Chapter 47
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Dear, I believe you may be misunderstanding.
Episode 47
Words? What do you mean, turn into words?
"I'm sorry, what did you just say?"
Selena responded to Grace's hesitant question with a warm smile, as if amused by her confusion.
"I was asking if you were surprised that Lucas turned into a horse."
Gasp!
A sharp, urgent breath burst from someone's lips, piercing the quiet of the Reception Room. In that same instant, a heavy silence descended like cold water poured over them.
Grace slowly pieced together the incomprehensible words in her mind and repeated them back, carefully.
"So what you're saying is, right now, what the lady said, is that the Duke has become a... horse? Surely not."
Whinnnnny!
Lucas finally exploded.
He thrashed about violently in denial, rolling his front and hind legs across the floor. Though his beast form limited his means of protest to mere chaos, he nonetheless succeeded in reducing the Reception Room to complete disorder.
"Master! Why are you suddenly acting like this? Please, calm yourself!"
Gabriel rushed to soothe him, but his efforts proved futile. Haem, standing near Lucas, was so startled that he tumbled backward ungracefully.
Good heavens, what on earth is happening!
Julie, who had been standing at a distance, gasped and rushed toward Grace in a single bound.
"Miss! Are you all right?"
Surprisingly, Selena was the most shocked by this commotion.
Her eyes widened in disbelief as she stiffened at her son's sudden violent outburst. Lucas had always been skilled at controlling his emotions since childhood. He was a son who exercised extreme restraint, never easily angered or prone to rage. Why was he suddenly causing such a scene?
"Really now, why is he acting like this today? Is he frustrated because he can't speak?"
Selena muttered in bewilderment, then gently grasped Grace's hand as she sat motionless.
Selena's words, the conversations I had shared with Lucas until now, and Lucky's behavior swirled together in my mind.
"Grace, it seems Lucas is quite frustrated. To return to his original form, it appears he'll need your help. Will you assist him?"
"I'm sorry? Return to his original form?"
What exactly did she mean by returning to his original form, and how?
I couldn't bring myself to look at Lucky, my complexion growing ashen as I murmured.
Selena pointed to my right arm and spoke.
"Yes. That arm—the curse has apparently transferred to it."
Snort! Snort!
Lucas shook off Haem and Gabriel, who had been holding me back, and retreated.
When he couldn't find an escape route despite his frantic thrashing, he grew angry again and began pawing at the ground with his hind legs.
"Ah, be careful! Please be careful! The lady and Miss Grace might get hurt!"
"Master, please calm your excitement for just a moment—!"
'Master?'
Gabriel had addressed the horse as Master.
Now that I thought about it, he had called him that before as well.
I slowly lowered my gaze to the arm bearing the curse mark.
"Is this what you're referring to?"
"That's right. That one. Well, it's quite remarkable to see it like this. In any case, since the curse mark has transferred to you, it seems the horse's role has passed to you as well. So, Grace, it appears you'll need to take the horse's place. Would that be all right?"
A hand to replace a horse?
Grace's pupils trembled dizzily as she carefully opened and closed her right hand, which bore the mark of a curse.
Selena turned to Grace with a gentle question.
"Would you like to try hitting Lucas with this hand as a test?"
"Hit...? Wait, you're saying I should hit with this hand? Me, hitting, no wait, hitting His Excellency who became a horse? So you're telling me to hit His Excellency...."
At Grace's confused voice, Selena finally realized something had gone wrong.
"Oh my?"
She quickly covered her mouth and asked carefully.
"Could it be... that Grace still didn't know?"
Grace, meeting Selena's eyes, managed a difficult smile with trembling lips.
It was a smile that seemed both like crying and grimacing, and Selena pressed her forehead at the sight.
'No, Lucas. If you don't tell her this, what will you do?'
Of course, family secrets were heavy burdens.
Since they hadn't yet made a formal engagement to truly share the family's secrets together, it was right to handle the truth carefully.
But since she was already entangled in the curse, the two of them could no longer be separated.
Given how things had turned out, regardless of anything else, the fact that he had become a horse should have been told to her immediately without reservation.
'But he's not the type to not know that, so why hasn't he said... ah.'
In that moment, an image flashed through Selena's mind—Lucas acting in a way utterly unlike himself, showering Grace with affection.
Just minutes ago, hadn't he pressed his head against her cheek?
It was something unimaginable when he was human.
'I see. So the truth is, they weren't that close yet, but since Grace seemed to like him as a horse, he couldn't bring himself to tell her.'
Only then did Selena, having pieced everything together, let out a black laugh as if utterly exasperated.
Yet Lucas's gaze, trembling with anxiety, remained fixed solely on Grace, unable to look away.
'Hmm... I wonder if they're fighting because of me.'
She had been too excited to properly read the atmosphere between Grace and Lucas, and she regretted her own carelessness. Selena felt deeply sorry toward the two young people who must have been shocked by her thoughtless actions.
"I got too excited and failed to read the situation properly. I'm sorry, Grace. And to you as well."
Selena apologized carefully while stroking the back of Lucas's neck. The Reception Room, which had been in chaos as if a storm had swept through, fell silent in an instant.
"...."
Haem didn't know what to do and covered his face, the Butler quietly bowed his head, and Julie deliberately kept her mouth shut and composed her expression as if she hadn't heard anything.
