Chapter 12
Lirete took a long, deep breath.
Having been carried here with her body suddenly flipped over, her heart was pounding. Though it was nothing truly significant, her nerves were strangely on edge. A beat late, she realized the reason for this strange phenomenon.
Even if it was accidental, while carrying her, his hand had been pressing down near the Name.
“Don’t ever do that again.”
“Why?”
“Why, you ask?”
Lirete stared at him with incredulous eyes.
“I can move my limbs perfectly well. I could have returned to the bedroom without any problem even without you using such methods.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“What are you trying to ask?”
He slowly bent his knees in front of her.
The movement etched onto her retina was slow and deliberate. But to Lirete, it came across as untamed ferocity. Probably because it gave the impression of a ferocious beast crouching low, stalking its prey.
“Come to think of it, I haven’t seen you walking around lately.”
The thirty minutes spent in the annex were always used for holding hands.
The rest was equally consistent.
Valderion would enter the bedroom, settle onto the sofa, set the hourglass, and spend the time. When that routine ended, he would immediately leave the place. Within that process, there were few memories of seeing her walk properly.
Even if there were, it was just a slight limp, as if she’d sprained her ankle.
Lirete watched his deeply contemplative golden eyes with a hint of unease. So when he suddenly tried to lift her skirt without permission, she was horrified and quickly brought both hands down.
An intense battle ensued between the one trying to pull up her skirt hem and the one trying to stop him.
“What are you……! Why are you suddenly doing this?”
“I need to check your legs too, so take your hands away.”
“I said that’s enough, so don’t.”
He had expected she wouldn’t be easy, but she was truly putting up a firm resistance. Even in a situation where she was clearly at a disadvantage, her unbending refusal to yield even an inch left Valderion somewhat weary. But he had no intention of giving in. The sight of her limping as they headed to the bedroom was stuck in his head and wouldn’t go away.
He smirked.
“Is it because you think they’re dirty?”
“It’s not a matter of…… *Kyaa!*”
While she was off guard, her body was hoisted up again.
Lirete, slung over his shoulder like baggage, huffed and pounded his back with her hands. But even that was less impactful than hitting him with a cotton swab. Her lightness extended to the pitiful weakness of her strikes.
*Even assault, when delivered by her, could be this harmless.*
Valderion was impressed in a different sense.
“Then I suppose I’ll have to wash you.”
Uttering incomprehensible words, he strode toward the bathroom attached to the bedroom.
With the world turned upside down, Lirete was so dizzy she didn’t even know where he was going. So when her half-folded, hunched body was unceremoniously tossed down, she was truly horrified.
“Ah!”
No sooner had she fallen on her rear than a *squelching* sound was heard. Soon, the hem of her skirt beneath her began to soak.
Only when she barely managed to right her blurred vision did she realize she was inside a pristine white bathtub. While pushing back her tangled, unbound hair, her skirt hem had already become damp.
Valderion picked up a wooden pail set to one side and poured the hot water it contained into the tub with a *whoosh*.
“Hah……”
Lirete, having suddenly become a drowned rat, looked up at him with eyes bordering on shock.
He shook the pail dry until not a single drop remained, then threw it to the floor. The sharp scraping sound echoed through the steam-filled bathroom.
He grabbed the rim of the bathtub with both hands.
His broad chest and shoulders spread wide, enveloping her like a curtain.
Lirete glared at him, his hair also slightly damp like hers.
“You truly…… you brute, ignorant……”
*The House of Justutia, as a grand ducal house, is a model for others.*
*Elegance, Modesty, Nobility.*
*Those born to embody those noble virtues.*
The stories about them that had been drilled into her ears during her childhood, before her family’s honor was shattered, now circled dizzily in her mind.
A grand duke.
A model for others.
Elegant? Modest? Noble?
No matter how she looked at the man before her, he was far removed from such qualities. Wasn’t this kind of tenacious brutality closer to that of a ruffian who acts on his own whims rather than with noble bearing?
“To hear ‘ignorant’ from a degraded creature like you. It’s not entirely unpleasant.”
Having taunted her with genuine relish, he calmly swept back his disheveled hair. The scattered lighting of the bathroom fell upon his beautifully sculpted features.
“It’s not like I asked you to touch *my* legs. I’m offering to touch yours, so must you make such a fuss?”
Lirete let out an involuntary dry laugh.
*Who exactly was making the fuss? And why are you turning it back on me?*
“I told you, my legs are fine.”
