Can You Save Me Duke? - 25

Standing in front of the Duke’s room, Lina couldn’t take a step due to an inexplicable sense of pressure. It was a door that she had always opened without any hesitation. But it was so hard to even knock on it.

“Huh-.”

She must have been staring at the poor door for a long time. As if she had made up her mind, Lina reached out her hand. Then, the door that she had thought was firmly closed was pushed back helplessly.

‘What is this?’

Feeling puzzled, she slowly entered the room, only to be greeted by silence. The Duke, who she had expected to see right away, was leaning on the sofa, not the bed, with his eyes closed.

‘Ha.’

And the moment she realized that Bellige had fallen asleep, the tension she had been holding on to ‘popped’ away.

She laughed at herself for being so tense, but on the other hand, she felt relieved.

‘Should I just go back for now?’

She was exhausted both physically and mentally after suffering unexpectedly for several days. The duke fell asleep after calling her, so he wouldn’t be able to say anything to himself later.

At that moment, as she was about to turn off the candles that were illuminating the room and go back to his room, the duke’s figure sleeping on the sofa with only his coat off came into view.

“Whew-. Me too, really.”

In the midst of all this, how could she care less about the man’s sleeping figure?

Lina, who was mocking herself as if she was pathetic, brought a blanket and covered the man with it.

She covered his chest with the blanket and stared at the duke’s face, who was sleeping comfortably.

A clear wound came into view on the man’s calm-looking face.

The wound, which seemed to have been cut by something sharp, was still red, as if it had not been long since it had appeared.

‘You’re a duke, so you don’t even treat a wound like this… … .’

It seemed like he hadn’t even applied medicine to the wound. Lina clicked her tongue as if she was displeased, lifted the blanket, and looked at the man’s bandaged hand.

His hard, callused hands were slightly bleeding, as if he had been badly injured.

‘What on earth happened?’

Lina took out the ointment from her clothes pocket.

It was the ointment that Cullen had given her before she entered the bedroom. She thought he had noticed her injury and given it to her, but it turned out that he had given it to her to treat the duke.

‘What should I do?’

She stood there blankly, looking back and forth between the ointment and the Belige.

Lina, who was wondering whether she should leave the medicine behind or apply it lightly while he was sleeping, came to the conclusion that the duke would not apply the medicine himself.

‘He seems to be sleeping deeply, so it should be okay.’

She quietly opened the cap of the ointment and put some on her index finger. She carefully spread the ointment thinly over the wound, just in case the duke woke up.

However, the duke’s sleep seemed brighter than she had thought. Judging from the fact that the man’s eyes opened as soon as her hand touched his cheek.

Bellige and Lina’s eyes met in the air.

In the room filled with silence, the only sound was the sound of someone’s saliva.

Lina flinched and pulled back, surprised by the sudden gaze, but the man was a little faster.

Degururu-.

When he grabbed her wrist, the ointment Lina was holding slipped out of her hand. How long had it been like that?

The only thing that filled the awkward silence was the sound of the ointment rolling on the floor.

“… … I’m afraid it’ll leave a scar.”

Lina was barely holding back her hiccups as she continued to make excuses.

The man gently pulled the wrist he was holding toward his face. Soon, the back of Lina’s hand touched the skin of a stranger.

From the man’s cheek to his lips. The shallow wind that came out every time he breathed tickled her.

Lina forgot to breathe and just let the man take her hand.

Until the moist flesh touched the back of her hand.

“Your Majesty, Duke?”

Her shoulders trembled slightly at the unexpected stimulation. However, Belige did not answer Lina’s question, but simply waved her hand.

As if she was eating something very sweet. With unfocused, cloudy eyes.

Unable to bear it any longer, Lina straightened her waist and pulled her wrist away strongly. But.

Thump-.

As if she had never held on tightly, Belige’s hand, which had been holding her so easily, loosened.

“What, what is it… …?”

She looked down at the Duke in bewilderment, and he was still sleeping with his eyes closed as if he had never woken up.

‘No way… … You were talking in your sleep, right?’

Ha. A sigh of incredulity escaped her.

And then, as if the tension had been released, she collapsed on the floor. Was it because she had taken a long bath in hot water? Lina’s face burned as if it was on fire.

* * *

One afternoon when the warm sunlight was shining down. In the garden filled with the fragrance of beautiful flowers, well-dressed women were having a leisurely tea time.

“As expected, the hydrangea garden of the Counts of Linz is beautiful.”

The greenhouse garden surrounded by hydrangeas of various colors was the pride of the Counts of Linz.

“That’s right. The hydrangeas are blooming so beautifully even though summer is almost over.”

The hydrangeas in the greenhouse, imbued with magical powers, were always in full bloom throughout the four seasons.

“Thank you. This is the greenhouse that my grandmother, the former Countess, personally tended.”

The woman speaking while drinking tea with an elegant gesture was a beautiful woman with red hair and eyes like grass leaves.

And as the tea time was about to begin, Youngae Kleine quietly folded the fan covering her face with one hand and spoke.

“Have you heard the rumor?”

Kleine continued, drawing everyone’s attention as if she was about to bring up an interesting topic.

“The lady of His Excellency the Duke of Permanence.”

“You mean… … Duke Belige Permanence? The one who returned from this war.”

“Yes. That’s right.”

“Oh my, my goodness.”

As soon as Young Lady Kleine finished speaking, the women all let out exclamations. Except for one.

