Maylily - Chapter 78

“Count, please put me down. Please?”

Startled, Maylily cried out and struggled, but Hugh paid no attention and reached the tent in a single stride.

After setting Maylily down on the chair, he impatiently loosened his ascot tie and took off his vest. Abruptly dragged into the tent and still dazed, Maylily soon sensed the shift in atmosphere and fell quiet.

As she swallowed hard and glanced around, her hips shifted slightly. Hugh, who was taking off his shirt, gave a dry command, “Stay still.”

“…Could you hand me the towel behind you, Count?”

Hugh tossed the shirt he’d removed onto an empty chair, took the towel from the basket behind him, and came over to Maylily.

“I, I’ll do it myself.”

“Don’t move.”

Kneeling on one knee at Maylily’s feet, Hugh held her ankle, which fit easily in one hand, and carefully wiped the water from her foot and calf. In the large eyes that met his gaze several times during that brief moment, unhidden shyness lingered.

After lightly pressing a kiss to the inside of her white calf, now dry, Hugh stood and brushed the sand clinging to his own legs away with the towel.

He tossed the towel back into the empty basket and turned around, only to see a woman sitting quietly on the small chair, waiting meekly to be devoured by him. Meeting those eyes lifted toward him, shining, made his throat dry again.

Hugh brought the glass he’d poured with the remaining lemonade in the bottle to his lips, then held it out to Maylily with a small tilt of his head.

“…Thank you.”

The two hands that accepted the glass trembled faintly, like a new bride on her wedding night. Even though they’d overlapped their bodies countless times by now.

Perhaps she was more tense than she realized. From the trembling glass, a thin stream of the drink spilled over and ran along the corner of her mouth. Maylily glanced sideways at Hugh, who slowly rubbed her cheek with his thumb and laughed silently, then lowered her eyes and set the glass down.

“I don’t want any more.”

Before Maylily’s hand even reached him, Hugh wiped the corner of her mouth clean. With his other hand, he tipped the remaining lemonade in the glass into his own mouth. The Adam’s apple protruding in the center of his straight throat bobbed prominently.

Maylily watched the sight silently. Her face looked as if she were lost in thought.

“Why?”

“Oh, no, it’s nothing.”

There was no time to press the woman who hurriedly shook her head and lied.

The sharp sound of the glass being set down on the table rang through the tent like a signal. Hugh tried to climb on top of Maylily, but the chair was too small to allow it, so he simply scooped her up and sat down.

Then he claimed the lips he’d wanted to taste for so long. It was a desperate kiss, as if all the leisure from moments ago, when he’d shared lemonade with Maylily, had been a lie.

The tips of their tongues collided, spreading a rich lemon scent. Deeper in, after brushing past her neat teeth, a faint peach fragrance bloomed.

“Would you like a bite?”

The image of the woman shyly asking under the sunlight flickered through his heat-soaked mind. How much patience had he gathered to suppress the urge to kiss that harmless face?

As if claiming his reward, Hugh’s hand, which had been persistently licking up the fruit scent lingering throughout her small mouth, roamed over the light lavender bodice. Startled, Maylily turned her head, and ragged breaths spilled out through her saliva-wet, shining lips.

“Haa…. This is outside….”

“It’s fine. No one can come without my permission.”

Since no one actually came while they stayed there, Maylily accepted Hugh’s touch without any further resistance. The bodice, corset, and chemise were quickly removed one after another.

Hugh tightly pulled the body revealing its smooth curves into his arms and buried his lips in her long, white neck. As the salty taste of summer faded, the sweetness of spring bloomed.

Each time he swallowed it deeply, the heated moans Maylily spilled mixed with the sound of the waves and scattered across the beach. A slender hand that slid over the back of Hugh’s head wrapped around his broad, sweat-dampened back. Where their skins met burned as if holding a mass of fire.

Hugh moved his lips to her shoulder and roughly seized her heaving, ample breasts. Her nipples, already stiff and swollen, were swept about wantonly in his large palm.

“Ah…!”

