The Whipping Maid of House Calley - Chapter 106

Sheila looked up at Cedric and spoke urgently.

“Young Count, I….”

His hand didn’t move an inch.

“I’m just trying to give you a massage.”

Click. The top button came undone.

Sheila grabbed his hand tightly again.

“A-actually, I fell down the stairs earlier. So my body is a bit….”

“I understand, so let go,” he said in a flat voice.

‘Did he believe me?’

It was strange that a man who was usually so suspicious accepted her words so easily today, but Sheila didn’t have the capacity to think deeply about it.

When she slowly released his hand, he skillfully undressed her.

Left wearing only her underwear, Sheila grew tense.

There should be marks from when Fred hit her, but she hadn’t been able to check their condition herself.

She didn’t even know what she’d been thinking, lying there for so long without any plan.

Even while Cedric applied the ointment, Sheila didn’t dare look and kept her eyes fixed on the blurred ceiling.

By now, Sheila’s abdomen was covered in deep, dark bruises.

Seeing it, Cedric clenched his teeth and barely suppressed his anger.

Sheila had been struck on the cheek, the head, and the abdomen.

The person who had been tailing them said he couldn’t reveal his presence, so he watched secretly from a distance.

Her abdomen, which had been kicked, was in far worse condition than her cheek.

Cedric’s touch became that much more careful.

He’d stopped himself from eliminating that man named Fred earlier in the day, but absurdly, murderous intent toward him surged up again at this moment.

“You don’t have to make up the postponed punishment until your body recovers.”

No, perhaps that anger was directed at himself.

In fact, if it came down to severity, the condition of her buttocks that he’d struck with the paddle was worse.

It was a shameless act he committed to drag Sheila into the punishment room.

After applying the ointment, Cedric dressed Sheila and covered her with a blanket, as if concealing his own wrongdoing.

Just then, there was a knock.

When Sheila grew flustered, Cedric lightly pressed her shoulder.

“Stay there.”

Cedric got up and opened the door. Then he returned carrying a tray of food.

Before entering this room, he’d heard that Sheila’s older brother had visited and that she’d been beaten. Even while hearing that she’d remained in her room afterward, he worried about her missing a meal and gave instructions in advance.

Cedric set the tray on Sheila’s worktable and held out a bowl of stew.

Sheila, who had gotten up and was sitting on the bed, said, “I’m fine….”

“Eat. You couldn’t have eaten after tumbling down the stairs.”

Growling-

At the smell of the stew, her stomach loudly made its presence known.

Embarrassed, Sheila quickly took the bowl and began eating the stew hastily.

The warm stew slid down her throat and warmed her empty stomach.

It unnecessarily warmed her eyes as well, forcing Sheila to bury her head in the bowl and focus on shoveling the stew into her mouth.

At that moment, Cedric grabbed the hand holding her spoon.

“Eat slowly. You’ll upset your stomach.”

“Ah… yes. It’s just so delicious.”

As Sheila spoke, tears rolled down her cheek again.

Damn it….

“What kind of stew is this again? Why is it so delicious today? Head Chef Roland’s skill really is the best, mmph!”

As Sheila babbled awkwardly in embarrassment, bread was pushed into her mouth.

“Stop talking nonsense and just eat.”

Why isn’t he asking anything?

He was acting strangely today, and tears streamed freely from her uncontrollably opened tear ducts.

His strange behavior didn’t stop there.

After hearing that Rufus would come to collect the empty dishes, she placed the finished tray outside the door and came back in.

Cedric, who had been sitting in the chair, was now lying on her bed as if he owned it.

“Um… Young Count?”

“What?”

That’s my bed…?

As she hesitated, wondering if she really had to state the obvious, he said, “Lie down.”

Lying diagonally while occupying her only pillow, he held one arm out.

What is this…

“Aren’t you… leaving?”

Sheila asked Cedric, somehow using the same tone as earlier.

“Not long ago, you took over my bed.”

At his words, Sheila’s face turned bright red as she recalled that night.

After Alfonso left, Sheila lay still, holding her breath and thinking about various things, and didn’t open her eyes until the sun was high the next day.

