The Countess's Body Has Disappeared - Chapter 37

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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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Chapter 37
Cecilia’s white hair drifted gently in the humid summer breeze. She was tiptoeing past, clutching a water bucket, her intentions transparent as glass—which is precisely why Davion burst out laughing.
“Not fishing for fish today? I came to help.”
Damn.
Cecilia stopped in her tracks, reluctant.
“I caught enough yesterday.”
“You said you needed to eat. Are you full on just a handful of fish?”
She owed him no answer. When Cecilia ignored the question, his gaze swept slowly down her frame. At her heels, Nagi was thrashing through the grass, scrambling to keep pace.
“Cecilia!”
A cry pierced the air like lightning—raw, terrified—and Cecilia’s hands flew open. The bucket clattered to the ground.
She spun around to find the man with a vicious scowl, his revolver leveled directly at Nagi.
“Cecilia! Help me!”
My snake.
The color drained from Cecilia’s face in an instant.
She hurled herself forward, thrust Nagi into her arms, and shouted.
“Don’t shoot! He lives with me!”
Click. Davion chambered a round, his brow furrowed. A smirk played at the corner of his mouth—the expression of someone witnessing something absurd.
“Lives with you? It’s not a puppy—it’s a viper.”
“Who I live with is none of your concern!”
“Of course it is. If that snake bites you, someone dies in the Main House.”
“Nagi doesn’t bite. He’s a good snake!”
At that, Davion’s eyebrow twitched.
Eyes flushed red, sprawled flat on the grass, staring daggers at him—Cecilia looked less fearsome than she did charming. Those blazing blue eyes were rather striking, if he was honest.
“Oh, my poor Nagi. You got a fright, didn’t you? It’s all right. All right.”
She checked the snake’s condition, then slipped it inside her shirt and straightened. Davion could sense the fury burning behind her slow, measured breathing.
“Fair warning: don’t point a gun at my animals again.”
She made her threat clear and absolute, then bolted from his sight, the snake cradled against her chest. Watching her receding silhouette vanish like the wind, Davion let out a hollow laugh despite himself.
‘Fish hunting. And now a pet snake?’
Unbelievable. After two years away, he’d never imagined something quite so peculiar would be living in his childhood home.
* * *
“The Main House is in complete chaos right now. The Second Young Master came back from the Kalita Military Deployment a few days ago.”
Kate, a chattering girl his own age, was the maid who brought meals daily to this cottage, far removed from the estate. She served Blake at the Main House and always arrived with fascinating gossip tucked under her arm.
The Second Young Master? The Kalita Military Deployment?
Cecilia rolled her eyes as she spread a tablecloth over the modest round table in the kitchen.
“Now that you mention it, I think I saw something about his return in the papers…”
“Come on, you should pay more attention to the world beyond these walls. You’re not going to rot away in this cottage forever like a carrot in a cold cellar.”
Kalita was an expansive desert territory in the western reaches of the continent—a sacred ground where three nations’ borders converged. It was notorious for periodic outbreaks of war. Though powerful nations had attempted to intervene and mediate, the conflict was entangled not merely in political gain but in religious conviction, making resolution difficult.
Two years prior, the Lisimere Principality had joined an international coalition to deploy troops there, committed to preserving the sacred ground and ending the bloodshed. Cecilia knew that the family’s second son had been commissioned as an officer in the Kalita deployment.
“Thanks to the Second Young Master, the Mistress’s face has finally bloomed. She’s so busy now with one more person to attend to that she barely has time to breathe, but at least there’s less reason to be scolded.”
“Even I’m afraid of the Mistress. My legs shake just standing in front of her. So how long is the Second Young Master staying?”
“He was granted a year-long extended leave. Though I heard it might stretch longer than that.”
Despite living here over a decade, Cecilia had never once by chance encountered the Duke’s brothers—the cottage was simply too distant from the Main House.
