TDDCS

Chapter 65 - Cheeks, lips, and tips of the ears

They headed to the outdoor waiting room for the coachman. Under the eaves of rain shade installed outdoors, male coachmen of different ages were smoking cigarettes and all looked at Elliot.

“What is this? Why are we here?”

“You said you don’t like it there? There is no other place other than that room for the employee to rest. That doesn’t mean I can’t take you to a room where only male servants are gathered. It’s open all over the place, so even if you’re with men, there won’t be any bad rumors going around. Then, good bye.”

Elliot looked at the attendant’s back, her eyes wide open it couldn’t grow any bigger. As she analyzed the situation at the words of the attendant, the coachmen started to giggle behind her back, and Elliot had no choice but to follow the attendant and go back to the room where the maids were gathered. She thought all of this to be only Lena’s fault. A lowly girl who should have died instead of her, but who is now alive and enjoying luxury.

‘You will see, I will never let you go!’

Pretending to be ignorant of the maid’s scornful gaze, Elliot grinded her teeth inside.

* * *

After a successful tea party, Kahel returned to his office and called Lena.

Lena’s cheeks were still swollen, and her lips looked like scabs had sat on them. However, it was all a trick. The power of the Duchy’s lineage was a power over materialization. In other words, their blessings and curses that they gave were almost like magic. There was a time when the people of the Duchy were called ‘magicians’, so it was not unusual for Kahel to perform such a trick.

The blessing he placed on Lena was to neutralize physical blows, and in appearance gave an illusion of the wounds that would have been inflicted upon her.

“Come closer.”

Lena, who was approaching him, seemed pitiful today. He had planned today’s event to clearly imprint on Elliot’s position, which was different from the past, and to prevent her from acting recklessly again. He explained it well enough to Lena yesterday. But Lena had been bullied by Elliot for a long time, and she would have felt fear instinctively, even if she knew she was safe now. He was sorry that Lena had to meet Elliot as he wondered if it wasn’t for his greed.

“By any chance, are you scared?”

“A little at first…… But when she actually started talking, I was more angry than scared…….”

“Why don’t you hit her too? Do you think I can’t even save you from that much?”

“No. Just, I didn’t want to be the same person as her. And, well, I didn’t actually get hit.”

Smiling somewhat embarrassingly, Lena scratched her cheek, which looked swollen. Kahel gently grabbed Lena’s hand, lowered it, and lifted Lena’s chin.

Looking at it again, his stomach was boiling. He knew why Elliot insisted that she didn’t do it. She probably felt a sense of something alien the moment she hit Lena, and she noticed that there was no damage to the other person at all. But she wasn’t supposed to be so brazen. If Kahel hadn’t put the blessing on Lena, Lena would have been really hit by Elliot and Lena would have been injured this way. So, when he saw Lena’s face in the greenhouse earlier, I got angry. He thought in the past, it would have been like this on a daily basis…….

“Do you not want revenge?”

Kahel asked, stroking Lena’s cheek with his hand, unleashing the magic. Lena’s smooth cheeks and the smooth exposed lips. It was troublesome because he wanted to touch them over and over again. Since they went to Sharden, he has always wanted to touch Lena. He had never thought of touching another person before, but he only had that desire for Lena, and he’s been consciously trying to step away from it lately.