Deceived 71

Chapter 71

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***

The moment the man's breath on her lips grew rough, she knew she'd succeeded in capturing his attention. Edmund immediately stubbed out his cigarette and lifted Blair up. He bit her lips as if attacking her, then thrust his still-hot cock deep inside her. A lustful moan escaped between Blair's lips at the fullness that forced its way into the tight space and filled her.

"...Haah."

She wrapped her slender arms tightly around him. As he thrust deep inside her, she deliberately whispered into his ear. Harder, you said I was a lewd woman, so deeper, hurt me more... And then their positions reversed.

Just as Blair had desired, the man, his eyes rolled back, completely shed his usual neat facade. He grabbed her hair and began thrusting into her as if tearing her apart. She welcomed it wholeheartedly. They say a mask worn long enough becomes part of the flesh. If so, they were now tearing away their refined facades and dignified appearances, embracing each other with their perfect, bare faces.

Blair thought this, this very thing, could only be love.

***

Thin dawn light seeped through the windows.

The distant chirping of birds mingled with the faint rumble of a hired carriage's wheels rolling over cobblestones. As the early morning's uniquely vibrant air flowed into the inn room, the heat of the previous night dissipated, and Edmund lifted his head slightly. Having barely slept a wink, he had been staring at the woman with her eyes closed, completely oblivious to the passage of time.

It was an unfamiliar peace. The passion of the night before felt like a dream. Blair, sleeping soundly beside him, breathed evenly. Edmund carefully reached out a hand toward her face. He gently brushed away a few strands of golden-brown hair clinging to her forehead and slowly traced her cheek with his fingertips. 

Her soft, downy earlobes, small nose, and cheeks flushed with an unusual richness. With delicate lashes cast over her eyes, the sleeping woman looked far more childlike than when awake.

A deep shadow settled in Edmund's eyes as he lowered his gaze, his lips slightly parted. The moment he became aware of his desire to kiss Blair, he withdrew the hand that had been gently caressing her, however cautiously. Even with her within arm's reach, even after spending the entire night doing things to her far more disorderly than a kiss, he dared not touch her again. By what right now? He had no such entitlement.

Suddenly, the memory of last night came flooding back. The night when the reason and logic he had so proudly forged crumbled, leaving only the pursuit of primal desire. He remembered clearly the moment he was swept up in the relentless instinct to make this woman his own.

"...I've lost my mind."

What had he despised his entire life? It was his own father, who had reduced women to tools of lust. A man who, despite having a barren legitimate wife, desperately took concubines to produce an heir, killing the souls of many in the process. And the product of that very act was himself. He had always believed a man's lust for a woman was nothing but a repulsive urge to reproduce and cruel selfishness.

Yet, in the end, hadn't he committed the same act as his father?

The difference, perhaps, was that his father justified his desires for the sake of the family name. Edmund, by comparison, had simply desired one woman. He thought that made it an even more vile excuse.

Edmund wanted to cover Blair's warm body, her soft breath, her entire form in a hazy filth and make her his. Contracts and justifications were all meaningless. The blood he had so despised was alive and pulsing within him.

Even as he despised himself, his gaze returned to her. Her face, eyes modestly closed, looked peaceful, deepening his guilt. A crimson bruise traced the smooth curve of her neck down to her collarbone. If he pulled back the covers, more explicit marks would surely be visible. The mere thought seized him with a strange satisfaction. Was this normal? Could such contradictory emotions truly coexist within one person?

"Mmm..."

Then Blair stirred. The quilt slipped away, revealing her pale chest bathed in the pale dawn light. Edmund consciously tore his gaze away. As he pulled the covers back over her, she opened her eyes, half-lidded.

"...Edmund."

Even in her sleep, her voice was surprisingly clear. Blair blinked her heavy eyelids, then her hazel eyes met his, softening into a gentle smile. The solemn expression he'd been holding onto crumbled helplessly, mirroring hers.

"How long have you been awake?"

"Not long. You could have slept a little longer."

"No... you're awake already."

Then, perhaps feeling the chill on her bare skin, Blair gave a small cough. Edmund rose immediately, picked up the water bottle from the side table with one hand, poured some water, and handed her the glass.

"Thank you."

Blair, receiving the glass, also sat up. The blanket he had carefully placed over her slid down, revealing her snow-white naked body. Her lusciously full breasts and slender waist. That beautiful body, marked in places by the red traces he had left behind.

