The Devilish Duke Can't Sleep

Proofreader: somnium

The Baron Fidelia couple once again thought it was a good thing to turn Lena into a Fidelia’s Lady, so they ordered a maid to fetch Lena.

“My child is still young and there are many things she lacks. I hope the Viscount will be generous.”

“Ahaha! Of course. From now on, I will teach her and adore her well on behalf of the Baron and the Madam.”

With a face full of lust, they wondered what the hell he was going to teach, but the Baron couple tried their best to hide their attention. In the meantime, there was a sign of movement on the second floor.

“Oooh!”

Before the Baron couple could turn their heads, Viscount Delroins sprang up from his seat, with eyes shining. The Baron couple’s gaze turned to Lena, who was descending the stairs with a timid and nervous mind. However, Lena, dressed like a noble lady, was much more beautiful than they thought. Her beauty was reminiscent of Lena’s dead mother’s beauty, and the Baroness’ eyebrows frowned.

“Ah…… Hahaha! Wow, she was a more beautiful Miss than I could have imagined.”

“Nice to meet you. My name is Lena Fidelia.”

Lena said she had arrived two days ago and she greeted by tugging up her still stiff dress skirt. The finely combed, half-tied, dark brown hair curled up into rich curls, and her pale pink cheeks gleamed lovingly. The violet-colored eyes that disappeared as her bowed head was raised again to greet, and the tense, shrunken shoulders were neat. Seeing Viscount Delroins with his mouth wide open, she probably seemed to fit his taste far too well.

“Lena. Come over here and sit down.”

The Baroness sat Lena in the seat next to her and spoke to the Viscount about this and that. However, the Viscount’s answer seemed to have gone wayward as he was mesmerized, and his gaze was fixed on Lena. Baron Fidelia, watching him, was convinced that it would be acceptable to raise Lena’s price a bit further.

“By the way, Viscount. We will become family in the future, but listening to what you said yesterday, I think that Baron Jenkins, with no relationship whatsoever, and I would be treated the same. What do you think about this?”

“Ohoho! Oh dear, Baron Fidelia must have misunderstood. Actually, there were a lot of eyes there yesterday. As I prepare for such a big event, I can’t help but be cautious of other people… … But don’t worry. As you said, aren’t we going to be a family soon? Oh, how can I treat my father-in-law the same way as other people? Ahahaha!”

Hearing the word ‘father-in-law’ from Viscount Delroins, who was older than him, Baron Fidelia had a chill on his back, but things seemed to be going well thanks to Lena.

They talked for another hour or so after that. And Viscount Delroins, who stood up to leave, left a soft kiss on the back of Lena’s hand with eyes full of regret. Lena shivered with goosebumps at the clear saliva marks on the back of her hand, Viscount Delroins said with a smile on his face.

“I can’t hold a grand wedding because of my circumstances, but instead, I’ll give you whatever you want. Whether it’s jewelry or a dress, just tell me if there’s anything you want. Oh! Miss Lena’s eyes are such a beautiful purple color, so I will order a special amethyst necklace. You can look forward to it.”

The sight of Viscount Delroins smiling in front of an eighteen-year-old girl as if he was going to give everything to her, even liver and gallbladder* was frankly awkward, and Lena’s complexion, who managed to smile in front of him, was pale.

But whatever Lena’s circumstances were, the Baron couple began to get excited about the idea of ​​using Lena to grab his money. From the looks of it, he was going to give Lena his liver right now, so they thought they could rip a piece of it as a gift first.

After seeing him off with the Baron couple, Lena went back to the parlor to find Elliot coming down. There was a glimmer of cruel anticipation on her face.

“Lena! How do you feel about meeting the person who will become your husband?”

“Elliot!”

Elliot’s question made the Baron give a low warning. Things are going well thanks to Lena, but if Elliot provokes Lena and makes her say she doesn’t want to get married, it’s going to be very difficult. Elliot has been harassing Lena, so if Lena decides to harm the Barony, everything would be ruined. The Baron hurriedly tried to distract Lena’s attention.

“Uhhum! The Viscount seems to like you. From now on, keep up the good work.”

But Lena still couldn’t get over the shock. She asked with earnest hope.

“Am…… Am I going to marry his son, by any chance?”

No matter how she looked at it, she didn’t want to believe that the Viscount, who looked more like her father, would become her husband. She earnestly thought that she had misheard what the Viscount had said to Baron Fidelia before, father-in-law. But as Elliot, hanging from the second-floor railing, chuckled, Elliot trampled that hope.

“Viscount Delroins has no children. You’re going to marry that old pig. Ahahaha!”

“Elliot, he may have hearing ears. Watch what you say! And Lena,don’t think about it, just put more effort into studying etiquette before the wedding. When you get married, you become a Viscountess, so you have to master the dignity and culture worthy of the title.”

“Ah, don’t be so, mother. Looking at that person’s expression earlier, he didn’t seem to care much about Lena’s deficiencies in etiquette, right?”

