However, rather than provoke his opponent by showing his vigilance, he chose to cover up the situation by saying the words of gratitude he had been putting off. In any case, it was an undeniable fact that Count d’Estuaire saved his life. Besides, it was unlikely that confronting a man who had deliberately left out parts of the truth would give him the right answer.
“Are you awake?”
“-Hm?”
The befuddled mind instantly blacked out and then brightened again. Like a pair of scissors snipping the end of a tangled thread, the interrupted thoughts were cut off without continuity. He thought he had only closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them, but apparently not, for the Count d’Estuaire, who had been sitting across from him, had returned and was holding his cheeks.
He held Eugène’s cheeks with both hands and tried to bring him back to his senses. Eugène blinked hard, trying to wake up to his anxious calls.
“Your fever is rising. This cannot go on. I shall have to call the doctor as soon as we get to the mansion.”
“We cannot go to your mansion. There are too many prying eyes there.”
Eugène shook his head in refusal to Count d’Estuaire, who was about to take him to his mansion as if it were a matter of course. It would be unacceptable to enter his mansion at night, covered in blood. Rumors may have spread about what happened at the ballroom, but if the fact that he had been attacked was found out, uncontrollable speculation would spread throughout high society.
“Then what are you going to do? Do you really want to go back to the palace like this?”
“There is a mansion I know of nearby. It is likely empty right now. Please take me there.”
“An empty mansion? Do you mean to say that you will suffer alone in an empty place, with no one to attend to you?”
“The fewer mouths that know the secret, the better. With all due respect, I have one more favor to ask. After you take me there, please call Baron Bouilhet. He will take care of the rest.”
Though he was being shameless, the only thing he could think of in this situation was the Emperor. Rumors were rumors, but maintaining security was essential to catch those who would erase their tracks and run away.
Count d’Estuaire looked displeased when he heard his request. He looked at Eugène with a stubbornly hardened face, and said, furrowing his brows coldly.
“You truly believe in His Majesty, Brother.”
“I am a soldier who has sworn allegiance to the empire. And His Majesty is the empire.”
Eugène leaned his head against the wall of the carriage, helplessly muttering the most principled words. He hadn’t finished what he needed to say yet, but his mind was starting to falter again.
As his eyes gradually lost focus, and the voice of Count d’Estuaire in front of him became distant. What is he saying? Futile… trust… ill-fated relationship? As his voice moved away and closer, only certain words in the sentence were heard intermittently.
Eugène belatedly remembered that he hadn’t told him the address of the mansion yet, and barely managed to get the words out, holding on to his fading consciousness. 412 Molino North Street, Etoile District…
He couldn’t finish his sentence, and his mind slipped into darkness. Eugène lost consciousness as he felt a hand hastily supporting his falling head.
***
Eugène stared blankly ahead.
Bright lights blurred his hazy vision. He couldn’t make sense of the shifting shapes in front of him, so when he looked closely, he saw people’s waists from a completely different angle than usual.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Dazed and unable to figure out what was going on for a moment, he realized that he was lying on his side in a bed after a while.
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He woke up slowly, step by step as if climbing a mountain. Then he came to his senses when the doctor, who took his shirt off his body, wiped the wound with strong alcohol.
Just as alcohol washed the wound, a sharp pain cleared his cloudy mind. Eugène clenched the sheet to contain the spasms and bit his lip as hard as he could. Still, a scream escaped.
The man watching the scene from the bedside spoke to the doctor.
“He is in a lot of pain. Is there any way to relieve it?”
“I have some brandy mixed with opium in my bag. He should be fine for a while if he takes it.”
The man heard the doctor’s words and ordered the liquor to be brought quickly. But Eugène, who heard those words, tried to stop the man by moving his blood-stained lips.
“No, it is okay. I do not need opium.”
“Oh goodness, are you awake now?”
“Yes. Fortunately… but where are we?”
“Please do not worry. It is not my home. I rented a house from an acquaintance for a while.”
It seemed so. Unlike his mansion, where only cloth-lined furniture was placed in an empty house, this house was modest but smelled of human habitation.
“I must have lost consciousness again.”
Eugène was deeply disconcerted when he realized that he had passed out not once, but twice in a row.
Fleet battles were mostly long-ranged battles if boarding was taken out of the equation, and while commanding battles on board, it was not uncommon to be attacked by stray bullets or fragments of wood. This was all very foreign to him, who had never fainted before, even though he’d had a legitimate shrapnel wound in his thigh and a bullet in his side.
“The area where you have been shot is not a good one. He said that the wrong blood vessel had been touched and as a result, you suffered severe blood loss. He is going to start the surgery now. Will that be all right? The pain will be too much for you to bear sober.”
