Chapter 47

Chapter 47

Lucas blankly called out my name, perhaps in response to my question.

Why was Lucas here all of a sudden?

Obviously, Aiden was here earlier… Looking around, I saw letters, pens, and ink that had been pushed out of the way neatly arranged. There was a blanket on the floor that had just fallen off my shoulder. Apparently, Lucas came after tidying up the surroundings and covering me with a blanket.

“When did you come?”

I asked, picking up the blanket on the floor and folding it.

“A while ago. I waited until you woke up as you were drooling ‘till I fell asleep.”

‘Did I drool while sleeping?’ … I groped my lips just in case, and the surroundings were damp.

Yes, I drooled. If a person was tired, they were allowed to drool, right?

There was no shame in it, so I roughly brushed it off and looked at Lucas.

As if his neck was stiff from sitting and sleeping, Lucas was stretching it.

‘Why did he do that?’

In fact, was it normal for a visitor to sit and wait until the visitee woke up? They could either come later or just wake me up… The moment could have been a romantic scene, but it was just a simple reality for me. So that was just the realistic idea.

Whether or not Lucas read the thoughts in my mind, he straightened his posture and loosened his limbs and neck.

As expected, I couldn’t even see any ‘romance’ in his character.

“What is going on?”

Haha, where could anyone be so sane in this world? That stereotype was mine. With that thought, I erased unnecessary realistic ideas from my mind.

I was still sitting at my desk, and Lucas was sitting in the chair by the bed.

“I’m here to see if you’re feeling better.”

“You came yesterday, too.”

He came yesterday, and the day before that, the day before that, the one before that, and also the one before that. To be precise, he came every day except for yesterday.

The corners of Lucas’s lips twitched deeper. It was like a villain’s smile.

“I didn’t come yesterday.”

‘Gosh. Whatever.’ I shrugged my shoulders and pushed the folded letter I wrote for Vivian to the side.

I didn’t have anything important to say, and if he was just checking to see if my body was okay, I just had to show him that I was in good health.

Lucas seemed to really have come to ‘observe’ my condition, because while I took the letter and unfolded it, he was motionless and staring at me.

I lightly ignored Lucas’s gaze and slowly read the letter in my hand once more.

‘What should I do with this letter?’ I had to set a date because she said she would come to visit, but it was not up to me to invite guests to the duke’s residence.

‘I guess I’ll have to ask Father or Mother about the schedule…’ The both of them had been busy lately, so the number of times they came to my room had decreased.

In the end, I had to go and ask them myself, but strangely, I didn’t have the courage to go and do it. It was okay if I met them on the way, or had the two of them visit me, but I didn’t know why that was so.

When I asked about Brother, I was told he went to the Imperial Palace for work.

“Are there any other problems?”

Lucas, who had been immersed in thought and had forgotten about my existence, suddenly asked.

I pondered for a moment about whether I should give an honest answer or gloss over it, but then I chose to be honest. Lucas was a person who visited Father often, so I thought it would be okay to ask him instead.

I was his dearest friend-in-name’s dearest sister, so he would do that.

“Lady Vivian wants to visit me. There are many times that I’ve been rude to her before, so it’s a little hard to say no… I want to know what the date should be.”

“A visit…”

Lucas tapped his toe. I thought he wanted to answer that he would ask the duke, but he just kept silent with a serious expression, as if he was thinking about something.

‘Was he thinking about the date himself?’

Well, Lucas was a family-like figure in the Duke’s family and handled the important things as well, so it wasn’t a bad thing for him to set a date and talk to Father or Mother about it later.

I imagined Lucas was worried about Vivian, who would come to visit me.

Obviously, the roses are beautiful, as the letter says, but if she saw the princess lying in bed, sick.… She would probably cry.

A sharp headache hit me suddenly. To be honest, I would normally just accept and send a casual reply, but there were a lot of things I was worried about besides Vivian right now.

This was the problem when I tried to be even a little serious about living.

As I tapped the desk, thinking of the future, which was troublesome enough just to imagine, Lucas, who was lost in thought, got up from his chair.

My gaze turned to him.

“Selena, how about the wound to your arm or the other problems?”

‘Weren’t you thinking about the date of the visit?’

Hearing Lucas’s sudden question about the wound, I rolled up my sleeve and looked at my forearm. I didn’t really pay attention to the wound, so I didn’t know what my current condition was.

Even when the maids applied medicine, most of the time I had cloudy eyes and was looking far away… The bare skin exposed under the rolled up sleeves was still full of reddish bruises. In particular, the long scar on my left arm left a red mark, revealing its horrible presence.

Priest Ian said that he would heal it when his powers returned, but he had not yet fully recovered his powers because he poured out too much of it on the day of the accident. Apparently, the structure of the divine power needed a bit of rechargeability.

Priest Ian accompanied the doctor to my examination, so I had to listen to Priest Ian’s apologies about once a day. I was the one who jumped, but I was so anxious that other people kept apologizing here and there.

In any case, while thinking about what to say about the condition of the wound, I simply stretched my arm out in front of Lucas, saying that I couldn’t see anything.

Lucas, who raised his eyebrows at my suddenly-stretched-out arm, took a deep breath as he glanced over my arm and turned his gaze to me.

‘What.’

