If I Disobey the Duke

Fog (6)

Now, if she recalled that lonely time again, her relationship with him would fall apart again.

The road to her misfortune was wide open, pretending to welcome her. She was on a familiar road, so she almost stepped on her foot.

Lily took a different path.

“Why… I want to.”

It was the path she took her first steps herself among the lush greenery.

“It’s just my feelings.”

As if surprised by her words, Lily paused for a moment, her big eyes widened. The words that ran through her tongue were unfamiliar and awkward. It seemed like someone else had said it.

The words, the sentences, the implied meanings, and the emotions were all clumsy and like a child.

She didn’t hate it at all though, so she rolled the sentence into her mouth several times.

It was only then that she calmed down, and her voice following her words became even more calm.

“I want to be alone, but I don’t have a place to do it. I’m going to stay overnight in the glass greenhouse.”

Talin and the stable keeper wet their lips at the same time.

He was so pressured by their eyes that the stable keeper closed his eyes tightly with a feeling of wanting to cry. “I’m s-sorry. Madam.” His hand gripped the hat tightly. “If the lord doesn’t order it…  No carriage can get out of the castle.”

Lily felt something in her snap. Her breath was choked by her bewilderment, but once again, she caught hold of that tattered string. “I’ve been to Cadis before.”

“Well, the lord wasn’t there at that time.” He’d only followed orders because Lily was Vlad’s acting ruler.

She clasped her hands inside her robe. “Are you saying you can’t obey me even when I’m ordering you?”

The slightly sharp voice felt like a guillotine. The stable keeper clenched his back again. Cold sweat was forming on his forehead. “I’m really sorry. I will be sentenced to death, Madam.”

“…” Lily bit her lower lip. She could have insisted on riding her horse alone, but of course she didn’t.

With her head bowed, she couldn’t afford more rebukes. She had a temper that couldn’t afford to take anger out on someone who wasn’t responsible.

She let out a long sigh and she lowered her thick, long lashes.

I want to go somewhere else for a while…

“Are you done?”

Her shoulders flinched at the inexorable bass that cut through the mist. It was like a lightning bolt. Without blinking an eye, she turned around and saw him with his arms crossed and his legs crossed.

An eerie chill ran up from her spine to the nape of her neck. Lily knew firsthand what it meant

“Vlad…”

Even the fog behind his back seemed to have appeared with him.

A mask-like expressionless face, as if overlaid with a statue that was painstakingly carved with a fine chisel.

Pure black hair. The turbid gray eyes contained within. Black and white covered his complexion. As the light faded, the uniform darkness glazed over further accentuated his features.

He tilted his head crookedly. “The glass greenhouse is not your room, is it, Lily?”

The low-pitched sound seemed unfathomable. Perhaps it was because of the numbness in her feet, there was an illusion of tingling wherever he looked.

Lily trembled. “I wasn’t sure that I was going to my room… Uh, I am…”

“…”

In an instant, the fog that covered her surroundings turned into water and seemed to press down on her body. It was hard for her to breathe, as if stuck in the deep sea.

Lily wiggled her toes in her shoes. Her frightened and tense heart was beating so frantically that he could hear it too.

“I want to be alone today. I’ll go to sleep in the greenhouse…”

“…” He didn’t raise an eyebrow. He just stared at his wife for a long time with an expressionless face, as if wearing a stone mask. His mouth, which had been tightly closed, slowly opened after an indeterminable moment. “It’s not possible.”

Lily stiffened, feeling crushed and suffocated.

His voice began again, “The greenhouse location is deeper in the mountains than here. No matter how many knights you bring, it is too dangerous for you to stay there all night alone.” It was a calm tone with no sign of holding back. There was no anger, no sorrow, nothing. It was as dry as the voice one would use in reciting scriptures or reading numbers.

“Is it really dangerous?”

“If you don’t even want to spend the night with me, I’ll sleep in the office.”

To Lily, who could not find her answer, he willingly offered her a solution, “Let me know when you feel better.” He didn’t even let a small sigh. Was it possible for a person to be like this?

“Then…  I will stay where there are people around then come back.”

There was not even a trace of life in him, staring at his wife. He even looked like an inanimate object that didn’t need to breathe.

“Where else are you going to go but here?”

Something scratched her heart.