Count d’Estuaire anxiously suggested that it would be better to drink opium now. However, Eugène refused his suggestion, not wanting to be drugged against his will. Even when he drank alcohol, he would only taste it, and not drink enough to get drunk.
When Eugène insisted on the surgery being performed without the opioid, the doctor sighed deeply and advised him that it would be more bearable if he were to lie on his stomach.
He followed the doctor’s advice and turned over in pain, burying his forehead in the pillow. Count d’Estuaire, who had been by Eugène’s side the whole time before he came to his senses, did not leave his side even after the surgery began.
The doctor sprinkled styptic powder over the bleeding wound and then gently cut the area around the swollen wound with a sterile blade. The sensation of the small but sharp metal slowly passing through the flesh was eerily vivid.
A scream that was swallowed up by the clenching of his teeth boiled like blood in his throat. Eugène held back his convulsions, gripping the sheets like he was tearing them apart. Count d’Estuaire spoke to him, as if to soothe his agony, but none of his words reached Eugène’s ears.
Nonetheless, he persevered. While the doctor pulled out a bullet with tweezers from between his rigid muscles, tied up the torn blood vessel with a sterile silk thread, and closed the wound, Eugène buried his forehead deep into the pillow and endured the pain raw throughout.
He thought it was a foolish stubbornness himself, but he couldn’t help it. His reluctance to narcotize his rationality was almost pathological, and he didn’t know how to compromise either.
“This is water boiled with the bark of a willow tree. If you drink it with every meal without skipping, it will help reduce inflammation.”
The doctor, finally finished, wrapped his shoulder in a clean bandage and gave him a final prescription.
Count d’Estuaire, taking the bottle from the doctor, helped Eugène to lean back against the bed’s headboard, then brought a spoon to his lips. It was a very embarrassing act for a grown man to do, but Eugène, who was too exhausted and did not have the strength to lift his arms, had no choice but to take medicine.
While Eugène drank the medicine, the doctor cleaned up the surgical instruments and washed his bloody hands. Eugène, who was leaning against the headboard and watching the scene, blurted out a thought.
“The medical fee-.”
“I paid for the treatment. Doctor Doyen is the family doctor I mentioned earlier, and he has been working with our family since the previous generation. He is skilled at what he does, but above all else, he is a man of his word, so you can trust him without any worries.”
The middle-aged doctor nodded with a gentle smile as he turned to the doctor at the words of Count d’Estuaire.
Even if they have fallen, the best Prince-Elector remains the best? Seeing this, Eugène suddenly questioned whether he had viewed House d’Estuaire too lightly.
A family that had ruled a region for hundreds of years was a formidable force to be reckoned with. Thirty years have passed since the fall of House d’Estuaire, but there was still a monastery that was faithful to them, and there were vassals who remained loyal and silent for their masters from generation to generation.
They may be called the fallen nobility, but those who gathered in Viscountess Gagnon’s salon were also loyal to House d’Estuaire. Count d’Estuaire was born after the fall of the East, but he still inherited the family’s legacy.
Eugène was lost in thought as he recalled the power of the Duke of Benoist, whom he had seen with his own eyes today. Even the great Duke of Benoist could not be compared with the Duke of d’Estuaire in his prime.
In the previous generation, the two greatest beauties of the empire belonged to House d’Estuaire, so one could only imagine how great their prestige was.
Just as Countess Patrí, who was merely ‘Beautiful Adelaide’ when she was the daughter of a Baronet, became ‘Lady of Ivory’ when she was embraced by the Emperor. The title of the most beautiful woman of the empire was not just for one’s beauty, but also closely related to symbolism and power. This is because, to become a woman who would represent the name of a country, she must possess not only her beauty but also the nobility of her status.
He will not give up easily.
Eugène had a vague sense of premonition. Maybe the last negotiation wasn’t the last hand Count d’Estuaire had. Like Count d’Estuaire, who was always very secretive, it seemed that his family had more to hide than one could see. Eugène kept that in mind as he gave a light nod to the departing doctor.
He was lost in his own thoughts for a while until he felt eyes on him and looked up. The man who had saved his life tonight, who had gone out of his way to treat him, was staring at him.
As Eugène’s eyes met his, the beautiful green eyes reminiscent of olivine gemstones beneath the densely drooping eyelashes narrowed softly with a smile. Count d’Estuaire was indeed a man who could smile sweetly, and even more so for Eugène.
“What are you thinking?”
Eugène felt a prick of conscience when he looked at him like that. It was because he suddenly realized that he had been of immense help to him tonight and that he had never once sincerely thanked him.
“I was thinking mean things.”
