Duke, Please Stop Because it Hurts

It had become a little bit warmer than those clothes she was wearing at that moment.

“Give those to me first.”

Glancing at his outstretched hand, her gaze then quickly turned to Raven.

“It’ll be hard for you to hold them alone, so let me keep them next to you, over here.”

“No, I’ll hold them myself.”

“It‘ll take quite a while for us to get there.”

“Still.”

Raven raised his eyebrows at how stubborn she was in wanting to keep on holding those gifts.

“Why are you so adamant on holding them so much, anyway?”

“That… it’s because they’re gifts from you to me.”

Molitia stared at the gifts lovingly. It was the first gift, which she had received despite the fact that it wasn’t her birthday. A gift bestowed on a day that wasn’t special at all.

“When I was young, I always yielded to my sister. There weren’t many items that could be considered as mine. I had to relinquish all my presents to my sister.”

Raven then suddenly recalled her luggage that was definitely too little for her. The luggage of a noble lady that was extremely small, which had even perplexed the butler completely.

Maybe it was also because of how she didn’t have anything in the first place. Raven bit his lips in lieu of his burning feelings before he managed to wipe them off.

“I’ll give more to you, every single day from now onwards.”

“Don’t do that. This is already enough.”

She smiled innocently before she bent down while smelling the fragrant flowers. As her perfectly white teeth were revealed, a blush had also colored her cheeks brightly.

Raven sighed quietly.

He definitely appreciated her behaviour of cherishing his gifts. But then, it was inevitable that her actions were in fact, a bit too much.

How long can that little wrist of hers last? Raven immediately regretted the fact that he had given it to her right after arriving at that mansion before.

The clop of the horse’s hooves could be heard softly inside the carriage. Raven thought for a while before he slowly parted his mouth.

“…the chocolate will melt soon if you hold it like that for too long.”

“Uh……”

“They said that if human warmth were to come too close in contact, even flowers would wither quickly.”

Her eyes glinted with hesitation at those firm words of his. Raven straight away didn’t miss the chance to take a hold of those flowers and chocolates in his arms instead.

“Then, I’ll leave them here for a while. Just because you put them aside, it doesn’t mean that they’re going to run away.”

“…okay.”

It was blatantly childish, but he didn’t regret anything from what he had just said. Both of those unoccupied wrists of hers looked precarious even if they were just idling away. He quickly set aside the bouquet of flowers and the chocolates at the corner of the seat.

Eventually, he brought up the topic, which he was really curious about.

“How does it feel to be called the Duchess?”

“It wasn’t bad at all. I’ve never been called Lady Clemence before, after all.”

“Why?”

Her eyes hesitated for a moment. Should she tell him the truth or hide them all? It was precisely because she didn’t want to be hated that she recalled the days when she tried hiding them away.

Raven, the one who still had faith in her—who had been concealing herself from others—was right in front of her. Therefore, she shouldn’t be hiding anything any longer.

“You know, I don’t really show up in society very often. Thanks to that, I’m usually being called just by name, since I’m merely meeting up with the people whom I know of.”

“Do you have any close friends?”

“Well…… it’s actually uncertain.”

She couldn’t really claim that she was close to her family, but she did have a childhood friend—once. However, they became naturally estranged with one another as the days she laid upon her bed lengthened in time.

“What about now?”

“What?”

“Do you have anyone who is much closer to you than me?”

Raven suddenly felt a slap of utter jealousy as he sounded slightly brusque even without him realizing it. He had looked into her household before, but still, he didn’t wish to violate her privacy. Which was why he didn’t pry into it any further.