When he twisted them harshly with his fingertips, Maylily let out a sharp cry. To keep hearing that sweet sound, he pressed and flicked the tender flesh as if playing an instrument, ceaselessly carving bite marks into her slender shoulders.

Hugh could hardly contain the passion boiling up in the summer heat and poured it into Maylily without restraint. The desire that had sprouted the moment he saw the woman sitting defenseless among the black gazes in the tearoom had grown like a snowball all the way to this beach.

I want to engrave and brainwash it deep into this beautiful body, that you’re mine. So that Maylily remembers who her owner is at every moment, anywhere, anytime.

“Don’t forget, Maylily.”

Thump, thump, his lips that had sucked hard at the white breast near her loudly pounding heart whispered softly.

“You’re mine.”

“Hmm….”

As if answering him, Maylily let out a thin moan. Hugh greedily swallowed the reddened peak as he looked with satisfaction at the face ruined by the pleasure he’d given her. From there, his marks were carefully carved in once more.

On the beach where the heat was slowly beginning to subside, the summer of the two people tangled together grew ever hotter.

***

Prowden’s first summer guests arrived on the first weekend of July. It was late afternoon on a day when the blazing sun poured down over a gorgeous garden overflowing with flowers of every color.

“Welcome. It must’ve been a tiring journey in this heat.”

“Tiring? The road to Prowden is always nothing but pleasure.”

Deborah, who had come out to the porch with the servants, greeted the Marchioness of Cheshire as she stepped down from the carriage with a bright smile.

“You look even more radiant, as if you’ve heard good news. Congratulations, Vivian.”

Beside the Marchioness stood her daughter, Vivian Cheshire.

Her auburn hair was neatly braided up, and atop it sat a brimless round hat, a style currently in fashion in the capital, tilted at an angle. It was an excellent choice that made her striking features stand out even more.

The Cheshire family’s visits to Prowden were almost a regular event held every summer, but this year carried a slightly special meaning. The reason Deborah invited the Cheshire mother and daughter a full week earlier than the other guests was not unrelated to that.

After nearly two months of negotiations, the marriage talks between Hugh and Vivian had finally reached an agreement, with only the signing of the contract left. Next week, when the Marquess of Cheshire visited the south to attend the opening ceremony of the new Skaard Hotel branch, the two families planned to complete the remaining engagement procedures.

Vivian had been a precocious young lady who blushed in front of Hugh even before wearing a corset. Deborah, who had noticed that touching innocence early on, was sincerely pleased with the union of the two beautiful young people.

“Thank you. I look forward to this summer as well.”

Vivian naturally pressed a kiss to Deborah’s cheek, then her gaze reached Hugh, who stood behind them with his hands clasped neatly behind his back. Having waited at ease for the ladies’ greetings to end, he turned a formal smile toward Vivian.

“Welcome to Prowden.”

It was a greeting so perfectly proper that it even felt somewhat dry. All the more so considering the recipient was his fiancée.

Still, it was hard to complain when the smile resting on his well-shaped lips was so striking. Vivian reminded herself that she was no longer a seven-year-old girl allowed to stare blankly at Hugh Skaard, and she steadied her composure.

“Thank you for inviting us, Count Everscourt.”

As she placed her hand on the arm he offered to escort her, the smile at her lips held the same degree of courtesy, neither excessive nor lacking.

Before dinner, a tea time was held in the sitting room. Once the maids who had arranged the refreshments on the tea table withdrew, Deborah lifted her teacup and led the conversation.

“When do you plan to announce the engagement, Vivian?”

“How about releasing an article in September, when the autumn social season begins?”

Vivian set the spoon she had been stirring her milk tea with back onto the saucer, her olive-colored eyes shining clearly.

“It would also make it easier for guests to attend the engagement party then. It’s the time when everyone gathers in Roden. My mother agrees with me as well.”

Behind the bright smiles she directed in turn at Deborah and the Marchioness of Cheshire, Vivian recalled the name Maylily Aile, that vulgar-sounding name.