Try Begging Novel - Chapter 27

He whispered a wicked warning in a gentlemanly tone, just as he was about to bite Sally’s ear.

The study door burst open. Sally’s head snapped up, and her eyes met those of the woman who was about to enter the study. The woman, who had just witnessed her son about to have relations with a maid on the billiard table, screamed.

Thud.

Mrs. Winston immediately fainted and collapsed to the floor.

“Damn it…”

A low curse fell from behind Sally’s head.

As the sharp needle pierced his scalp, Leon winced with one eye. The spot where the maid had struck him with the billiard ball was torn. He had only intended to wipe away the blood, but his mother, in a dramatic fuss, had summoned a doctor past midnight.

It seemed the doctor wasn’t needed for him.

His mother, seated opposite Leon with a coffee table between them, was slumped like a corpse in the wing chair. She looked ridiculous, attended by three maids, with an ice pack on her head.

“That’s enough. You may leave.”

Leon dismissed the doctor, who was annoyingly prattling on about concussion risks and possible fractures, and his mother, too, sent the maids away. Her direct glare indicated she was about to throw a tantrum.

“Oh, heavens… My God…”

As expected, his mother began her hysterics by invoking God.

“Leon, are you out of your mind?”

Leon sat cross-legged in the wing chair, lightly tapping his fingers on his knee.

“You’ve always handled yourself so quietly, so well. Why are you doing this now, right before your engagement? Are you trying to drive me to a nervous breakdown?”

A woman entirely self-centered. She even insisted that her grown son’s pursuit of women was merely rebellion to gain his mother’s attention and affection.

Regrettably, Leon harbored no such affection for his mother.

A sneer escaped his son’s lips, and Elizabeth picked up the ice pack she had placed on the table and put it back on her forehead.

“Smile like that at my funeral, too.”

“You needn’t worry about the engagement.”

“The Grand Duchess saw you with another woman, and you say there’s nothing to worry about!”

“It’s a transaction, not love. It won’t harm the Grand Duchess or the Grand Duke, no matter what I do with other women.”

Elizabeth sighed deeply, closing her eyes.

“Yes, you’re always right, aren’t you?”

Her stubborn son. Yet, he had never been wrong so far, so she let him have his way.

The heinous reputation of being ‘Camden’s Vampire’ was something she had even boasted about, a medal her son had earned through his loyalty to the Crown. She had tolerated the torture chamber in the mansion, and the constant presence of soldiers in their grotesque uniforms.

But to be infatuated with a woman, and a lowly maid at that? This was utterly intolerable.

“Leon, I’ve told you countless times since you were a child. Don’t forget about your father. How much our family suffered after that, do you remember? I don’t want to lose you too.”

She doesn’t want to lose the chance for a title.

Leon twisted one corner of his mouth, then winced. The wound pulled, causing a sharp pain.

“Honestly, I’ll tell you. Whether it’s my fault or your father’s, I’ve been worried because you treated women like insects. It would be troublesome if you continued after marriage.”

Troublesome if you don’t produce an heir, Leon thought, scraping the blood from under his fingernails with a military knife.

“But then you suddenly became a different person, pursuing a woman, and a maid at that! I’d rather you treat them like insects again, please!”

Leon chuckled softly, admiring the wound the woman had inflicted on the back of his hand.

“What cunning trick did that maid play?”

Only then did Leon raise his head. He faced his mother, but his gaze was fixed on the empty space beyond her.

I’d like to know that myself. What exactly did that maid do to me?

Involuntarily, his hand slipped into his officer’s jacket. Leon took out a cigar, lit it, and inhaled deeply, lost in thought.

He had never found lust bothersome. He had lived almost without feeling it, so he couldn’t have found it bothersome even if he tried.

But about a month ago, after that maid began to manage the torture chamber alone, it became bothersome. The scent of blood from her skin grew stronger, and her body odor permeated his mind, refusing to be erased.

