Maylily - Chapter 63

“Ah… Father.”

Sweat beaded on Maylily’s forehead, and her face turned deathly pale, as if she were looking at the devil himself.

“What do you think you’re doing out here, Maylily?”

Victor snatched the hammer from her hand and asked in a flat tone. On his way to the carriage, he had realized he had left his wallet behind and come back. In that short time, this insolent wench had apparently been scheming.

“I… I, that….”

Even as Maylily trembled so hard her teeth were chattering, she still hadn’t given up on escaping, and her eyes flicked restlessly around her. Annoyed by that sight, Victor roughly grabbed a fistful of her hair.

“Aaagh!”

When the pain felt like her scalp was being ripped off and Maylily screamed, a young woman passing in front of the building jumped in surprise and looked over at them.

“Please, p-please help me.”

“My daughter isn’t right in the head and I’m restraining her tantrum, so ignore this and go on your way.”

The woman’s gaze swept over Maylily’s tangled hair and disheveled clothes, her dirt-covered hands, one bare foot stained with blood, and the other foot wrapped in torn scraps of cloth.

Realizing how she must look in the woman’s eyes, Maylily hurriedly opened her mouth.

“Help me. I’ve been kidnapped….”

Smack.

Victor struck Maylily hard across the face, cutting her off. Frightened by the violence of the scene, the woman hurried away.

Beep.

Perhaps because the blow had landed wrong on her ear, a sharp ringing stretched on inside Maylily’s head. Everything else sounded distant, as if a thick membrane had been laid over her eardrums.

If her hearing stayed like this, she would never be able to go onstage again. The fear that thought brought completely crushed Maylily’s will to resist.

“One more… time… t, try it…. Again….”

Victor’s lips moved smoothly, but the words that reached Maylily’s ears did not. Seeing Victor raise his hand high once more, Maylily, utterly terrified, begged through her tears.

“I, I was wrong, Father. Please, don’t hit me. Please….”

“You disgusting thing. Stop crying and follow me quietly.”

Victor swallowed his anger as he saw the blood gathered at the corner of Maylily’s mouth. In his heart, he wanted to slap her a few more times, but further damaging that tiny face would only lower her price.

Grabbing Maylily by the hair, Victor dragged her back into the building and came face to face with Pamela, who was rushing down the stairs with dirt smeared all over her face.

“What on earth have you been doing at home! Is it that hard to watch one girl who’s locked up? And what is with your face?”

“Well, the little brat threw dirt at me and… oh, Victor!”

Panting as she complained, Pamela suddenly widened her eyes at something beyond Victor’s shoulder. At the same time, the sound of several pairs of shoes entering the building echoed through the corridor.

“H-hey, look, look behind you!”

“What is it now, why are you making such a fuss?”

Victor turned to where Pamela was pointing, and a crooked smile formed at the corner of his mouth.

“What business does the great Count of Everscourt, who made my daughter end up like this, have in a shabby place like this?”

Hearing that name seep into ears that were slowly beginning to return to normal, Maylily flinched and turned her head. At the head of the group standing with the sunlight pouring in behind them at the entrance, a man’s bluish gray eyes were gazing at her quietly.

“Ah!”

Flung once more like a sack onto the storage room floor by Victor’s hand, Maylily let out a sharp cry.

“So you must really have a knack for taking men. Seeing how that bastard couldn’t forget your body and came looking for you.”

Victor spat out words filthy enough to come from a pimp and left the room with a sneer. The Count of Everscourt stepped inside, closing the door behind him. The space had already been cramped, but with his solid, broad figure filling it, the air seemed to heat up, making it hard to breathe.

Of all moments, it had to be now… in the worst situation imaginable.

Maylily pressed her back tightly against the stack of boxes behind her, pulled her knees up, and hid her feet beneath her skirt.

The count removed his gloves and lowered himself onto one knee before her. The scent she had almost forgotten enveloped her for a brief moment, and her vision went dizzy.

“We still have to go see the sea.”

His first words, spoken with the usual flawless composure, left Maylily stunned.

She hadn’t expected an apology, but still, how could he… act so utterly unfazed, as if nothing had ever happened. It made her wonder if the count even realized she was a person who could think and feel.

Disgusting. I don’t want to see him.

Maylily clamped her lips shut and turned her head sharply away. The count lifted one eyebrow, grasped her chin, and forced her face back toward him.

