In the Place where the Golden Rose Was Broken - Chapter 8

Despite the depth being shallow enough for an adult to stand, the woman stubbornly clung to Arcturus with no intention of letting go.

“M-My leg…”

“Your leg?”

“I’ve got a c-cramp…”

“Ah-“

No wonder she couldn’t stand up and was floundering in water that wasn’t even deep…

Arcturus looked down at the woman clinging to him as if he were a lifeline, and let out a sound that could have been either a sigh or a hollow laugh.

Can’t be helped.

He carefully wrapped his arms around the woman’s thighs and waist and moved to get out of the swimming pool.

However, with each movement, he felt a bit strange, as he was experiencing something unfamiliar.

Due to being soaked, the woman’s thin clothes clung to her skin, giving the impression that he was embracing a naked body.

It wasn’t that he had any lecherous thoughts about intimate contact with a woman he had no connection with. After all, he was helping someone in distress. But it wasn’t as if he felt nothing either. First of all, this situation itself was absurd and unfamiliar.

Whether it was unpleasant or not, it was difficult to define as one or the other.

After climbing the ladder and getting out of the swimming pool, Arcturus put down the woman he had been carrying. Looking at her legs, it seemed that she really did have a simple cramp.

“Still can’t stand?”

“…No.”

Even if she could stand, it would be difficult to let her go in this state anyway. He couldn’t just leave a woman soaked from head to toe.

As this was a high-class hotel where only the upper class could stay, the woman probably didn’t have a room here. The man named Joseph or Geoseff who had been violent earlier would have booked the room.

He couldn’t send the woman there.

“First, let’s change your clothes.”

Arcturus looked down at her body, where her underwear was faintly visible, with a neutral gaze and took off his jacket.

Although it was equally wet, it was to cover her body so that no one would see her on the way to the new room.

“Let me carry you, unfortunate miss.”

“…Thank you, sir who enjoys others’ misfortunes.”

While she retorted without backing down, Karen obediently nestled into Arcturus’s arms. However, she couldn’t hide her blushing cheeks.

Unlike her mysterious appearance on stage, this dancer seemed quite prim and proper up close.

Though unintended and not particularly curious about it,

Arcturus didn’t find that gap unpleasant.

***

In the early hours of the morning, Sierra came down to the first floor of the hotel.

She had sneaked out of the room while Caetro was asleep to look for Arcturus, but couldn’t find him anywhere. She had searched all the public spaces available to hotel guests, but to no avail. Arcturus, who usually listened well to his only blood relative Jude Cullen if no one else, wouldn’t have returned home without saying anything.

Finally, after much deliberation, Sierra approached the hotel front desk.

At least if Arcturus had left the hotel, the staff might have seen him.

“Have you seen Arctur… I mean, Duke Arcturus Cloen? My fiancé’s brother hasn’t returned late into the night, and he’s worried.”

She expected one of two answers: either they hadn’t seen him or they had seen him leaving the hotel.

“Duke Arcturus booked an additional room… Didn’t you know?”

Sierra is known as the Golden Rose of the Empire, though not as famous as Arcturus. The staff readily answered Sierra, who is considered as good as family to the Cloen household, knowing that she is Caetro’s fiancée.

And that answer was somewhat shocking to Sierra.

“He booked another room…?”

It was at that moment.

Sierra generally had good intuition.

Caetro often said, ‘You might be able to deceive everyone in the world, but it would be impossible to deceive Sierra Miller.’

Today, for the first time, Sierra felt an ominous premonition.

“Was he alone?”

“No. He was with a woman.”

Today, for the first time, Sierra resented the fact that she had good intuition.

“No way… No way, could it be? The Duke was with a woman?”

The hotel staff looked very flustered at Sierra’s agitated appearance.

“My fiancé was so worried. He thought his brother wasn’t interested in women…”

Belatedly realizing that her behavior might seem strange to others, Sierra awkwardly added an explanation.

“The family is worried, so… Which room is Duke Cloen staying in?”

