Chapter 9

“Mm, ah, ah, hhk!”

Each time the m*ans she had tried to hold back broke free, Ishiel’s hips grew rougher. Feeling Adeline wrapped tightly around him, as he drove deeper inside, he suddenly lowered his body and took into his mouth the chest that was shaking up and down without pause.

When he closed his teeth lightly over the hardened tip and teased it, Adeline gave a shuddering cry.

“…Aah!”

Again, a rush of wetness spilled out, and her inner walls tightened all at once. The indecent wet sounds and the m*ans that burst free when she could no longer endure echoed against the walls of the bedroom.

“So you still like it when I s*ck here too. I was worried your tastes might have changed in the meantime.”

He drew his length almost all the way out, then thr*st back in at once. Adeline’s waist arched in a curve. The pleasure swelled like a growing snowball.

“I can’t, ah, no, ngh……”

It was getting harder and harder to withstand the pleasure rushing over her. Realizing that Adeline was near her limit, Ishiel drove himself into the places that made her feel most strongly.

“I, Ishiel, hngh, ah.”

Pleasure close to its peak spread through her whole body. Adeline even forgot that she was supposed to swallow down her sounds, wrapped her legs around Ishiel’s waist, and lifted her hips helplessly.

“Hhk, ah, aah!”

“Good, Adeline.”

He gripped Adeline’s hips, which kept lifting of their own accord, and began thrusting upward. It felt as though all sensation had gathered between her thighs, leaving only the feeling of the narrow opening clenching shut and then stretching to its limit.

Thump, thump, as the head struck deep inside, scorching heat gathered in her lower belly.

“Ah, no, aah!”

The heat that had pooled enough to fill her lower belly suddenly burst all at once. Adeline’s pale thighs trembled violently.

Her quivering inner walls clenched hard and seemed to close around him. He lingered for a moment, feeling the tight squeeze around him, then began driving his hips up more forcefully.

At the end of those relentless thr*sts, with no attempt to control the pace, he reached his release inside Adeline. As though wanting to push more of it deeper into her, he thr*st upward two more times.

“Uu……”

Completely exhausted, Adeline went limp like cotton soaked through with water. When the satisfying peak passed, drowsiness took its place. Unable to resist her heavy eyelids, Adeline drifted into sleep without knowing what kind of look Ishiel was giving her.

“…I did tell you once wouldn’t be enough.”

Ishiel frowned as he looked once at the small opening still fluttering with the aftereffects of release, and then once at himself, still hard and vivid despite already having spilled once inside her.

I still haven’t even received the position behind the Marquis that you said you’d give me instead of the marquis title. You still do nothing but lie to me. You haven’t changed at all from back then, when you whispered that I was all you needed and then still went off to Marquis Hartmann.

A vein stood out along his clenched jaw. His expression was cold enough to freeze someone solid, yet in his eyes desire still burned without having gone out.

His burning gaze, as though it would set Adeline ablaze, slowly traced over her bare body as she lay asleep in exhaustion.

To be honest, even in the past Adeline had never had particularly good stamina. Still, she had once been able to withstand two rounds in a row, so how had her endurance gotten even worse?

Come to think of it, her wrists had also grown much thinner than before. As Ishiel forced himself, still stiff and upright, back into his trousers, the coachman’s confession suddenly crossed his mind.

‘Madame Ravenstein ordered that poison be put in your meals!’

Adeline had not looked particularly surprised when she heard that. So she had already known. Is that why she got so thin, because she couldn’t eat properly?

As Ishiel gently brought her parted legs back together and dressed her again in her nightdress, he clicked his tongue in displeasure.

“If you were going to leave me behind, you should at least have lived well.”

What kind of state is this, Adeline.

From the day Adeline left without even saying goodbye, Ishiel had wished for her to be unhappy. He had wanted her to suffer and be miserable, to long for him, to regret leaving.

But now that he had seen how thin she had become, he felt no satisfaction at all. Instead, he was angry. Angry at Adeline, and angry at the people who had reduced her to this state.

Only after laying Adeline down properly and covering her with a blanket did Ishiel leave through the balcony the same way he had come.

Just as he was about to leap from the balcony toward his own room’s balcony, Ishiel suddenly changed direction and jumped onto the balcony of another darkened room.

Unlike Adeline’s room, which had not opened until he knocked, this room flung open the instant Ishiel landed. At the same time, a blade shot toward him.

“Who the hell is… Commander? D*mn it, Commander. What do you think you’re doing right now?”

“A night walk.”

Ishiel flicked aside with his finger the tip of the sword aimed by his adjutant, Lenore, and stepped into the room. Lenore, who had come out half-asleep, stood there speechless for a moment in disbelief before letting out a breath of sheer astonishment.

“Have you lost your mind in someone else’s estate?”

Ishiel was about to answer that he had not, but hesitated for a moment. Am I sure I haven’t? I think I have.

