Indeed, Edith was embarrassed and ashamed of the situation.
Being kidnapped and entangled in a pregnancy scheme, yet lips are offlimits. It was something a teenage girl might say.
‘Walter stopped at a reasonable line without trouble.’
Wouldn’t it sound like expecting something more for no reason? Edith escaped from his embrace.
Walter looked intently at her, avoiding his gaze, and asked,
“I have something to ask you, just in case.”
His voice still held heat, creating the illusion that what had just happened was still going on.
“If you receive surveillance like today, and Sophiana Whitman says she needs to check from beginning to end.”
“……”
“Will it be okay to do more, whether you’re embarrassed, or if lips are offlimits?”
Edith unwittingly licked her lips. Was it an illusion? It sounded like he was expecting something more. She couldn’t formulate a logical response as various thoughts flooded her mind.
“I don’t want to think about it now, as it hasn’t happened yet.”
Even though they had only embraced for a few minutes, she felt drained. Edith sank down to the floor for a moment.
Walter mulled over her words. He didn’t know why he had asked such a question about something that hadn’t happened yet.
Did he want to see the cleareyed woman in front of him disheveled, pleading, or enjoying once?
Walter swallowed the answer that unconsciously came to his mind.
(This is a time separator.)
An awkward silence ensued after they left the cabin. Edith simply mounted the horse held by Walter, taking in the scenery.
The Portrion mansion was very large, and the building itself was wide horizontally, so the distance from the east end room to the west end room was considerable.
According to what she had found out, Sophiana avoided spending time with the other wives, but Elizabeth and Izazel often had tea time together.
‘When the Duke dies, the inheritance will go to the other wives, and Sophiana will try to take away the other wives’ inheritance rights by any means.’
Edith looked at the west building of the mansion. It was too far to see who was inside, but she thought it would be good to familiarize herself with the wives staying in the west as soon as possible if she wanted to attack Sophiana.
“The horse seems thirsty, just a moment.”
Walter, who had found a small spring, tapped the back of the horse as he spoke. Edith dismounted and looked around. Closer to the mansion’s west side, where the ladies of the west might have their preferences, there were quite quaint sculptures in the garden.
It was around that time when a faint song reached her ears.
「I know,
Why heat is added to your breath.
When you embrace my waist,
Something is happening between us.」
‘Who is singing?’
Though the lyrics were faint due to the distance, the voice was clear and voluminous, enough for even the faroff Edith to become immersed in the melody.
“Izazel Portrion, Nicolas’s third wife.”
Walter, who had come up, explained that Izazel always practiced singing in the middle of the garden at this time, and among the employees, many admired her singing.
“It was said to be the small pleasure of the western employees to go to dinner every evening listening to her voice.”
Edith nodded as if she understood. At the same time, she realized that it was already time for dinner.
Time went frustratingly slow when she was almost confined to the mansion, caught up in Sophia’s scheme, but when she spent time with Walter, the sunset would happen in the blink of an eye.
“Let’s slowly head back. Sophia will be suspicious, and Vivian will be waiting.”
“Before we go.”
Walter asked, looking straight into Edith’s eyes.
“You must tell me everything that’s worth suspecting. Strange behaviors that the carriage showed before it happened, or things like the lady’s past.”
“Ah.”
Only then did Edith recall the conditions of her contract with Walter. He was deceiving Sophia to protect her, so she had to do something for his memory.
“There’s only one thing in my life that could be called a special experience that others couldn’t have had. When I was young, my mother took in a mysterious lady and her son as lodging guests.”
“Lodging guests?”
“Yes. My father passed away early, so we weren’t well off, but the house was rather spacious.”
The Lowell mansion was sold by the maternal uncle in gambling right after her mother passed away.
Edith continued, forcing a bitter smile.
“Anyway, that boy back then resembled you a bit.”
“Resembled, you say…”
“Just. When I first saw you, I thought of that boy. If the color of the pupils wasn’t different, it would be enough to mistake.”
Edith, who was thinking of Walter and Isaac at the same time, suddenly remembered an important fact.
‘That’s right. Isaac had a deep scar on his thigh.’
She remembered that Mrs. Leah had been upset at times, saying that the scar would not disappear even when he became an adult.
Edith’s gaze naturally turned to Walter’s thigh. Then he made a strange face and blurted out.
“Seeing that you’re checking this side to see if it resembles, it seems you were quite close with that man.”
My Step-brother Is Obsessed With Me (Female-dominant)
A gentle female protagonist vs pitiful in the early stage, and a sick male protagonist in the later stage
Cheng Songer transmigrated into the body of a vicious cannon fodder female supporting character with the same name as her in a female-dominant novel.
In the original story, the cannon fodder female supporting character was inhumane, committing domestic violence, gambling excessively, being lustful, and even wanting to sell her stepbrother to a brothel for money.
As luck would have it, she just happened to transmigrate at this time.
Seeing Cheng Qingzhi biting his lip, enduring the tears in his eyes, looking pitiful, her heart softened.
She stuffed the money back into the Madam’s hand and reached out to him.
“Brother, come home with me.”
