Maylily - Chapter 84

The Count of Everscourt entered through the door wearing the same gentle smile at the corners of his eyes as always.

“You’re here, Count.”

Even though the scorebook she’d been forcing herself to hold without really seeing it was still open, Maylily set it down on the table and stood up. The Count glanced at it as he approached her and let out a soft snort.

“You think of nothing but music whenever you’re awake. It’s making me a little jealous.”

Then he naturally wrapped an arm around Maylily’s waist and lightly brushed his lips against hers. Just like the beginning of so many nights they’d spent together all summer. As if nothing at all had happened between them.

Maylily carefully pushed against his chest and took a step back as she said, “Congratulations on your engagement.”

Perhaps because she’d imagined and practiced this moment countless times, the words of congratulations came out unexpectedly calm. Or maybe the effort she’d made all along to guard her heart was finally paying off.

“….”

The Count looked down at Maylily quietly, his face showing no change in expression. But the side of his face cast in shadow by the lighting gave off a chillier air than before.

Maylily met that gaze head-on and clenched her two trembling hands tightly into fists.

“…I want to stop now.”

“Stop what?”

The Count tilted his head, as if he couldn’t understand Maylily’s decision. Swallowing the surge of emotion rising in her throat, Maylily maintained a calm expression.

“You’ll be getting married soon…. I don’t want to keep being someone who can’t proudly stand by your side.”

“Maylily.”

The Count’s voice as he held her slender chin was light and soft like a feather, yet it also felt as though he were suppressing something.

“Did I ever tell you to become my wife instead of my mistress?”

“….”

“My marriage has nothing to do with you. You just need to stay by my side like you are now. That’s what a mistress is.”

Any noble who kept a mistress would think the same way. She knew it wasn’t a particularly strange way of thinking. Even so, accepting it was a different matter.

Maylily shook her head and knocked the Count’s hand away, then stepped back again to widen the distance between them.

“I… can’t think like that. I don’t want to live with the feeling that I’m stealing someone else’s love.”

Maylily had learned what kind of guilt that carried by receiving the love that should’ve belonged to Daisy, her aunt’s affection. Because she could never erase the feeling that she owed Daisy, she’d always tried to love that child even more, as much as the love she’d received.

It was only possible because affection for Daisy lay at the foundation. So it was impossible when it came to the Count’s fiancée. Even if it were possible, there was no reason to do so while wearing the brand of immorality.

Maylily wanted love that was wholly hers. Love she could accept with nothing but joy, without any guilt or sorrow.

She didn’t know whether there would ever be someone in her life with whom she could share such love, but one thing was clear: the Count wasn’t that person.

“So?”

The Count slowly closed his eyes and opened them again, sweeping his bangs back. His eyes gleamed darkly.

“Is that reason enough to break the deal we made?”

That gentle question instantly rendered the worries and conflicts Maylily had clung to all day meaningless.

Unlike her, everything had always been this easy for him. That was only natural. From the start, the weight this relationship placed on their lives had never been the same.

As Maylily’s face went blank while she chewed over that obvious truth, the Count stepped closer and seized her chin. Unlike before, the hand gripping her now carried a strength she couldn’t shake off with a simple motion.

“Even if you hate it, endure it, Maylily. You’ve become mine, so you have to follow my order.”

“…I’ve tried to.”

Even knowing that the Count treated her like a cut flower stuck in a vase and locked her in this shadowed forest, she had never complained. She tried to be faithful to her responsibility until this abnormal relationship reached its end, but now she was at her limit.

How could she continue accepting the Count when he became another woman’s man?

It was hard for her to accept even herself, and it would be nothing more than repeating the ill fate between her father and House Everscourt.

“But I can’t follow you anymore if it means losing myself. Please let me go. The money you gave my father, I will….”

As if he didn’t like Maylily’s plea, the Count furrowed his brow and shoved his index finger between her lips. The long, hard finger pressed firmly on her soft tongue, cutting off her words.

“Mmph….”

“What I give you is wholly yours. Since you came to Prowden, I’ve taught you so carefully, and you still don’t understand?”

