Chapter 43

"Headache."

Grace watched as the lieutenant abruptly got up from his seat and headed towards the door. He forcefully opened the tightly closed door and left it wide open.

So that the soldiers in the corridor could clearly see what was happening inside the torture room. Grace secretly felt relieved.

"Well, I should send her to the prison as soon as possible..."

While listening to the lieutenant's complaint, Grace silently prayed.

'Yes, please send me away.'

***

Winston only came to see Grace in the afternoon.

'Has he reported to headquarters? Please let him have reported.'

Grace anxiously watched the man sitting across from her at the metal table.

'Why is he doing this?'

He was silent. He didn't even say a word when he came in, not even a brazen greeting. He just sat there with his arms crossed, staring at Grace with an unreadable expression.

There was no way that man would waste time on meaningless things. But what did it mean for him to quietly watch her? A sense of unease began to settle deep in her stomach.

Feeling uncomfortable under his persistent gaze, Grace kept fidgeting. Winston remained motionless for the long time, only occasionally blinking and moving his eyes. Yet his gaze always remained on Grace.

In the silence, it felt like being hypnotized. Yesterday's events seemed more like a dream than a distant memory.

If it weren't for the nail marks on that man's hand, she might have argued that it was a terrible nightmare.

Grace looked down at her own nails. Would they be safe? He might pluck them out with pliers as a form of retaliation.

She was smiling bitterly when it happened.

Creak. The sound of a chair being pulled broke the silence. When she looked up, Winston was already standing next to her.

He reached out his hand. Grace tensed as his hand, large enough to cover her face, approached.

"Why, uh..."

Thinking he was going to strangle her, she tried to resist but was speechless. Winston lifted her chin and pressed his lips to hers.

Grace froze, not expecting him to suddenly kiss her. She was stunned when he gently pressed and released his lips.

But the kiss grew more passionate. He explored and pressed her lips roughly, as if releasing pent-up emotions.

What kind of emotion was this man releasing?

Finally, it burst.

"Mm, mm..."

Grace's lower lip.

Due to Winston's rough assault, the wound that hadn't fully healed reopened. The taste of blood began to spread. He then carefully licked the soft flesh that oozed blood.

It was a shy tongue play, something that didn't fit with the vampire Grace knew from Camden...

'Something that would fit a boy from Abingdon Beach...'

A sense of foreboding struck Grace, and she opened her eyes wide. Had he been watching her the whole time while kissing her? His cold eyes, visible through his squinted eyelids, were not smiling at all.

"Hello, Daisy. My first love."

The turquoise eyes shook greatly.

Leon finally solved the mystery of why he was only infatuated with this woman.

***

"Here in Abingdon Beach, the coastal cliffs are well developed due to the erosive action of the sea..."

Leon glared at the tutor sitting at the end of the long table with an unpleasant look.

Taking a boring geology lesson in a place where others enjoy swimming.

"Teacher, is it true that you can find evidence in the layers of the coastal cliffs that all continents were once a single supercontinent?"

The unpleasant gaze shifted to his seated brother.

"Jerome should have been born first."

Every time their mother received their report cards, she muttered this complaint. Not that Leon's grades were worse than Jerome's. They just excelled in different subjects.

Mother favored Jerome, who excelled in the noble and sophisticated studies that suited her tastes. Moreover, she thought of soldiers as bloodthirsty savages, so she wouldn't be pleased with Leon, who showed exceptional talent in military-related subjects.

"It's a good thing that boy isn't the eldest son."

For exactly the same reason, his father favored Leon.

So, even though he received subtle and overt cold treatment from his mother, he wasn't particularly upset.

'I don't like her either...'

He was tired of it. He was tired of his mother treating his father, a great military man and a wealthy man, as a half-noble without a title. He was tired of her using every move of the family, even their summer vacation, to achieve her dream of becoming the Countess of Winston.

Leon was still too young to discuss marriage, but his mother was already nagging him about finding a good match.

"Leon, did you have to talk about hunting or cricket with the duchess's daughters?"

"Then next time, I'll talk about military law."

"Goodness! Why do you have to be so twisted like your father? The two of you are trying to drive me to my grave."

Why does Jerome get to talk about dinosaur fossils in front of girls, but I have to be the problem child?

Leon was always dissatisfied with how his mother treated him as a chess piece to achieve her dreams, despite disliking him. Once, when he complained, his father laughed and patted his shoulder.

"Leon, listen well. Everyone is a chess piece to others. The important thing is whether you are treated as a pawn or a queen."

Those words were a great comfort to Leon. Because he could treat his mother as a chess piece too.

"At least try to be a knight or better."

Leon was definitely better than a knight to his mother. But to Leon, his mother wasn't even a pawn. She was useless.

In the end, the only person who meant something to Leon was his respected father.

The tutor's meaningless words criticizing the theory of continental drift mixed with the low hum of an engine.

Leon gazed out the window over Jerome's shoulder. A line of black sedans was approaching from the end of the terraced garden.

The party would start soon after the lesson ended.

'The most boring party in the world.'

A few days ago, his mother had been in a fuss about some count's family and some distant royal relatives bringing their daughters around Leon's age to the villa.

Watching the girls, who prettily packaged their jealousy and disdain for each other, was quite tiring.

Moreover, there was a girl he wanted to see.

Leon put his hand in his pocket. He fiddled with the melted chocolate, still in its wrapper, and recalled a few days ago.

He first saw the girl when he arrived at the villa. While walking on the beach attached to the south of the villa, he met a girl picking up shells.

She looked two or three years younger than Leon, about Jerome's age. She seemed to have forgotten to put on a swimsuit, as her light blue skirt was soaked in seawater and clung to her skinny legs like seaweed. There were no adults around.

"Hey, kid! This is the villa's private beach, no outsiders allowed!"

When the servant chased her away, the girl pouted and ran off.

She had brown hair and tanned skin. She was cute, but with a common appearance, so he would have forgotten her quickly if he hadn't seen her every day.

He saw her standing on the road when he went out in a carriage. He saw her loitering outside the iron gate when he was walking along the wall. He even met her eyes with a girl sitting on a tree outside the wall.

At first, he thought it was a coincidence. But no one loiters in front of someone else's house every day by coincidence.

'Is she a thief?'

Could such a small girl be a thief?

It was annoying. Her face wouldn't leave his mind all day. So, two days ago, he couldn't stand it anymore and asked.

"What are you doing?"

The girl, who was peering in like a meerkat from an orange tree outside the wall, slipped off the tree in surprise at his sudden appearance.

"Ah!"

Leon ran to the bottom of the tree. He did it reflexively, knowing she wouldn't be seriously hurt from the low height.

'Ah...'

As soon as he caught her safely, he quickly let her go as if burned. The girl's face, as she adjusted her skirt, was as red as Leon's.

"...Sorry."

"It's okay."

Only when the girl accepted his apology in a mosquito-like voice did Leon realize something was off.

"Wait. Why am I apologizing? You should be the one to apologize for spying on someone else's villa."

"Why can't I look?"

"Don't you know that spying on someone's house is rude and bad? Only thieves do such things. Are you a lookout for thieves?"

The girl didn't seem surprised or angry at being called a thief. In fact, she didn't seem to be listening to Leon at all. She stared at him with her unique turquoise eyes, her body twisted.

"I wasn't trying to steal, just looking."