The Count and the Maid - Chapter 39

Again, slowly, the horse started to walk.

There was a stable at the entrance of the forest. Exhausted, Shada prayed for the moment to get off this horse and on the ground would come sooner

But another part of her didn’t want this moment to end.

Of course, it was because she was so shy to get down and meet Huey’s face.

The wind blew behind them as they entered the stables.

Huey wiped her messy bottom with a handkerchief, arranged her skirt, and jumped down first.

Shada avoided his gaze as he carried her to the ground and stood her on the floor. The long horseback ride was done.

For a moment, she was relieved, and her knees buckled. Huey supported her staggering form.

Shada wasn’t sure if her legs couldn’t hold her because her tension was relieved or if her limbs were weak in the shocking aftertaste of lovemaking.

Shada was embarrassed, but Huey sweetly kissed her face saying he liked the way she leaned on him.

She nodded blankly. I’m okay.

“Are you sure?”

When Huey stared at her, she avoided his gaze.

Instead, the Black horse, Shada, held her eyes.

It looked like she held no resentment or awkwardness about bodies mixing on top of her?

Shada’s face burned brightly.

She held her legs together. Her bottom was soaked, and she couldn’t bear it.

It wasn’t just because of the traces he left in her.

Her body was getting wet again so soon; it seemed to be not hers anymore.

Shada didn’t know that the man’s eyes, focusing on her, were looking at her in satisfaction.

* * *

Shada blinked at the room bathed in white sunlight. She slowly woke up with slight muscle pain and a heavy ache wrapped around her waist.

A scene of kaleidoscope lights passed through her head. A man’s bare chest touched her back and arms. Where their skin touched, burned.

As she tried to move away, Huey hugged Shada even tighter, so she huffed and gave up.

The man she glanced at was the Count, naked and entangled with her on the bed—still deeply asleep.

He was a man with sparkling blonde hair, serious eyes, with a sharp jawline balancing a finely sculpted toughness.

At first glance, he looked so refined and elegant that one would not think he was a knight or a soldier.

His sleek jaguar-like muscularity and scarring, the callous hands like a stone, and occasional fierce eyes like a beast reminded her that he was Count Kirchner, the famous hero.

What would her deceased parents say if they knew she was in an affair with such a man?

She recalled what happened yesterday.

Huey took Shada to the beautiful manor’s estate, and they enjoyed a picnic.

Then, after sunset, he brought her to the room and embraced her again.

Although she didn’t know before, there were several sexual positions and concentrations of pleasurable places.

Fear, awkwardness, and worries became tamed and dull if one got drunk off the atmosphere.

And that’s what happened to Shada as she hugged him tightly, screaming, clinging on to him.

As he ordered, she shook her waist and felt like she was getting more and more infatuated with him.

Shada’s eyes only blinked as she embraced him tightly.

She recalled the conversation she had with Huey as if she was flipping through a book she read yesterday.

It was when the red sunset flickered and shimmered on the lake.

As Shada sauntered by the shore of the lake, she asked carefully.

“May I ask you something?”

The glances between them were warmer than the sunset.

He laughed and smiled.

“That’s a relief.”

“… What?”

“I was worried that you would not ask me anything.”

His green eyes curled beautifully as if he had waited the whole time for her question.

It was fortunate that she was bathed in red light. She held her scorching face. His smile gave her courage.

“When did you first see me? It wasn’t it when you saved me, was it?”

“Yes.”

It was a simple answer compared to what she was prepared for.

Shada frowned.

“When?”

“When your hands were smaller than they are now, and they were swollen and cracked in lye and cold water.”

“Sheep lye… By any chance, when I worked in the laundry room?”

There was a time when she worked in piles and piles of laundry, and it was as if she was doing almost all the laundry in a royal palace alone.

It was the hardest time in her life as a maid. Well—until Princess Julia started tormenting Shada.

She was bullied, lost her parents, dealing with so much slander and gossip that even the head maid thought of her as a problem and sent Shada to a distant laundry room.

It was hard labor, so even the maids avoided it, but there was no choice but for her to hold back her tears and stick to it.

If Shada got kicked out, especially without a recommendation letter, her money would quickly run out.

Huey saw her at her lowest when she was only doing laundry day and night, never speaking except for a few essential words a day.