Of course, she didn’t forget to dig for information while saying this.

***

He couldn’t bring an unrelated woman to the room where his whole family was staying.

Especially knowing that his grandfather might misunderstand and think of the strange woman as a potential wife to bear great-grandchildren, arranging a separate room was the best option.

He tipped the front desk and asked them to bring new clothes. However, Arcturus was a nobleman. He couldn’t wear ready-made clothes that could be easily obtained anywhere. In the end, the hotel contacted the mansion, and a servant would bring clothes.

They would also bring clothes for the woman.

Unable to keep wearing wet clothes, the woman was sitting on a single-seat sofa wearing a shower robe.

Arcturus was also wearing a shower robe. He had never experienced a situation like this with any woman before.

Falling into a swimming pool with a strange woman, staying alone with her in a hotel room, being in this situation wearing only shower robes after taking off their clothes — he truly had never imagined such scenarios in his life.

He didn’t like situations that were out of his calculations, but he didn’t dislike what had happened today.

Arcturus leisurely leaned against the wall and observed the cause that had put him in this exceptional situation.

The woman sat with her knees bent, feet on the sofa, blowing on her steaming hot cocoa to cool it down. Holding the white mug with both hands, waiting for the cocoa to cool, she looked almost childlike.

Though her exposed neckline and smooth legs were far from childlike.

“What’s your name?”

“You didn’t know my name?”

“Isn’t it strange to know the name of a woman I’m seeing for the first time today?”

“But you came to see our ballet company’s performance.”

Arcturus raised one eyebrow at the woman’s words. His expression conveyed the question of how she knew he had gone to see the performance.

“It would be strange not to know. Most of the nobles in the capital come to see our performance at least once, and the national hero who had never set foot there before finally visited.”

“Somehow, that sounds like sarcasm.”

“That wasn’t my intention.”

But Arcturus thought there might have been a spoonful of that intention. The woman’s voice was so calm that it was difficult to catch her true meaning unless listened to carefully.

“My name is Karen Chaner. Usually, people who come to see the performance know at least the name of the principal dancer.”

“As I’m ignorant about the arts, I seem to have made a mistake.”

“I suppose so.”

Thinking about how this woman, who now appeared so calm and composed, had clung to him earlier because of a cramp and spat water in his face, he almost laughed again.

“Still…”

At that moment, Karen mumbled something with her lips on the mug.

“I can’t hear you clearly.”

He really couldn’t hear and asked again, but…

Karen glanced at Arcturus and spoke more clearly than before.

“Still, thank you.”

“I remember you saying you wouldn’t thank me.”

“Well, you did help me in many ways…”

It took longer than expected to hear those words of gratitude.

Suddenly, he became curious about the woman who, despite recognizing who he was, didn’t grovel.

Most people, no, all people clearly wanted something from Arcturus. That’s why the majority approached with intentions, but this woman wasn’t trying to impress him, rather, she was prickly.

To the extent that her reluctant thanks felt particularly pleasant.

It would be gentlemanly to accept a lady’s gratitude.

But a mischievous impulse raised its head inside Arcturus.

“Are you going to end it with just words of thanks?”

“T-Then, if there’s something you want…”

Karen’s prim face crumbled instantly, and her eyes wavered, apparently not expecting this kind of response from Arcturus.

“What could someone who has as much as me possibly want?”

“Hmm… I wonder.”

Arcturus unconsciously reached into his shower robe pocket, searching for cigarettes. However, there was nothing to be found in the empty pocket.

Realizing that his cigarettes had also gotten wet when he fell into the pool earlier, Arcturus brushed up his bangs that neatly covered his forehead and replied half-heartedly.

“Miss Karen, you have nothing to give me, yet you keep taking things from me.”

“What, what have I taken from you…?!”

“My time, clothes, cigarettes.”

“I’m sorry about the time and clothes, but…”

Karen, who had been hesitantly stroking the still-steaming mug with her fingertips, looked up at Arcturus as if gathering courage.