Chapter 36

 The queen, who had been quietly holding her fan, stared at Larque with a chilly gaze. It was the first time she had heard this story. Ella, standing beside her, blinked without expression. He looked at the queen with interest and then looked at Ella.

 The woman standing in line with the attendant had a more subdued face than usual. Larque smirked and then faced the queen again.

 “A serious disrespect…… I should whip her.”

 The queen put strength into her closed mouth. Unlike earlier, her attitude of not trying to reveal her emotions was amusing. Ella was slender alone in the evening light. Looking closely, both her cheeks were red and swollen. At the long scratch and prominent redness, Larque narrowed his eyebrows.

 “Come here. Disrespectful girl.”

 Ella grimaced at the man’s voice, which was clearly playful. Nevertheless, she moved her steps, not wanting to go against him. The attendant bowed his head and then went back to the central camp again. Not long after, the wife of Marquis Gwendel stood beside the queen.

 “What disrespect did you commit to the wife of Marquis Gwendel?”

 It was a cold tone. Unlike just before when it was full of playfulness. Ella looked up after digging at the ground with a cowed expression.

 “I offended the Marquis’s wife.”

 “How?”

 “I said I would serve the lady. The lady didn’t want me to serve her……”

 Ella trailed off. Larque smiled a little and then lifted her delicate chin with his fingertip. How cute…… He gently rubbed her swollen cheek. Ella frowned slightly and shook her captured chin, trying to escape from his hand. Suddenly, the queen’s face, seeing this sight, turned black with emotion. Her narrowed eyebrows and uncomfortably twitching brow were even fierce. Larque gave her a smile and then withdrew his hand that had been rubbing her cheek, and wrapped his left arm around her waist. The woman was easily pulled.

 “Don’t you know that you should only serve me?”

 “I’m sorry. My friend, my friend looked like she was struggling, so……”

 Ella looked at him with desperate eyes. Larque withdrew his smile from the woman who had helplessly entered his embrace. He looked down at her with an insensitive face as usual. Ella unconsciously grabbed his sleeve.

 As always, eyes that were difficult to read made her insides churn. She let go of the hand holding the sleeve and gently tapped the arm wrapped around her waist.

 “Your Highness. May I be rude? I have something to say about that thing’s disrespect.”

 The Marquis’s wife, who had been fanning beside the queen, quickly recited toward Larque. Her brown eyes were very irritable. Larque raised his head and looked at his cousin’s wife. She was a woman with impressive dark skin and protruding cheekbones. Larque had seen that woman only once at Endymion’s wedding. Other than that, since he didn’t bring her around, the last time he had faced her was then. Larque answered while gently embracing Ella’s waist.

 “Please speak.”

 “Please have Your Highness’s bedchamber maid whipped.”

 The Marquis’s wife’s request was quite bold. Even though she was said to be just a girl from a knight’s family that followed Gwendel…… Larque narrowed his eyes. He looked at the woman. She was an incomplete fox with eyes raised at both ends with arrogance and vanity. Her swarthy skin, uncommon in the north and the royal capital, was as alien as the queen’s. Larque thought it was quite a matching combination as he stared at the Marquis’s wife and the queen.

 “Your Highness doesn’t seem to have any intention of whipping your bedchamber maid. If you leave her as she is, she will commit such disrespect again. I will end it with one whipping, so please allow me to punish her.”

 It was a blunt request. She was a person who didn’t know what to do with anger that couldn’t be erased. Something that went against her taste. Something that challenged her authority. A servant who had to be broken because it was unacceptable. He knew well. Because he was that type of person.

 Things that don’t suit his taste. Things that challenge his authority. Durac doesn’t tolerate them.

 “Duke.”

 The queen’s stern voice stung his ears. Larque carefully traced the waist he had wrapped without answering. The woman pressed against his side flinched slightly. Larque withdrew his gaze from the two women standing stiffly. Ella had a pale face in the darkness. Her stiff expression, perhaps from tension, was cute. He traced her reddish cheeks as if tracing Eselmund’s cheeks, and Ella frowned.

 He kissed those beautiful eyes. The soft flesh of the eyelid touched his lips. Her hair, wet with evening dew, was damp. Larque faced Ella, who was colored with bewilderment. Small hands pushed against his chest. They didn’t move. They had never moved. Ella bit her lips tightly and turned her head. It was an expression of regret, but he didn’t mind.