“I couldn’t sleep at all that time. I was so tired.”

“But I didn’t do that on purpose…!”

“Anyway. You did take over my bed. And what did you say the next day? That the sunlight was dazzling….”

“Ahh! I’m sleepy.”

Remembering the nonsense she’d said to Cedric, who sat at his desk with hollow eyes that day, Sheila hurriedly dove into the bed to shut him up.

Instead, she lay facing the worktable with her back turned to him.

Even though two people lay on a bed meant for one, it felt cozy rather than cramped.

Though their bodies had been entangled before, this was the first time they lay side by side like this, and they continued in an awkward silence like strangers.

Even while offering and resting on each other’s arms, their bodies remained slightly apart.

He was the first to break the silence.

“Do you like this room?”

Not knowing how to respond in the awkward situation, Sheila gathered herself and answered, “It’s the best, Young Count.”

He let out a faint laugh and asked again, “What about it?”

“First, it’s spacious, clean, and well ventilated. It has a window, so I can see the sun rise and set. Most of all, it’s my own space.”

Sheila continued, “Even when I lived at home, I never had a space of my own like this….”

She recalled the time when the four of them crowded together in a small country cottage. And the loneliness after her father died.

After becoming a maid and sharing a room with the senior maids, the concept of having her own room didn’t exist. It was merely a place they slept together.

When she obtained this room after working side jobs until dawn while enduring insults, exaggeration aside, it felt like she owned the whole world.

It was an attic once used as storage, and the door couldn’t even be locked from outside, making it vulnerable, but it was still the first time in her life she had a space of her own.

The carefully rationed paraffin oil must have burned out, because the shrinking flame went out completely.

“Were you ever afraid?”

It was then that Sheila’s body, which had been responding excitedly, was suddenly pulled into his arms.

Sheila gasped and stopped breathing.

Despite the difference in their builds, their bodies fit together perfectly, like two spoons stacked together.

“Hm? Answer me, Sheila.”

His soft breath tickled Sheila’s ear as he asked.

“N-no, I wasn’t,” Sheila replied shyly.

Her eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness. Moonlight was softly streaming in through the small window.

“You’re braver than me.”

Cedric said something she couldn’t understand, but Sheila couldn’t ask what he meant.

Maybe because of the warmth behind her, Sheila’s eyelids gradually grew heavy.

‘It feels like I slept all day….’

Unlike when she lost consciousness from crying in exhaustion, Sheila soon fell into a deep sleep, using his pleasant heartbeat as a lullaby and his warmth as a blanket.

Feeling Sheila’s steady breathing, Cedric held the woman in his arms for a long time.

He occupied the bed because he didn’t want to leave the woman who had gone through something terrible during the day alone.

Even bringing up the time he’d made Sheila sleep in his bed before….

That day, it was his choice to lay her on his bed instead of the punishment room, and his choice to sit at the desk while leaving the spacious bed unused.

Because lying in the same bed with a woman outside of sex felt completely awkward.

‘It’s such a simple thing.’

If he’d known it was nothing like this, he would have held her and fallen asleep that day too.

Cedric was the type to be clear in everything and strongly confident in his own judgment. And sometimes, that worked against him.

His certainty was so strong that it was difficult for him to change his mind once he decided on something.

Like now, it might have been nothing if he’d just changed his thinking a little…

This room was the same.

For Cedric, this room had long been filled with bad memories.

Maybe that was why he didn’t want to leave Sheila alone in this room today.

But after hearing Sheila’s words, this place no longer felt unpleasant.

The space that had once been cramped, dirty, and gloomy was actually wide enough for two people to lie down. Sheila’s touch had made it clean, and the moonlight streaming softly through the window made it a rather decent space.

Even so, Cedric couldn’t sleep, his mind racing with various thoughts.

Only after the dim light of dawn began to replace the moonlight did Cedric realize it was time to return to his room.

Before getting up, he pulled the pitiful woman close and pressed his lips to the back of her head.

Then, after laying Sheila down properly, he returned to his room.