Chapter 62
Everyone around seemed to freeze on the spot, startled.
In the heavy quiet, Lucy was sweating cold inside.
‘…Was that too much?’
She hadn’t meant to jump straight to this.
First, she’d meant to cut the priest off and press the matter of Edward’s promise.
She remembered clearly that when he’d brought her here, he’d said he would take responsibility.
The missing contract did gnaw at her, but Edward wasn’t the type to say one thing and do another. Was he?
But the mood had been so urgent that she’d missed her chance to lay things out calmly.
She’d been rolling her eyes, lost as to what to do, when her gaze landed on Clara, standing flustered in the corner.
And in that moment.
The talk they’d shared just before came rushing back.
“Since the two of you even bathed together, word is spreading that His Grace will soon be taking responsibility for you, miss.”
“No, he did say he’d take responsibility, but that sort of relationship…!”
Right, but not right!
‘Anyway, if we look like that sort of pair, wouldn’t the priest back off?’
Sure, Edward would probably grill her and give her grief later. But if it meant dodging the temple, wouldn’t he let this much slide?
They’d done things that made it hard to say there was nothing between them.
‘And honestly, he gave me the opening himself…’
That wicked rake of a man had gone on about “laying hands on another man’s woman” just moments ago, hadn’t he!
So she’d blurted it out.
“…”
“…”
The air around them had gone still, like cold water dashed over the scene.
Even Edward, the very man she was hanging off of, hadn’t moved or said a word.
It dawned on her, too late, that she might have gone too far. But there was no taking it back now.
As always, it was stranger to act like nothing had happened just to clean up what was already done.
Lucy deliberately clung tight to Edward’s arm and rubbed her forehead against him.
She didn’t have the nerve to look up and meet his eyes.
“That man’s been saying strange things… darling.”
“…”
“You already said you’d take care of me… darling!”
Even so, she didn’t forget to remind Edward.
You said you’d take responsibility for me, didn’t you?
‘A verbal contract is still a contract!’
The air around them went colder still, and she could feel cold sweat beading up. But what could she do.
Burrow.
Lucy, not daring to lift her head, pressed her nose deeper into Edward’s arm.
“…”
Edward, meanwhile, was busy gazing down at the small, round crown of her head as she hung off his arm.
Leaving aside that even the part in her hair was cute in that needlessly small, tiny way of hers.
Edward’s mind was still ringing with the shocking title Lucy had thrown out.
‘Darling, she says.’
Where had a little mouse learned a word like that?
Not only had she seduced him in his dreams, now she was wrecking his senses out in the open, in front of everyone.
He didn’t even have the room to think her impudent, as he usually would.
Squish.
Never mind the feel of that round forehead rubbing against him like a frightened thing, or the slope of that neat little nose.
The familiar softness wrapped around his arm, so curved for a frame so thin…
Flintch.
For a moment, Edward almost pushed Lucy away. But he bit down, afraid that one careless twitch of his hand might hurt the tiny thing.
Even so, the soft swell of her chest pressed flush against his arm.
How could something so small be so warm? So soft?
He could feel she’d put on a little more flesh than before. All that feeding had paid off.
Edward stood there, broken stiff by the feel of her, whenâ
Lucy pressed him once more, urgent.
“Hurry and take care of me… darling!”
Her voice sounded close to tears.
It wasn’t a wrong read. Lucy had shouted it feeling very much like crying.
“…Ha.”
Edward let out a long breath he hadn’t known he was holding, the back of his neck aching.
The lines of the decree surfaced sharp in his mind once more.
[I hereby command you, Duke Edward Le Thesseron, to marry a young lady of temple origins capable of purifying you.]
He’d turned that over in his head before, and thought that Lucy fit the condition too.
Strange.
When Sepina clung and nagged, it had only ever been tiresome and irritating.
But the moment the word marriage was tied to this little mouse, the revulsion vanished. To a startling degree.
