But after a few steps.
Crash!
At the sharp sound of breaking glass, he turned around.
“Ah……”
It seemed Janet had dropped her glass.
Glass fragments were scattered across the well-polished marble floor. Since he had sent the servants far away, no one came running.
She wasn’t the type of woman to carelessly drop things. Did she drop it on purpose? Was she expressing dissatisfaction about him leaving the table first?
While Rihanel was thinking such thoughts.
“……!”
His eyes widened as he looked toward Janet.
What was this woman doing? She had reached directly for the glass, cutting herself. She flinched for a moment.
Forgetting how disgusting he had found her just moments ago, Rihanel instinctively rushed to Janet and grabbed her hand.
As expected, blood was seeping from the wound where the fragment had pierced her skin.
Damn it, Rihanel cursed quietly. Looking at the red blood made him feel like vomiting.
He violently pushed Janet’s hand away and turned his head to the side.
It wasn’t just because it was this woman’s blood.
Rihanel always lost his composure when seeing blood. His own blood was fine, but seeing others’ blood affected him this way.
He discovered this damned symptom when he accompanied his maternal grandfather and some nobles on a hunt.
Seeing a small bird fall after being hit by an arrow was fine, and even making eye contact with the poor trembling bird was okay.
But the moment he saw the red blood flowing from the bird, he vomited.
Hahaha, those with him laughed, saying he was cute. At first, they said it could happen. That he would soon get used to it.
He learned that adaptation was impossible after two more hunting events.
Rihanel Reynes vomits when he sees blood.
While this simple proposition was being proven, Rihanel had to empty his stomach dozens of times, bringing up only yellow liquid as there was nothing else to expel.
He didn’t feel shame. No, he couldn’t feel it.
His grandfather’s gaze, not hiding his terrible disappointment. All his nerves were focused on enduring that gaze.
After the third hunting event, his grandfather returned to the ducal residence with a hardened face and immediately called for a doctor.
The diagnosis was something he had never heard before.
Hemophobia or something like that. Because of the diagnosis that exposure therapy would help him improve, hundreds more animals had to bleed before Rihanel’s eyes.
The doctor’s words were bullshit. That is to say, they were useless.
He managed to suppress the nausea, but his heart raced madly and his head spun, causing him to faint.
God must have been determined to prevent him from participating in hunting, the nobles’ pastime.
Rihanel was self-deprecating, and his grandfather never invited him to hunting events again.
Instead, he made donations in Rihanel’s name to organizations that cared for various animals and plants. Along with publicity that this warm-hearted heir understood the preciousness of life.
It was utterly ridiculous.
“Are you okay?”
The woman’s voice awakened Rihanel from his thoughts.
Janet’s hand was placed on top of Rihanel’s. He didn’t need to look to know it wasn’t the injured hand he had roughly pushed away earlier.
Not only because there was no feeling of sticky liquid, but also because Janet Wilton wasn’t the type of woman who would place a blood-covered hand on someone else.
Rihanel quietly exhaled the breath he had been holding. It was absurd. His heart, which had been racing because of Janet’s blood, found stability when her hand touched him.
Perhaps he could look at her blood. Maybe he could even touch it. Then her memories…
“……”
What on earth was he thinking?
The rising sense of relief was laughable. That this woman’s blood might be okay?
No, the current relief wasn’t because it was Janet Wilton. It was just because he felt human warmth.
Rihanel, still looking to the side, roughly pulled Janet up.
“Do you want attention that badly? Is that why you broke that?”
“Let’s go. I’ll clean it……”
“Nonsense.”
This woman had a truly absurd way of saying she didn’t want to be with him.
“I’ll clean it up,” she says. Had she ever cleaned her own room in her entire life? Even in prison, Rihanel’s grandfather had sent in comfortable bedding, a stove, clean water, scented candles, and even a cleaner.
And despite being injured herself, she asks if he’s okay?
This was truly proof of her privileged upbringing.
She had a heart abundant enough to care for others before herself. People with harsh lives tend to think their own tiny scratches hurt more than someone else dying.
Like he used to.
“Have your meals sent to your room. Do that from now on.”
“For dinner……”
“Please, just be dead silent, Janet Wilton.”
Rihanel looked into Janet’s eyes. So this was, in a way, a request. He truly didn’t want to face this woman anymore today.
Fortunately, the broad-minded Janet Wilton seemed willing to grant his request. That nod with slightly lowered eyes couldn’t have been more elegant.
Rihanel has the days he lived basely etched all over his body, and Janet has the days she lived preciously etched in her every action.
They were traces of time that remained like scars.