Eugène confessed the truth with a bitter expression. That’s right. ‘Mean thoughts’ was the correct way to put it. No matter how necessary it was, it was also something he shouldn’t have done in front of the benefactor who saved his life. Count d’Estuaire had a puzzled expression on his face as if he felt that his answer was wrong.
Just as the previous explanations were not entirely true, the concern expressed by Count d’Estuaire was not merely a pretense. Eugène sensed his sincerity just as he had sensed his lie, so he was not comfortable dealing with him.
“I owe you too much.”
Count d’Estuaire silently shook his head at his polite yet distant words of courtesy.
“You do not need to feel burdened. I did it of my own volition.”
“Even if you say so, I cannot take lightly the grace that saved my life. I thank you from the bottom of my heart, Count d’Estuaire. I will never forget the kindness you showed me today.”
Eugène realized that in his haste to suspect the other man, he hadn’t properly thanked him, so he expressed his feelings more respectfully. However, Count d’Estuaire’s expression darkened upon hearing his words.
He lowered his eyes and smiled bitterly for a while, then opened his mouth abruptly.
“You are truly a heartless person.”
“Pardon? What do you mean by that all of a sudden?”
“Do you know what you are saying now sounds like to me? You speak of grace, but to me, it sounds like a debt. As if you are giving me a stern warning by saying something along the lines of ‘Even though you saved my life, stay away from me’ .”
Eugène was speechless and just stared at Count d’Estuaire, who suddenly hit the nail on the head.
“No matter how politely you wrap it up, a rejection is a rejection. You have always been that way with me.”
Count d’Estuaire opened his mouth with a tone so desperate that it could be misunderstood as a confession of love. Although Eugène knew that he had a great deal of interest in him, he hadn’t expected him to express his feelings so frankly, and so, he was unable to hide his bewildered expression.
“Am I a burden to you? I simply need a place where I can breathe and take a break from the stifling obligations and responsibilities entrusted to me. I had no other choice, but you are different, are you not? Is it a sin to yearn for a path one has not taken?
It is not as if I am asking for much, either. I would be quite content with just calling each other by names instead of titles just like normal close friends do, and occasionally check up on how the other is doing without any calculation… Had I been a little more brazen, I might have used this as an excuse to ask you not to push me away. But alas, I still have a sense of shame.”
Count d’Estuaire, who had been pouring his heart out as if he were complaining, suddenly came to his senses and rubbed his face with a dry hand, muttering the last of his words. Like an unconvinced suitor whose one-sided feelings had been rejected, there was a deep sense of humiliation on his listless but smiling face.
“I am afraid I have been unnecessarily intrusive with someone who is not well. I shall take my leave, so please rest and make yourself comfortable. I have sent a message to Baron Bouilhet through my butler, so you will hear from him soon.”
The Count rose from his seat and walked towards the door. Eugène watched his back silently and called his name when the Count opened the door.
“Oscar.”
Count d’Estuaire, who was holding the doorknob, stopped dead in his tracks when he heard his name being called for the first time. Eugène spoke quietly when the Count had stopped in front of the door with his back unturned.
“You may not believe it, but my words of gratitude were sincere.”
Count d’Estuaire, no, Oscar Valentièe nodded without turning his back and left the room.
Yep, there’s DEFINITELY is more than meets the eye with this count. It even makes me more apprehensive than duchess alinor! It feels like he’s a hidden villain trying to drag Eugene to his side through emotional meannnns ahhhh
Anyway my baby Eugy 🥺 so painful please recover, the emperor will suuurely have a very strong reaction to this haha.
Thanks so much for the chapter!❤️❤️❤️
Another update already?!! :0
I’m curious of what the emperor’s reaction will be when he hears of the situation. The Count is behaving suspiciously and I can sense the drama galloping towards us at high speed. XDThanks for the chapter :))
Wow another chapter….thanks a lot…
Can’t wait to see the emperor’s reaction upon hearing the news ..and Oscar is sus
I AM NOT OKAY
AT THIS POINT, EVERYONE IS SUS TO ME
Eugene my love, get well soon ah.
Also, can villains please stop being so dashing and hot and manipulative coz I seriously think I’m being manipulated into becoming a wife too—gunshot
I know rightttt? Goddamn Oscar really be too good at flirting ahhh but we must not fall! Resist!
HEHEHEHEHEHE THANK YOU FOR THE UPDATE MIMARI-NIM~ AND FOR THE THANK YOU PING ON DISCORD MWA MWA MWA💋
Gowddamnnn is this a love triangle? But also susssiieeee. Please how will the emperor react!?
Hehe..what other novels are you reading beside this? Got anyone like this?