My Sweet Deceiver - Chapter 51

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“You have a bad complexion. What happened?”

 

Danielle didn’t know what happened at tea time earlier.

 

Tehez didn’t want to try to explain how she felt.

 

‘That between the Prince and I, I’m the only one in love.’

 

She was married to the man she loved, but her feelings were never returned.

 

Even though she was aware of that fact, there were moments that forced her to realize it again.

 

When he knew nothing about her tastes.

 

When he returned a disrespectful reply to her sincere words.

 

When he was indifferent to her, whatever she did.

 

Each time it happened, Tehez wondered if her heart was made of glass, because every time that man trampled on it, it shattered.

 

It was breaking apart…

 

So, why did he come to her to comfort her whenever she was having a hard time?

 

For what?

 

It’ll leave her heart broken forever.

 

‘Why do you keep healing the wounds?’

 

‘Why do you throw out meaningful words and make me look forward to it?’

 

In the end, Tehez was angry.

 

The emotion she felt today was bitterness.

 

She knew what food Dennis liked, the people he disliked, and the wounds he didn’t want anyone to see.

 

Because she was interested in him.

 

When he ate, she always observed which food he picked more often and which dishes he never touched at all.

 

She watched who he frowned with and who he smiled comfortably with.

 

She knew he didn’t want to bring up the story about his mother because she saw the look of sadness on his face, hesitating whenever she tried to bring it up.

 

“I just feel a little sick.”

 

“I thought you were coming for dinner. Has the stomach disease recurred again?”

 

Danielle asked with a worried face. Tehez shook her head.

 

“It’s not that.”

 

“…”

 

She wanted to turn Dennis, who was unknowable in his own way, upside down like a pocket and shake him off. She wanted to check with her eyes what his sincerity was, what he thought of her.

 

Still, Tehez felt so pathetic about her cowardice that she could not even ask him directly.

 

It’s just that she was interested in him, so she knew… if she were to ask him…

 

Even thinking about it, Tehez was afraid of the answer she would get back.

 

What if he just said ’a kind of reward’ with a blunt face like last time?

 

Even the moment he told her she was his world, embarrassed, Tehez couldn’t ask him what that meant.

 

She was afraid he would have cancelled that statement the moment she asked….

 

She was afraid he would have brushed it off, saying it was nothing.

 

She wasn’t sure about Dennis.

 

There was also no confidence in her…

 

Such complex emotions were lurking within her.

 

It was an intolerable shame for Tehez to explain her feelings to her assistant.

 

No matter how long she has known Danielle. This was between a Princess and a maid.

 

Face, dignity and pride.

 

Because she had been through it all this time.

 

As she looked at Tehez, who remained silent, Danielle’s face was filled with compassion.

 

“If you look lonely today, is it my illusion?”

 

Tehez looked at Danielle slyly.

 

“If I look that way, you might be right.”

 

“…”

 

“I’m tired. You should leave the palace now.”

 

Tehez tilted her neck back, which had stiffened from looking down.

 

A ‘rumble’ was heard from the back of her neck.

 

“Okay, Princess. Why don’t you just go to bed today and get a massage?”

 

At Danielle’s suggestion, Tehez tilted her head.

 

Then Danielle added.

 

“Your body will be relaxed and feel more comfortable falling asleep. These days… Aren’t you refraining from wine, too?”

 

After the royal physician’s advice to stop drinking, Tehez listened to music or read books when she couldn’t sleep.

 

Still, if she couldn’t sleep, she would instead get up and work than stay in bed.

 

Danielle bowed her head in regret that she had spoken out of the line in front of her, reminiscent of her meeting.

 

Tehez looked at Danielle with a nonchalant expression.

 

Although she didn’t know what was causing her to feel down, Danielle seemed to be trying to lighten her up in her own way.

 

So Tehez responded positively.

 

“Thank you. Can you do it right now?”

 

Noticing the change in her mood, Danielle answered with a smile.

 

“Yes, Princess. I will take you to the bathroom first.”

 

***

 

Dennis arrived in front of her bedroom and opened the door slightly.

 

He thought she might be sleeping in bed, but there was no one.

 

He turned his head to the familiar seat where she was always sitting.

 

But there wasn’t a woman there either.

 

Dennis eventually pushed the door wide open.

 

As if he could find her somewhere hidden.

 

But the bedroom was empty.

 

‘Where did you go again, like a squirrel?’

 

Dennis sat down on the sofa she had always been sitting on.

 

The room without the woman was dark and cold.

 

He looked around like a lost child.

 

It was close to midnight.

 

‘Where are you, and what are you doing?’

 

Eventually, he got up again and set out to find the woman.

 

If she didn’t come, he had no choice but to go find her.

 

He went to her office first.

 

If she wasn’t in the bedroom, he thought she might still be working.

 

But the office door was locked.

 

He sat across the hallway window, scratching his chin, contemplating.

 

Where should he go to find the hidden squirrel…?

 

Then the maids came out from the end of the hallway.

 

When the maids found him, they stopped and bowed.

 

“Do you know where the Princess is?” he asked, smiling.

 

“Yes, the Princess is in the bathroom now.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

Dennis strode into the bathroom where she was.

 

As he stood at the door, it was as if he could hear a conversation from within.

 

Dennis slammed the bathroom door open.

 

The vapour was thick, and it was difficult to see ahead.