Her breasts, subjected to particularly relentless torment compared to other parts, bore truly merciless marks. His sucking had left her nipples raw and swollen, and on her left breast, the imprint of his grasp remained as a deep blue bruise.

Back when he attended boarding school in Borsa, he'd heard such talk. Men deprived of maternal love inevitably develop a pathological fixation on women's breasts. At the time, he scoffed at the absurdity of it, but seeing Blair's body, defiled by all those marks, made that notion sink into his chest with a chilling clarity.

From the moment Edmund was brought into this world, his mother was a discarded entity, her purpose fulfilled. All that the frail, sickly woman could offer the son she'd been forced to bear was the silent stroke of her hand through his hair. Looking back, he'd never known the warmth of a woman's embrace in his entire life.

So was he filling that void with Blair?

"Are you uncomfortable?"

He asked quietly. The woman swallowed water with a gulp and looked at him. Her face, blushing shyly as she remembered the night before, was lovely. Edmund swallowed dryly, stifling a sound.

"I'm fine. What about you?"

"You don't need to worry about me."

"Still..."

Blair trailed off, wiping her damp lips with the back of her hand. Watching this meaningless gesture, heat surged through him again, making his lower body ache. He couldn't believe himself. Was it inevitable for a man to be swept up in lust at the sight of a naked woman? Unaware of this disgusting truth, Blair smiled faintly.

"I don't want to go back to the mansion."

"But we have to."

Though he was the one more trapped in this dreamlike state than she was, he deliberately refused to agree. Pushing the covers aside, he rose. Then he picked up the scattered clothes and began dressing. Edmund slipped his arms into his shirt and glanced back at Blair, who sat leaning against the headboard.

"I'll get up first."

"......"

"Shall we have breakfast back at the mansion?"

Blair didn't answer immediately, staring up at him. She bit her lower lip, almost as if chewing on it. It was the expression she wore when she felt hurt.

But the woman who knew when it was time to return to reality soon nodded.

"Yes, let's do that."

"You can sleep longer, but come downstairs before eight."

"Understood."

Though not dressed as immaculately as usual, Edmund, now back in his noble attire, strode purposefully across the room. Without looking back, he flung open the bedroom door and slammed it shut. After pausing briefly in the hallway to catch his breath, he turned toward the stairs. It was time to put the mask back on and return to his place.

***

On the way back to the Duke's residence in the carriage, Blair hadn't exchanged a single word with Edmund since leaving the inn.

Of course, when Blair came down to the tavern on the first floor, Edmund had offered the polite, "Shall we be going?" and escorted her like a gentleman, but that was all. For some reason, Edmund seemed slightly irritated. No, it felt subtly different from that. It was less discomfort and more unease.

Was that even possible? It was hard to believe that such a large, robust man, a man renowned for his coolness, could show anxiety.

Blair let the silence linger in the carriage for a while. Then, recalling someone she'd temporarily pushed from her mind, she spoke.

"Edmund, um... I met with the Countess of Gillingham not long ago, you remember?"

He, who had been staring out the window, met her gaze.

"Yes."

"While walking with the Countess in Riverside Park, I happened to see Lady Underhill. Nicoletta Underhill."

"Isaac Doman’s mistress?"

"Yes. Did something happen to her?"

"She met the end everyone expected. Though I didn't think she'd wallow in the mire quite so thoroughly."

Edmund relayed Nicoletta's recent circumstances without so much as a flicker of an eyebrow.

"I heard she was discarded immediately after you and Doman broke off the engagement. To Isaac Doman, she was likely just a diversion. After that, she contracted social disease and became unmarriageable. She was forced into a marriage with a distant relative, but during that process, discord arose within the family, and their business collapsed."

His voice was as dry as reading printed text from a report. The memory of Nicoletta's wretched appearance when they met on the Ridgeway River stirred even more complex emotions within Blair.

She hadn't made a favorable impression from the start, but did she truly deserve such a miserable end? The thought that Nicoletta's fate might have been her own made her head spin. All this misery stemmed from Isaac Doman.

"How horrific. Nicoletta is pitiful, but how could Isaac Doman be so utterly despicable?"

"But isn't it precisely because he was despicable that you're sitting beside me now?"

"......"

"Of course, I have no intention of watching Doman live in luxury without facing judgment. He must pay the price for pointing a gun at my wife."