As if the woman was subtly manipulating his thoughts and controlling his body.

It had intensified even more since the day he first noticed the color of her eyes. It felt as if a slowly sinking ship had suddenly split in two and plunged into the deep sea. As he hadn’t even known the ship was sinking, he could only flounder, unprepared, in a sea of impulse.

Looking back, he had been insane for the past month.

He was often so consumed by lust that he forgot his duties. Today’s incident was a prime example. He clearly remembered the Grand Duchess was coming that evening, yet the moment the maid suggested a date, he completely forgot. For a man who rarely forgot anything, it was a shock.

Moreover, for the past month, he had forgotten his aristocratic dignity and behaved like a back-alley thug towards the woman. He had promised himself to be a good boy and restrain himself, but the moment he faced her, he lost all reason. The loss of control over his body and reason was deeply unpleasant.

“That maid, she must be fired immediately.”

Elizabeth stared at her son with an expression that allowed no compromise. She had expected Leon to object.

But he stood, arms crossed, lost in thought, then muttered something incomprehensible.

“If she’s bothersome, I’ll remove her.”

“What?”

Leon left his bewildered mother and headed for the door.

“Leon!”

“Didn’t you tell me to fire her immediately?”

“What?”

Is he really going to fire a woman he was deeply involved with so suddenly? Elizabeth was speechless at his unexpected action.

Though he was her own son, sometimes his cold-bloodedness was chilling. She stared, disgusted, at the door through which her son had disappeared.

Sally paced restlessly inside the maid’s room.

The head maid will come to fire me soon.

She had intended to pack her bags in advance so she could leave as early as tomorrow morning, but for some reason, her mind was so agitated that she couldn’t even change her clothes.

Her shoulder still burned with pain. The back of her head, where she had hit the billiard table, still throbbed.

If Mrs. Winston hadn’t arrived just in time, she would have been subjected to that man. She had never thought well of the woman, a typical snobbish aristocrat, but at that moment, Elizabeth Winston seemed like an angel.

“Ah!”

She ran her hands over her face, and a short scream escaped her lips the moment they brushed against them. Looking in the mirror, she saw her lower lip, bitten by Winston, was swollen.

That damned bastard.

But she quickly shifted the target of her blame.

Damn myself.

She should have drawn her pistol sooner. Before that, Winston’s mind had been distracted by the kiss for quite a while. The problem was that Sally’s mind had been distracted too.

To get caught up in a kiss meant to distract him! I’m crazy, truly.

“This is a kiss. My first kiss…”

“So, you don’t like it…?”

“…I like it.”

“Shall we… do it again?”

As she buried her face in her hands, two young voices exchanged a faded conversation in her mind.

I’m crazy, truly.

Her mother in heaven would be clucking her tongue, looking down at her pathetic daughter.

The moment Sally roughly rubbed her face, there was a knock at the door. Had the head maid finally arrived?

Opening the door, Sally’s eyes met Winston’s through the narrow gap, and she slammed the door shut with a bang. She pressed her shoulder against the door to prevent him from forcing it open, then locked it with the key and drew the bolt inside. He called her name.

“Sally.”

“Have you come to do something that will make Mrs. Winston faint again?”

A hollow laugh drifted in from outside.

“No, not that. Yes, this is better.”

Then, Winston made an unexpected offer.

“I’ll find you a better job. It will be better for you too. With a recommendation letter signed by me, you’ll easily get in anywhere. Mrs. Belmore said she’d find someone else soon, so you just need to stay until then. That’s all.”

Winston finished his speech in a rush, like a student reciting a poem they’d memorized, afraid to forget it.

She hadn’t expected the words “leave” to come from him. Sally stood dumbfounded, dazed. It felt as if a hand that had gripped her tightly had suddenly released its hold, making her stumble.

“Ha, lunatic.”

It was absurd, but things were going according to plan. Sally shook off an inexplicable uneasiness and sank her exhausted body onto the bed.