Of course, the person most shocked among them was Grace.
An awkward and terribly heavy silence pressed down upon the Reception Room.
Grace's frozen gaze slowly fixed upon the black horse that occupied the center of the Reception Room, the one that had been raging moments before.
After taking a moment to steady her breathing, Grace moved her pale lips and called out to Lucas.
"...Your Excellency."
Blue eyes and violet eyes crossed gazes.
"Your Excellency... you must answer me."
-...Grace.
Lucas's voice echoed in her mind.
In that moment, Grace saw it clearly.
As he whispered her name, the trembling blue eyes of the horse.
'Oh, for heaven's sake.'
Grace squeezed her eyes shut and struggled to steady her breathing.
My head was spinning so violently that I couldn't stand properly.
"I'm terribly sorry, but... I'm far too confused right now..."
Taking slow, deliberate breaths, Grace lifted her ashen face.
"Could we... could we speak about this tomorrow? I think I need some time to collect my thoughts."
Grace stumbled backward, her complexion drained of all color.
The confusion was simply too overwhelming to remain standing.
"Oh—Grace. Yes, go inside and rest for a while."
"Thank you, madam."
Grace bolted from the room in a daze.
Julie rushed after her.
"I'm sorry, Julie. I just need to be alone for a moment."
"Miss..."
Julie couldn't bring herself to stop her.
Though the shock had been considerable for her as well, Miss Grace's must have been several times worse.
Grace offered an apologetic smile despite her pallid features, then fled toward the Garden.
I needed fresh air.
Fearing I might hear Lucas's voice, I forcibly suppressed all thoughts of him.
Soon after, the sound of something rushing behind me grew audible.
The footfalls were not those of a human.
"Don't come any closer!"
Grace cried out and darted behind a tree in the corner of the Garden.
Clop, clop...
The horse that had approached halted, unable to come nearer.
I could hear anxious hoofbeats, but it came no further.
"Stay right there. Don't move."
Grace steadied her racing heart as she caught her breath.
Thump, thump, thump, thump!
When the frantic pounding gradually stabilized, she emerged from behind the tree.
The black horse stood motionless, as if rooted to the ground.
Grace fixed him with a penetrating gaze, her eyes heavy with suspicion.
"You're really... conscious, aren't you?"
"..."
"You've been deceiving me all this time, haven't you?"
His eyes, fixed upon her in silence, were melancholic.
I wanted to demand he speak, but it was obvious he couldn't utter a word in this form.
And yet... he already possessed another means of communicating with me.
Countless means.
"Why didn't you tell me? You've had more than enough time."
Grace's voice cut through the darkness with measured precision.
Yet beneath her composed tone, a tremor betrayed the tempest churning within her heart.
Grace's eyes glistened with unshed tears, reddened at the rims.
I had trusted him.
I had trusted that deep, solemn voice of his.
I had trusted the voice that laughed alongside me.
Even in his absence, his presence had always felt reassuring, as though he stood eternally at my side.
'...So he was here all along.'
A bitter laugh escaped her lips before she pressed her burning eyes shut with the heels of her palms.
Had he been toying with me? No—what purpose would that serve?
Then why? For what reason?
"...Say something, Lucas! Anything!"
Grace's voice rose in anguish, yet he remained silent, his gaze fixed upon her with unwavering intensity.
She stared at him for a long moment before striding purposefully toward the horse.
Selena had said this cursed hand—the one bearing the curse—could serve as a substitute for the whip. She had urged Grace to strike Lucas with it.
Breaking the curse surely meant striking him in place of the whip.
There was no reason to hesitate.
Suddenly, a blue flame ignited deep within Grace's chest.
For someone with her naturally high ignition point, this spark was rare indeed.
'Very well.... If he refuses to speak, I shall make him.'
With measured, deliberate steps brimming with suppressed fury, she advanced toward him.
"Fine. I'll make you speak whether you wish to or not."
Reading the ominous intent in her bearing, Lucas—the horse—instinctively retreated a step.
"Don't you dare move another inch."
As if her words were an incantation, Lucas froze entirely, immobilized. Violet eyes blazing with righteous fury clashed relentlessly against bewildered blue eyes suspended in the void between them.
Grace positioned herself before the black horse and raised her hand high. In the next instant, her palm came down sharply against the creature's sleek, dark skin.
Slap!
The sound of flesh striking flesh echoed sharply through the darkened Garden.
In that moment, a brilliant flash of light erupted before Grace's eyes. She reflexively lifted her hand to shield her vision from the searing brilliance.
....
Her vision, obscured by the blinding radiance, gradually returned.
"Grace...."
Not a telepathic whisper, but an audible voice—soft as a moan—breathed her name.
The voice of Lucas Black, reaching her ears with vivid clarity.
Grace slowly lowered the hand she had raised to shield her eyes.
And there before her stood the man she had not seen in days.
"...!"
Her trembling eyes widened in shock, and her face flushed crimson in an instant. Like a beet, Grace's complexion blazed as she covered her face with both hands and shrieked.
"Kyaaaa, kyaaaaaaah!"
...No, no, nooooo!
You should have told me you were undressed!
Brought to you by Valir Scans! To support our team and enjoy the latest releases, please read directly on our official site: valirscans.org