Try Begging Novel - Chapter 5

“…Yes?”
He regarded employees as mere cogs in the mansion’s machinery. No one asks questions every time they see a mechanical part.
What on earth was he curious about? The maid Sally Bristol’s origins and family? If so, she could simply recite the meticulously crafted personal details.
However, considering his recent actions, it might be a very vulgar and personal curiosity.
Nausea and curses threatened to erupt simultaneously from within her. Sally clamped her mouth shut.
“Perhaps…”
For some reason, Winston, who had been intently staring into her eyes, began to speak in a gentle tone. The question was neither vulgar nor overly personal, yet Sally wished for a vulgar curiosity instead.
“Did you ever go to Abington Beach as a child?”
Abington Beach. The moment she heard those words, her heart sank.
‘You filthy pig!’
The utterly immature mistake of her childhood replayed in her mind like a faded film. That single day of summer threatened to consume all her time, over a decade later.
‘No. The fact that he’s asking means it’s just suspicion, not confirmation.’
At least he wasn’t subtly trying to trick her with leading questions, which was a relief.
To remain as calm as possible. That was her only way out.
“Yes?”
Sally tilted her head, as if the notion were absurd.
“No… my parents were poor, so we couldn’t afford to go to such a luxurious resort…”
This time, she let her voice trail off pitifully. She used the pathos of Sally Bristol, daughter of a poor farmer from the countryside, with only her ailing, tuberculous mother as family, as a weight, letting her eyes and lips droop.
“…”
Winston closed his mouth again. He stared intently into her eyes, just as he had before dropping his bomb-disguised-as-a-question. Was he trying to find evidence of a lie, or evidence of the truth, within the eyes that held the turquoise sea of Abington Beach?
She wanted to close her eyes. But it wouldn’t change anything now.
Only when Sally’s maid’s blouse began to stick to her skin, damp with sweat, did Winston avert his gaze.
“Indeed, that’s right.”
He chuckled, believing himself to have made an absurd assumption, and returned to his car.
Soon, the iron gate opened, and with a fierce engine roar, Winston sped past Sally. She watched the car grow smaller and quietly murmured.
‘Damn my eyes.’

The wheels, rolling along the meticulously paved driveway of square bricks, gradually lost speed and came to a halt. The iron gate at the end of the road was tightly shut.
He had informed the butler of his arrival time in advance.
The chauffeur, who had subtly glanced at Leon’s expression in the rearview mirror, immediately honked loudly. After two honks, a middle-aged man frantically rushed out from beyond the bars and opened the gate.
The car began to move again, and as they passed, the gatekeeper unexpectedly saluted him, but Leon merely chuckled and turned his gaze forward.
It was nothing new. The Aldrich Grand Ducal family’s subtle disdain was not a matter of a day or two.
‘And rightly so.’
In the engagement transaction, the Winston family was the one gaining immediate, tangible benefits. The Grand Ducal family was merely making an investment for the future. So, wasn’t it natural for the scales to tip to one side?
Leon found the disdain simply amusing. For his pride to be wounded, shouldn’t he at least have some expectation, or at least a shred of interest, in this transaction?
‘Ah, Mother might be furious.’
The corners of his lips, which had curved upwards, soon fell again.
The seemingly endless driveway was finally coming to an end. The magnificent mansion at its end was merely one of the Grand Ducal family’s many villas.
Even the villa was designed to overwhelm anyone who entered, befitting the Grand Ducal family’s prestige. But that only worked on those who desired something from the Grand Ducal family or were indebted to them. Leon merely found it all bothersome.
As the car stopped in front of the mansion, the villa’s butler slowly approached. While Leon’s personal attendant, who was in the passenger seat, quickly got out and opened the back door, the butler smoothed his pomaded, slick hair.
“Captain Winston, I will escort you to the drawing-room.”
The butler, acting as if he were a Grand Duke himself, spoke even his greeting slowly and pretentiously.
Leon closed the folder he had placed on his lap and opened the black briefcase on the seat next to him. Pierce, his attendant, approached to help, but Leon raised a hand to decline.
He put the documents and fountain pen he had been looking at on the way into their proper place and picked up his black officer’s cap. He gently pressed the cap onto his neatly combed hair, even adjusting its shape.
“Captain, if you could just hurry a little more…”
He did not exit the car until the arrogant butler had bowed. He then followed the butler into the villa. He dismissed Pierce, who had intended to follow. After all, he was only going to bring out a woman.
“His Grace, the Grand Duke, is waiting.”