“Fine, with you limping around like a bird with a broken leg.”
Valderion’s gaze slid downward. It landed on her rolled-up skirt. The rising water had already reached her ankles. He turned off the water around then. As the sound of falling water ceased, a deep, heavy silence fell over the bathroom.
In that stillness, Valderion was looking at something.
His first impression was that it was *very white*.
Her skin, as fair as porcelain, gave the feeling that not only her face but every part of her body had been delicately crafted.
But there was something that marred that impression.
Small, ugly scars that could only be seen in such close, detailed proximity.
They weren’t vivid, indicating they had healed long ago. Their colors, too, lacked the reddish hue characteristic of fresh wounds. Having healed and healed again, they had settled into a pale brown.
But they were so numerous that he couldn’t help but look, his gaze drawn to them.
Lirete realized he was intently staring at her leg area. She dropped her gaze and also saw that her skirt hem was rolled up, revealing her calf.
“I want to leave. Move aside.”
She quickly pulled her skirt down as she spoke.
Only then did his prickling gaze—as if stabbing her with sharp thorns—rise to her face. But meeting his eyes brought another ordeal.
Whenever he stared at her so directly, as if to pierce right through her, Lirete felt something inside her tighten. It was a phenomenon that seemed far from ever becoming familiar, no matter how many lifetimes she experienced it.
What made it worse was that she didn’t know whether it was because of the Name engraved on her back, or because of the indescribable heat emitted by the eyes that held her.
By now, expecting him to hold her hand gracefully or show any decorum was nonsense. Lirete braced herself against the damp bathtub floor and tried to rise on her own.
But her always troublesome legs were in no mood to cooperate now. Trying to straighten her upper body, she lost her balance badly.
“Ah!”
The puddle beneath her feet churned, making a splashing sound.
As she flailed her hands trying to grab onto something—a wall, anything—something firmly caught her. Realizing it was Valderion’s hand, Lirete tried to shake it off as if rejecting him. But because he had arbitrarily wrapped his arm around her waist, her reflexive resistance came to nothing.
He clicked his tongue, *tsk*, and lifted Lirete out of the bathtub himself.
“Isn’t it uncomfortable? With your legs in this state.”
“I’m used to it, so it’s fine.”
“Used to it?”
A thick sense of bewilderment oozed from his questioning tone.
Lirete inwardly thought, *Damn.*
Distracted by his arm still clinging to her waist, she had let slip words that would pique his interest or curiosity. Realizing her mistake, she bit her lip hard. Valderion guessed the gist of it just from her expression.
“Dailun again?”
“That’s none of your concern.”
“I’m curious, so answer.”
“Your curiosity does not obligate me to answer.”
Not hiding her brusqueness even in this situation, she escaped the bathroom the moment he released the tension in his arm.
Her improperly treated legs still grated on his nerves.
But as she had said, she was *used to it*—from behind, there was no sense of her being hindered by the limp at all.
Like someone who had grown accustomed to dragging around such damaged legs.
Following her out of the bathroom, Valderion briefly considered crushing her spirit entirely today.
But looking at her gaunt, emaciated form heading toward the bed, he felt oddly put off. Watching her force her legs to carry her to the bed, holding onto them as if they were her last shred of pride, he found himself frowning.
He strode over and suddenly shoved Lirete’s back.
Under that merciless touch, her slender body crumpled forward.
She fell without even a chance to scream, but fortunately, the bed was right in front of her. Flopping onto the undulating mattress, Lirete turned her head, her face flushed with genuine anger.
But before she could, Valderion’s hand slipped under her skirt.
“Ngh……!”
Before she could refuse and tell him to take it out immediately, his large palm firmly gripped her calf.
It moved under her skirt as it pleased. The outline of his hand was visible through the fabric, as if revealing the secrets within.
After kneading the soft, supple flesh, which was as tender as it looked, he gradually moved down to her thin ankle—so thin it seemed it would break instantly if properly twisted and squeezed.
Valderion stroked the area around her calf, as if gauging the heavily scarred skin.
Lirete, who had been silently horrified, soon buried her forehead in the bed, her body flinching and trembling in response to his touch.
She felt a tickling sensation, as if some tightly clenched nerve somewhere was slowly loosening.
She had occasionally experienced his touch in the form of holding hands.
But perhaps because it was her leg being touched now, the feeling was quite different from when he touched her hand.
