The sun was already setting beyond the ridge.

The moment she firmly centered herself, the horse picked up speed. It didn’t take long for the realization that she was seeing the Duke again to gradually fade.

Clop clop. Because of the horse galloping at speed, her body kept tilting backward, and each time she collided with his solid upper body. In a situation where she couldn’t help but be conscious of it, she tried to keep her shoulders straight, but the vibrations were considerable.

At some point, something hard began pressing against her bottom, and the sensation was remarkably similar to what she’d felt not long ago.

The same feeling as last time. Since his two hands were visible before her eyes, there was only one thing to suspect. 

The part revealing a distinct outline through the thick fabric—when her thoughts reached that point, this moment of being pressed against him became unbearably uncomfortable.

“I… I want… to get down!”

“That’s difficult right now. Please bear with it a little longer, even if it’s uncomfortable.”

When she twisted her hips, she felt the Duke pull back slightly, but it was useless. The thick thing striking her bottom, combined with the vibrations of the galloping horse, felt like it was beating her rear. Suddenly, inexplicable fear surged up.

“Hurry and st… stop, please.”

“My Lady, if you move recklessly, it will be dangerous.”

Meanwhile, with the vibrations of the wildly galloping horse, her bottom pressed firmly against his thigh again, intensifying the sensation from before. 

For Evelyn, who had never even been struck by her parents, she felt gripped by the sensation of having her bottom beaten by a strange man. Sobbing mixed into Evelyn’s voice as she struggled and pleaded unreasonably.

“Ow—stop poking me! I told you it hurts!”

“My Lady, please calm down just a little.”

The harmonious atmosphere changed in an instant. When Evelyn suddenly burst into tears, it was none other than Elkas who panicked. His heart sank at her frightened voice and he looked around, but he couldn’t forcibly stop a horse that had already started galloping.

Moreover, they were racing at tremendous speed along a path beside a steep ridge where they could fall off a cliff if something went wrong.

Though Elkas, who handled horses well, could somehow stop the horse, it wasn’t a good idea considering Evelyn’s safety. If he stopped the horse too abruptly, Evelyn could get hurt.

“Haa, I… I don’t want to… I want to get down.”

At that moment, as Evelyn struggled, demanding to get down, the tip of her shoe must have poked somewhere on the horse’s side, because the horse suddenly raised its front legs high.

“Kyaa!”

Because of that, her upper body tilted sharply backward and she fell completely into Elkas’s embrace. At the same time, her slightly lifted bottom sank down onto his thigh, and she felt something hard get pressed under her bottom.

“Kuk…”

A groan like a m*an instantly dampened Evelyn’s nape with heat. Simultaneously, the flesh she was sitting on throbbed and struck her embarrassing area.

At the unfamiliar sensation, Evelyn, now fallen into a panic, suddenly grabbed the horse’s mane.

“Ah! Don’t… don’t do that!”

“My lady! It’s dangerous.”

Elkas, gripping the reins tightly, tried desperately to calm the horse, but Evelyn had already lost her reason long ago. 

She was only thinking that the urgent priority was to get away from him immediately, feeling embarrassed and frightened.

As Evelyn squirmed, crushing what she was sitting on, Elkas, feeling like he was going crazy, bit down hard and desperately pulled the reins. 

Fortunately, they passed the perilous moment when the two nearly fell from the horse, but as long as Evelyn didn’t calm down, it wasn’t a situation where he could relax. 

Elkas tightly embraced her waist as she struggled like she was having a seizure and drove the horse toward a safe field.

Until the horse left the forest, Evelyn’s cries mingled with the rocking horse’s neighing and echoed across the wide field.

* * *

Elkas stopped the horse after Evelyn had cried enough to make her eyes swell up. Though she was calmer than when she’d been dangerously causing a commotion on the horse, her hiccupping, sobbing voice remained.

