Chapter 37

 Besides, today was even more so. She didn’t feel like smiling at him at all.

 “At least soften your expression.”

 “What expression am I making?”

 Her questioning was impertinent. Ella narrowed her eyebrows. She was displeased. She didn’t like Larque, and she didn’t like herself. To be marked by the queen and then to be disliked by the Marquis Gwendel’s wife as well. It was terrible. Would it have been better if she had volunteered to receive a whipping then? She didn’t care about being disliked by the Marquis’s wife, but Marie was different. She had been serving the Marquis’s wife from day to night with her pregnant belly, close to her due date. Ella slowly shook her head and shuddered in horror. She couldn’t come to her senses due to self-loathing.

 “Ella.”

 “I’m pathetic. I……”

 “I heard. Nestro’s daughter lectured you.”

 “……Yes.”

 “Why did that upset you?”

 For a Marquis’s wife to upset a servant girl’s feelings. It was an absurd statement, just as the word order didn’t match. Ella raised her head. Larque didn’t seem to find anything strange about it. Ella opened her lips and then firmly closed them again.

 “It’s not that the Marquis’s wife upset me……”

 “I didn’t ask about anything else. Why did that upset you? That’s what I asked. Ella.”

 His gray eyes were moist. Ella stared blankly at his face, spread with the light from the lantern. As always, he was only concerned about her. It was a tasteless affair. Almost monotonous…… Ella sometimes wanted to count the ranking he had assigned.

 How deeply she had dug into him. If there was a task that needed to be abandoned and moved on from, when and at what point would Ella be discarded? At some moments, she was terribly curious, but at other moments, she didn’t want to know even after death. Thus, in the end, she couldn’t understand herself either.

 “The Marquis’s wife wanted to use Marie as a maid. But Marie is close to her due date, isn’t she? Just the fact that Marquis Gwendel brought her here…… No.”

 She swallowed dryly. Blaming Marquis Gwendel here would be foolish. The Marquis was Larque’s distant cousin. So let’s not act foolishly anymore. Ella took a deep breath and spoke again.

 “I, I wanted to help her. But the Marquis’s wife insisted on using her…… I acted impudently. Master. Please whip me.”

 Her lips were bitten. Every time she finished her sentences, her breathing was twisted terribly because of her crying. Ella looked at the man, holding back what was welling up. His dark gaze fell on her even skirt hem. Ella generally knew such a gaze. He probably wanted to lift her skirt and burrow between her thighs. It seems he wanted to hear her writhing cries with the stick between her thighs.

 “That’s not something you should be concerned about.”

 The man recited. Ella listened to his words without blinking an eyelid. It was correct. Yet she felt something similar to disappointment toward him. No, it wasn’t similar, it was ultimately the same emotion.

 “……What would you have me do?”

 “……”

 “Raise your head.”

 Ella didn’t answer. She didn’t raise her head either. Like a petulant child, she didn’t want to respond to him at all. A sigh was heard from above her head.

 “If there’s something you don’t like, tell me. I’ll adjust.”

 Willingly, he was saying he would adjust himself to a lowly servant girl. It was a statement about lowering himself and an attitude of lifting up the one at the very bottom. Ella reluctantly looked at him. His eyes, flickering in the light, were softer than before. But today, she didn’t want to do anything more that didn’t fit her station. The mistakes from the day were enough.

 “I’ll heat up some water.”

 Outside the tent was noisy. Ella carefully stepped wherever the lantern light reached. A maid who had been waiting moved along with Ella. In the secluded forest, Marie and Larque repeatedly flashed through her mind.

 It was when she was fetching water for Larque to wash with a maid, connected to the makeshift kitchen tent. A small girl was running around the kitchen with a basket. It was unruly behavior, but the servants didn’t scold her. Ella looked at the back of the girl and retraced her thoughts. She had heard that girl was also a servant of some knight. Since she didn’t use the bedroom assigned to her in the palace, that child came to use that room.

 “Lea. Lea Grisino.”

 “Yes?”

 The girl turned around. A color as lovely as a red apple. Clear green eyes like leaves. She was an exceptionally beautiful girl at first glance. Ella watched as the girl put something in her basket. The woman who was putting items in the basket was a palace maid who had been looking at Marie with worried eyes while preparing various things for her.

 “Take this to the Marquis’s wife’s table instead of Gwendel’s servant girl.”