“The wound has improved a lot, but it will take a while for it to completely subside. Are you applying the medicine well?”

“It’s improved a lot because the medicine was applied well.”

It was the maids who applied the medicine anyway. For them, this was a professional routine, so I had no choice but to apply the medicine well. No, wasn’t it more like having it be applied?

“Yes, that’s good.”

“What?”

Instead of answering my question, Lucas just smiled. I looked at Lucas’s face with dissatisfaction when he dodged my question, but my dissatisfaction was washed away with his words afterwards.

“It would be better to decline the visit.”

People could just turn the subject that easily. Well, that was a given. Refusing Vivian’s visit was the most satisfying choice for me.

“Why?”

I wondered if I should just nod my head quietly, but I still asked him why out of courtesy.

“We’ll tell Lady Vivian that you simply couldn’t welcome her because of your poor health, but it would be strange just to think that it was because there are wounds all over your body. Vivian’s father, County Jonas, is also the center of current rumors as he has deep ties with salons. If we use that to our advantage, there could be a positive effect, but… if done wrong, it can be poisonous.”

“Ah.”

In the meantime, he seemed to have thought that far ahead. As expected of the male lead.

As Lucas said, Vivan was sure to think it would be strange if I showed any wounds. I didn’t think Vivian was going to be saying weird things about me here and there, but… I couldn’t ignore that probability.

PR/N: TL was also a little lost on this part, I did my best to make it make sense but I’m still not too sure

“Besides, there are bad rumors about the princess these days, so you have to be extra careful.”

“Rumors?”

‘Rumors… Maybe there were rumors that I jumped off the tower?’

If so, that was a bad situation.

For nobles, rumors were fatal. Because everyone valued their appearance, bad news would undermine their reputation.

“The Duke and Madam, and even Aaron are busy taking action on the rumors.”

‘Oh.’ It seemed that it was because of this problem that they were busy all this time. I was only in the mansion until now, so I didn’t know if there were rumors about me, so I guess they didn’t say anything on purpose.

They feared that if I found out, I would get hurt or feel responsible.

Yes, they were being considerate of me.

I didn’t feel like saying anything. No, I felt like I didn’t know what to say. No matter how much I received this kind of consideration, I wasn’t used to it.

Even though it was a consideration that I could regard as completely mine now, it was terribly unfamiliar.

The me in my previous life and me in this life were both in the position of being the ‘culprit’ of the incident, but the treatment was very different.

In my previous life, I was just seen as the culprit everytime. Even if it suddenly rained, it would be my fault, so my existence itself was wrong, and I was resentful of it.

But this life was the opposite. I received overflowing consideration just because I existed.

It was really very polar.

What was I supposed to do?

“What is the rumor?”

“It seemed like there were talks about you not coming to Lady Vivian’s garden party. There are bad speculations about why you didn’t attend it.”

Bad speculations… Whatever it was, I shrugged, wondering if it would be worse than the truth.

“You’re good at telling secrets my family is hiding.”

“No matter how much they hide it, it will get into your ears someday. It would be better for Selena to prepare ahead of time than to be beaten up for being unprepared.”

It was the right thing to say.

No matter how much they hid it, there is no truth that could be completely hidden. My family would never be able to open their mouths to me, so Lucas must have spoken in their stead.

It was the coolness that gave off a great presence in the emotional Duchy. He would raise a very strong child.

Lucas’s coldness made me feel cold again. It was for me that my family kept their mouths shut, so I wanted to do what I could for my family, too.

Even if I couldn’t say unfamiliar words, wouldn’t I be able to live confidently as Selena by doing this?

“However, if I refuse the visit… Will things get worse?”

I picked up the letter, scanned it once more, folded it, and put it in an envelope.

“Instead, you can create a bigger situation.”

“A bigger one?”

“Yes. A bigger one.”

Unlike when he was talking about the rumors, his eyes gleamed with joy again. No matter how I thought about it, if there was a scheming villain in the novel, it would have been this person.

***

The sun was shining hot.

The summer is really hot here, too. The blanket on the bed was now fluttering thin enough.

The two arms exposed under the half-sleeve pajamas were very smooth. It was thanks to Priest Ian’s healing, who recovered his divine power.

He could even remove scars, which was better than modern laser treatment. Besides, it turned out that the other priests did not have this ability.

That meant Ian was incredibly special… My case did not necessarily end in a bad result, as I managed to scout this talented person. It’s a story that would make anyone else throw up in shock if they heard it.

TL/N: yes i really don’t know why they use this word T.T

If it was Brother who heard it, he might’ve been the one to throw up in shock.

Anyway, today was a day when I really, really needed that priest, because I was going to be exhausted today. Before going to bed, I had to ask Ian to fire a shot of divine power.

“Lady.”

The time is here. I answered with a sigh to the maid, who I memorized her name as Jane.

“Come in.”

When I told her to come in, the door opened and the maids rushed in. There weren’t many. The maids, each with wretched expressions, were holding something in their hands.

“Lady, shall we start with a bath?”

Yes, do whatever you want.

After soaking in the warm bath water, I fell asleep. Feeling drowsy, I thought that it would be good to stop taking the bath and just go to sleep. My eyes were about to close… I woke up to the sensation of someone stroking my arm.