“Sob… please… let me down…”

The moment Elkas, unable to hide his dismay at Evelyn’s sniffling face, lifted down her body exhausted from crying, Evelyn moved like a shot. 

After getting off the horse, her mind roughly returned, but her hair, which had been neatly arranged, was disheveled and scattered as her hat had blown away in the wind.

Perhaps hearing the commotion outside, Sheila burst out from inside the tent. 

Sheila, shocked by the appearance that anyone would misunderstand, ran from afar and hastily grabbed both of Evelyn’s arms.

“Evelyn, what happened?”

“Oh… Sister.”

Discovering Sheila through her swollen eyes, Evelyn burst into tears again at the relief that rushed in momentarily.

Sensing something serious in that sight, Sheila examined Evelyn’s condition. The hat she’d been wearing until they left was gone somewhere, and her calm hair was messily disheveled, making it look like she’d certainly experienced something rough.

“What happened, Evelyn? It’s okay, so tell me.”

“That… is… the… the Duke.”

Her dizzy head buzzed. On top of the shock of nearly falling from the horse, her head still spun from the aftermath of the scene she’d caused just moments ago.

“What about the Duke?”

Startled by the suddenly pressing voice, Evelyn opened her lips, which hadn’t yet calmed down.

“…He hit me.”

At the small voice that came out like a murmur, shock appeared in Sheila’s eyes.

“Good heavens…”

At the several sighs that flowed from behind her sister’s shoulder, Evelyn snapped to attention and opened her eyes wide.

Evelyn, who belatedly discovered women pouring out from inside the tent where she’d thought only Sheila would be, hastily turned around.

What her shaking gaze caught was the Duke standing with an equally flustered face. And in his hand was a stiff whip—a thin rod with leather tassels attached.

* * *

It didn’t even take half a day for the news from the hunting festival to spread.

Because of one sentence Evelyn blurted out in her confusion, the Duke transformed into a man who wielded a whip.

The rumor spread exponentially that the Duke, harboring resentment over a young lady’s small mistake, mercilessly struck the lady’s body with a whip used on horses—moreover, with the leather tassels attached to the end of an ultra-thin whip made of stiff rod.

Even though Evelyn hadn’t mentioned any more facts, the reason that naturally attached was also plausible. It was because she had embarrassed him at the last imperial palace banquet.

As a result, if Lady Windelson’s rashness was the hot topic at the last banquet, this time the Duke’s temperament of hitting women was definitely the talk.

“This is irreparable.”

Aiden, who had visited the ducal residence expecting his friend’s dejected face, flinched at Elkas’s appearance, which exuded an even more gloomy air. In the office where bright sunlight entered, a dark atmosphere circulated particularly around the desk where Elkas sat.

How did his friend’s situation become like this?

Elkas, with his head in his hands and lowered, was frozen enough to look pitiful.

Well, who was he anyway?

Far from giving attention to noble ladies who approached, captivated by his handsome appearance and valiant figure, he wouldn’t even continue conversations beyond the common social greetings, merely nodding his chin.

If this man, resolute enough to mercilessly throw out even a beauty walking around n*ked before his eyes, had been shaken by seeing Evelyn of all people, there could only be one reason.

“D*mn it…”

Elkas muttered with empty pupils, like someone whose soul had completely left.

Aiden, whose heart became heavy wondering how to help now, sighed deeply with a face that didn’t know how to comfort him.

“I told you to properly clear up the misunderstanding.”

“I tried to. But…”

He definitely tried.

If only it hadn’t been for that voice crying out with a face pale as a sheet.

<Don’t… don’t come! Don’t come near me either!>

The words he heard when he briefly stopped by the tent where she was staying to apologize right after that incident still rang clearly in his ears.

The gaze looking at him like viewing a public menace, seeping into her eyes that opened round, almost having a fit, gouged at his insides.

“I went to the trouble of setting up a place for you to get close, so what are you going to do now? Do you even know what rumors are circulating in the capital right now?”

