Chapter 96
“If there is anything you need, please tell me.”
As she looked around the room with a fussy gaze, the castle lord standing by the door spoke.
Varkas, who had removed his coat and hung it beside the fireplace, requested in his usual indifferent tone.
“I would appreciate water for washing and hot mulled wine.”
“I will have them brought immediately.”
When the man withdrew, Thalia sank down onto a chair covered with a velvet cushion.
She was exhausted from touring various cities and villages since early morning.
Pretending to arrange her damp skirt hem, she secretly rubbed her aching knees.
Varkas, who had been watching that from the corner of his eye, quietly opened his mouth.
“I will call the healer for you, so you should rest for today.”
Thalia furrowed her brow.
“What about you?”
“I intend to have a meeting with the castle lord. It may run late, so sleep first.”
“When have you not?”
Thalia snapped somewhat sharply.
They had shared a room for the past few days, but she had never once seen him lie down.
Varkas always worked until dawn, and at times, he spent the night with regional lords.
It was enough to make all the tension she felt every time she entered the same room as him seem pointless.
Thalia glared at him with her mouth tightly shut, then soon threw herself down on the bed.
“I’ll rest on my own, so you go do your work.”
Varkas silently looked at her, then let out a small sigh and opened the door to leave.
Not long afterward, the castle servants entered the room carrying a tray with wine and fruit, and a wooden bathtub filled with hot water.
Thalia called the nanny to wash herself lightly, then ate a few pieces of fruit pickled in honey with wine.
Then, just as she was about to ask the healer to burn sleep herb for her, a somewhat loud laugh came from outside the door.
It seemed the knights were holding a drinking party.
Thalia, who had been wearing an indifferent expression, suddenly stiffened her shoulders.
A high-pitched laugh had mixed into the noisy commotion.
She hurriedly shook the nanny, who was dozing in front of the fireplace.
“Nanny, does the castle lord here have daughters?”
“How would I know that?”
The nanny answered as if somewhat bewildered.
Thalia snapped irritably.
“I’m asking if you heard anything while coming and going!”
“I don’t know either. I was called here right after we arrived.”
The nanny let out a heavy sigh.
“More importantly, may I return to my room now? I need to rest too.”
Thalia, who had been about to send her downstairs, bit her lip.
Seeing the fatigue on the nanny’s face made her tiny amount of conscience sting.
She must already be tired from the unfamiliar journey, and on top of that, she had to attend Thalia’s bath, so she must be very exhausted.
Thalia slowly nodded.
“Fine. You may go.”
The nanny immediately went outside.
Thalia took that chance to look out into the corridor.
When the noise coming from outside became clearer, anxiety boiled inside her stomach.
It was like that even though she knew very well that Varkas would never do anything foolish.
Thalia bit her lip with an anxious expression, then eventually put on a coat and went outside.
Passing through the corridor where fire shadows flickered and going down the stairs, she saw a group of men and women paired up and flirting.
She narrowed her eyes and looked over the men’s faces.
Judging from how familiar they all looked, they seemed to be mounted warriors of House Siar.
One of them pulled in the waist of a young woman who seemed to be a maid and brought his lips to her ear.
The maid blushed and giggled.
Thalia watched the sight with disgust and turned toward the inside of the hall.
Around the long table well prepared with wine and food sat Varkas’s aides.
They, too, were being served wine by women dressed almost half-naked.
Judging by the scene, the castle lord seemed to have called in a large number of prostitutes under the pretext of entertaining his guests.
Thalia looked around with a fierce gaze and hurried her steps across the wide hall.
The only thought in her head was that she had to drag Varkas out of this filthy place immediately.
“Your Highness!”
As she moved through the banquet hall while dragging her aching legs, a familiar voice came from nearby.
Thalia snapped her head around and narrowed her eyes when she found a familiar face among the people.
It was the eastern knight named Tyrone.
The man approached her, scratched the back of his head, and let out an awkward laugh.
“I heard that Your Highness would rest early, so what brings you here…”
“It was so noisy that I came out to see.”
Thalia, who had been looking around for Varkas, showed him a sarcastic smile.
“It seems I interrupted your good time.”
“Hahaha.”
The man glossed over the answer with exaggerated laughter.
Thalia sent him a cold gaze, then turned her eyes back to the bustling banquet hall.
“More importantly, where is Varkas?”
