Chapter 21
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"Yes. She made it over, and then the stable hand found Miss Aubrey down."
"Oh, no. I feel like I'm listening to an adventure story."
Nicholas finished the story, and Patrick added his admiration. Aubrey could only feel her heart pounding as she locked eyes with Khaled.
"I'm most impressed that you survived at such a young age, helping out the merchants. I could never have done that."
"I was just an immature kid, fourteen or fifteen."
I watched his lips as the two men talked, and I muttered a chant to myself. Don't say it. Don't say it. Don't say it, please. But the thick lips opened without mercy.
"Miss Sandalwood is a very lucky girl, for if a parentless child had wandered into Camshire, she would have been taken to Crysis, and you have been spared."
Aubrey's heart dropped to her feet at the sound of the name she'd rather not hear.
"Crysis?"
Patrick whispered at Nicholas's question.
"There is such a place. I'll explain later, but not in front of the ladies."
The words strangled Aubrey's throat even more. These men knew what Crysis Island was like. If they did, they would most likely recognize her brand. She couldn't hold it in.
Aubrey's head was bowed, and she was staring at her hands, which were still clasped together. She could feel a chill in the air and her lower teeth rattled.
"By the way, have you repaid your benefactor?"
At the soft question, Aubrey looked up, eyes glowing darker than ever, staring directly at her.
"The one who saved Miss Sandalwood."
The benefactor Khaled was referring to was the stable hand who had found her in the woods, but to Aubrey it sounded different. Her first savior, her benefactor. It felt like he was talking about himself.
Aubrey said nothing. Khaled didn't really want an answer either, so he wiped the smile off his face and turned around, facing forward. Aubrey glared at the back of the man's head.
His black hair slicked back, his broad shoulders, his thick torso. The man's backside alone exuded an aura of power, and that was what he wanted. A reward for taking the hand of a slave begging for her life and running away with it. Was that what he wanted, and was that why he was doing this?
Suddenly, she remembered the moment she'd visited him. Khaled Karnus had looked at her with impassive eyes as she cried and pleaded, and he had said,
"If I don't tell, what will I get in return?”
The hands that had been resting politely on her thighs were suddenly cold. Yes, he wanted something.
* * *
The young lady who had appeared in the mansion five years ago as if she had fallen from the sky and was the subject of lush rumors was once again the talk of the town.
Near midnight. The room in the attic on the third floor was filled with intimate chatter. For the women who worked on the mansion, fixing erosion, late-night chatter was their only respite from the day's hardships.
Trin's room was always crowded with three or four of her fellow users. Today's topic of conversation was Lady Aubrey. She had been suspicious for days, and now she was on the chopping block.
"That's right, ever since that party, she's been completely out of her mind."
"But it’s fine with lady Emily. They had dinner together earlier and they didn't seem to mind."
"Do you want see them to grab her by the hair in the presence of the master because she's crazy?"
"But hasn't Miss Emily always been a bully, and there's no reason for her to be so crazy all of a sudden?"
Trin tried to focus on her knitting, but she couldn't ignore the chatter beside her. She pursed her lips and snorted, picking up the pace on her work.
"Hey, Trin, did something happen the last time she was out?"
"No!"
Trin yelled, and the sparks flew all the way to them. Trin shouted that nothing happened, but inwardly she was worried. Lady Aubrey had become very strange-or rather, more strange-since her trip to the Duke of Karnus’s residence.
When she returned, Lady Aubrey was in a daze. Tears dried on her flushed cheeks, her eyes unfocused. She followed her wherever she led her, helplessly. Something must have happened there.
At the dinner, she thought she was fine for a moment, but after the guests left, her face immediately withered. She tried to speak to her, but she didn't hear it. It was as if her mind was elsewhere.
"Maybe she’s in love? I heard that Master Paddingham asked her to dance at the party, and she fell in love with him."
"I don't think it was Master Paddingham, I think it was Lord Atherton, I saw the two strolling in the garden at the last dinner."
"Then I suppose it was him?"
"Oh, no!"
They sat up laughing. Trin wanted to stab them in the nostrils with the needle in her hand.
"But wasn't Lady Aubrey a little weird to begin with?"
A young brown-haired maid who had been listening quietly wrinkled her nose. The maids, who had been chattering like sparrows, all turned to look at her.
"She acts like she’s hiding something, changing her own clothes and refusing to take a bath."
