As their hands separated, Ariella bit her lip tightly and looked down. Nobert was the one who had done something embarrassing, but somehow she was more embarrassed and couldn’t lift her head.
Her downcast hand was thickly covered with transparent ointment. It felt like proof that what had just happened wasn’t a dream, so Ariella bit her lower lip even harder.
“I apologize.”
Nobert uttered a short apology.
He seemed to have more to say, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. Without knowing that Ariella’s face, which was bowed, was flushed with excitement, he changed the subject in guilt.
“…Is what you’re working on going well? Please tell me if there’s anything else I can help you with.”
The topic he brought up out of the blue was both regrettable and welcome to her. A feeling that she didn’t know whether it was disappointment or relief crossed her heart.
“No, what you did last time was enough.”
Ariella clasped her hands tightly together and tried to calm her rapidly pounding heart.
“The revenge… there were some variables, but it’s still going according to plan.”
Revenge. Yes, thinking about the reason and situation that brought her here calmed her down little by little.
After taking a few deep breaths, she recalled David’s voice screaming in anger earlier. She knew that there was nothing better to calm her excited heart.
“I’ve heard that sound every day since I was very young. It’s your fault that Mother died, it’s your fault that this house is in this state!”
It was indeed effective.
Ariella calmly, even coldly, recalled David’s words.
Was it true that her father, after experiencing her mother’s death and falling into despair, resented his dead daughter every day in front of his only remaining son?
She still didn’t believe it, but David didn’t seem to be lying. She had only seen her father after the Partis Cathedral collapse accident, about seven years later, so maybe such a thing really happened before that.
Thinking that way, she could understand a little why David hated her.
If he had grown up hearing similar things every day from the age of three to ten, during that important period when his personality and character were formed, he would have reason to hate her.
Considering that he had to endure such a father alone, his past was also pitiful.
But Ariella didn’t pity David himself.
It was only natural. No matter what reason or circumstances he had, how could she pity or forgive a guy who killed her best friend, displayed her in his bedroom, killed innocent lives to exploit the weaknesses he found, and even forced them to eat live mice?
Not to mention the countless other ways he had tormented her.
She would rather hate him even more.
“…It won’t be long now.”
She had informed those around her of the grudge between David and Baron Griffith, and she had found someone to clean up the mess. Now, there was really not much time left until the climax she had prepared.
If she did things too quickly, she could arouse unnecessary suspicion, so it would be just right to wait a little longer and execute what she had prepared just before her father returned.
Ariella planned that way, but unfortunately, her plan didn’t go as she had thought.
The reason for the misjudgment was David’s stupidity once again.
As she had said many times, it was very difficult to use a stupid person.
***
David Astoria, who had fainted, woke up a full half-day later.
When he opened his eyes, dusk had already fallen outside the window, and his face, which had been flushed red, had turned blue and was swollen.
Remembering that he had been subjected to violence by Grand Duke Royster, he jumped up and down, asking how he could do such a thing, and mercilessly punished the knight who had abandoned his master and ran away.
After that, he grabbed his throbbing face and left the hotel.
His destination was the Astoria mansion. It was where the woman who had put him in this state was waiting.
‘I won’t let her get away with this…!’
Daring to hire a man to injure his face without knowing her place. David got into the carriage, consumed by anger.
However, as the luxury carriage approached the mansion, his blazing anger subsided and a cold reality dawned on him.
If he told his father what had happened today, his relationship with Lizzy would be revealed to everyone. Ariella had declared this through Sir Dante.
David, who had only shared a deep kiss with Lizzy, felt extremely wronged. However, as long as Ariella had a letter that was as good as evidence, he had to be careful.
That wasn’t all. Before fainting, David clearly remembered Nobert, whom he had seen with his dizzy vision.
His body was as big as a mountain, his eyes were so fierce that they made his knees buckle, and his strength was unbelievable for a human. It was an image he could never forget.
