Chapter 7
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 7
“A proposal?”
“I want to buy you.”
“Buy me?”
“Literally. I want to spend the night with you. And in return… I will pay you a certain sum.”
Theodore let out an irritated laugh, and Lady Vanessa’s cheeks instantly paled. What a laughable, hypocritical display. To make such a proposal to a man she’d only just met, yet feign the innocence of a maiden who knew nothing of the world.
With a cynical gaze, Theodore slowly swept his eyes down her body. Covered in mud, her fingertips trembling, the woman’s face was so pale she looked as if she might faint at any moment. It was a face devoid of love, lust, or even blind devotion.
“Lady Vanessa.”
She flinched when he called her name with a sigh, her shoulders trembling.
“Since we’ve come this far, I think we can dispense with the tedious pleasantries. Tell me your reason.”
Growing paler by the second with shame, the woman swallowed hard. Perhaps she took his lack of an immediate rejection as a sign of possibility.
“I need a child.”
“A child?”
“Any man would do, but I want you to be the father. Of course, I will compensate you handsomely. I will raise the child with so much love that the absence of a biological father won't matter in the slightest. And I will never contact you again.”
Every word spilling from her mouth was utterly absurd. Theodore scoffed.
“So, you want me to take your money and sell you my seed? Did I hear you correctly?”
At his blunt phrasing, the woman’s face flushed crimson.
“Well, yes, that is… essentially correct, but… when you put it like that…”
“Does wrapping it in elegant words change what it is?”
“No, it doesn’t… but…”
“Vanessa.”
His voice was exceedingly gentle, almost elegant, as he called her name. For a fleeting second, it was enough to deceive her.
“Have you lost your mind in the heat?”
Theodore leisurely lit a cigarette, waiting for her response. Normally, he wouldn’t have spared a second glance for a woman spouting such madness. The only reason he hadn’t walked away was that he’d been rather bored lately, the rose garden was fresh in the May sunshine, and Lady Vanessa—pleading desperately while soaked in morning dew—looked rather beautiful.
She was like a summer rose drenched in rain. A woman who felt as though she would leave your hands dripping wet if you so much as touched her.
“You should show a lady proper respect…”
“If you wanted respect, you should have made a better proposal. One that didn't involve cheapening yourself with an offer of money.”
Lady Vanessa was now trembling helplessly, as if she had just run into a scoundrel. Apparently, she couldn’t stand having her own vulgarity thrown back in her face. Theodore looked down at her, his thoughts laced with cynicism.
The golden hair cascading over her slender neck was like spun sunlight, and her flushed cheeks were fresh and vibrant. Her eyes, tilted upward like a sensitive kitten’s, her well-shaped nose, her red lips, her classic jawline, and her exceptionally fair skin that looked as if it would leave a creamy residue if touched.
Even to him, a man who had seen the capital’s greatest beauties his entire life, Vanessa was peerlessly beautiful. If their initial conversation had been driven by curiosity toward a desperate soul, her face had just bought the rest of his patience.
“Is your life that boring?” he asked, leisurely averting his gaze from her reddened ears. “Boring enough to waste it sleeping with a bastard like me?”
“…Yes.”
Theodore watched the woman play the villain, not entirely displeased. In truth, he could guess why Lady Vanessa was so desperate for a child. Rumors that Count Somerset had put his niece up for sale were rampant in Ingram’s high society.
While the custom of premarital chastity was often broken in secret, having a child would create an irreversible scandal. For her, it must be a terrifying, last-ditch effort. If she were sold off as planned, she would spend the rest of her life as a nursemaid to some old man.
Human sympathy. If not for that, he would have dismissed her as a madwoman and walked away long ago.
“It won’t be a bad deal for you, either. I have an annual pension of thirty thousand pounds in my name. If I have a child, I can request its payout. I’ll pay you twenty thousand pounds every year for five years.”
“Ah, for a mere pittance like that.”
“If you think it’s not enough, I’m willing to pay more later. We can even sign a contract to pay you a certain percentage of my future earnings.”
Every condition she listed was more pitiful than the last. Theodore wore a lazy smile.
“But what to do? I’m not particularly desperate for money.”
A sharp venom flashed across the woman’s blankly despondent face.
“I know your uncle, Mr. Ross, is embezzling maintenance funds. I’ve even secured the evidence.”
Ah, so now she’s resorting to blackmail. He let out a short laugh. The longer this conversation went on, the more it felt like a hilarious, delightful play.