The gentle voice, like soothing a child, spread the summer memories at once in her mind like a painting, the affectionate voice, gaze, and touch that had embroidered those days. Maylily swallowed dryly, her chest visibly rising and falling.

“Every time you try to break our promise, I want to punish you, Maylily.”

After pulling his finger out of her mouth, the Count grabbed the scorebook on the table in his other hand. The torn cover crumpled helplessly under his savage grip.

A silent threat that he would take away what was most precious to Maylily. Having already experienced that nightmare once, Maylily’s eyes wavered as if they were collapsing.

“No, not that! Please….”

The hand that traced the corner of Maylily’s eyes, brimming with tears, tugged at the knot tied at her waist. In an instant, the Count looked down at Maylily, who had lost all will to fight, and a satisfied smile spread over his lips.

“If you want to get away from me, make me grow tired of you. Then I’ll let you go.”

As soon as the Count finished speaking, the robe draped over Maylily’s shoulders slid down onto the carpet.

At some point, over the steady sound of rain seeping in through the window, two ragged breaths fell apart.

“Hah….”

“Hngh.”

Maylily lay on the bed, now a naked body shining white, and Hugh settled himself between her two legs and pressed her thighs down tightly onto her chest until her waist bent. His rigidly erect member plunged in at once into the red inner flesh of the gap spread open as bare as a fully bloomed flower.

“Ah!”

Maylily moaned loudly, her still-tight inner walls straining to embrace him. Hugh paid it no mind and slowly increased the pace of his thrusts, splitting her hot walls as he drove in and out.

Unlike other days, even without pouring much effort into foreplay, the woman’s body, trained to him, quickly grew wet after only a few simple movements.

“I don’t want to live with the feeling that I’m stealing someone else’s love.”

If she could only feel his affection as that, then he only had to pour it into her until she understood properly. Hugh pushed Maylily’s hips up toward the ceiling so she could clearly see their bodies joined.

Each time Hugh moved his waist as if stamping down on Maylily’s slit, their bodies slapped and collided wetly. Maylily, moaning in time with it, squeezed her eyes shut tight as if she couldn’t endure it any longer.

“Open your eyes, Maylily.”

Hugh ordered in a low voice, like he was scratching at her throat.

“Look straight at it.”

When Maylily slowly lifted her eyelids, she saw the deep blue eyes looking down at her, glittering with a hard light like jewels.

“From start to finish, it’s wholly yours.”

Then he drove in even deeper, as if determined to reach the very deepest part of Maylily. Soon, Hugh found the most sensitive point within her soft inner walls and persistently stabbed at it with the blunt tip of his member. Her full breasts bounced on her slender body as it rocked back and forth.

“Ah, mmh…. Count, ah…!”

The cries spilling from Maylily’s lips gradually grew louder. The sound slowly erased from Hugh’s mind the faces of the men who had laughed and conversed with Maylily at the banquet hall. As something that had been slipping away between his fingers like dry sand was seized firmly again in his hand, Hugh’s movements grew more and more violent.

With each motion, his shoulders, forearms, and abs split into sharp lines and revealed distinct shapes beneath his smooth skin. Even though the air in the room was somewhat cool because of the rainy weather, the man’s body shone with sweat.

The stimulation that poured in between Maylily’s legs and made her lower belly tremble spread in waves through her whole body without pause. In her ears, the sound of waves crashing against the cliff behind the forest seeped in faintly.

With the feeling of being thrown into the middle of a sea where a rough storm raged, Maylily looked at the man shaking her violently with unfocused eyes. He looked like he was pouring something out at Maylily in a frenzy, and at the same time, like he was desperately searching for something inside her.

There was a time when she felt joy at the primal, wild side of the man who always stood as a dignified gentleman before others showed only to her. The naive thought that she had become something special to him.

But now… she didn’t know.

It wasn’t a matter of liking or disliking. She just thought she had to get out. Before she was swallowed forever by the waves of this sea, she had to find a way to walk out of here on her own feet.