Aiden, who had roughly pulled out a chair, continued urgently, like this wasn’t the time to be so carefree.

“The people who saw you two at the hunting festival that day are gossiping, misunderstanding on their own.”

The reputation that had already cracked once at the last banquet plummeted in less than half a day.

The image of being solemn and prudent shattered completely, and in its place came the rumor of being an arrogant man who wielded a whip at women.

“I don’t care about such rumors.”

Even to the question worrying about his friend who had become shameless in an instant, Elkas didn’t care at all right now.

Things like others’ gazes weren’t something Elkas cared about in the first place.

“If Miss Evelyn doesn’t clarify it herself, your reputation ends here.”

Elkas’s hand, which had raised his head, disheveled his neat bangs.

It still burned inside that the face that had been smiling brightly had become tear-stained because of him. Just thinking of those tear-glistening eyes made him feel like he’d committed a mortal sin.

The moment he saw Evelyn appear with her platinum blonde hair neatly hanging down and wearing a hat tied with a red ribbon, his steadily beating heart felt like it plummeted to his toes. 

He had to swallow his desire to see her more closely and stroke the innocent horse’s mane several times.

The thing touching his hand should have been her hair, not this coarse fur—the horse shook its head and snorted, seemingly noticing that thought.

At that moment, the voices of friends who always chattered whenever they gathered rang in his ears.

<Elkas is hung like a horse.>

Elkas’s face, which had naturally lowered his gaze and raised it again, turned ashen. 

Therefore, this time he renewed his resolve several times to avoid the same mistake as last time, but paying attention to it seemed to have made him conscious of it instead.

While riding the horse holding the small, soft body that fit snugly in his arms, he tried to act calm, but her scent, pressed close, was too stimulating. 

Because his heart was beating too fast, he couldn’t calm down at all, and even his effort to keep his back as straight as possible—as their bodies kept touching with the galloping vibrations, his member immediately reacted.

Judging by Evelyn’s expression, which even showed tears, she must have perfectly realized what it was.

“Ha… What will she think of me?”

In the end, Elkas took out and lit the cigar he’d quit right after returning to the capital. Taking up the cigar again that he’d quit before coming, lest he transfer an unpleasant scent to a lady, meant his heartache was that great.

She must have seen him as shameless. Aiden thought so inwardly, but avoided unnecessarily voicing those words and incurring his friend’s anger.

“You’ll have to write letters and bring gifts to somehow appease Miss Evelyn’s anger and correct the misunderstanding first. What else can you do?”

“I suppose so.”

He nodded, exhaling the smoke he’d been holding like a sigh. Now that it had come to this, he had to approach Evelyn more actively.

After that, Elkas deliberately visited places Evelyn attended, but for a while she would startle and hide behind others just from seeing him. 

Far from receiving proper forgiveness, the man’s worries lengthened at her clearly avoiding attitude.

* * *

After that, the incident at the hunting festival remained a hot topic in society without signs of dying down.

Unintentionally, gossip about the Duke dominated gatherings of nobles, but House Berenberg made no statement of position. House Windelson was the same.

Unlike deflecting her parents’ serious interrogation by saying it was actually a misunderstanding, she couldn’t do anything about the rumors circulating outside. Meanwhile, the rumors were exaggerated and inflated, passing through people’s mouths.

“Evelyn, are you okay? You don’t know how shocked we were when we heard the news. Who would have known Duke Berenberg was such a shameless person?”

“I know, right? Are the places he hit okay?”

Evelyn’s expression colored ambiguously at the worries of friends who had come early in the morning, supposedly to visit the sick.

Still that story after more than a week.

“I was so shocked to hear the Duke hit you with a whip.”

“I heard it was a thick whip used only on beasts?”

“No. I heard it was a whip like the thick rolling pin used to knead flour dough.”

“…It wasn’t like that…”