Chapter 22: The Ruby that lost its Color.

The time was approaching, but I didn’t know it would start so suddenly. I vaguely thought I would find out when I woke up from sleep, like the last Rut.

So that’s why he was anxious. I finally realized. He was wary because even the Duke himself didn’t know at what moment, in what place, or with whom it would start.

“Jay…”

Heat was felt in the breath mixed with the voice calling my name. Contrary to his words telling me to leave, the hand grabbing mine, which had been on his wrist, was hot.

I shook my head.

“I trust that the Duke will not hurt me.”

His breathing was rough. I opened my mouth again.

“I do not want a child with the Duke. Nor can I bear one.”

I spoke each word with emphasis as if carving them into his eyes.

The Duke’s face distorted as if in pain. The eyes glaring at me seemed to hold resentment as well.

“I am a Beta. I cannot smell the Duke’s pheromones at all.”

His eyes fixed on me sparkled with red and blue light. That brilliant light was just like a gem, seemingly about to bewitch me.

When the Duke closed his eyes, I even felt regret.

“Damn it.”

In his voice that flowed again after a not-short silence, the heat had somewhat subsided. Although slightly redder than usual, his eyes, fixed in blue, turned to me again. I felt relief alongside pity.

“So there are things even the Duke cannot do.”

When I spoke deliberately with banter, the Duke nodded slowly.

“Quite a few things I can’t do.”

“You are good at much more, but you certainly can’t do one thing. Your cursing is really awkward.”

The Duke let out a short chuckle, pfft. He rubbed my wrist with a weakened hand and then let go. Then he leaned his forehead on my shoulder as if collapsing.

“There is one thing you certainly can’t do either.”

“There are far more things I’m good at than things I can’t do.”

“That is true, but.”

The Duke stopped speaking and inhaled. His breath tickled the nape of my neck. I felt him blinking slowly through touch.

“Certainly, you cannot smell my pheromones.”

From his tone, I could read emotions resembling what I had felt. Regret. And relief. I couldn’t tell which emotion was greater. The Duke eventually pulled his body completely away from me.

“Go and tell Philip. To bring Tommy. And Jay, you…”

A reddish hue lingered a bit more intensely in the Duke’s eyes. He closed his mouth again. His jawline stood out firmly. It was evident he was agonizing over something.

Soon he commanded me.

“Deliver the message to Philip and come back here. Immediately.”

Even as he spoke, he seemed to regret it. So I answered.

“Yes, I will return immediately.”

The high temperature of that hand, which held my wrist strongly even while telling me to leave, still lingered. It was the body temperature of a boy at a loss because the direction his heart wanted and the place he had to go were different.

It’s something a servant shouldn’t say, but I felt sorry for him.

It felt like seeing myself when I was Han Jay, not in this current body.

****

When I returned to the banquet hall after delivering the message to Philip to bring Tommy, the Duke was lying on the marble floor. As if trying to cool down his heightened body temperature.

“Fast.”

The Duke, who had been looking at me since I entered the entrance, spoke in a completely unsurprised voice, pretending to be surprised.

“Because I ran, as you can see.”

Watching my heaving shoulders, the Duke smiled. It was clearly a forced expression.

“Stamina is important for mages too. I should make you run in the garden at least.”

“Are you going to make only me run? Besides, winter is coming soon.”

“You exaggerate too much. The fallen leaves haven’t even completely gone yet.”

While exchanging silly talk, I approached the Duke. When I squatted at his feet, the smile disappeared from the Duke’s face.

“I forgot. It will be winter after the Rut… ends.”

Mentioning the word Rut while unable to hide his self-loathing was telling me to stay away. My employer was extremely stubborn. Even though it was plainly visible that he was struggling to endure and wanted help.

He must have forgotten that right here, in this lying posture, he had already confessed once. That he had wished for someone’s help. He spoke in the past tense, but to me, his wish seemed not yet over.

“Aren’t you uncomfortable?”

“I think I’d be much more comfortable if you stayed a bit farther away.”

“The disloyal servant brought nothing because he returned in a hurry. Shall I offer you a lap pillow?”

“Watch.”

“Pardon?”

The confrontation, which couldn’t be called a conversation where we only said what we wanted, ended as I reacted to the Duke’s words. The Duke curved his eyes even with a face starting to break out in cold sweat.

“The watch I gave you, wear it. It will help you. …Even from me.”

I don’t know what expression I made. Whether I was surprised, relieved. Or, if I dared impertinently to pity the Duke.

The Duke looked up at my face and lifted the corners of his lips. He gave a flawless, picture-perfect smile.

I opened my mouth but couldn’t bring out any sound. I couldn’t even properly know what I wanted to say.

“I have come at your summons, Duke.”

Like turning back time that had momentarily stopped, Butler Philip’s stiff voice was heard.

“Did you call for me?”

Tommy’s hesitant voice was also heard.

The Duke raised his body from the floor. At his staggering movement, I reflexively supported him.

