The Isolated Marchioness Just Wants to Make a Living - Chapter 271

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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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Part 2, Episode 76
I let out a sigh.
The moment my breath touched him, Leopold slowly withdrew the hand that had been covering my mouth.
“In a moment, one of the servants passing through the corridor will close the door. Just wait a little.”
Being caught emerging from the wardrobe would’ve been far more ridiculous than this.
When I nodded, Leopold—his body pressed nearly flush against mine—spoke in a low voice.
“Keep your eyes closed. I’m going to step back.”
I asked immediately.
“Why?”
He looked at me as if exasperated.
I pointed out calmly.
“If you step back in here, I’ll see all of you.”
“Then close your eyes. I’ll get dressed. Fortunately for us, this is my wardrobe, isn’t it?”
“If the wardrobe starts rattling, the servants passing by will hardly stand idle. What if they decide we’re demons and send the whole wardrobe to the Temple to be exorcised?”
“We’re demons in the form of Brisa and Leopold, so we’d better beg them to send us straight back to hell.”
Leopold grumbled and answered his own question.
“Of course we’d both end up staying in this world. That moment alone would be hell itself.”
Even so, he never quite managed to pull his body away from mine.
I shrugged with satisfaction.
“Either way, you’ve decided to stay like this. My reasoning was sound, wasn’t it?”
“You’re quite self-aware, Brisa. Do you still think I’m some dog who obeys your every word? That was a whole minute ago—ancient history.”
He gave a soft, dismissive laugh.
“I simply surrendered to my own desire.”
“What.”
I shot back coolly.
“I’ll count this as an additional birthday gift. You promised it seven years ago.”
Leopold naked was not a new sight for me.
It had happened before—on my thirteenth birthday.
“This is certainly a magnificent gift I’ll remember until death, but couldn’t you give me something like this seven years from now, assuming you don’t have a complete change of heart?”
The coming-of-age gift Leopold had prepared for my twentieth birthday this year was rather expensive and famous gemstones, but truthfully, they didn’t move me much.
“So…….”
He narrowed his eyes and asked.
“Do you like it?”
“Unsure? Ask any hundred people passing by. Ninety-five of them will love it on the spot.”
I answered, carefully turning my gaze away from his well-defined chest muscles.
“The other five will pretend to think about it for a moment, then say they love it too.”
He let out a low laugh and pointed out.
“Sorry, but I’m not interested in what a hundred passing strangers think. A birthday gift is supposed to be prepared for one person, after all.”
Silence fell between us for a moment.
He slowly raised his hand to smooth my disheveled hair, and the question came after.
“……Is it all right if I touch you?”
“Aren’t you already touching me?”
The faint light seeping through the wardrobe’s cracks cast shadows across his sculpted face.
As always, his expression was difficult to read, but I could sense the tension drawn taut between his brows.
Even as I tried to seem as composed as his casual touch, my body kept flinching.
I trembled slightly where his hand met my shoulder and looked carefully into his eyes.
“Seems like you’re in the mood?”
“For what?”
“Oh, you know. Just, talking to me like nothing’s wrong.”
I had certainly suggested in the carriage that we talk when he felt inclined.
At my words, Leopold’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“Well, I don’t have any special conditions like ‘when I feel like talking to you.’ I always want to talk to you.”
My fiancé was not the avoidant type.
“Of course, my mood is absolutely wretched.”
His voice was soft and tender, but the content was anything but.
“One stranger suddenly appears and treats you like their master, another nobody claims he’s already confessed to you, and the one I already worried about is confessing right in front of me in real time.”
His eyes burned bright.
“And I can do nothing but watch it happen.”
Normally, I would have needed only to stand beside him and let him radiate intimidation, but this time there was a certain physical limitation.
“……You would’ve been there, but His Highness the Second Prince didn’t act recklessly. On the contrary, his behavior as someone with unrequited feelings set an exemplary standard.”
“I wish he hadn’t.”
Leopold murmured in a tense voice.