Trin, who had been shooting fire the whole time, was stunned. She could no longer knit in peace.
"I wonder if there's something terribly wrong with her?"
"Does she have a lot of hair?"
"You don't think that place is......."
"Stop it!"
Trin shouted, struggling to her feet.
"What the hell are you talking about, Agatha, are you insane?"
Then the maid who had brought up Aubrey's story in the first place spoke up in disbelief.
"Why are you so angry? It's true, you're the closest to her of all of us, and you've never helped her bathe."
"That's because......."
"Have you ever seen her naked?"
“…….”
There was no answer. It was true that Trin had never seen her naked either.
"See? You didn't see it, either. She must be doing something, and that's how she got caught at the party."
"Oh my God!"
"I said no!"
All Trin could say was no. She told them to shut up and get some sleep. She stalked out of the room, grumbling under her breath. In the cramped hallway, Trin tried to kill time.
But the more she tried to forget, the more vivid the scene became. It was the first time she'd seen Aubrey. Henna’s orders had forced her to attend to the young woman, and Trin felt quite sorry for her, even though she was dressed in the wrong way.
She had a similar look to her own when she had first entered this great mansion, lost and confused. So when she tried to get her dressed properly, Audrey fidgeted almost too much, as if she were trying to hide something.
It was a relief, but in the meantime, Trin noticed a strange wound. It was a reddish scar beneath the young woman's wingbone. She couldn't get a good look at it because her skinny hands were desperately covering it, but it was a scar like a painting.
It troubled Trin for a few days, but she soon forgot about it. She didn't mention it to anyone. She didn't want to make an already unwelcome young woman feel even stranger.
"I can't do this."
Trin pursed her lips in thought. Now she really needed a man to protect her lady, a handsome man who would put these strange rumors to rest once and for all and give her lady a happy future.
Trin thought of Nicholas or Patrick. She spent the night deciding who was better, as if the two men had already taken a liking to Aubrey. And when Trin chose Nicholas, who was kinder and gentler to the servants than the gentlemanly Patrick.
Then she remembered Aubrey had uttered a name that would horrify her.
"I must go to see the Count of Lavonne."
"What's that......."
Trin's mouth dropped open and she froze, having forgotten to wipe Aubrey's face with the washcloth she'd brought with her. She had been lying in bed like a dead man walking for days, and spoke as soon as she woke up.
“Ha, what's with the Count of Lavonne all of a sudden?"
"I wanted to ask you something."
Aubrey spoke softly, pulling back the covers and standing up on her skinny legs. She wobbled for a moment, but she managed to keep her balance, holding onto the bed.
"Ha, if you have something to say to him, why don't you put it in writing? I don't know where you're going with your weak body......."
The Count of Lavonne had never been considered as a possible future husband for the young lady. He was a clever businessman, but of humble birth, and from what she had seen at the dinner, he did not seem to have much of a personality. He was, as she had heard, a handsome man, but handsomeness was not everything in a gentleman.
Besides, he was the kind of man Lady Emily had in mind.
"I don't think the Countess would approve, so I think you should collect yourself and think some more......."
"Trin."
The call came again, more languidly. At the weak voice, Trin grunted reluctantly.
"Help me, I need to see him and ask him something."
The eyes that spoke for help were dull. The once brilliant green pupils had already burned to black and looked like they were covered in leftover ash. Just like the day she first came to the mansion, unconscious. Aubrey smiled.
"Please."
No, no, no, no. That's not the expression my lady should have on her face. The lady who smiled so sweetly, with her body so precarious that she could fall if she was touched, seemed to have some kind of reserve.
"Oh, I’ll see to it, Miss."
Trin could only stammer a reply, then the fever cooled and she began to carefully wipe Aubrey's face with a lukewarm washcloth. Aubrey sat up in bed and sighed heavily. She'd been sick for days, and this was it.
She couldn't keep running away from him. Aubrey knew she'd run into him again sooner or later. As long as long as her family wanted him. Was this life going to end if she had to be conscious of him every time, if she had to sweat and fret at his every word? No. Absolutely not.
"Have you repaid your benefactor?”
He wanted something. A benefactor was waiting to be repaid, and all she had to do was give it to him. Aubrey was determined to end her debt to the despicable, beautiful man who had come like a dream.
"I've written a letter for the Count of Lavonne on my desk, if you can pick it up on your way out."
"......."
"And send it without my aunt knowing."
With that, she clenched her hands into tight fists.
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