Chapter 22
Poisoning Plan (12)
Today, not a single thing had gone according to Grayson’s plans.
From the unplanned walk to the unplanned kiss.
And what made it even more troublesome was that he didn’t dislike it.
‘Yes. It was nice.’
Edith’s answer suddenly resurfaced in his mind, and before he realized it, Grayson found himself smiling.
He had asked out of concern, wondering whether she had been upset by the sudden kiss—but the answer he received was that it had been nice.
He had expected something like ‘I’m fine’ or ‘I was startled.’
He hadn’t anticipated her saying it was nice, and he had nearly burst out laughing.
With a faint smile lingering on his lips, Grayson leaned his head back against the chair.
Well. Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing for things to stray from the plan once in a while.
***
Edith sat blankly on the sofa in her bedroom, staring at the basket placed on the table.
Even though she had obtained something that might save her life, her thoughts refused to move forward.
She had been enveloped in a strange sensation since earlier, as if she were floating atop clouds.
More than an hour had passed since she parted ways with Grayson, yet it still felt as though she were caught in his presence.
The arm around her waist, his chest against hers, the warmth that had transferred—and the kiss.
Thump.
Her heart, which had already failed to calm down, beat even harder.
‘It’s just one of the duke’s plans. Just one of the things I’m supposed to do as a future duchess. It’s nothing. Once we’re married, I’ll have to do far more than that.’
Even as she told herself this, her heart continued to thump, thump, unable to return to its usual rhythm.
‘I can’t react like this every time to a kiss done out of duty. There’s so much I still need to prepare.’
And yet, the moment she let her guard down, her thoughts drifted right back there.
The kiss.
The warmth of his lips against hers.
The way his lips had parted softly to hold her own…
‘Stop it!’
No matter how she shouted inside her head, it wouldn’t stop.
Without realizing it, Edith lifted her hand and gently traced her lips where his had touched.
The fact that his lips had overlapped these lips, that his lips had drawn in these lips—it all felt unbelievable.
Her breathing threatened to grow ragged, just as it had when she was in his arms.
Startled, Edith sprang to her feet and grabbed the basket.
This was no time to be swayed by something like a kiss.
‘Does “not bad” mean he intends to keep kissing me in the future? Is the duke planning to keep kissing me? No, no, no, Edith. Stop it. Focus on finding a way to survive.’
Edith opened the basket and checked the dried herbs inside.
Three Plarin roots, three potentia herbs, and five herbs with unknown names.
Edith picked up one of the unnamed herbs the old woman had put in.
‘This must be the herb that’s supposed to be good for the skin. Can I trust it? But that grandmother has no reason to lie to me. Do I even need my skin to be better? When the duke touched my cheek earlier… was my cheek alright?’
Edith touched her own cheek.
She touched it so often that she couldn’t tell whether it was good or bad.
‘Lillian’s skin is really nice. She uses only the finest cosmetics.’
Compared to that, Edith’s toner was a cheap one with nothing but a harsh scent.
‘Should I try it once before the wedding? But if I end up drinking poison and causing a commotion anyway, will anyone care about my skin? Still, if the duke touches my cheek again… No. Stop it. Stop.’
Her thoughts kept leaping back to Grayson.
With her life on the line, what he might have felt when touching her cheek wasn’t important at all.
‘“It feels like two suns are rising.”’
The words he had spoken before kissing her surfaced in her mind, and her heart dropped heavily.
Aside from her mother, he was the first person to ever describe Edith’s amber eyes that way.
Lillian said Edith’s eyes looked like an animal’s and were creepy.
Wyatt said it was disgusting when Edith looked straight at him.
Mateo said they gave him chills every time. Frederick had said…
‘Come to think of it, Predic never said anything about my eyes.’
Edith stood in front of the mirror and stared blankly into her own eyes, then snapped back to her senses and returned to the basket.
‘Focus. This is about my life.’
After glaring at the dried herbs inside the basket for a long moment, Edith finally closed the lid and rang the bell.
Lenny, who had been somewhere nearby, entered the room.
“Lenny, could you draw a bath for me?”
“But you haven’t even had dinner yet.”
“Yeah. I want to wash up a bit early today.”