***
“Miss, you should at least let me handle your makeup.”
That day, in the early morning when the sun had just risen.
Letsy stamped her feet in front of the bathroom located in Janet’s room.
Even for a witch, she had been assigned the official duty of being the duke’s fiancée’s dedicated maid, but she wasn’t allowed to do anything other than filling the tub with warm water!
Let’s say, giving a hundred concessions, that not accepting help while bathing was due to embarrassment about revealing one’s n*ked body. But not allowing help with makeup? This made no sense.
Letsy thought for a long time about why this woman was acting this way, and finally asked.
“Do you perhaps have a large blemish on your face?”
Her voice was lowered, just in case, even though the duke’s room was at the opposite end.
“Or have you developed freckles? If it’s something like that, don’t worry. I have about ten thousand freckles on my face. But you won’t see any of them. Why? Because I’m a makeup expert!”
“……”
Despite Letsy’s passionate speech, it was only about 10 minutes later that a voice was heard from inside.
“Can you really cover everything?”
“Of course!”
At Letsy’s confident answer, the door finally opened. And from inside appeared a woman completely wrapped in clothes.
Letsy swallowed hard.
Unlike her fresh and bright clothes, the woman’s face was dull and pale. No, it was dark. Anyway, it was a color difficult to describe.
Not only that, there were small wounds and bruises. Only after looking more closely did she realize that the slightly different skin tones were partly due to her sunken cheeks.
“I need to look vibrant.”
Janet showed a light smile.
Letsy’s mouth opened slightly. She wanted to pretend she hadn’t seen anything, to respond as if everything was normal, but she couldn’t.
Finally, after staring blankly at Janet’s face for a few seconds, Letsy slowly nodded.
Janet sat in front of the vanity. Letsy pulled up a chair next to her and began gently patting Janet’s skin. All while rambling to hide her complicated thoughts.
“Um… where are you going today? If you’re going out, I want to accompany you!”
“I’m going to Deltz Street, and it’s okay. I prefer to go alone.”
Deltz Street, didn’t the duke say he was going there today too?
“Yes… how about breakfast at 9 o’clock?”
“When does Rihanel have his meal?”
“It depends on his schedule, but I heard he asked for it to be prepared around 10 o’clock today.”
“Then I’ll have mine at that time too.”
At Janet’s calm yet strangely resolute voice, Letsy nodded. She had forgotten the instruction to suggest meal times that wouldn’t overlap with the duke’s.
Thus ended the preparation that took two to three hours. Despite having many thoughts, Letsy only remembered two things afterward.
That glimpses of small scars were visible under Janet’s clothes.
And that this lady’s eyes, which couldn’t be disguised, shone brightly.
***
At a time when the sun had descended slightly from its zenith, the street that was expected to be quiet was quite busy. Janet leaned her head slightly out of the carriage window to look outside.
As expected, steam from a train was visible from the not-too-distant train station.
“How many passenger cars does the train have?” Janet asked the coachman, uncharacteristically raising her voice. She knew a small voice wouldn’t be heard well because of the train’s noise.
“Well, out of about twenty cars, maybe fourteen or so are for passengers.”
After hearing the answer, Janet’s lips turned up slightly.
She felt her heart flutter for the first time in a while. Finding this unfamiliar, Janet took a deep breath.
The carriage soon arrived at a mansion near Deltz Street. It was her uncle’s new house. The large house was in a good location, close to both the newly built train station and other existing bustling areas.
“Janet! It’s been a while. Welcome to the Wilton mansion.”
Her uncle, Tailey Wilton, and his wife greeted Janet warmly.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t visit you in prison. I wanted to, but as you know, business has been too busy……”
“It’s okay. It was a place that didn’t accept visitors.”
“Ah, is that so?”
They treated Janet as a guest in a well-decorated reception room. The treatment was excessively kind and luxurious, but Janet felt a strange sense of discomfort.
The couple took the lead in the conversation. They talked about how well their business had been doing, when they moved, and how many guests attended when they held parties.
Janet had nothing to say when asked about her five years of life.
So she decided to bring up future matters.
“I think I’ll be able to get married soon. Thank you for taking care of the business in the meantime.”
“Ah, about that……”
Her uncle’s eyebrows furrowed. He briefly looked Janet over.
“Can you really get married? Why would the duke want to marry a girl like you……”
Only then did Janet realize the nature of this discomfort.
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pickle3
of course she was probably treated horribly in prison, even if his grandfather sent her all that im betting someone payed the prison off to treat her like an animal.
and u bet its her uncle who did it, he stands to gain from her losing.