Young Master, Please Put Some Pants On! - Chapter 62
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
Chapter 62
Mellis, who had been searching through her memories, stiffened at the sharp gaze staring intently at her.
“By the way, who is that person behind you? Perhaps a new lover?”
Unlike her lips that curved up in a smile, her cold, downcast eyes were fixed directly on Mellis. Just as Mellis was about to wave her hand in denial, he stepped in front of her and spoke in an indifferent voice.
“…That can’t be. She’s just a servant.”
At the sentence that flowed from his mouth, Mellis felt her heart sting for a moment. And she was quite flustered by that unfamiliar sensation.
His words were objective facts, weren’t they? He was her master and she was merely a servant of the Ducal Residence.
‘But why…’
Why did she feel so miserable? Mellis couldn’t understand the reason herself.
At Kermanomon’s answer, Sabrina smiled with satisfaction.
“Ah, I see. I thought you had already sorted things out with your lover. I mean that person you brought as your partner to the New Year’s festival. I was disappointed that we couldn’t have a proper conversation that day.”
Sabrina casually pretended to ask after someone’s well-being while searching for Lady Merien’s whereabouts. After the New Year’s festival ended, just as Kermanomon had planned, high society buzzed with talk about the two of them.
It was natural for people to be particularly curious about his attitude, which was noticeably different from how he treated his other lovers. And it was also something that gave considerable tension to other women who had been eyeing the spot beside him.
‘I thought so. Seeing as there’s been no particular news since then, she must have been cast aside.’
An hour ago, Sabrina had heard rumors that Kermanomon had appeared and immediately headed to the boutique. She didn’t know the exact situation, but if he was still seeing that woman, there was no way he would bring another woman to the boutique.
It was just as Sabrina was becoming convinced of their breakup.
“What disappointing words. We’re still seeing each other well.”
“Pardon?”
“Just seeing each other well? We spend day and night together at the Ducal Residence every day. Today I came to get a dress tailored as a gift for Merien too.”
“Ev, every day and night together?”
Sabrina’s eyes widened in shock at his explicit expression. However, she wasn’t the only one flustered by Kermanomon’s words.
‘We do…?’
Mellis, who had been listening to that conversation from behind, also opened her mouth slightly and doubted her ears. Of course, she did live at the Ducal Residence and had just received a dress as a gift at the boutique, so it wasn’t entirely wrong, but…
“Ah, perhaps there are circumstances that force her to stay at the Ducal Residence? Since she’s from the Temer Empire, she probably doesn’t have a proper place to stay.”
“No. I was the one who first begged her to live together at the Ducal Residence.”
“You were the first to ask, Grand Duke?”
It was true that Kermanomon was the first to bring up the contract…
“My life has been completely turned upside down since I met her. I’ve become someone who can’t live without her now.”
Looking at Garulus’s situation, this was also true…
However, no matter how much she thought about it, Mellis had already turned bright red at the parade of strangely suggestive sentences.
Sabrina’s complexion rapidly hardened when she noticed Mellis like that.
‘What’s that about? Don’t tell me… He’s been living so intimately with that woman at the Ducal Residence that even the servant is blushing?’
Eventually, Sabrina, who had been continuing her strange delusions, left the scene hurriedly, half in tears.
As soon as Sabrina left, Kermanomon shook his head in disgust.
“Finally she’s gone. Really, how bothersome.
“She seems to genuinely like you, Grand Duke?”
“Well, there are plenty of people like that.”
“Doesn’t it bother you at all? She’s an incredible beauty. She’s also a tiger beastman like you, Grand Duke. I heard back then that she’s the daughter of a wealthy marquis house…”
Moreover, as far as she knew, Sabrina was also a prominent figure supported by most of the Imperial Faction nobles as the next Grand Duchess.
However, at her words, Kermanomon, who had been walking, suddenly stopped in his tracks. He slowly turned his head, narrowing his eyes as he asked.
“What do you mean? Do you wish I had married Sabrina or something?”
“…She just doesn’t seem like a bad person.”
Mellis averted her gaze and fidgeted with her fingers for no reason. She couldn’t understand why she was saying such things herself.
Wasn’t it all well-known facts that he had no particular interest in the opposite sex, and that he was strangely averse to marriage? Even knowing that his expression had hardened, she couldn’t easily stop.
“I can’t keep pretending to be the Grand Duke’s lover forever.”
However, the moment she saw him standing with Sabrina earlier, Mellis realized a fact she had forgotten.
Kermanomon was not an ordinary man, but the Grand Duke of House Severus. Though they always laughed and chatted casually together, he was the master of the Duchy and someone who might become the Emperor of the Aizen Empire in the future. If not for the connection through Garulus, wouldn’t he be someone she would never even exchange words with in her entire life?
Mellis suddenly thought that her acting, which she had started to help him, might one day become an obstacle to the Empire’s great future.
If she couldn’t help him, she shouldn’t hold him back.
Kermanomon, who had turned around at some point, silently stared down at her. Under that heavy gaze that wouldn’t leave her, Mellis bit her lips.
‘Ah…’
Just imagining him looking at her coldly made her heart ache and throb again.
Mellis squeezed her eyes shut and braced herself for his reproach.
“Are you perhaps jealous right now?”
“What?”
Mellis was momentarily stunned by his completely unexpected reaction, and then Kermanomon, furrowing his brows, gently stroked her face with the back of his hand as he spoke.
“You know I only have you. My affection belongs solely to you, so why worry about such things?”
“Wh-what do you mean…!”
As Mellis’s face turned red like a ripe tomato, Kermanomon burst into loud laughter.
“Puhahaha! It’s a joke, a joke. You’re really amusing.”
Only then realizing that Kermanomon was teasing her again about what happened at the boutique, Mellis pursed her lips.
“Really, where on earth did you learn such cheesy jokes?”
“Where else? I learned it all from you, Mellis.”
“Stop teasing me!”
That wasn’t all. Kermanomon, who had stopped laughing, suddenly swallowed her ice cream, which she hadn’t even eaten half of, in one bite. Seeing only the cone left behind in an instant, Mellis could only gape speechlessly.
“Ah! Grand Duke, you’re really too much! How could you do this!”
“If you’re upset, try to catch me.”
Kermanomon, who had been stepping backward while sticking out his tongue, instantly escaped from the spot as if mocking her. Mellis jumped up from her spot and chased after him, but with her short legs, it was impossible to catch up to him.
* * *
“Are you really sure it’s Mellis?”
“Yes, I’m almost certain!”
That night, in an old inn located in a corner of Gwen Territory, two men and women were having a deep discussion with furrowed brows. They were Sandra Portier, Mellis’s stepmother, and her lover Joseph.
“I wondered where she was hiding, but to think she was in such a place…”
Sandra, grinding her teeth, roughly placed a torn article on the table with rough hands. A few months ago, there was an article that caught her eye while she was scanning the bulletin boards as usual.
‘Duke Severus’s New Lover, Is Her Identity Princess Temere?’
It was a frivolous article speculating about the identity of the young woman the Grand Duke had brought to this year’s New Year festival. Below it was a photo of a woman with her face covered by a mask, smiling cheerfully with the Grand Duke. Sandra, who had casually looked down at that photo, froze completely on the spot.
Since she had known Mellis from before, the mask’s effect didn’t work on her. Of course, Mellis wasn’t a Temerr, and her hair was blonde. Most importantly, there was no way her human daughter could be Duke Severus’s lover.
However, Sandra had been mentally exhausted for a long time, making normal judgment impossible.
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————