Chapter 18.1

Tol wasn’t the only one who’d gotten used to Sherri. She, too, had a rough idea of the nature of an escort knight. She knew that it was mean to take advantage of Tol’s feelings. She didn’t know if he’d realized it or not, but she knew that Tol, who was giving his heart to serve her, would be hurt if she pushed him away and rejected him.

So, he, who normally never laid a hand on her first before asking for something, had gotten embarrassed as he grabbed her arm hastily. He thought for a while that it was a shame that Sherri had snatched her arm away, but for the sake of the cause, he had to know how to sacrifice even the small things.

If Sherri could hold him in her arms even once, after that, Tol would come to her first. All she had to do was open the flood gate.

* * *

Tol—oblivious to Sherri’s smiling as she walked down the dark path feeling the wall—thought she was mad at him, so he followed behind her feeling extremely gloomy.

It wasn’t that Sherri’s words were wrong. He is the escort of a princess, only following the orders of a young woman. If she tells him to die, he will have to pretend to die or something. Of course, he would refuse a groundless death. Though he would have to leave the marquis’s mansion at the same time he rejected. Come to think of it, Tol didn’t have to compare the weight of her touching his body and dying.

And hadn’t he truly felt it even while saying no, no? Every time her clumsy but subtly skillful fingers touched Tol’s skin, the uncomfortableness from his below later came as a different pleasure.

In fact, when Sherri only touched his lower abdomen and pelvis leisurely, he had thought he was dying of anxiety because he wanted her to quickly touch his thing, which had almost exploded. But of course that thought had only appeared at that moment, and he’d now found his reasoning. What would have happened if she had really grabbed him below? He would have been out of his mind about now and quite possibly would have s*xually assaulted her. He was almost sure of that.

The devil’s whisper on one side of his head saying “So what, she seduced you first” hadn’t stopped yet. However, he continued to calm himself, saying that it was not his fault that he had quit at that point.

* * *

Though they had been walking through the dark for a long time, not a single word had been uttered from either of them. Tol was normally the antisocial type, so even Sherri, who always chatted first, kept her mouth shut, so the conversation itself was nonexistent.

Keeping a close eye on Sherri’s back, Tol was secretly admiring the complex structure of the secret path; so many forked roads.

Since he had reached a certain level while training as a knight, his five senses were much more developed than the average person, so he was able to grasp the vague shape of the passageway even in the dark. The princess, however, wouldn’t be able to. Because she thought that he would have at least brought a sword when she saw the body that came gently toward her.

But she steadily moved forward even while slowly feeling around the wall. The way she stepped with no hesitation as if she had been doing this for years looked so natural.

By chance, did she leave the castle last time too? Tol wondered. That day she had vanished and reappeared in her room around dinnertime despite the door being completely locked.

The silence now was so heavy and uncomfortable that even Tol, who normally refrained from sparking a conversation first, was wondering if he should say something.

When he tried to break free from or run away from Sherri she had never once said anything to him; only smiling and waiting as if she had no other choice. Though after that she had attempted physical contact again. This time, however, was extraordinary.

She, who was convinced enough to think that Tol was a little too serious, walked silently, turning away from him without saying a word. That rather made him feel like he was going to die. Come to think of it, last time she had requested to change escorts. The aftermath of what Jade had said to him was too big of a slip of the tongue.

By chance would he be thrown out by Sherri tomorrow? He thought he had behaved too oddly even though he was not the child of a precious family.

Now Tol didn’t want to be restricted to the title ‘illegitimate child’. Who could underestimate the heir Sherri gave birth to, who was as special as her? And wasn’t it a good thing to have her as his first woman? No, it was a great honor. But how dare he have s*x with someone who was the heir to the prestigious marquis and a descendant of a woman saint?

He had been dodging her, but it wasn’t because he didn’t like Sherri. She had endlessly belittled him and had asked how a mere guard could rudely touch her. However, the moment after she spewed those words at him his other ego had been committed to Sherri to his heart’s content.

It was a contradiction. Even he knew that.