Since Edith’s room didn’t have an attached bathroom, Lenny prepared warm bathwater in one corner of the bedroom.
Even after sinking into the narrow tub, the sweet warmth lingering on her lips refused to fade.
Edith cupped water in her palms and rubbed her lips vigorously.
Watching Edith, who seemed different from usual, Lenny looked worried and asked carefully,
“Miss, did something happen?”
Edith, who had forgotten that Lenny was there, nearly jumped in surprise.
“No, what could have happened?”
“Your face looks especially red…”
“It must be because the water’s warm.”
“I see… You didn’t hear anything unpleasant outside, did you?”
“No, nothing like that. Lenny, I want to be alone for a bit.”
Lenny seemed uneasy about leaving Edith by herself when she was acting unlike her usual self.
After reminding her several times to call if anything happened, Lenny left the room.
Listening to the door close, Edith took a deep breath.
Right. Every time she went outside, she heard unpleasant things.
Your mother is a witch, a harlot—so you must be just like her.
She had endured even those blade-like words, so something like a kiss—
‘Two months.’
Holding the wedding wouldn’t make everything end.
After that, she would have to act while keeping in mind the Duke of Myers’s family and the royal family of Riley, who were certain not to like Edith.
‘But at least they won’t want to kill me.’
Her gaze suddenly fell on the narrow bathtub.
When Wyatt had just married Eliana, Edith had been able to have a good room like Lillian.
But once Wyatt’s feelings began to cool, Lillian had attached one excuse after another and driven Edith into a cramped room.
‘I’m sorry, Edith.’
There were times when she resented her mother, who only said she was sorry for not being able to protect her.
But even in those moments of resentment, Edith loved her mother.
And now, she understood her mother, who had been unable to do anything.
It must have been because she had no power, and feared that resisting needlessly would only bring back even greater pain.
‘And in the end… Mom really did die…’
At that moment, longing surged up like a tide, and Edith felt as though she might burst into tears.
She submerged her face into the bathwater.
Perhaps she shed a few tears in that position.
But when she lifted her face again, Edith’s eyes were no longer wavering.
Edith stepped out of the tub, dried herself, and moved to the small vanity.
Out of habit, she opened the bottle of toner and poured some of the liquid into her palm, thinking of the herbs the gypsy grandmother had given her.
‘She said to grind them well and steep them into the toner.’
Edith’s toner was a cheap one provided to the maids, its scent far too strong.
Thinking that the fragrance felt especially harsh today, she dabbed it onto her face and rubbed it in.
After that, Edith sat down at her desk and took out the notebook she had bought at Alcarod’s general store during a date a few days ago.
It was a rough-looking notebook with a hard cover.
She opened the notebook, which she hadn’t touched even once since buying it, and took out a pen from the drawer.
Since it was her first time writing anything in a blank notebook, she hesitated for a long while before finally writing down today’s date.
March 11
Then, after hesitating again, she wrote down the first thing that came to mind beneath it.
「The Duke of Myers is a little strange.」
This wasn’t what she had intended to write.
She wanted to cross it out, but once written, it couldn’t be erased.
She almost drew thick lines over it, then stopped.
Her mother had written whatever came to mind in her diary as well, so Edith decided she would do the same.
「I obtained dried herbs from the gypsy grandmother.」
Her face itched
Scratching her cheek, she stared at the sentence she had written, then added another line beneath it.
「I want to survive.」
‘Right. I want to live. Even if there isn’t a single good thing, even if the one and only good thing—Mom—has left this world, I still want to cling desperately to life.
But why? What good could possibly come from living in a world without Mom?’
Letting out a thin sigh as she scratched her cheek, Edith wrote down the thought that surfaced again.
「I will watch you collapse, unable to do anything, screaming in despair. Just like my mother and I did. After seeing your helpless clearly with my own eyes, I will meet Mom someday and tell her all about it.」
Something was definitely wrong with the toner.
Now the itching had gone beyond that, turning into a sharp stinging sensation.
Edith closed the diary and sprang to her feet, heading for the vanity.
And when she looked at her reflection in the mirror, she couldn’t help but let out a hollow laugh.