The Countess of Linz simply drank her tea quietly with an incomprehensible expression on her face.

“What kind of family’s young lady are you?”

“Could it be Young Lady Rojas? Marquis Rojas is a close friend of His Highness the First Prince, so he might have passed it on to her.”

The family’s power was greatly weakened due to the stigma of being the cursed duke’s family, but the wealth and honor they had accumulated as a founding father’s family did not disappear easily.

Furthermore, the young, single duke who returned proudly as a hero from this war was enough to light a fire in the hearts of the young ladies. But how could such a duke have a woman?

The noble ladies’ eyes were focused on Cline.

“Unfortunately, it’s not just the Rojas’s, nor any other noble family’s.”

“What is that… … . Then who on earth is the duke and… …?”

Cline spoke in a calm voice, looking at the women who seemed to have no idea what was going on.

“They said she was the maid of the Duke of Fermanense.”

“Oh my, my… …!”

Everyone gasped and sighed in disbelief at her words.

“They said my exclusive maid was a long-time friend of the maid who worked at that mansion. According to the child, the Duke hated being served by anyone, perhaps because he had lived on the battlefield since he was young. But lately, he has been particularly close to one maid, and he only looks for that maid all day long, not looking for anyone else.”

“But it’s natural for a noble to be served by a maid. I don’t know what’s so special about that. Could it be that the maid simply has the Duke’s trust?”

When Young-ae Pashu refuted Cline’s words, the other young-aes nodded in agreement and looked at her. However, Cline shook her head slightly and said.

“I heard that maid even helps the Duke take a bath.”

Most nobles have their baths served by maids or servants. However, they were all served by servants of the same sex, and this was an unspoken rule.

Occasionally, widowed noblewomen or old noblemen would often have their servants take care of their baths, and in most cases, they were their mistresses.

“There are even more than a few people who saw that maid coming out of Duke Permanence’s room every night.”

The other young lady who had been silently listening to Kleine cautiously spoke up.

“I actually heard something, that the maid stole the jewels of the mansion and ran away.”

“Oh my… ….”

“So the angry duke closed the gates and issued a wanted order to find the maid.”

“And he found her?”

“He didn’t charge her with anything and protected her. I heard that he treated her very preciously, as if he were secretly watching something he treasured in the best room.”

“I guess that maid is a great beauty?”

Kiel young lady asked a realistic question as if she was no longer surprised.

“No. It’s so ordinary. Rather, it seems like she looks like a child because she doesn’t eat well.”

“A love story between a maid and a nobleman. Isn’t that something that only comes out of a play?”

“Well. Considering that there were noblewomen from the Hanmihan family among the Duchesses of Permanence in the past, no one knows.”

In fact, because of the curse that had been passed down through the generations of the Permanence family, most noble families were reluctant to send their daughters to become duchesses.

Many of the duchesses were illegitimate daughters of noble families or noblewomen from Hanmihan families, as if they were being sold off to marry, because they didn’t want their precious daughters, who were the apple of their eyes, to become widows.

The immature ladies chattered about the love between the cursed duke and the maid. A strange sound could be heard through the excited tables.

Click-.

The Linz ladies, who had been quietly listening to their conversation from the side, put down their teacups loudly and said.

“The ladies are really saying funny things. “

Kleine, who was furious at Linz Youngae’s words, waved her fan.

“Are you kidding me? Isn’t it because you feel sorry for Linz Youngae that you’re saying such things? If you had known that your ‘former’ fiancé, Duke Belige, would come back looking so great, you wouldn’t have broken off the engagement in the first place.”

“Oh my, Kleine Youngae, did you know that Linz Youngae would do this? She’s the one who’s more hurt than anyone right now.”

Heyren Linz, the host of this tea party, is Permanence

There was no one who didn’t know that she was the Duke’s former fiancée. And this fact was also a good prey for other women who were jealous of her.

Heyren muttered softly, looking at the women who spoke in sarcastic voices.

“My former fiancée.”

One corner of her mouth rose gently.

“Who said that? I’m the ‘former’ fiancée of His Excellency the Duke of Belige?”

“There’s no one in the Empire who doesn’t know that? The Count of Linz unilaterally notified the Permanence family of the breakup.”

When the previous Duke and his wife suddenly passed away and the young Duke was dragged off to war, the Count of Linz unilaterally notified the Permanence family of the breakup.

And this incident was called the tragedy of the young Duke who lost his parents and was broken up by his fiancé, and it caused a stir in the Empire for a while.

“It’s true that I sent the breakup papers. But Your Majesty didn’t agree.”

“What the… … .”

“I think everyone is having a big misunderstanding, so I’ll take this opportunity to explain. I did not break off my engagement with Duke Permanence. In other words, I, Heylen Linz, am Duke Belige’s only ‘current’ fiancée.”

Unlike the successful start, the tea party ended in a somewhat noisy atmosphere.

* * *

Heylen, who was sitting alone in the garden after everyone had left, carefully got up from her seat.

As she walked, holding onto her skirt fluttering in the wind, she looked like a swan.

She truly was the figure of a woman worthy of being called the rose of the empire.

She walked to the hydrangeas with flawless grace and picked the most beautiful one and held it in front of her face.

The sweet fragrance permeated the tip of her nose.

After taking in the scent of hydrangeas, she took a deep breath and spoke in a clear voice.

“Now everything will fall into place. Belige.”

With a bright smile like a hydrangea in full bloom.