Perfume……. She was known as a scentless flower, and usually didn’t wear perfume. This was due to the image of the Countess and Roselin, who ridiculed her for overlaying herself with false scents.
Moreover, she didn’t even like headacheinducing perfumes in the first place. If there was a single scent she used, it was the aromatic oil she used when bathing.
She even used the type that barely had any scent, so she found it hard to understand the Duke’s sudden question about perfume.
“……No. I don’t use it.”
“You don’t use it…….”
Upon Idel’s answer, the Duke’s blue eyes gleamed with a sharp light, as if searching her. There was no gap in her seemingly innocent expression.
He leaned his head close to her face while supporting himself on a bookshelf with one hand. Because of this, Idel had to face him at a distance close enough for their breaths to touch.
Due to his perfect and cool impression, his deep blue eyes seemed endlessly chilly. Yet, when faced at close quarters, they felt hot like blue lava.
“……This is troublesome.”
The one clearly in trouble in this situation was her.
Still, he spoke as if he was enduring something tremendously difficult, grinding his teeth. The blue lava in the man’s eyes seemed about to engulf her as it violently swirled.
“It seems I’m going to lose my restraint due to your scent.”
As if looking at a volcano about to erupt, her mouth dried up due to the tension. Despite only her wrist being caught, for some reason, she felt as if her entire body was immobilized.
“What scent are you talking about……?”
A bewildered Idel asked with a trembling voice. She couldn’t possibly have a scent… unlike her halfsister Roselin.
If she had, her mother wouldn’t have passed away, she wouldn’t have had to grow up amidst hardships for all those years, and she wouldn’t have had to marry a man she didn’t want like a piece of merchandise.
Suddenly a surge of unspoken resentment emerged, and Idel sharply asked with a somewhat elevated tone.
“Are you making fun of me? Even if you are His Grace, the Duke, this is clearly rude.”
“Shouldn’t you be the one making fun of me? If you didn’t put on perfume, is this your natural body scent?”
Caeron brought his nose close to her neck without realizing it. A perverse impulse emerged, wanting to lick the softlooking, creamlike white skin.
Startled by the hot breath touching her neck, the lady jerked and twisted her body. Then, the scent became even stronger, and his barely maintained sanity began to go wild.
‘Damn…….’
With a low grumble, Caeron growled.
“What kind of trick are you using?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about. But I do know one thing clearly. What you are doing now is a clear violation of the Empire’s law.”
In front of the seemingly unstable Duke, Idel decided to keep her composure. Although her body was still shivering, she continued speaking in a firm tone.
“I believe you would be aware of the Empire’s Law 251 related to forced molestation. Physical contact against someone’s will is punishable.”
Seeing the audacious woman pointing out the law to him, the Empire’s Chief Judge, Caeron sneered.
Her unexpected reaction in this situation was certainly praiseworthy. The uncontrolled heat of his body considerably lessened. His excitement calmed down but instead, another form of emotion emerged.
“So please let me go, Your Grace.”
The lady was slender, appearing as delicate as the thin wrist he held. Even her endless softlooking, youngleaflike green eyes seemed fragile. Yet, the stubborn look in her eyes as she looked at him was quite interesting.
“Forced molestation…….”
Caeron had been thoroughly indifferent to others since birth. Even touching someone else’s body on his own accord was unfamiliar. The usual him wouldn’t have bothered at all, even if a lady was falling right in front of his eyes.
However, his body reacted without thinking when he saw the woman shaking. Despite her polite request to let go, he didn’t want to release the hand he was holding.
Even after hearing a woman accusing him of forced assault, he felt the same. This unfamiliar action of his own was outrageous.
Initially, he suspected the fragrance of the woman, which disturbed his sanity, might be the functioning perfume of an aphrodisiac. After all, it was everyday for Caeron to be tormented by women trying to seduce him in all sorts of peculiar ways.
‘But if she intended to seduce me…’
There was no reason to plead for him to let her go this much. The woman in front of him was desperately trying to escape his side.
‘What’s with this woman?’
To be honest, his body, still reacting to the woman’s scent, hadn’t cooled down. He had only barely regained the composure in his head… Looking at this woman who made him like a beast that lost its leash, for the first time in his life, Caeron was curious about another person.
Perhaps feeling the loosening grip of the man lost in thought, she seized the moment and shook off his hand with all her strength.
When scheming men desperately battle for her favor in the male harem
This one’s also on my reread list! The rivalry, scheming between the men in the imperial harem are just as intense and thrilling as in classic palace drama novels, where concubines fight to the death. Give it a read, girls! I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Synopsis:
“I am not worthy of her… but I still want to be by her side, even if only as a loyal dog…”
Those were the painful whispers of Yue Guanyi – the proud Crown Prince of the Great Qi, who was torn between deep love and a guilty conscience. Despite holding the supreme power of the Imperial Guard, he still could not forget the dark past when he was sold into a brothel.
Fate played a cruel twist when Qiu Shuzhi – a young female official who had just passed the imperial examinations with top honors – stepped into his life. She did not know that she was the one who had saved him from a tragic fate many years ago. And now, her heart was the target of pursuit for both Yue Guanyi and the powerful Empress Dowager Qin Qing.
While Yue Guanyi only dared to silently care for and protect the one he loved from afar, the Empress Dowager Qin Qing openly expressed his feelings and did not hesitate to take advantage of his power to approach Qiu Shuzhi. The covert struggle between the two most powerful forces in the imperial court began…
Trigger warning: All men in this novel are yandere style.
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