The Devilish Duke Can’t Sleep

Proofreader: somnium

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Cheeks, lips, and tips of the ears

They headed to the outdoor waiting room for the coachman.
Under the eaves of rain shade installed outdoors, male coachmen of different ages were smoking cigarettes and all looked at Elliot.

“What is this? Why are we here?”

“You said you don’t like it there? There is no other place other than that room for the employee to rest.
That doesn’t mean I can’t take you to a room where only male servants are gathered.
It’s open all over the place, so even if you’re with men, there won’t be any bad rumors going around.
Then, good bye.”

Elliot looked at the attendant’s back, her eyes wide open it couldn’t grow any bigger.
As she analyzed the situation at the words of the attendant, the coachmen started to giggle behind her back, and Elliot had no choice but to follow the attendant and go back to the room where the maids were gathered.
She thought all of this to be only Lena’s fault.
A lowly girl who should have died instead of her, but who is now alive and enjoying luxury.

‘You will see, I will never let you go!’

Pretending to be ignorant of the maid’s scornful gaze, Elliot grinded her teeth inside.

* * *

After a successful tea party, Kahel returned to his office and called Lena.

Lena’s cheeks were still swollen, and her lips looked like scabs had sat on them.
However, it was all a trick.
The power of the Duchy’s lineage was a power over materialization.
In other words, their blessings and curses that they gave were almost like magic.
There was a time when the people of the Duchy were called ‘magicians’, so it was not unusual for Kahel to perform such a trick.

The blessing he placed on Lena was to neutralize physical blows, and in appearance gave an illusion of the wounds that would have been inflicted upon her.

“Come closer.”

Lena, who was approaching him, seemed pitiful today.
He had planned today’s event to clearly imprint on Elliot’s position, which was different from the past, and to prevent her from acting recklessly again.
He explained it well enough to Lena yesterday.
But Lena had been bullied by Elliot for a long time, and she would have felt fear instinctively, even if she knew she was safe now.
He was sorry that Lena had to meet Elliot as he wondered if it wasn’t for his greed.

“By any chance, are you scared?”

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“A little at first…… But when she actually started talking, I was more angry than scared…….”

 

“Why don’t you hit her too? Do you think I can’t even save you from that much?”

“No.
Just, I didn’t want to be the same person as her.
And, well, I didn’t actually get hit.”

Smiling somewhat embarrassingly, Lena scratched her cheek, which looked swollen.
Kahel gently grabbed Lena’s hand, lowered it, and lifted Lena’s chin.

Looking at it again, his stomach was boiling.
He knew why Elliot insisted that she didn’t do it.
She probably felt a sense of something alien the moment she hit Lena, and she noticed that there was no damage to the other person at all.
But she wasn’t supposed to be so brazen.
If Kahel hadn’t put the blessing on Lena, Lena would have been really hit by Elliot and Lena would have been injured this way.
So, when he saw Lena’s face in the greenhouse earlier, I got angry.
He thought in the past, it would have been like this on a daily basis…….

“Do you not want revenge?”

Kahel asked, stroking Lena’s cheek with his hand, unleashing the magic.
Lena’s smooth cheeks and the smooth exposed lips.
It was troublesome because he wanted to touch them over and over again.
Since they went to Sharden, he has always wanted to touch Lena.
He had never thought of touching another person before, but he only had that desire for Lena, and he’s been consciously trying to step away from it lately.

Even now, his fingertips twitched as he saw Lena’s face in front of him.

“The Baron and his wife are all dead, so what’s there to get revenge on? Just…… From now on, I hope that Miss Elliot will live well on her own.”

“She’s not a Miss.”

“But…… It seems that she has become a noble again…….”

Kahel groaned dissatisfied, and clicked his tongue.

“I forgot.
Surely, it would be nice to have a nobleman’s surname attached to you as well.”

“What? Why?”

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“Because I don’t want to hear you call that wicked girl Miss.”

Lena blinked her wide open eyes, trying to figure out if this person was joking or serious.
If she could become a noble for such a trivial reason, the status system in this country would have faltered.

 

“Your Excellency… I will never see Miss Elliot again in the future…….”

“There is Viscounty Elotskaya, and there is Barony Mattenne…… Oh, and Viscount Malik had only one son.”

Kahel didn’t listen to Lena’s small pleas, and was examining each family with few or no children.
It was then that Lena was convinced that Kahel was serious.
He’s, after all, a person who doesn’t shy away from what he says out of his mouth.

But Lena did not want to be adopted anywhere.
The only mother to her was her deceased mother.
She didn’t like to call anyone else Mother.

“Well, Your Excellency.
I appreciate your consideration, but I do not want to be adopted by another family.”

“Yes? Why? Are you doing this out of fear of someone beating you? You don’t have to worry about that.
After all, you’ll be living in this mansion, leaving your adopted family behind.
You will seldom see each other.”

