“What on earth did you send to make him do that?”
“Toys.”
He grinned as the things he had chosen with his own hands came to mind. How startled the boy must have been. Those big eyes would have gone round again, and his face bright red. Just like an apple ripened well under the autumn sun.
He should have seen that reaction right before his eyes. Regretting that they were so far apart, he clicked his tongue.
“It’s not as though you’re teasing a person. However much younger Lord Rubio is than you, Your Grace, how could you send such things? No wonder he was angry.”
At his adjutant’s words, he silently stretched the corner of his mouth. His eyes, usually dry and parched, were alive with a sparkle, as if he were in a good mood. As if there had never been so amusing a moment in his life.
José was somewhat dumbfounded.
“Didn’t you say you weren’t interested in Lord Rubio?”
“When did I?”
“I heard it clearly. ‘He’s just a child anyway. Fifteen years younger, besides.’ Every time talk of your fiancé came up, you always said that. And at the De la Rosa banquet right before the wedding, you left me behind and slipped away, too.”
Well, that was true. Though his impressions after meeting Rubio in person were different.
“I am now.”
“He says he doesn’t like me. That’s how men are, isn’t it? The more they say they don’t like you, the more you want to needle them.” Needle. If the countless people, regardless of sex, who had been kicked away at his feet heard that remark, they would have clutched the backs of their necks. José grew even more dumbfounded. His superior’s fickleness was an everyday matter, so that aside.
“Lord Rubio said he doesn’t like you, just like that?”
“What could Rubio have done to deserve that?”
“Well… in looks and in heart he is the one called an angel incarnate. Goodness, how dissatisfied must he have been to make such a remark?”
At those words, Téllez started snickering again.
“You really know nothing at all. Rubio is not that kind of person.” Of course, if one only saw that wavy blond hair and porcelain-doll face, one might misunderstand. If one had never seen him chattering away with those pretty lips while doing his confounding things.
“Right, he’s nothing like that.”
He recalled what he had heard, held fast by Rubio, before he left.
‘Promise me.’
‘Promise what?’
‘When you come back, to have a child with me. Without doing that thing… that thing you did last time.’
‘What thing?’
Standing before the mirror fastening his coat, the man had turned back to his spouse with a chuckle. Rubio was dressed in a white nightshirt. It was dawn, the sun not yet up, yet whether he had woken long before or had not slept at all, dark shadows hung under his eyes and his hair stuck out in every direction, all fuzzy.
With that adorable sight, he had come all the way from the private chambers to his room, and that was what he said.
‘You know exactly what. That strange thing that both Pedro and I know about.’
‘Last time you told me not to come.’
‘I’ve changed my mind. As long as you don’t do that sort of thing, you may come any time. The sooner Pedro and I have a child, the better, isn’t it?’
At the bold statement, that he wanted to see an heir as soon as possible and then slip away from him, the man smirked.
To have a child as quickly as possible, huh……
He went “Hmm,” pretending to mull it over, then muttered piteously.
‘But I can’t get an erection unless it’s that sort of thing?’ Rubio’s mouth fell open until his jaw dropped. Watching him mutter, “E… erec…,” as if asking how he could say such a thing, Téllez burst out laughing once more.
‘Really, my spouse is such a baby.’
‘Baby? Are you looking down on me for being young right now?’
Rubio glared up at him in a flash. His eyes full of venom, so very… rabbit-like and cute that he wondered what he would be told if he said he wanted to chew him up, bones and all.
‘That can’t be. As I said before, we have to make a child together, so if you’re a baby, I’m in even bigger trouble. So.’ ‘……?’
Prove that you’re an adult. Isn’t a full-grown adult someone who can enjoy whatever is done to them in bed without batting an eye?
In the mirror, Rubio chewed his lip hard. He seemed at a loss for words, furious but knowing it was true.
Having finished his inspection from head to toe perfectly, the man turned halfway around and closed in on Rubio. At the imposing physique, Rubio looked up at him with round, startled eyes.
One step, two steps.
The closer he came, the more Rubio backed away, until at last his back thumped against the wall.
