I Thought It Was the Monster Duke's Fake Sedative - Chapter 54

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 54
It was something obscurely erotic and salacious.
And yet Edward was engaging in such brazen behavior.
He stared at Luciana with an air of indifference, as though questioning why she was making such a fuss over nothing.
Only then did Luciana’s rationality return to her—just barely.
Only the tiniest sliver of it, though.
“You, you, you’re trying on jewelry, sir!”
“Hmm?”
Even as she spoke, Luciana’s gaze drifted back to Edward’s body.
His bare chest adorned only with jewelry looked like a truly beautiful sculpture, and….
‘…indecent.’
He looked genuinely lewd.
All thoughts of Edward’s angry aura from moments before and all concern about the room he’d been in scattered away like dandelion seeds.
Now her mind was filled with one thing alone: a sense of danger.
So much so that the inside of her nose had begun to ache with a peculiar heaviness….
‘Please tell me I’m not about to bleed and faint again?!’
The moment that thought struck her, Luciana squeezed her eyes shut.
She needed to cut off the excessive visual stimulus, first and foremost.
“Just… just stop and pick out mine instead!”
This was becoming too dangerous.
With her brows furrowed tightly in distress, Luciana trembled as she cried out.
Tsk.
A light clicking sound came from his direction.
Then his voice followed—tinged with something like pity and faint exasperation.
“Forgot? I need to wear jewelry to the wedding ceremony too.”
“……!”
“While we’re at it, I thought we’d choose them together. What’s the problem?”
At his casual words, Luciana’s pupils began to tremble.
“But… but.”
What he said sounded reasonable enough, but weren’t all the pieces here women’s jewelry and ornaments?
Of course, someone like him would probably wear women’s accessories beautifully too….
“Is it not all right?”
‘Oh.’
The moment he asked in that insinuating tone, she nearly coaxed him with flattery—saying there was nothing that wasn’t all right.
She had nearly fallen under his spell without even realizing it.
“No, it’s not that it’s not all right, or rather, no, but…!”
“But why are your eyes shut? You need to look properly to see what suits me.”
“That’s… that’s…!”
As Luciana sank deeper into confusion, Edward’s expression shifted into a dark smile.
In truth, until just a moment ago, he’d been in a foul mood.
When the Grand Lady had provoked him, when he’d been driven by the single intention to kill her.
But then….
A soft sound.
With something so trivial, the warmth of that small hand embraced him from behind.
Gentle Holy Power flowed toward him, slowly unraveling the violence that had pooled within him.
The murderous intent that had churned inside him scattered instantly.
If he’d unleashed even a hint of his menacing aura, this small, warm presence would be hurt.
She lacked stamina, could barely exert herself properly, fainted at the slightest stimulation….
Such a fragile woman, after all.
In a way, it was remarkable.
Not by a demon’s hardened claws, nor by the thick iron chains he occasionally used in training.
Yet held by these slender, delicate arms, he couldn’t move a finger.
Or rather, he didn’t want to move.
He wanted to stay cradled in those arms just like this.
It was a truly feeble and featherlight thought, and yet….
Thump-thump-thump-thump.
From the woman pressed flat against his back, a small but rapid heartbeat traveled through his Armor and reached his spine.
A slow sense of calm settled over him, and his heart grew peaceful.
That alone was satisfaction enough.
‘Choose the jewelry for me,’ he thought.
A woman who never made the first move had suddenly cried out like that.
He wasn’t ignorant of the fact that it was merely an excuse to deflect the situation.
Still, Edward chose to interpret it favorably.
‘She must have missed me quite a bit.’
After those first few occasions when he’d helped her select a dress.
He’d been occupied with one thing or another since, and hadn’t accompanied Luciana on her dress-shopping expeditions.
Each time, she’d dismissed him with assurances that he was busy, asking why such a man should trouble himself — and sent him away without a fuss.
‘I thought to feel a little slighted by how briskly she’d dispatch me.’
But in truth, she’d been thinking of it all along.
So much so that she’d pestered him to help choose jewelry as well, and spirited him away from that dreadful woman.