“Still, I will often have to call the person who adopted me Mother and Father.”

“Well…… If you attend a banquet or something like that, it must happen.”

“I don’t like to call anyone other than my mother, Mother.
Even when I pretend to be Baron Fidelia’s daughter and prepare for the wedding, I never called Baroness Fidelia, Mother.
I too…… If I even forget my deceased mother too, my mother will be so pitiful…….”

Lena tried her best to pretend she was okay.
But her mother’s voice, her pale face kept glimmering, and her eyes lit up.
She lost her mother overnight from an unknown disease, and no one in the village helped her.
Rather, Lena was stoned, saying it was a contagious disease.
Her mother’s burial would not have been possible without the help of Uncle Theo, whom she often sees at the inn.

Her mother hadn’t been comfortable since Lena remembers.
All day she weaved tapestry, and she embroidered late into the night.
She wasn’t good at cooking, but she still tried to make something to keep Lena from starving.
To get some of the firewood, she had to laugh at the low-grade jokes of the town’s men, and she had to pretend she didn’t hear the swear words of the townsfolk who called her mother a witch or a prostitute.

It was only for Lena that she endured all the disgrace.
If her mother only wanted to take care of herself, she could abandon Lena and marry a wealthy man.
However, despite her mother’s hardship and humiliation, she never abandoned Lena, and she gave her a lot of love that no one in the neighborhood would have received.

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She was the only one who remembered such a mother.
It was a pity that she couldn’t do anything for her mother.
So she couldn’t possibly do anything other than call her mother Mother.

“I’m sorry.
I should have asked for your opinion first…….”

Kahel apologized to Lena as she was clenching her throat and swallowed the tears.

He was arrogant.
He thought that any commoner would want to become a nobleman.
He knew Lena was completely different from those people, but he must have ignored her unknowingly.

“I seem to keep doing things that are bad for you.”

“Oh no, Your Excellency! I am well aware that your Excellency shows great consideration for me.
I’m sorry for sounding cocky…….”

Kahel looked at Lena smiling with a reddish nose and eyes, and finally he couldn’t stand it and lifted his hand and gently stroked her cheek.
He hesitated a little, lest Lena avoid it, and Lena felt awkward about it, but she didn’t avoid his hand.
Rather, she seemed to be leaning on with her eyelashes down.

He felt strange.
He didn’t know what to say, but his heart raced, his face heated up, and his breathing was short.
The inside of his belly was tickling unbearably as his mouth dried up.
Above all, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t take his eyes off Lena’s lips.

Kahel slowly lowered his head towards Lena, swallowing a gulp.
If he put his lips to those lips, he thought it would feel very good for some reason.
It was clear that it would be delicious without having to put millefeuille cream on it.

Knock, knock.

At that moment, someone knocked on the office door.
Kahel and Lena dropped their bodies in surprise like children caught doing something bad.
The tips of their ears turned red and the air became uncomfortably awkward.

“Your Excellency.
This is Arder.”

“Uhhumm! Come in.”

Kahel came to his senses at Arder’s voice, and calmly called him in.

Arder didn’t find it strange to see Lena standing next to Kahel.
It was because he could see why Lena was here when he saw that the scars on Lena’s cheeks and lips had completely disappeared.

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“Your Excellency.
Countess Delroot wants to see you for a moment.”

“Ah…… I forgot about my aunt.”

Mariela didn’t know that today’s incident was half-planned.
She wouldn’t have stopped it even if she had known, but he kept it a secret from Mariela, as it would have leaked out if several people knew.

“I’ll see her.
Lena, you better go and get some rest.”

Kahel tried to dismiss Lena, but Arder stopped him.

“Your Excellency.
The Countess wants Lena to be here, too.”

“Does Aunt notice something?”

“About Lena herself, I don’t think she does.
However, she was the main character of the uproar that took place earlier.”

Lena didn’t understand words passed between the two of them.
Lena still didn’t know about Kahel’s devilish power.
Everyone seemed to be hesitant about Kahel, but for Lena, who was living on the bottom, the title of Duke was reason enough for people to find it difficult, so she didn’t find it strange.

Anyway, Kahel took a deep breath and greeted his aunt,

“Aunt.
Actually, I was going to find you.”

“No, Kahel.
The head does not move around recklessly.
It’s only natural for me to come up and see you.
Oh, the maid is also here.”

“Yes.
I was inquiring about the whole story earlier.”

“I came here because I was curious about it, too.
Shall we have a cup of tea together?”

“I, I will prepare it.”

Lena hurriedly shook her head and went out to get the tea, but the maid who had prepared the tea was already following Mariela.
Lena took it and simply had to set it up on the tea table.

Eventually Lena found that she didn’t even have time to prepare her heart, and she stood next to Kahel, who was sitting next to Mariela, her hands twitching nervously.