“If he’d acted openly clingy instead, he’d have stayed in your memory as someone bad……but since he finished it so considerately, all that’s left for you is guilt and pity.”
He was right. Because he considered me all the way through, he could never become a bad person in my eyes.
“Honestly, I wanted to tear it all apart with the Air Strike—his eyes looking at you, his hands reaching for you, that tongue of his saying I could come whenever I wanted.”
He swallowed a sigh and murmured.
“But I barely held back because I was afraid you’d say you couldn’t marry a murderer.”
“You have remarkable patience.”
“It’s one of my strengths. Still…….”
His voice dropped even lower.
“Don’t be so casual about it if your fiancé uses the word ‘friend’ again. Even I’m not patient enough to let that slide.”
I regretted not asking more about Lea and Silvia. I had no idea how to behave in situations like this.
Despite the fragrance’s duration having long since expired, my body flinched as heat rose across every point of contact.
“……Is this all right too?”
His hand gently wrapped around my shoulder. The body heat clinging to bare skin felt unfamiliar.
“If you’re jealous…….”
How much he resented my wearing Maximus’s clothes—his eyes held stubborn dissatisfaction mingled with desire.
I spoke curtly, my voice awkward.
“You’re already touching me.”
“So can I keep touching you?”
His hand swept in a circle down my shoulder and clung there.
I lowered my gaze demurely.
“Are you going to ask about every single thing from now on?”
“You don’t like being asked. I’m really sorry.”
His reply came quick and without a trace of discouragement.
“From now on, I won’t ask. I’ll just do whatever I want.”
Feeling trapped in some sort of snare, I felt his hand begin to caress my earlobe.
“It’s so small.”
After stroking my ear, he cupped my cheek with his large hand and laughed softly.
“So soft.”
Finally, when his thumb brushed my lips, my heart began to race.
“That’s why I want to touch you more.”
It was a simple sentence, but coming from Leopold, it carried weight.
It was rare for him to express desire so directly.
“Like you said, I ran from you my whole childhood. But.”
His guarded voice laid bare his sincerity.
“I could run, but I couldn’t give up. You can control actions, but you can’t control your heart.”
That boy who kept his distance but then suddenly appeared beside me whenever I turned my head.
That boy became a man, draped in clear desire, and whispered.
“And now I’m old enough to realize there are things that simply can’t be undone in life. So I know—I can’t let you go.”
It was an answer to my fear, the one I’d confessed in the carriage.
“Teach me that language. Tell me about your strange memories. Whatever world your mind lives in, I want to be able to communicate with you.”
On our first engagement ceremony, he became a maid in the Riente Royal Palace and conversed perfectly with my mother. He became part of the Kingdom of Riente that unfolded in her mind.
Leopold was merely adapting, but my mother surely believed they communicated completely.
What he was saying now was essentially that he could live his whole life with me like that.
“Do you know? I’ve always dreamed of a world with only you and me……. I know it’s not right, but I wanted you to be my complete possession. Maybe it’s exactly like my childhood. I still can’t control my actions, but my heart—I can’t control that either.”
And surprisingly, that intense possessiveness and obsession became tremendous comfort to me.
To be honest, I thought we were both out of our minds. And I never use that expression as a figure of speech.
“Sometimes I wanted to kill them all……. Actually, I felt the same way just now.”
He pressed his lips firmly against the corner of my eye.
“If you could ever see inside my head, you’d think it far more terrible than what’s in yours and run away…….”
The moment warm heat touched me, my heart finally seemed ready to burst.
“Give me all your fear, Brisa. I want all of that to be mine too.”
I managed to nod.
Then his lips curved gently against the corner of my eye.
“Thank you. I’ll hold it safe.”
Just then, I heard the sound of a door closing from outside. One of the servants had closed the door.
Leopold slowly withdrew his lips from the corner of my eye.
“Go now.”
It was a clear instruction, though his voice dripped with reluctance.
“I don’t want our first kiss to be in a place like this. A confession of impulsive recklessness in a tawdry spot is quite enough.”

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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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