The only member of the Duke’s family she saw with any regularity was Blake, the mistress of the household, who would occasionally summon her for errands beyond the cottage.
As Kate opened the basket, the aroma of fresh bread billowed across the room.
She withdrew a warm loaf and slid it toward Cecilia as she spoke.
“So it seems the Mistress has decided to marry off the Young Master before this leave ends—no matter what. But what respectable woman with both beauty and family standing would satisfy her? If she weren’t already married to someone like that, she’d be doomed to live forever under the Mistress’s shadow.”
The husband had run off with a maid and disappeared. The eldest son had abandoned the household years ago and now lived such a dissolute life he earned the title “the Prodigal of Sisseldown.” Thus, Blake’s every hope had naturally converged upon her second son.
The beloved second son, exalted by everyone in the household as “the Young Master.”
He was called almost exclusively by his title, so Cecilia didn’t even know his name. The only thing she knew was his age—and she’d learned that by accident three years ago, when Blake had thrown a grand graduation party for his military academy commencement.
“What’s the Second Young Master like? Surely he’s not as intense as the Mistress?”
The soft white bread carried the sweet taste of butter. Kate sat across from her and shook her head.
“No, the Young Master is very gracious. His expression is sharp, so he looks a bit frightening when he’s at rest—but he doesn’t fly into rages the way she does.”
“That’s a relief, then.”
“Oh, and there’s something else—Aileen’s son also came back from the deployment. Apparently he couldn’t find proper lodging, so he’s staying at the Main House with the Young Master for the time being. The Mistress wasn’t pleased about it, but you can’t simply turn away a soldier.”
“Is that so?”
Aileen was a maid at the Main House, just like Kate.
Aileen had thick, lustrous black hair, Cecilia recalled. The Second Young Master would have no reason to venture this far out—so the man she’d seen by the stream must be Aileen’s son.
Now that she knew he was military, his sturdy, fortress-like shoulders and the tattoos densely covering his left forearm began to make sense. As the mystery of his identity unraveled, the oppressive first impression he’d left began to warm, bit by bit.
Cecilia poured water into Kate’s glass, a pleasant smile crossing her face.
“Tell me more about the Young Master next time you come. It’s really fascinating.”
* * *
“All right. Hand over the bread now.”
“Thanks. I’m counting on you again next week.”
“Oh, look at this! There are raisins in it today!”
A line of gray rats stood in neat order, each clutching a coin they’d found at the Main House. They handed the coins to Cecilia, who sat on a tree stump, and in exchange received soft, fluffy chunks of bread.
“Be careful—don’t get caught on your way in!”
As Cecilia called out her warning, the rats who were crossing the Field with bread in their mouths stopped in their tracks and waved their paws in acknowledgment.
The coins they’d handed over went into a Tin Case that served as a savings box. When she shook the now-considerably heavier Tin Case, the bright, cheerful sound of metal striking metal rang out like a musical instrument.
Did the second Young Master who’d recently returned home have a habit of dropping coins everywhere? Her earnings this week were double what they’d been the last.
It was the beginning of a good day. She returned to the Cottage, set the Tin Case in her bedroom, and then picked up the laundry basket and headed toward the Stream. Aileen’s son did not appear before her as she washed.
Next, she strung a clothesline behind the Cottage in the open space there and began hanging clothes one by one. As she hummed and wrung out a damp negligee, a wild rabbit suddenly came into view at the corner of her eye.
“Snake here! Watch out!”
Startled by the warning, the rabbit jumped with a squeak and bolted toward the back hills. Watching its escape, Cecilia’s hum gradually took on words.
The rabbit runs away in fear. Oh, my precious serpent who rules the Field!
But as she became absorbed in her song and continued hanging laundry one piece after another, a low voice from behind her made her cry out in shock.
“Are you a foreigner?”
Yelp!
Cecilia staggered and spun around.
The man was standing there bare-chested, utterly motionless.

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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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