 “Your Highness.”

 The Marquis’s wife glared at him with a face full of contempt.

 “It’s surprising that Marquis Gwendel is not someone who just watches things that don’t know their place.”

 “Wh-what……”

 “I will pretend I didn’t hear what was said about Durac’s bedchamber maid. You should know how intimate a knight’s bedchamber maid is…… I am deeply displeased.”

 “Your Highness, do you not know what wrong your girl did to me…!”

 The woman, who had barely been suppressing her anger, rushed at Larque with a fairly loud voice. The blood vessels protruding on her forehead and her glistening brown eyes were not elegant. Ella bit her lip. The churning inside her, caused by the man beside her, felt like it would reflux with gastric acid. Suddenly, a low recitation was heard from above the palanquin.

 “Stop that vulgar noise.”

 Ella raised her head. A short breath creaked and tightened her lungs. Despite the obvious disdain, the queen and the Marquis’s wife were silent. They just looked at the man wrapped in twilight. Two pairs of eyes tinged with faint fear didn’t even blink. Ella clenched her fist while trapped by the man.

 “……I will hear the rest of the story through the Marquis. I will withdraw now.”

 Larque turned around. No more noise was heard.

 *** 

 A servant who was sharpening horseshoes opened his eyes wide when he saw Ella. But he immediately buried his gaze on the ground. Dry soil and weeds were tangled around her ankles. The forest, sunk in twilight, was full of cold air. Every time the wind blew, the scent of the osmanthus tree, symbolizing the Kylaq royal family, lingered at the tip of her nose. More precisely, it was one of the parts symbolizing the princess. The silver osmanthus was a tree that grew outside the window of that bedroom where she had lost her way.

 Thoughts that flowed without purpose troubled Ella. She, who had been following him while panting, moved her lips. He was a man who couldn’t be understood even normally, but today was even more so. Ella stopped following and glared at him.

 When the sound of footsteps was no longer heard, Larque turned around. Their gazes intertwined in the air. Ella swallowed her saliva and then followed him again. The tent was empty. A servant came in, lit the lantern, and placed a beautiful pottery filled with tea mixed with refined cow’s milk and dried tea on the table. Ella still stared at him with tense eyes.

 Although they had turned their backs on the queen and the Marquis’s wife, today’s incident still felt unresolved. If she wasn’t punished as the Marquis’s wife had said, she wouldn’t be able to erase this uncomfortable feeling. Was it wrong to help Marie? Or should she have helped Marie more cleverly? She didn’t know.

 It would have been better if she hadn’t said something to provoke the Marquis’s wife. But Ella wasn’t a gentle woman. As a servant girl, she had rarely been gentle to her master or suppressed her anger and held back her words to her superiors. If only she wasn’t fierce by nature, it would have been good, but as a lowly slave from a brothel, she didn’t know her place.

 It was because, as Sarah had said, she didn’t resemble Sarah, and Larque cherished such a shameless girl. Ella blinked. She wished he would say something. But he just stared at her.

 “Master.”

She spoke with difficulty. His gaze fell on her cheek. Ella awkwardly twitched her cheek.

 “Should I cut off that Nestro bitch’s hand with an axe?”

 Durac is fierce. Dale. All the men from that far northern region were that ferocious. Despite pretending to be genteel, they could never become an elegant class, and thus the high officials of the royal capital tended to distance themselves from them. Nevertheless, Larque was somehow noble. Was it because Dale had served as the ruling family when it was the northern kingdom of Adenor? Anyway, she thought he was a bit different. But perhaps this man might be the same as the others. His anger was like a storm, and his temperament that wouldn’t subside until seeing the end was like a flame.

 “How could you say that?”

 Ella examined him with calm eyes and then lowered her gaze. Sweat formed on her neatly folded hands.

 “Why are you keeping your mouth shut like that?”

 “What do you mean?”

 “As a bedchamber maid, you should know how to gracefully embrace your master when he returns.”

 “When have I ever been that kind of girl?”

 The man closed his mouth. Even if she wanted to help him undress, the servants’ hands had already done so. Ella, who had been exhausted all day and locked alone in the tent, didn’t want to play the role of a sweet mistress. Since she had never acted like a doll, cooing in his arms even normally, it wasn’t an easy thing to do now.