Ever since Adeline left without a word and married another man, Ishiel had not lived a single day in his right mind.

“Commander, don’t tell me you went to the bedroom of the Marquis’s wife?”

Lenore, who had already noticed the strange tension between the wife of the Marquis and Ishiel from earlier, found his gaze drifting involuntarily to between Ishiel’s legs.

When Lenore noticed the still-prominent bulge that had clearly not been fully dealt with, he made a grimace as though he had seen something he should not have.

“Where are you looking, is that insubordination?”

Ishiel too frowned in displeasure.

“What exactly do you plan to do? Run away with the wife of the Marquis or something?”

“Why would I run?”

It might be one thing if her husband were alive, but Adeline’s husband was already dead and gone. The thought of Adeline’s husband made him feel as though he had swallowed muddy water.

The fact that there had been another man with Adeline drove him mad. He felt like digging up the ground where that bastard was buried and humiliating him even after death.

“I’m taking her to the capital and marrying her.”

“What?”

Lenore blinked as though he could not understand.

“Wouldn’t it be better if you reconsidered that.”

“Why. It’s not as though it’s illegal.”

“What people will think……”

Though he phrased it as what people would think, it was not only that. Commoners might differ, but the Empire’s noble society was extremely conservative. It was even stricter when it came to chastity.

Free love was gradually increasing, but only if it had the permission of both families and only if that romance led to marriage.

But for someone who had already been married once to take an unmarried spouse? In noble society, such a thing was unthinkable. It had not even been ten years since remarriage had become legally permitted.

Those who remarried were treated like ghosts in high society. They existed, but as if unseen, no one greeted them first and no one responded to them when they spoke.

They were treated worse than those who had bought titles to become nobles. Had not even the Emperor himself, after being widowed and taking a new Empress, had to endure gossip for a time?

And now a widowed noblewoman marrying a young admiral? Not even ten years after losing her husband, not even ten months?

“Wouldn’t it be better to simply keep her by your side?”

Since remarriage was frowned upon, nobles keeping lovers increased as a sort of counterbalance. It was contradictory that in such a strict atmosphere about chastity, having a lover was still tolerated, but in any case, quietly keeping one behind the scenes was accepted.

‘There might be rumors that the wife of Marquis Hartmann is keeping a young Admiral as her lover, but that’s still better than marriage.’

It was rare for an unmarried man to keep a widow as a lover, and above all, Adeline’s status was higher.

‘It’s not unusual for a young man to be drawn to a beautiful widow, so people might dismiss it as the recklessness of youth.’

Lenore hoped the situation would stop at about that point.

“I’m fairly sure I said marriage.”

But Ishiel was firm.

“Please think it over again.”

Setting aside being ostracized by high society, the wife of the Marquis would be pointed at as a woman who seduced a man who knew nothing, while Ishiel would be treated like a fool who had been taken in by a widow.

“You’ll be looked down on in high society. There probably won’t be anyone who even invites you to banquets.”

“Then I simply won’t go. I don’t attend banquets now either.”

“It’s not just a matter of that, is it? The men under you will look down on you too. They’ll think something’s wrong with you if you marry a widow.”

“If they defy orders, I’ll deal with them under military law. We’ll see whether they can still look down on me after losing their heads, Sir Lenore.”

Ishiel’s eyes froze cold as ice. It meant Lenore was not to argue about Adeline any further. Lenore had plenty more he wanted to say, but he shut his mouth.

Then again, when Ishiel had first boarded the ship, there had been no shortage of men who looked down on him for being illegitimate. But what about now?

Thanks to that cruel disposition of his, savage enough to seem as though not even a drop of blood would fall if he were stabbed, even after becoming admiral there was not a single man who dared voice discontent.

Sometimes, when Lenore looked at Ishiel, he found himself wondering if that was even a human being. And yet earlier that day, when he had smiled with his eyes at Adeline and said, Adeline, Lenore had nearly screamed from the chills it sent down his spine.

When the wife of the Marquis was looking elsewhere, the way Ishiel looked down at her had been downright dangerous. What was it? He had looked as if something inside him had gone wrong.

There were many kinds of looks in the world, but if someone’s eyes looked that far gone, the best course was to avoid them. The wife of the Marquis, who seemed hopelessly lacking in awareness, probably would not be able to, however.

Did the wife of the Marquis know his true temperament? Lenore was curious, but he did not ask. If he asked something like that, with that man’s disposition, he might genuinely get punched.

“By the way, after going on your night walk, why did you come into my room?”

“What about the thing I told you to look into earlier?”

“You mean looking into the collateral families? I’m still working on it.”

“Still?”

“…It has only been half a day so far.”

When Ishiel looked at him as if to say that should have been enough, Lenore felt a surge of irritation.

“A territory like this is hostile to outsiders, so it’s not something that can be investigated that quickly.”