 

“It’s cold. Please close the door.”

 

It was Tehez’s voice.

 

Perhaps she mistook him for someone else, Tehez was absorbed in a conversation with someone without even turning her face toward the entrance.

 

He closed the door quietly and walked through the suffocating vapour.

 

He still couldn’t see her face.

 

“You can use something else.”

 

Tehez lightly hit the other person on the arm.

 

Danielle asked, looking toward Dennis through the vapour.

 

“Did you say that your shoulder hurts? You need to use a good oil for pain relief to get better. Was the oil there?”

 

At that moment, he stood in front without a word and looked down at Danielle.

 

It was as if their eyes met through the water vapour.

 

“Oh my goodness!”

 

Danielle was surprised to see him and fell back, thinking he was the one who brought oil.

 

“My lord!”

 

“Yes. That’s me.”

 

Then the door opened again from behind, and a woman came in. It looked like she was the maid who was to bring the oil.

 

“Here’s the oil…”

 

The maid looked at what was going on, soon saw his face, and bowed her head in amazement.

 

He looked at the oil in the maid’s hand.

 

A yellow liquid was glistening in the glass bottle.

 

A silent confrontation.

 

Suddenly, the water cooled down, and the water vapour cleared.

 

The woman in the bathtub looked up at him.

 

He could see her white shoulders through her hair, wet and tucked behind her back.

 

“What are you doing, Prince?”

 

It was a dazzling look.

 

He put his hand on his waist and said to the ladies.

 

“You can go back. Her husband is here.”

 

“What are you talking about? You have work to do, so please stay.”

 

Tehez refuted his words with a single blow.

 

The ladies stood undisturbed and looked only at their superiors.

 

Dennis said again.

 

“I don’t think I need to say it again. Because I’m her husband, you know. I’ll do it from now on, oh, no doubt I’ll serve her perfectly, so I’d like you to leave.”

 

It was an apparent congratulatory order.

 

As he spoke firmly, the maids finally bowed to Tehez and went out of the bathroom.

 

Dennis rolled his shirt up his arms and swung his hands into the water Tehez had immersed herself in.

 

Then he said as if he was talking to himself.

 

“The water is cold.”

 

He turned on the hot water to set the temperature.

 

The steam rose again.

 

“What does my bath have to do with you being my husband? Why did you let the courtiers out at will?”

 

It was a sharp talk.

 

Dennis spoke his words and asked calmly.

 

“Does your shoulder hurt?”

 

“Whatever it may be, what does it have to do with you?”

 

“Where does it hurt?”

 

Saying so, he pressed hard on her wing bone.

 

“Ah!”

 

He touched the woman’s opposite wing bone as if crushing it. The thin shoulder in one hand seemed to crumble if held tightly.

 

“Both sides are clumped together.”

 

“…”

 

Dennis shut off the hot water that had been gurgling.

 

In an unseen space, silence filled in an instant.

 

Only the sound of water dripping from the ceiling was deafening.

 

The woman’s expression was not clearly visible.

 

He carefully grabbed her shoulders and turned her back towards him.

 

The woman stiffened her body because she didn’t want to do what he wanted.

 

“Take it easy. You’ll get hurt.”

 

Dennis pulled her back again, and the hesitant woman moved.

 

There was the sound of the splashing water.

 

Tehez, who turned her back to him, sat with her knees together and her chin pressed to her knees.

 

It would be an expression of her intention not to show anything to him.

 

But he thought that her appearance was somehow like a small animal.

 

Like a sulky squirrel.

 

Dennis picked up the bath brush lying on the floor, trying to wipe the smile off his lips.

 

The sleeves rolled up to his forearms, kept running down and got wet with water.

 

When the wet clothes drooped, he irritatingly unbuttoned, took off his shirt, and threw it roughly into the corner of the bathroom.

 

Then he gently rubbed the curled-up woman’s back with a brush.

 

“I did brush.”

 

“Really?”

 

Dennis poured moderately cold water on her back.

 

He picked up the bottle of oil that the maid had left beside him.

 

The yellow liquid was dripping from the bottle.

 

He concaved his left hand and poured oil into it from the glass bottle. Then he spread the oil on both hands and rubbed her shoulders.

 

Slow and gentle.

 

“Why are you so angry?”

 

The woman did not answer.

 

“Hmm?”

 

As he asked, he rubbed the woman’s neck and shoulders affectionately.

 

The woman swallowed a moan in pain as his hand pressed on somewhere on her wing bone.

 

“Does it hurt?”

 

He smoothed the woman’s shoulder with his greasy hand.

 

“You’re going to tell me when I’m done, hmm?”

 

The silent woman spoke after a long time.

 

“No.”

 

“Then?”

 

“…How…”

 

Somehow it sounded unfair.

 

“Yes?”

 

Dennis waited patiently without interrupting the woman.

 

The woman turned her head and said, looking straight at him.

 

The woman’s face, which was submerged in warm water, had a red flush.

 

“I thought the Prince has changed a little these days. Maybe I… maybe…”

 

The woman looked up at him without being able to speak as coherently as usual.

 

Then he asked immediately.

 

“Last time, why did you say that to me?”

 

“What?”

 

“You said I was the Prince’s world.”

 

“Ah.”

 

That’s what he said.

 

“What did you mean by that? If you said what you wanted to say at that moment, please take it back.”

 

(To be continued in the next episode)

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