No. More than that.
‘…A marriage certificate is a contract too, in its way.’
The thought slid in, creeping, until it felt like a rather fine idea.
Before, when he’d told Lucy they should change the name on the contract, he’d meant to turn it into a slave contract and bind her tight to his side.
‘This is far better.’
Purification needed contact, no matter the form. And if he wanted to spoil her as he pleased, that needed contact too.
If they were bound as husband and wife, none of that contact would be the least bit strange.
On top of that, it was a contract written just as Lucy wanted. And for her, it would likely make for quite the reward too.
‘Right. A reward.’
For all that she liked him and chased after him, Lucy had never asked much of him beyond the contract.
If anything, at the important moments, she fainted and ran off.
Putting it all together…
‘For someone who likes me so much, she’s strangely without greed.’
By Edward’s measure, that was a problem.
People moved by greed.
The greedy were easy to steer, easy to sway.
By that mark, this little mouse had fallen short from the start.
‘That won’t do.’
A sudden sense of urgency took hold.
The need to bind the little mouse before him to his side, right now.
“Wh-What in the world is…”
Edward’s eyes met those of the priest, who was shaking with confusion.
“…!”
The priest, sensing the danger, opened and shut his lips. And then.
“Yes, darling.”
Edward smiled smooth as silk and pulled Lucy into his arms.
“Huh…?”
She’d been the one to latch on to him.
But the moment Edward threw the title back at her, Lucy stared up at him wide-eyed, like she’d heard something she shouldn’t have.
Edward looked down at her and put on a sweet sort of look.
It wasn’t hard.
A simple smile was all it took. There were plenty of people who fell over themselves at the sight of it, like they’d seen the sweetest thing in the world.
“I’ve done far too many things to you, darling, that need taking care of.”
At the odd, lurid edge to his tone, the priest jumped where he stood.
“D-Duke Thesseron!”
“Of course I’ll take responsibility.”
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
Hearing that, Lucy’s heart began to beat strangely fast.
‘What is this?’
It was good that he was taking responsibility. Even better that he was playing along.
‘But why does it feel like I’ve stepped into something wrong?’
Even so, every time Edward smiled, her stomach gave a strange lurch and her heart turned unwell.
Her heart was flopping on its own like a fish. Lucy swallowed without thinking.
“What in the world is going on, Duke Thesseron!”
The priest, seeing the scene spin further out of joint, began to blow up in anger.
“You have Lady Sepina, a saintess, do you not! To do this with her standing right there…!”
He spoke like a man scolding someone caught cheating, but Edward didn’t so much as flinch.
Instead, he frowned as if put off, and snapped at the priest who’d been about to lay into him.
“I never said I enjoyed what went on with Lady Sepina.”
“…!”
“It was nothing but purification.”
Thud.
At those words, Lucy’s fluttering heart lurched and sank.
Just as those things with Sepina were only purification…
‘Then what happened with me… was only purification too?’
The thought crept in on its own.
She’d told herself the same thing before, hadn’t she? That it was just purification.
She thought it was only natural. So why did her stomach feel so unwell?
Lucy swallowed and pressed down on the restless churning inside her.
“At any rate, I’ve done far too many things with my darling here that need taking care of.”
Edward whispered, then set his large hand on Lucy’s lower belly as if it were nothing.
“Our baby might even be in here.”
“…!”
“How could I hand her over to you?”
A silence heavier than before swept over the room.
“…”
“…”
“…”
Even Edward’s three closest aides stared at them in shock.
‘I didn’t ask you to go this far.’
Lucy, who had been the first to cling to him, looked up at Edward in alarm.
“You’d best go back to the temple and tell them, if you’ve heard me.”
With a proud, blinding air, Edward lifted his chin and pulled Lucy tighter against him.
Then he set off a bomb in the priest’s face.
“We plan to marry soon. So stop that nonsense about returning the Duchess of Thesseron.”
