Chapter 24
Evan, looking delighted, spoke to Palin, who had stepped between the unconscious Evil and Victor, who was trying to get to him.
“Junior, let the captain go.”
“If I do, he’ll kill the man! Please, Senior, come over here and stop him!”
“I respect our young lady’s enjoyment.”
“The captain is going to get himself into serious trouble right now!”
Victor Dempfelt was a man who had lived his entire life seeking nothing but honor. Even when choosing a marriage partner, he had deliberately looked for a woman who had never debuted in high society because he didn’t want to become the subject of gossip.
So although this situation was surprising, it wasn’t something that would cause Victor Dempfelt any serious problems. As Palin said, it would certainly become troublesome for him, but it would end at nothing more than being a headache.
Scarlett watched the scene without taking her eyes off it and muttered softly,
“Trash.”
At those words, Victor, who had been about to shove Palin aside with a menacing force, stopped.
Then he turned toward her.
In the meantime, Palin hurriedly dragged Evil away and disappeared. Victor walked toward Scarlett.
When he climbed into the carriage beside her and closed the door, Scarlett backed away until her back touched the wall.
As though mocking her reaction, Victor leaned his upper body closer and asked,
“Who?”
“Huh?”
“Trash.”
“My uncle.”
At her answer, Victor smiled.
Then he continued questioning her.
“What made you laugh?”
When the two of them were alone, Victor occasionally called her you in the more intimate, blunt sense rather than his usual formal address.
Scarlett murmured as if speaking to herself,
“It was right that you did it, Uncle.”
“I guess I’ll have to do it for you whenever you’re depressed.”
“…….”
Scarlett wanted to feel guilty, but she simply couldn’t.
She thought she ought to condemn these violent elites who behaved as though the law itself existed beneath their feet, but even that didn’t come to her.
She simply kept wanting to laugh.
She wished his words about doing it for her whenever she was depressed weren’t a joke.
She felt disgusted with herself.
“That…… isn’t allowed.”
Scarlett thought Victor probably had no idea how difficult it had been for her to force those words out.
He raised one corner of his mouth and grabbed her chin with his black-gloved hand.
“Are you some kind of saint? Your heart is as vast as the sea.”
When Scarlett tried to remove his hand, he tightened his grip and continued,
“What would I have done if I hadn’t found you and you’d died down there?”
Scarlett glared into his eyes.
“You’re not that kind of person.”
“What am I not?”
“I was locked in the basement often. They weren’t trying to kill me. They were just…… trying to tame me.”
“…….”
“They were punishing me. So they could use me.”
At Scarlett’s words, the corner of Victor’s mouth twisted strangely.
Scarlett stared at him quietly.
He was both just and cruel.
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
Sometimes, he was like a set of scales.
She had betrayed a man like that, which was why he couldn’t forgive her.
Didn’t they say that betrayal was like shattered glass?
Perhaps because the tension had finally left her body, Scarlett slowly blinked.
Then, at some point, her body began to slump, and Victor pulled her into his arms.
Scarlett lost consciousness as though she had simply fallen asleep, and the carriage carrying her headed toward the Dempfelt estate.
When Scarlett regained consciousness, she hurriedly sat up.
Looking out the window, she saw the Dempfelt mansion.
Apparently, Victor had brought her here on his own after she passed out along the way.
He had rescued her and treated her, so she had no intention of complaining to him.
She was only worried that Andrei would scold her for neglecting her work.
Scarlett sighed and got out of bed.
When she stood in front of the full-length mirror on the wall, she saw herself wearing a pale pink nightdress with wide sleeves.
She had left the factory with nothing but herself, so she had assumed all of her belongings had been thrown away.
Apparently, that wasn’t the case.
But this wasn’t the annex where she had lived with Victor.
It was the main house.
More specifically, it was Marina Dempfelt’s room, which Scarlett had only entered once or twice while living here.
Beyond the canopy-covered bed was a sofa, and hanging on the wall was the crest of Victor’s mother’s family—the royal family, House Irene.
“I don’t think I should be here.”
