🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 69
“No! Then are you saying a mere maid dares to covet the place beside the Duke?!”
“That must be it! That’s why she tried to get rid of the baron’s daughter—her romantic rival!”
“My goodness! Isn’t she just a crazy woman who doesn’t know her place?!”
Now, even without pressing his ear against the wall, every word rang out loud and clear. Anyone near the stables could hear it.
It was just as Gray straightened from where he’d been leaning.
He spotted Riana entering the knights’ camp. She had noticed him too and waved enthusiastically.
“Huh? Over here! Here!”
As if waving weren’t enough, she beamed brightly and hurried toward him.
The moment their eyes met, the coldness that had settled over Gray’s body flared into heat once more.
He glanced toward the stables.
“Calm down, Senior. She might become the Duchess.”
“So she’s going to become a noble lady through such filthy methods? What kind of—”
Gray’s jaw tightened at the blatant slander before relaxing again. His burning heart urged him to move immediately.
He had two choices.
One was to kick open the stable door right now.
The other…
“Damn it, Riana.”
There was only one place he should be heading.
His destination had always been Riana.
“Huff… Huff…”
Running over to her, Gray’s first instinct was to examine her face.
She merely blinked at him with an innocent expression.
As if she had no idea what rumors were spreading about her.
As if she couldn’t even imagine the things people were saying behind her back.
“Ha… damn.”
Grabbing her by the shoulders, Gray spun her around one hundred and eighty degrees.
Startled, Riana’s eyes widened.
She was suddenly being forced to walk back the way she had come.
“H-Hey! What’s wrong?”
“Just… move!”
Keeping both hands on her shoulders, Gray shoved her forward.
Forced to walk, Riana muttered under her breath as she glared at the hands wrapped around her.
“You told me not to touch you or even look at you.”
“……”
Gray clenched his jaw so hard it looked as though he might crack his teeth.
Without answering, he simply pushed her along even faster.
He knew.
He knew how contradictory he was acting toward her.
But he couldn’t stop.
As desperately as he wanted to get her away from the stables, he was just as certain that he himself needed to get away from that place.
Because he was barely restraining the urge to go back and smash the stable keeper’s skull open.
To distract himself, Gray spoke first.
“…Didn’t you hear anything on your way here?”
Riana tilted her head.
“Hear what?”
“I mean… didn’t the maids or anyone else say anything to you?”
“I took a nap because I was tired, then came straight to find you. I told you we should talk again.”
“Ah.”
Remembering their previous meeting, Gray glanced at her wrist.
She wasn’t wearing a bandage.
At least it seemed she hadn’t gotten hurt because of him.
“But what are you talking about? Is there some weird rumor going around?”
Quick as ever, Riana narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
Only after leading her all the way to the campsite did Gray finally stop walking.
“Hm? What did you mean earlier?”
She asked again.
Gray merely rolled his stiff neck from side to side.
Riana’s persistent gaze followed every movement.
Feeling his face growing hotter, Gray looked away.
“Hey, are you really going to do this? You’re not going to tell me?”
Just as Riana was about to start grumbling, Gray suddenly held out his palm in front of her.
“Three gold.”
The request was so abrupt that it took Riana a moment to understand.
“What? Wait… don’t tell me…”
“If you pay in advance, I’ll do it. That errand we talked about before.”
Riana hurriedly searched through her pockets.
But all she pulled out was an empty hand.
“I didn’t bring any money today. What do I do?”
“Then come back tomorrow and pay me.”
“No backing out.”
A delighted smile bloomed across Riana’s face.
Gray found himself staring at the way her eyes curved with that smile before belatedly snapping back to reality.
“…Seriously, you can’t trust people’s words at all, can you?”
Grumbling to himself, he leaned against a large tree, hiding his face in its shade.
If she saw how red his cheeks had become, she might misunderstand and think he’d already broken his promise.
Which absolutely wasn’t true.
Fortunately, Riana seemed too busy searching for a comfortable place to sit.
Soon she settled onto a cut tree stump and got straight to the point.
“So… your role is to deliver the food I give you to that lady. And you have to make sure she eats it immediately.”