 “Yes.”

 “She’s close to her due date, so she should move less.”

 The maid’s voice was full of sympathy. About ten years old, perhaps? The girl nodded her head frivolously. Ella caught the running child and called her to stand in front of her.

 “Are you a palace maid?”

 Ella carefully examined the girl wearing an apron. Looking closely, it wasn’t the kind of attire a palace maid would wear. Above all, palace maids don’t wear aprons made of such good quality cloth even when they go out. The girl shook her head. Her hair, tied in two braids, swayed.

 “Then?”

 “I’m Sir Arthur’s servant girl.”

 “Why is a person from Count Trotters’ house listening to a palace maid?”

 The maid standing beside her asked, unable to contain her curiosity. The girl’s eyes stared at the maid.

 “Sir Arthur ordered me to.”

 “Your master? Why would your master?”

 The maid asked again. Ella waited for the answer to return. No matter how she thought about it, Sir Arthur had no reason to help Marie. How could the son of Count Trotters be close to Marquis Gwendel’s servant girl? Moreover, he didn’t have deep ties with Marquis Gwendel either.

 “I don’t know. My master came out of the Duke’s tent and told me to go and help.”

 It was an articulate voice. There was no lie on her innocent face. Of course, there was no reason to tell a lie, so it was natural. After sending the girl away, Ella looked at the tent with Durac’s banner. She recalled the man who had said he would adjust to suit her if she told him what she didn’t like.

 *** 

 “Did you tell Sir Arthur to help Marie?”

 Ella asked. The water’s temperature was appropriate. He didn’t attend the hunting banquet hosted by the king. It was because he was tired, but in truth, the Duke wasn’t a very sociable person. Not that he was an introverted person either. But he wasn’t the type to deliberately seek out crowded places, engage in conversation, and wet his throat with alcohol.

 He seemed like someone who naturally didn’t feel loneliness. Ella stared at the man who wasn’t answering. The man, who had taken off his clothes one by one, pushed his long body into the bathtub. The wooden tub shook slightly, and the full water also rippled.

 “Master.”

 “If you’re in a position where you need to borrow even a twelve-year-old child’s hands, you should borrow them.”

 “I……”

 “You don’t need to worry. The Marquis will return soon.”

 Ella tightly closed her mouth. Should she say thank you? Anyway, it was something to be thankful for. He condensed it as a twelve-year-old child’s hands, but the girl named Lea Grisino seemed to be doing quite a lot. If she was familiar with kitchen work, she might be better than herself……

 “You always say my habits aren’t good……”

 She slowly rubbed his thick shoulders. Every time the wet towel pressed and pushed the smooth skin, the muscles twitched. Ella briefly removed the towel at the sight of them tensing. His impatient gray eyes touched her tied front collar. The inside of her mouth burned. Her tongue was hot like ashes left after burning. The moment his tongue had filled her, that strange sensation heated her p*ssy.

 Every time her breath faltered, the front collar tightening her moon-like br*asts twitched. Ella unconsciously covered her front collar. She thought about what she had been going to say. He said her habits weren’t good, but it was he who had trained Ella this way.

 “It was you who made me like this, Master.”

 She twisted the towel. Water dripped down. His gaze was still fixed on her front collar. Without the capacity to remove that gaze that was nailed like a nail, Ella just repeated separating and joining her lips.

 “Don’t…… look at me like that.”

 With flushed cheeks, when she covered her br*asts with her hands, a dangerous light swirled in his eyes. Suddenly, the man’s hand removed her hand covering her br*asts and then pulled her wrist.

 “Ah!”

 “Now, are you saying even your lack of manners is my fault?”

He broke his smile into small pieces and hung it on the corner of his mouth. He mercilessly pulled down Ella’s weakly tugged front collar and bit her nipple. Her plump br*asts wobbled and crumpled inside his large hands.

 “It’s cute when you throw a tantrum……”

 Larque spat out the nipple he had been biting and stood up in the bathtub. He traced the woman’s slender waist with his wet hand and then firmly pressed her nipple.

 “Ahh!”

 “I still prefer docile girls.”

 The nipple and areola under his thumb tingled. Her damp p*ssy heated up with warmth, and a moan slipped from Ella’s lips along with panting breaths. She struggled, trying to push his arms away. The man tormented her nipple with his thumb and then put his mouth on her wet br*asts.