“His Grace is in the study on the third floor. Sir Darken requested a private meeting.”
Thalia, who had been thoroughly searching the hall, snapped her head around.
“Just the two of them?”
Perhaps only then realizing why she had been searching through the hall so thoroughly, an amused smile appeared around the man’s mouth.
“Yes, he dismissed all the maids as well, so do not worry.”
For a moment, her cheeks grew hot, as if he had read everything inside her.
Thalia raised her voice.
“Who said I was worried!”
Then she turned sharply, and the man immediately followed after her.
“You must not walk alone. I will escort you back to your room.”
“No need.”
“It is necessary.”
The man spoke firmly.
“If anything happens to Her Highness the Grand Duchess, the responsibility will fall on us. Now, let us go.”
Then, without giving her a chance to refuse, he grabbed her elbow.
Thalia reflexively shook off his hand.
“I said I don’t need it.”
As if surprised by her intense reaction, a deep crease formed on the man’s forehead.
Thalia left him there and moved as if fleeing along the path she had come from.
When she climbed back up the stairs where dim light flickered, her thighs and calves began to cramp.
It seemed she had overworked her legs far too much all day.
Although it was rather late, it seemed she would have to call the healer and ask for recovery magic.
She lightly struck her trembling thigh with her fist and passed through the long corridor.
Then she heard a strange moan and stopped walking.
When she turned her head in the direction the sound had come from, she saw a strange-shaped shadow flickering at the end of the corridor.
Only a few seconds later did she realize it was a man and woman stuck together as if they were one body.
The food she had barely pushed into her stomach seemed as if it would surge back up.
She swallowed nausea and stepped backward.
At that exact moment, her eyes met those of the boy who had been kissing a voluptuous maid in a sticky way.
Thalia swallowed a scream.
The person fooling around in the corridor was none other than Varkas’s younger brother.
Thalia, hesitating, hurriedly turned her body.
Then she lost her balance and collapsed onto the floor.
At the heavy impact, intense pain surged from her knees to her pelvis and waist.
She teared up and let out a silent scream.
“Sister-in-law!”
Seeing her, Lucas shoved the maid away and ran over at once.
Thalia fiercely struck away the hand trying to support her.
“Don’t touch my body!”
Lucas flinched and stepped back.
Thalia glared at him with icy eyes, then struggled to raise herself.
As she leaned one hand against the wall and took a difficult step, Lucas, who had been frozen, muttered with an aggrieved expression.
“Is it because of what you just saw? That thing earlier wasn’t my idea. She said she would give me a good experience, so I just accepted.”
The rambling words felt as though they would rot her ears.
Thalia sent him a gaze full of disgust.
“Did I ask? Why are you babbling about something I didn’t ask and dirtying my ears?”
Lucas’s face flushed red.
He clenched his jaw and glared fiercely.
“Why are you making such a big deal out of a little kiss? You must be doing even more than that with Brother every night…”
Thalia’s hand flew like a whip.
As if he had expected the attack, Lucas immediately caught her wrist.
“Ha! Did you think I would keep letting you hit me forever? If you hit me one more time, I won’t hold back anymore…!”
The boy, who had lowered his voice threateningly, suddenly closed his mouth.
It seemed he had noticed her complexion, which had flushed red as if on fire.
He blinked blankly, then muttered as if he could not believe it.
“Don’t tell me the two of you still haven’t done anything… Ugh!”
Lucas bent deeply at the waist after being kicked in the shin.
Thalia brought her fists down wildly on his back.
Lucas, who had been getting beaten helplessly, shoved her against the wall.
“Damn it! With that temper of yours, no wonder Brother still hasn’t laid a finger on you!”
As if anger had risen all the way to the top of his head, he growled fiercely.
Thalia flinched her shoulders like someone stabbed with a knife.
The boy, looking down at that face with blazing eyes, added cruelly.
“Or maybe Brother still can’t forget his previous fiancée? Maybe doing it with that woman was so good that he just can’t bring himself to do it with you…”
She did not want to hear another word.
Thalia drove the fingernails she had started growing again a few days earlier into his babbling lips.
With a scream of pain, Lucas grabbed her arm.
The slender body, seemingly quite flustered by her attacking him like a madwoman, fell backward.
Thalia climbed onto his stomach, opened that filthy mouth no better than a latrine, and grabbed his slippery tongue with her fingers.
His sun-tanned face flushed as if it would burst.
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