“Embezzlement?”
“The money he receives under the pretext of maintaining the garden.”
“And how did you find that out?”
“…I saw the ledger.”
“You went so far as to dig into an old gardener’s background just to blackmail me?”
Though he was the one being blackmailed, the woman’s complexion grew paler the longer they spoke. She bit her lip, hard.
“I thought you might refuse. I looked into it as a precaution… just in case.”
“So if I refuse, the poor gardener goes to prison.”
“That—that wasn’t my intention!”
Her ears flushed red to the tips as she stammered out her excuses.
“It’s fine if you refuse after hearing me out. But it would be troublesome if you started spreading rumors, so I looked into it. I just intended to silence you so you wouldn’t go around talking…”
The fact that her blackmail was merely a tool to ensure his silence was surprising enough. But her naivety—spilling her entire plan the moment he prodded her—was simply mind-boggling.
“But is it really impossible? I don’t mean to trouble you. I won’t take up much of your time. If we just meet a few times…”
“Vanessa. Shall I give you a piece of advice?”
“Yes?”
“Before you blackmail someone, you should size them up properly. You need to know what cards you hold and what they actually mean to the other person.”
The woman’s innocent eyes were now completely bewildered. He wondered if she even understood. Theodore continued with a crooked smile.
“If that old man gets dragged off because of your accusation, I’d be sad, of course. But that’s hardly a devastating weakness.”
The embezzled amount couldn’t be that significant anyway. In a poor, remote castle like this, how much could he have possibly pocketed? A few thousand pounds at best? He could easily pay back several times that amount and be done with it.
The young lady before him seemed entirely unaware that problems solvable with money were the easiest problems in the world.
“But Mr. Ross is your uncle.”
“Did it never occur to you that family might not be much of a weakness?”
The woman looked strangely shocked. To think she was the one who had made all sorts of scandalous proposals, yet she reacted like this to such a simple statement.
“Is it really a no?”
“Did you think it would be a yes?”
“Men usually want to sleep with me, even if they have to pay for the privilege…”
The words she uttered with a blank face were, ironically, entirely sincere. Only now did he understand the source of her initial confidence—the calculation that she couldn't possibly be rejected because she was so beautiful.
In the first place, Lady Vanessa’s proposal was just a variation of the same boring story he’d heard a thousand times. From the moment he first stepped into high society, the women flocking to him had always sung the same tune. I can give you more wealth, honor, children, My Lord…
All of them presumed he would willingly sacrifice his body for riches, titles, or the continuation of his family line.
Of course, compared to the women who wept about adoring him forever or babbled about childhood trauma, Lady Vanessa had at least offered an interesting alternative. Blackmail, of all things.
“If you just wanted to get in my bed, you should have confessed your love instead.”
That was why. Why he wanted to get to know this woman.
“I might have fallen for it if you had.”
And that was why he gave her an answer that was completely and utterly wrong. Vanessa’s eyes widened as if such a thought had never even crossed her mind.
His reflection was captured in her purely sparkling, clear eyes, a stark contrast to her worn-out proposal.
“But, Theodore. That’s deception. Saying you love someone when you don’t.”
He narrowed his eyes as if facing the sun, staring at her before letting out a hollow laugh. So, seducing someone with a false confession of love was unacceptable deception, but buying his body with money was a fair trade? She was a woman with a strangely rigid yet radical way of thinking.
“Then the negotiation has failed.”
“W-wait! Is it enough if I just love you?” Vanessa urgently grabbed his sleeve as he turned away. Cold sweat beaded on the forehead of the woman who had limped closer, the pain in her sprained ankle clearly worsening.
“We’ll see.”
Amusingly, the paler she grew, the more beautiful she became. Her trembling, flushed lips and pitiful eyes stirred a base, sadistic urge within him. Theodore smirked, his lips curving.
“No matter what you offer, how you blackmail me, or how stubborn you are… if I’m not aroused by you, this all comes to an end, doesn't it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I think whether or not I can get aroused by you is the more important issue here.”
Vanessa blinked her wide eyes, her face showing she hadn’t understood half of what he was saying. Theodore took a deep drag from the cigarette held between his fingers, then used that same hand to cup her pale cheek.
The thick smoke dispersed, making her mind feel hazy. Only then did a look of bewilderment wash over Vanessa’s face as she looked up at him. Was he a madman for finding that satisfying?
“Really, what…”
Tilting his head, he captured the lips that had just parted to protest.