“You said she’s a noble. Why would she trust food from me?”
“Don’t worry. She’ll eat it.”
“Who is she? Someone who knows me?”
“Um…”
After hesitating, Riana answered,
“I’ll tell you tomorrow.
After you pay the three gold.”
“Fine by me.”
Gray didn’t really care.
The only reason he’d accepted the errand in the first place was because it gave him an excuse to stay close to Riana.
“Just in case, let’s do a rehearsal tomorrow.”
“A rehearsal? What’s that?”
“A practice run so you don’t make mistakes during the real thing. We should make sure she’ll actually eat what you give her.”
“So I have to do both the practice and the real thing?”
That means I’ll get to see you two more times.
He felt so fond of the woman before him that he wanted to pat her on the head.
Gray frowned, struggling to keep his hand from moving on its own.
Misreading his expression completely, Riana gasped.
“Wait… don’t tell me you’re going to charge me twice because we’re doing it twice?”
That hadn’t been his plan.
But Gray immediately seized the opportunity.
“Of course. If you’ve got any conscience.”
The one who truly had no conscience was himself.
Still, he didn’t care.
Would having a conscience help him claim the island and become someone important to Riana?
Of course not.
“Damn it… Fine.”
After deciding that keeping Gray around was worth the cost, Riana reluctantly agreed.
Though she looked genuinely heartbroken.
Which was understandable.
Six gold was an enormous amount of money.
“But answer me one thing.”
Unable to part with six gold without a fight, Riana shamelessly attached a condition.
“What?”
“I’ll decide after hearing the question.”
Not to be outdone, Gray crossed his arms and acted just as difficult.
“C.C.”
The moment she spoke that name, Riana’s eyes turned cold.
Her brows drew together briefly before she asked in a subdued voice,
“When you talked to her… did anything seem strange?”
C.C.
The maid who had dumped the villainess flag onto Riana earlier that day at Genevieve Castle.
In other words, the person most likely to be the mysterious ‘X’ she had risked everything to investigate.
“Tell me everything you remember about your conversation with her.”
“Nothing really strange…”
“You have to remember something. Try thinking about it.”
The intensity in Riana’s voice was so overwhelming that Gray answered without even questioning her.
“We mostly talked about Welsen. She said she’d be going back there someday, and asked me if I ever planned to return too.”
“And?”
Riana’s gaze relentlessly demanded more.
Turning his head away, Gray rubbed the back of his neck.
“I don’t know. I really can’t remember.”
It wasn’t just because the conversation with the maid hadn’t been memorable.
Right now, whenever he tried to think of anything else…
His mind went completely blank in front of those pink eyes.
Didn’t I tell you before?
Stop looking at me.
The reason you can’t get the answer you want…
…is because of you.
Thinking that to himself, Gray pressed himself deeper into the tree’s shade.
At least the sun was almost setting.
That was something.
Never before had a night shift been like this.
Was this really work, or was she slacking off?
“Yes! Time to go home!”
Having finished an unbelievably peaceful shift at the Isolation Tower, Riana cheerfully welcomed the morning sun.
Clocking out always made her happy.
Still, the peacefulness of her shift wasn’t entirely a good thing.
Because Killian hadn’t done anything all night.
She had only seen him once—
When she brought tea into his office.
Even then, all she received was a polite,
“Thank you.”
He had been such a perfect gentleman that she couldn’t read anything hidden behind his composed expression.
It’s nice that he didn’t make things difficult for me… but if he acts like he couldn’t care less, that’s a little disappointing…
She, on the other hand, had plenty to be disappointed about.
If Gray and I get good results from tomorrow’s rehearsal, I’ll immediately persuade Killian and move on to the real thing.
If I tell him,
“In exchange for you appearing before Deborah, I’ll pretend to fall in love with you, and then I’ll get myself thrown out.”
…he’d probably agree to it.
It wouldn’t be long before she received her first paycheck.
And encouraging the male and female leads’ romance so they could marry sooner no longer felt like an impossible dream.
A thrilling, carefree life on the island already seemed within reach.