Even as she murmured those words, her body hurt so badly that she sat on the sofa with her knees drawn up and wrapped both arms around her shoulders.
“I’m cold…….”
Even though the fireplace was burning, her body continued to tremble.
Just then, the large door directly opposite the sofa opened, and Victor entered with several servants.
When his eyes met Scarlett’s, he frowned and approached the sofa.
Scarlett hesitated before turning her head a moment later.
“Thank you.”
The servants left the medicine and lukewarm water for Scarlett, bowed, and all exited the room.
Victor habitually took out a cigarette and put it between his lips, but then remembered there was a patient in the room and went out onto the balcony.
Even then, he couldn’t bring himself to smoke.
He crushed the cigarette instead.
Scarlett, wrapped in the blanket a maid had brought her, spoke from inside the glass doors.
“Why aren’t you smoking?”
“Because there’s a patient here.”
“……That’s unusual.”
Scarlett leaned her head against the doorframe and spoke again.
“How did you know?”
Victor didn’t answer.
Giving up on getting an answer, Scarlett continued.
“Thank you for helping me today, but don’t do it again.”
“Then should I leave you alone?”
“If you don’t appear around me, you won’t know when I’m in trouble, so you won’t be able to help me. So do that.”
“You need help.”
At his words, Scarlett let out a hollow laugh.
“I know. I know that’s what you think. As though I’m some terribly unfortunate person who’s always in trouble. But I’m not. It’s true that you’re the son of a powerful family, but that doesn’t mean I was born into misery. I was loved enough when I was growing up.”
Scarlett had survived until now by relying on the memories of the love she had received until she was twelve.
Those memories were so precious and radiant that she had mistakenly thought Victor would be happy if he received that kind of love as well.
Only recently had she finally admitted that she hadn’t been able to give Victor what he wanted.
Victor wanted Scarlett to be useful to him, but Scarlett’s love wasn’t the kind of help he wanted.
Thinking about it made her feel even colder, so Scarlett pulled the blanket tighter around herself.
“Anyway, I’ll take care of my own affairs from now on. And I genuinely mean it when I say thank you for what you did today.”
Victor remained silent for a while at her calm words.
Perhaps uncomfortable with the atmosphere, Scarlett tried to change the subject.
“Did you come here intending to sleep in this room?”
“Why?”
“You only want one thing from me, after all.”
Scarlett murmured that and briefly closed her eyes, looking exhausted.
She looked like a wild animal that had been captured and had finally given up trying to escape.
Then Victor’s displeased voice came.
“You seem to think I’m doing all this because I want to sleep with you.”
Scarlett looked up at him with a pitiful expression.
“Yes.”
People in Salantier believed that if either spouse had a child before their twentieth birthday, the child would be born weak.
Victor believed the same thing, so he had been extremely careful about contraception until Scarlett turned twenty.
Even so, considering that he had occasionally wanted to sleep with her, it was obvious that the act wasn’t solely about having children.
Perhaps that was why her words, spoken from that line of thought, seemed so absurd to him.
Victor’s expression twisted.
“If that were all I wanted, you aren’t the only woman in the world.”
Scarlett froze.
Victor let out a hollow laugh and continued,
“I’m not that narrow-minded.”
Then he looked at Scarlett leaning against the door, her lips pale and dry.
He walked toward her, bent down, and tried to kiss her.
Scarlett flinched and turned her head away.
“……Don’t.”
“You asked if I was going to sleep here. Wasn’t that permission?”
At his words, Scarlett bit her lip.
Victor turned her chin so that she was facing him and asked,
“Or was that your way of repaying me for saving you?”
“If that counts as repayment, I was thinking about it.”
“Oh, so that’s how you planned to repay me.”
Victor teased her.
Then he kissed Scarlett.
Victor thought it was irritating and strangely alluring how she had brought it up herself, only to tremble as though she were surprised by her own words.
His large, cold hand wrapped around the small of Scarlett’s back.
Their lips parted with a soft, wet sound.
Victor leaned close and asked,
“Are you going to repay other bastards like this, too?”