But the news that Grand Duke Aldrich was at the Camden villa was unexpected. As he entered the drawing-room, the Grand Duke, dressed comfortably, rose from the sofa where he had been reading a newspaper.
“Oh, Captain Winston.”
It was a stiff address for someone who was soon to be family.
“Your Grace, it’s been a long time.”
“Indeed. Have you come to fetch Rosalyn?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm…”
The Grand Duke stroked his long, horizontally extending mustache. His gaze explicitly raked over Leon’s neck and below.
“Your serious attitude towards a date, as if approaching a battle, is commendable.”
The Grand Duke’s words would sound like praise to an innocent person. But Leon was far from innocent.
He knew very well that the Grand Duke was being sarcastic, displeased that he had come to a date arranged by their elders in his officer’s uniform instead of a formal suit.
“My work delayed me, so I was unavoidably dressed this way.”
He gave a fleeting smile, feigning embarrassment, but the Grand Duke also knew. That Leon had no interest in this date, let alone this transaction.
“Indeed, you seem to be very busy with work.”
In truth, it wasn’t work, but being distracted twice by that bothersome maid that had delayed his departure.
“Seeing as the Captain, who always keeps his appointments strictly, is late today.”
This was unexpected. The Grand Duke knew the time of his appointment with the Grand Duchess.
‘Did he really wait? Does he have some business?’
He had a strong premonition that it would be a troublesome conversation.
“Would you care for a drink?”
There was no need to answer. It was neither a question nor an invitation.
The Grand Duke walked to the bar in the corner of the drawing-room and picked up a crystal glass. It was just as amber liquid was being poured into the glass. Someone knocked on the drawing-room door.
“Your Grace, Grand Duchess Rosalyn has arrived.”
“Oh, come in.”
The door opened, and Leon’s intended fiancée, ready to depart, walked in.
“Captain Winston.”
“Your Grace, Grand Duchess Aldrich.”
Both addressed each other with stiff titles, unbefitting a couple on the verge of engagement.
As they exchanged greetings, he couldn’t help but notice the Grand Duchess’s attire. It was far from the current fashion of increasingly short skirts. Her long dress, barely showing her ankles, looked more restrictive than elegant.
As befitting a Grand Duchess of immense wealth, she was adorned with expensive items, yet everything about her made her seem dull. Rosalyn Aldrich was such a woman.
Even if she was dull, a mission was a mission. Even if it was a mission thrust upon him by the elders of their families, each pursuing their own desires.
Leon approached the Grand Duchess and extended his arm with precision. Her hand, placed on his forearm, felt so light as to be almost imperceptible. Her reluctance to touch suggested that she, too, was not particularly keen on this date.
“Your Grace, I will have a drink another time. The cruise ship’s departure time is approaching.”
“Very well, have a meaningful time.”
Only the elders of the families considered this transaction meaningful.
In the car, driving along the riverside through the city, no conversation passed between the two seated side by side.
Pierce, unable to bear the awkward silence, began to chatter. He lightly recommended the menus of the cruise ship’s luxurious restaurant and bar, even adding a wish for them to have a good time.
“I don’t like alcohol.”
The Grand Duchess was the first to speak. This sudden remark was probably due to her father offering Leon a drink at the villa, or because Pierce had recited the bar’s cocktail menu.
The Grand Duke was famously a heavy drinker. It was common for a woman with a drinker for a father to dislike alcohol.
“I don’t particularly enjoy it either.”
“Alcohol clouds one’s judgment. They say it helps forget life’s pains, but it seems to only create bigger problems. Especially in social settings, one easily loses self-control and becomes incapacitated.”
Was she under the grand delusion that he was trying to get her drunk and take advantage of her? As the usually quiet Grand Duchess launched into an unrequested lecture, Leon grew increasingly annoyed.
He, too, had no desire for this waste of time called a date. But because he was in an inferior position in this transaction, she seemed to think she could pounce on him, get pregnant, and prevent the deal from falling through.
‘How absurd.’
If he truly wanted to finalize this deal, it would have happened long ago. He had plenty of cards to play, even if it meant being called despicable, without resorting to disgusting acts like pregnancy.
From the outset, he had little interest in sex, to the point of being indifferent even to a woman’s naked body. When he socialized with officers, high-class prostitutes, reeking of strong perfume, often joined their drinking parties. But he had never felt aroused by anyone.
So why did he get aroused by that maid, who smelled of blood?
Staring at the Grand Duchess’s powdered face, Leon repeated the same name in his tightly closed mouth.
‘Sally Bristol. Sally, what are you?’