighs, which still felt slightly sore, and at the area around her chest, which felt almost bruised, and thought.

‘That was a really strange dream.’

That day of the ball.

Or rather, it had already been several days since she had returned from the day she had, for the first time in her life, such a disorderly and indecent dream.

“Ah, ngh! W-wait, ah, I’m, I’m going, I’m going……!”

“It’s all right to let go as much as you want, Ailey.”

“I-I am……!”

The day she had drunk herself senseless and resented Kalan.

“Ah, i-it feels, good. Good…….”

“Do you like it here, Ailey?”

“Th-there, mmm!”

“Ah, adorable. So adorable.”

Even after finishing inside her, the man she met that day had kept moving and soon begun again, striking her senses over and over.

The intimacy that began that way only came to an end after Ailey’s head had been so thoroughly stirred up that she no longer even knew how many times she herself had reached the peak.

The sensation of sweat all over her body, of the seed the man had spilled both inside and outside her, and of the moisture she herself had released covering her white skin, had all been vivid…….

Yet when she woke after blacking out, she had been in her own bedroom at the Baron’s estate.

There had been no trace at all of what had happened.

Her pale body was as clean as if she had taken a bath.

All the sticky fl*ids were gone too, as though they had never existed to begin with.

She had even felt refreshed and clear, as if she had slept deeply for a very long time.

So much so that she wondered whether this was what it felt like to drink one of the special stamina potions said to exist only in the Imperial Household.

‘There wasn’t even a hangover.’

When she woke, there had been a faint smell of alcohol on her body, so it seemed that at least the part where she drank herself senseless and lost all reason had truly happened.

That much was clear just from the maid’s reaction as she looked at the newly awakened Ailey with pity and handed her a tea said to help with hangovers.

In her hazy mind, Ailey sorted through the situation.

‘So then, at that time.’

She must have drunk until she was completely gone, and somehow, though she did not know how, managed to walk back to the Baron’s residence on her own two feet.

To the maids, she must have looked both pathetic and disgraceful.

‘It must have been quite a scene.’

But perhaps because she could not remember it, she did not feel embarrassed.

Or perhaps there was something else that embarrassed her more.

That dream of the man.

She had no proper memory of it, and there was not even a trace left behind.

So it surely had been a dream.

‘To have such an indecent dream.’

Though she had been burning with thoughts of revenge against Kalan, still.

Was it because, despite having no experience, she had imagined overwhelming Kalan so many times that only her imagination had grown more vivid?

The warmth and heat of another body, hands damp with sweat, the salty taste of skin…… all of it had been far too vivid to be merely a dream.

It had even been more specific than the fantasies she used to have about forcing herself on Kalan.

What was bewildering was not simply how vivid the dream had been.

The experience in the dream had truly felt good.

Good enough to make her think that perhaps such things were only possible in dreams.

“Ah. You like it when I touch you here, Ailey.”

“Mmm, s-stop…….”

“Let me learn more. Hmm?”

The moment she recalled the illusion of that man laughing low as he stirred through her body, her face flushed bright red again.

To think the illusion she herself had made had looked like that.

Had her true taste always been for men who looked that sacred and holy?

‘It really, really was a strange dream.’

Of course, this was not her first time ever having a faintly suggestive or peculiar dream.

But this one had been on another level entirely.

‘Before…….’

When she was younger and had dreams that were even a little improper, that is, dreams of entering a man’s bedroom and lying beside him holding his hand, or kissing a sleeping man.

The other person’s face had always been fixed as Kalan’s.

‘And he was always asleep.’

Sleeping Kalan never rejected her.

He did not say cruel things or laugh and flirt with other women.

He simply breathed evenly and offered that handsome face of his to Ailey.

In those dreams, Ailey would always lie there holding hands and kissing him, afraid of the moment Kalan would wake and reject her.

That was all.

She merely did the utterly ordinary things of lovers, things Kalan never easily allowed her in reality.

……And when she woke, she would feel miserable that she could not even be bold inside a dream.

‘But this time.’

The man in that dream did not wear Kalan’s face.

‘Ailey. Come here.’

‘I’ve waited far too long.’

The sacred and beautiful man who approached her saying that had handled Ailey’s body without the slightest hesitation and joined himself to her.

When she struggled, he moved slowly.

He struck exactly the places where she felt most keenly and drew her deeper into desire.

At times, he even kissed her while panting as if worshipping her.

And on top of that, he had even cried, saying she was too beautiful.

‘Wow. Thinking that all of that came from my own imagination…….’

It was truly mortifying, embarrassing, and miserable.

“So embarrassing.”

The words slipped out as a murmur on their own.

Anyone who heard would not merely laugh, but condemn her.

For imagining something so indecent, secretly sharing herself with another man while already having a fiancé.

‘But.’

The guilt of having felt desire for the imagined man instead of Kalan did not last long before quickly fading.

“…….”

Ailey glanced over the gossip paper lying on the tea table and turned her eyes away.

The gossip sheet dated yesterday carried yet another scandal Kalan had caused.

The young lady involved was the very same one who had been tickling his chin at the ball.

“Of course.”

Instead of coming to look for her that day, Kalan Ledaire had clearly gone back and spent time with that young lady.

And as though that were something to be proud of, it had boldly been printed in the gossip sheet again.

‘Still, if it were before, I would have gone in a rage to overturn the Ledaire Marquisate.’

After having that troublesome dream, she did not get as angry as she used to.

Of course, that only meant she was ‘less’ angry, not that she was not angry at all.

But not angry enough to go storming over and demand answers.

……Because her fiancé was that kind of man to begin with.

‘What was there to expect?’

The words in the gossip sheets and from the young ladies of society, saying she made too much fuss over him, were not entirely wrong.

She felt that perhaps she too ought to begin letting go of her expectations.

‘Kalan.’

He would still be like that after marriage.

And she would have to live for decades watching him remain the same.

To react to every little thing and make a fuss even before marriage somehow felt like wasting her strength.

It would be better to save that energy and…… dream of meeting that man instead.

‘What am I thinking?’

Ailey smiled bitterly and rose from the bed.

“Now then. You need to get ready.”

The maids who approached helped her out of her nightclothes and guided her to the bath.

Today too was a day with a social event.

‘Where was it again.’

Just as Ailey, her body still sluggish, was trying to recall today’s event, perhaps wanting to cheer up the unusually tired Ailey, one of the younger maids whispered while arranging her hair.

“Miss. Young Master Ledaire is coming directly as well.”

“Directly?”

“Yes. To escort you, Miss.”

“That’s unexpected.”

“…….”

At Ailey’s words, spoken without much feeling, the maids exchanged glances.

Ailey realized it and only after a beat opened her mouth again.

“I thought, naturally, he’d stop by a gentlemen’s club or…… a tea room first.”

“…….”

“And sometimes bring another young lady along too.”

At that added remark, spoken carelessly, the atmosphere turned even heavier.