“Still, you’ll never know. What if her maid habit pops out? Anyway, the wedding is about a month away, so she has to learn more. Oh by the way, Sarah!”

Lena was nervous when the Baroness called Mrs. Marvin. It was the worst story she had ever heard, and she didn’t know how much worse it would get if even Mrs. Marvin intervened.

“Did you call me, madam?”

“Before the wedding, teach Lena husband and wife bedroom etiquette.”

“Yes. Understood.”

Mrs. Marvin’s fishy gaze flashed past Lena. That alone made Lena’s whole body tremble. However, that evening, the ‘bedroom etiquette’ that she actually heard from Mrs. Marvin surpassed Lena’s imagination.

“So…… Everyone, that’s how they……?”

“That’s right, Mi.ss.Le.na.”

Mrs. Marvin put a lot of emphasis on the word ‘Miss Lena’ without even trying to hide her sarcastic look. But Lena couldn’t afford to worry about that. It was because she felt nauseous and sick as her mind wandered to the thought that she should do what Mrs. Marvin said with that person she saw during the day.

“You’re going to have to do your best. If you are abandoned by him, then young Miss will have to live as a bar hostess. Oh, but did they say they don’t look for women over the age of 20? Ohohoho!”

Lena’s face turned pale at those words.

* * *

That night, Lena gathered money she had saved up and handy clothes, and waited for the County to quiet down.

‘I have to run away. I can’t marry a person like him.’

Mrs. Marvin’s ‘bedroom etiquette’ class still filled her mind and she felt like she was about to vomit. If the class had been about the decent bedroom affairs of a normal noble couple, Lena would have tried to put up with it somehow.

But Mrs. Marvin, determined to scare Lena, has unleashed a bunch of perverted stories that are considered crimes by polite society. It wasn’t something a young miss who didn’t even know a man’s fingernails could endure.

In the end, Lena eventually came to the conclusion that it would be better for her to escape then be caught and killed than to marry and be tortured in some bizarre way.

At witching hour, when the moon was passing into the western sky, Lena quietly opened the door to her room and looked around the hallway. She was on the second floor where the Baron’s family lived, but Lena’s room was the last room that was used only as a guest room, so there were no knights around here to watch.

Lena, wearing her old clothes from the maid days, and tied her thing tightly with straps around her waist, she cautiously took a step into the darkness. No one was supposed to be guarding the stairs leading to Lena’s room. It was close to the kitchen too. She thought of going towards the kitchen on the ground floor and escaping through the side door, where the vendors who bring the ingredients would come in and out.

‘Mother, please help me.’

Lena prayed earnestly to her dead mother, and she headed towards the stairs leading to the first floor. There was the sound of armed knights walking slowly from afar, but no one seemed to pay any attention in this direction. She had to practice how to walk without making a sound of footsteps because of Mrs. Marvin’s scolding.

She could get away on horse once she got out through the kitchen door. Because Sid promised she would ride her horse with Lena and take her to the outskirts of Kerouac. If she only got out of Kerouac, it would be another noble’s jurisdiction, so even Baron Fidelia wouldn’t be able to send a knight to catch her.

She went down the stairs one by one, thinking only of getting out of the Kerouac, and even though she was only going down one floor, it felt like there were too many steps to thread today. However, Lena managed to reach the passage to the kitchen without being noticed by anyone.

But she had a really hard time from there. The passage to the main hall and kitchen guarded by the knights was quite a distance, but there were no obstacles in the middle, so it was easy to stand out. She had to be extremely careful from now on.

‘Mother, please protect me. Please let me run away from here……!’

Lena held her breath in the dark and headed towards the kitchen one step at a time. She would pretend to be a kitchen maid if she was caught in the middle. Since her clothes were of a maid’s anyway, it wouldn’t be difficult to deceive a knight who was drowsy in sleep. However, perhaps thanks to her mother’s protection, Lena was able to reach the kitchen door without encountering anyone.

‘Made it!’

Lena, who was glancing behind to see if anyone was following her, cautiously, with a pounding heart, opened the side door towards where Sid would be waiting. It was hard to see where Sid was because of the darkness.

“Sid! Where are you?”

She raised a small voice and called Sid, and the lamp lit up from the left corner where the chimney was. But Sid wasn’t the only one waiting for Lena there.

“Where are you going at this hour, Miss?”

Lena’s spine got goosebumps.

“Mm, Mrs.…… Marvin…….”

Mrs. Marvin, accompanied by one of the knights, was smiling triumphantly as Sid was kneeling. Seeing that she was waiting with a lamp covered, it must have been that she was determined to take Lena.

“Anyway, your ungratefulness resembles your mother. How dare you do this when the master was going to enlist you, who is nothing but someone who cleans and removes horse manure, into part of the family..…..”

Lena’s body began to tremble. It wasn’t clear because the lamp the knight was holding wasn’t bright, but Sid seemed to have been hit several times already.

“Sid……!”