Haa. The Duke’s long breath brushed my ear. Looking up at Philip and Tommy standing in front, it became certain that the Duke was suppressing his pheromones to the utmost. I remember the people screaming and fleeing in terror. Among them was Philip, who could now stand before the Duke with a still calm expression.

“Tommy.”

When the Duke called his name, Tommy bowed low. But that fearless guy was rolling his eyes looking alternately at the Duke and me even in this situation.

“Shall I pluck out your eyes?”

As the lowered voice resonated, Tommy only then began to tremble.

“I, I…”

“Or, should plucking out the tongue come first?”

I heard the sound of the guy inhaling breath sharply.

“Do you think I’m too harsh?”

The question was directed at me.

It was certainly cruel words. By the standards of my identity as a modern Korean.

But as a Beta living in this era, I couldn’t find grounds to oppose the Duke’s punishment.

It was because Tommy ran his mouth carelessly. Because he whispered words into my ear that forced the Duke to delay his Rut while suppressing the pheromones he couldn’t control properly.

“No.”

It was rather fortunate that I was here. I, too, needed to properly know the rules of this era. What price returns when crossing a line that shouldn’t be crossed.

Instead of relying solely on the Duke’s generosity.

“That’s a relief.”

Suddenly, the Duke’s weight leaned on me a bit more. It was a movement as if he knew what I was thinking, so I suppressed a bitter smile.

“Philip.”

“Yes, Duke.”

“Send that guy to Miller as soon as tomorrow morning breaks. And examine Miller’s surroundings. You must show me the results when my Rut ends.”

“Yes, yes. Duke.”

“Go back. You will have a lot to do from now on.”

“Th-thank, thank you.”

Philip barely managed an awkward expression of gratitude with a trembling voice and hurriedly left the banquet hall.

“Tommy.”

Tommy couldn’t bring himself to answer. Instead, heuk, eup, suppressed cries flowed from the guy prostrated on the floor.

When the name Miller came up, the guy’s legs trembled and he collapsed prostrate on the floor. Right. In terms of suspicion, the merchant named Miller who recommended such an ignorant, tactless, and hasty guy to the Duke is the most suspicious.

“Answer.”

“Heuk, yes, yes.”

“Since I’m sending you back in one piece, you will have to find out in detail what changes occurred in Miller’s personal affairs and whom he meets.”

“Yes, yes. I, I will follow… as you said.”

The tone, which had been a mess mixed with crying, changed in an instant. The ruby lying on the floor as if discarded rattled and shook. It seemed the pheromones the Duke had been suppressing were flowing.

“Aren’t you overexerting yourself?”

“Thanks for the worry, but it’s something I must do.”

When Tommy’s breathing became stable, the Duke instilled thoughts into him again.

“Tommy, you don’t know Jay. Right?”

“Who is Jay?”

Tommy raised his head which he had been desperately bowing. The guy asked back to the Duke with blank eyes completely contradictory to his face soaked with tears. He was in a state where he didn’t recognize me at all even though I was right in front of him.

“Now go back to your bed. Depart for Miller tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, Duke.”

The guy bowed politely to the Duke and turned back to leave. The Duke straightened his body almost simultaneously.

I also stood up following him with one arm around the Duke. Although my height didn’t reach his shoulder, I hardly felt any weight. The Duke was standing with his own strength. Although the meaning of support disappeared, I couldn’t separate from the Duke. Because one of his arms was wrapped around my shoulder.

Glancing up, the Duke’s face was expressionless. I would have been relieved if he had smiled like a flower and gotten angry instead.

“You are generous.”

At my clumsy words of comfort I barely found, the Duke let out a faint laugh.

“It might be the cruelest treatment for him right now.”

“If he considered the person named Miller like a parent, that could be so.”

He is the person who stepped forward to take back the guy he recommended to the Duke, knowing he lost his parents. Whatever his intentions were, Tommy must have felt close to him. Then it would indeed be a treatment that would break the guy’s heart. Not knowing what might happen while digging into that Miller person’s background. Since Philip stepped in, the information Tommy clumsily digs up would actually be useless, but the psychological burden the guy feels will be significant.

Still, I thought it was generous by the standards of this era. As if cutting off my thoughts, a surprisingly loud laughter burst out from the Duke’s mouth.

“Surely you…”

Is there a part I missed? The Duke, who seemed about to correct my words, didn’t finish his sentence and lowered his hand from my shoulder. When we were facing each other, the Duke frowned with one eye and smiled. The distorted expression with broken perfect balance was not beautiful like a flower.

But I thought I saw his bare face for the first time.

“Now you go back too, Jay.”

The Duke commanded me in a clear voice. Even though his eyes had turned completely red before I knew it.

It was time for me to withdraw. So he could suffer alone to his heart’s content.

“Then I will see you tomorrow, Duke.”

Promising the next day, I moved my steps. Rattle. The sound of the ruby rolling rang in my ears again.

A gem that lost its blood-red lustre and became pitch-black was captured in my vision.