Even that petulance struck him as charmingly trivial and endearing.
She couldn’t have him for the dress, but she wanted him for the jewelry.
As if to say: I was lonely without you, sad without you, bereft without you. Wasn’t that how it sounded?
‘I took her for a mouse, but here she is voicing Separation Anxiety like a puppy clinging to its master.’
That this small creature could even pout at all — he found it nothing but charming.
She seemed indifferent most days to the fact that she shared the adjacent chamber with him, yet the moment he emerged from his bath, she visibly became conscious of him. That too.
Edward, freshly out of the bathroom, watched the woman fumble and avert her eyes, her gaze darting between him and the heap of jewelry on the table.
‘Perhaps I should indulge her then.’
If she was so put out, he ought to make amends for that loneliness himself.
There were any number of ways to offer his own compensation.
Since she loved him, whatever he did would be reward enough.
Simply kissing her, doting on her, or perhaps doing something a touch more extraordinary would suit him fine.
Even just retrieving a few of the stories Sepina had been circulating secretly would likely suffice.
He couldn’t fathom what pleased her about such things, but others had seized upon those tales with rapture, spreading them about with theatrical delight.
‘Though, to my taste.’
In fact, this notion of draping oneself in jewelry while unclothed was precisely the story Sepina had been spreading about.
That Edward had burdened her with an enormous haul of precious stones, scattering them across her bare body and reveling in the spectacle.
Here was that woman, putting on the airs of a chaste saint in public while fabricating and circulating such tales to the servants behind closed doors — it was a perfect window into her true nature.
‘That will do nicely.’
His deliberation was brief.
The reaction proved far more intense than he’d anticipated.
Edward watched Luciana with her eyes squeezed shut, flushed scarlet, suppressing the laughter that kept bubbling up unbidden.
His hand soon moved with deliberate slowness, lifting another long Gold Chain ornament.
Clink.
At the sound of metal undulating like waves, Luciana — eyes still clenched tight — flinched.
Edward smiled with his eyes and continued.
“To think you can’t even manage to look at this one thing for me.”
“…….”
“Quite the demanding lady, aren’t you.”
Well then.
Swish.
Edward reached toward Luciana, whose eyes remained stubbornly shut.
“……!”
He gently grasped her wrist and drew her toward him.
“W-what — what are you — !”
Soft pressure.
Luciana had opened her eyes to gauge Edward’s expression, wondering if perhaps she’d offended him, when —
“Aahhh!”
She let out a broken cry and squeezed her eyes shut even more tightly.
Because her fingertips were meeting something unmistakably tangible.
Firm, muscled flesh still damp in places, radiating heat — solid and warm.
And across it, layers of cold metal draped in succession filled her small palm.
Edward had drawn her hand forward and placed it directly against his body, adorned with the ornaments.
“Your Grace?!”
“If you won’t look with your eyes, then feel with your hands and choose.”
“H-how did this conversation even go — !”
She hadn’t even finished speaking.
Clink.
As Edward’s hand moved, drawing hers along with it, Luciana’s palm began to trace the delicate Gold Chain and the flesh beneath.
“P-please, wait. Your Grace. Wait just a moment —”
In words, Luciana may have resisted or tried to escape, but in truth, she did neither.
If anything, she’d lost the will to do so.
“Wait… what?”
When she’d been washing him with the sponge, she’d thought his body felt only hard and rigid.
But now that her bare skin touched Edward’s flesh, she discovered it possessed both firmness and a supple elasticity.
Traces of lingering water made it impossibly smooth and soft to the touch.
……
It was almost startling—how such apparent hardness concealed such give and resilience.
‘Why does this feel so good?’
Entranced, Luciana found her fingers gathering together, her palm stroking his taut frame without thought.
As her hand moved of its own accord, kneading the firm musculature beneath her touch—
……!
Slip.
Her hand glided on the dampness, and her palm registered a texture entirely different from ordinary skin.
The coarse grain of fabric.
The feel of cloth wound at his waist, concealing what mattered most.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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