“Look at me, Maylily.”

“Don’t touch me.”

She slapped his hand away with sharp fury. Her volume was the same as usual, but her voice carried unmistakable anger.

So Heywood told her everything. Just as I expected.

Even with the situation having become mildly troublesome, Hugh found himself intrigued by the insolent fire burning in Maylily’s eyes.

Do I have a taste for this sort of thing? The ridiculous thought flickered through his mind, and with a small laugh, Hugh easily lifted Maylily into his arms.

“No! Let go of me. I said let go!”

Maylily thrashed and struck his chest. Her thin body, even lighter now, had almost no strength in its small fists. Hugh narrowed his brows for a moment, then relaxed them, and set her down atop the dresser.

When he reached for her dangling feet, Maylily kicked frantically. Through the haze of dust rising in the air, Hugh held her thin ankles firmly and ran his thumb gently along the inner side of her ankle bone.

“Relax.”

“I told you not to touch me.”

“If you don’t want my hands, should I use something else?”

The count tilted his lips at an angle, tongue briefly wetting them—a provocative gesture with an unmistakable implication. Maylily’s face flushed bright red, her lips parting without sound, and Hugh pulled a handkerchief from inside his coat.

He examined her wounded foot carefully and wrapped it with the handkerchief. His touch was warm and gentle. Just like that spring night when she had injured her hand carrying champagne glasses, and he had wrapped it for her.

Was gentleness like this something the count could easily pretend? Or was it simply a habit etched into him?

She hadn’t known. And every time, her heart had raced. Even now, after learning how meaningless that gentleness truly was, her heart beat wildly again. The loud thudding trembling through her whole body made her feel, for a moment, as if she might cry.

“I definitely prefer you quiet.”

As he released her wrapped foot, Hugh’s gaze rose to her face, and he let out a soft, amused breath. The ridiculous comment snapped Maylily back to her senses, and her eyes sharpened.

“What do you think I am? After deceiving me like that, do you really expect me to treat you the same as before?”

“And why shouldn’t you?”

“…What?”

The count stepped in close, his body pressing toward her knees. A thin shaft of light leaking through the cracks between the planks over the window cut across his eyes. The cold cruelty hidden deep within them pierced Maylily more sharply than ever.

“I used you for my revenge, and you used me to break off your engagement. Would you not say that makes it a fair deal between us?”

Used me. That was absurd.

“That is not true. I… I….”

I truly liked you, Count.

Not letting those words ever leave her lips was Maylily’s last shred of pride. Pleading her true feelings to a man who had deceived her and felt not the slightest guilt would only make her own pitiful state look even more ridiculous.

Letting out a faint sigh in place of what she could not say, Maylily swallowed back the tears that had risen and clutched her skirt tightly in her hands.

“Is that what you came here to say? To remind me that I have no right to resent you, Count?”

“I came to take you.”

The count placed his large, hot hand over Maylily’s.

“Become my mistress.”

At the shocking proposal that didn’t suit his calm tone, Maylily was momentarily dumbfounded. She even forgot to shake off his hand and only blinked blankly.

“M… mistress.”

“You don’t need to make that face. I only mean to return our relationship to how it was. Of course, the patronage will continue.”

Suddenly, she remembered that dawn when she had left the bedroom filled with lily of the valley scent, feeling as if she had become his lover.

Lover and mistress.

The way Maylily and the count viewed their relationship differed as much as the gap between those two words. From where the count stood, no matter how he wrapped it in deception, that was all it had ever been.

Even faced with that cruel realization, accepting the relationship the count had defined was, for now, her best option. The reality that she had no choice but to lean on the rescue offered by the man who had deceived her tormented Maylily so much that she couldn’t easily open her mouth.

“Maylily.”

It was the count who broke the long silence.

“Do you know that your father plans to sell you to a brothel to pay off his loan?”

“….”

So she knows. Seeing no change in Maylily’s expression, the count spoke in a voice full of certainty.

“With the repayment date approaching, and after what you did today, the watch on you will only become stricter. You might not get a second chance. And I….”

The count fell silent and slowly tightened the hand that was holding hers.

“I’m a man who gets what he wants, one way or another.”

His eyes, which held Maylily sunk in deep anguish, gently curved. It was the relaxed smile of a man who felt certain that he would, without fail, achieve what he had set his mind on.

“So answer me now, Maylily.”