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Chapter 5
Odette’s eyes widened in a round shock at the feeling of her heart dropping with a heavy thud.
“Why are you there…?”
As her wandering consciousness slowly returned, she realized that he had probably heard everything she had just blurted out.
“So, um… were you planning to do something when I woke up?”
“That doesn’t sound too bad.”
Caesar’s bare upper body muscles rippled in the candlelight.
His white, smooth skin stood in sharp contrast to his dark blue-black hair, which was slightly disheveled across his forehead.
After staring at his ripe, red lips one by one, Odette felt her throat burn and began panting.
She almost leaned toward the temptation she did not want to refuse, but—
“T-the bathroom, please…”
Knowing the original story, Odette forced down the urge to throw herself into Caesar’s arms.
What she was feeling now—this desire and impulse—was only because she was being bewitched by Caesar’s sinister charm.
It was not her true feeling.
‘Let’s go to the bathroom first. I’ll buy time there, and once Caesar falls asleep, I’ll run.’
After cobbling together a fairly thorough plan with her dazed mind, Odette stumbled toward the bathroom.
Then she suddenly noticed that the room behind her had become far too quiet and slowly turned around.
The room looked hazy, as if shrouded in mist.
‘Huh?’
How was there fog in the room? She did not know why, but she felt very happy.
From where she was standing, Caesar could not be seen—so surely he could not see her either.
“Now!”
Odette walked toward the door.
Without realizing that her toes were lifted and she was floating awkwardly in place, kicking at empty air.
“The door is getting farther away! What do I do? The door is running away from me…!”
No matter how much she ran and ran, all she got was out of breath, while the door kept moving farther away.
Before long, her body flipped over all at once.
At some point, Odette was lying on the bed.
It felt like she had been possessed by something.
“I have to go…”
She crawled forward again.
But when she came to her senses, she was being held tightly in Caesar’s arms.
“Where do you keep trying to run off to? Should I tie you up so you’ll behave?”
Caesar was above her, pinning both of Odette’s arms down against the mattress with his own body.
Odette blinked and then went slack at the sight of Caesar’s dreamlike, beautiful face.
He was insane—he was really too handsome.
“Still, I’m not ready yet.”
“Ready?”
“T-to be tied up, I mean. You’ve done that since the heroine got pregnant and ran off, only to be caught, right? I’m not even pregnant yet. Isn’t this a little early?”
Caesar blinked in disbelief, then burst out laughing.
“What? Pregnant? Hahaha! Are you going to bear my child?”
Seeing Caesar laugh so freely, Odette swallowed hard.
She seemed to have brought up the wrong topic.
She was afraid he might ask her to give him a child right away.
“…I’m barren. I was born without a baby pouch.”
“Should I check?”
“No! Sorry. That was a lie.”
“If you weren’t in pain, I’d be angry. Don’t lie anymore, not from now on.”
Caesar gently brushed away the strands of hair sticking to her face.
Just that touch made her heart pound so hard it was frightening, and heat rushed through her whole body.
With a thirst that felt like her heart was burning, Odette wet her lips with her tongue.
Caesar watched her lips with a fixed, intent gaze.
“Why have they become so moist? Your lips too, your eyes too? Oh? Are you already flushed?”
His gaze settled on her rapidly rising and falling chest.
“That’s not it. I always have tear marks. Like a puppy.”
Odette wriggled, trying to escape from beneath his body, but Caesar pressed her wrists into the mattress.
“Ordinary women go wild just to touch me with even their fingertips, and you say I make you uncomfortable?”
“I hate men. Ah, that doesn’t mean I like women, either.”
“You keep spouting nonsense. Do you not realize how serious this situation is?”
Caesar took her chin in one hand and forced her to focus on him.
The teasing was gone from his eyes now; tension settled there instead.
“Tonight, you must not leave this room. Count Anderson’s spies are crawling all over the mansion. We caught the maid who tried to poison you, but this situation is still far from safe.”
So she was in a poisoned state right now?
Even through her muddled mind, Odette’s thoughts turned cold.
‘Mary was bribed by Count Anderson from the very beginning, wasn’t she?’
Mary had smiled brightly at Odette while she was drinking tea.
“Would you like another cup?”
Odette lowered her eyelids because even keeping her eyes open was painful.
Hot tears slipped down the corners of her eyes.
“Why are you crying?”
“My head hurts.”
Her tears welled up, sickened by Mary’s betrayal and Count Anderson’s malice.
‘If they were going to stab me in the back… they should at least not have scared me first.’
They had intended to kill her all along, yet every time they opened their mouths, they said horrifying things.
Caesar was a monster, they said. He had torn beasts apart. She would end up the same.
‘Absolutely unforgivable.’
Because she could not be the only one to die, Odette kept babbling.
“Count Anderson and the butler said they would kill me and hold a funeral in Lady Amelia’s place.”
“You think I’d fall for such a trick? Pathetic.”
“So after sending me here, they planned to poison me. Then they could spread rumors that Lord Caesar killed his wife.”
Caesar was both a hero and a figure of fear.
‘He commands an invincible army.’
If the emperor could be turned into Caesar’s enemy, the emperor might even be pleased if Caesar were framed as the murderer of his wife.
But now that the count’s plan had failed, what would happen next?
“Please let me go. I… I did nothing wrong.”
“No, that won’t happen.”
“Sniff… why not…?”
Caesar wiped away her tears and let out a faint sigh.
A moment later, the mattress shifted as he rose his upper body. Then, as he settled back into place, he cupped her cheeks in both hands and kissed her.
But it was not really a kiss.
His lips met hers, and he was transferring a bitter liquid into her mouth.
It smelled similar to herbal medicine, so it must have been an antidote.
The medicine flowed between her lips and slowly down her throat.
“Very good. You kept leaking it out before.”
Repeating the process, Caesar fed her the medicine.
“If I let you go, do you really think the count would spare your life?”
“Why don’t you let me go first and then see whether I survive?”
“The moment you leave this mansion, you’ll die.”
At those words, she thought of the butler and the maid chief. They were surely watching this room even now.
“Interrogate the butler, Derek, and the maid chief, Anna. They’re spies who’ve sold themselves to the count.”
At her words, Caesar’s voice sank heavily, as though deeply shaken.
“No way. Derek was my father’s man. He faithfully looked after the territory in my place all this time. And Anna was brought from my mother’s family home when she married.”
“Seven years is a long time.”
“……”
“No one expected you to survive the war and come back, Lord Caesar.”
As she was being pulled toward deep sleep, Caesar asked into her ear,
“So you’re on their side?”
“Of course I’m…”
On my side.
Before she could finish the thought, Odette sank into deep sleep.
“Madam, I’ve brought breakfast.”
Odette was looking at the wall at the far end of the garden, suddenly wondering whether there had even been a “madam” in this house.
‘Without a ladder, there’s no way I could get over that wall.’
Someone approached Odette and bowed their head.
“Madam?”
Odette lifted her eyes and looked at the maid.
“M-me?”
“Yes, Madam.”
This is insane.
Until yesterday she had been called “young lady,” and overnight she had been promoted to “madam.”
‘Please just leave me alone. My body hurts like hell.’
She had only just managed to sit up like this after four full days of illness.
The poison had been so powerful that her mouth had been torn raw and the capillaries in her eyes had burst, forcing her to wear an eye patch for a while.
The physician had said it was fortunate she had survived at all because her body had been naturally strong.
That was no different from saying it was unbelievable that she had not died.
‘Now I understand what people mean when they say they were dragged to hell.’