The man lowered his head. When he blew a light breath, hoo, over his spouse’s downy earlobe, Rubio’s small shoulders jumped with a start.
Hiding his sinister face, he whispered low.
‘As you said, I’m a pervert, so I don’t get aroused unless it’s that sort of thing, you see.’
“I’ll have to seduce him with my body, what else can I do? He says he doesn’t like me.”
Thinking of his flying squirrel, bold enough to pierce the sky, Téllez murmured. However much Rubio said he liked someone else, they were husband and wife. Having boarded the same boat, they were a community of fate, at least in the matter of producing an heir to carry on the tedious family business.
“W-with your body?”
José’s face went pale at whatever he had imagined. Seduce him with his body, what was he talking about? When a man who had flies of every sort swarming him just standing still said such a thing in earnest, goosebumps rose all over his body.
“Is that a joke?”
Téllez clicked his tongue as if he had seen something pathetic and scowled at his adjutant.
“No, I’m serious. I do have to see a child out of that body, after all.”
“Do you really think of nothing else where Lord Rubio is concerned?” José grumbled that the world truly was not fair. At the rebuke, that having taken such a spouse, how could he think only such thoughts, Téllez had no words.
‘It’s because… Rubio says he likes someone else.’ He let his lashes droop low and thought of Rubio, who had said, ‘I have someone I like.’
The melancholy beauty who had sat on the bench beneath the orange trees in the garden, where the moonlight stretched long. That angelic face that looked as if tears might fall at any moment……
Thinking of that time, his mood soured with rapid speed.
But by habit he composed his expression. With a far younger spouse saying he liked someone else, he had not eaten his years in vain; he ought to conduct himself as befitted his standing, should he not?
A life of marriage apart, love apart was a culture secretly rampant in noble society. Of course, there were devoted husbands who looked only at their wives, like Duke de la Rosa, but such men, counted very generously, were half, and the majority kept lovers.
The only principle and consideration owed a spouse was not to leave illegitimate children, for the sake of a clean inheritance.
As long as it caused no trouble.
The letter in Téllez’s hand crumpled tight in his grip. At the force of him, turned cold in a single instant, José flinched and gauged his mood. He asked if something was wrong, but the man did not answer.
By the time he had roughly wrapped up the work and returned to Orense, a month had passed since he left his newlywed spouse behind.
I had not meant to be this late.’ Téllez clicked his tongue, climbed down from the carriage, and headed for the mansion’s entrance.
The servants lined up with Maria at their head bowed in greeting toward their master, unseen for so long.
“Welcome home, Your Grace.”
Having stepped into the entrance hall, Téllez gave them a glance, then approached Maria. For some reason, her lips kept twitching as if she had something she wanted to say, and she kept reading his mood.
When he drew near, she whispered secretively into his ear.
“You have no idea how much Lord Rubio has been waiting for you.”
“Rubio has?”
That couldn’t be. Judging from the fact that the toys had been burned, it was obvious he had earned another grudge.
“No. It’s true. He doesn’t say it, but I know it all.”
At her master’s doubtful face, Maria smiled smugly.
And as if her words were half right, Rubio really was coming down the central staircase.
Téllez lifted his head and met Rubio’s eyes. His long, narrowed eyes folded thin, holding a smile.
“Rubio.”
“……”
The slender face he had not seen in so long was flushed pink. It seemed a little like smiling, and a little like being on the verge of tears…
When Téllez mouthed “Come here” and opened both arms wide, Rubio hurried down the stairs and threw himself plump into his chest.
Thud. With the small sound, a sweet floral scent rose from his tousled blond hair.
When Téllez slipped his hands under Rubio’s armpits and lifted him up, supporting his bottom, Rubio wrapped both arms around his neck as if pleading.
At the unexpected, fervent welcome, Téllez snickered.
“Did you miss me that much?”
When he asked teasingly, Rubio shook his head from side to side. And he hugged Téllez’s neck tightly. He had thought Rubio would peel away after a brief moment. It was no small puzzlement.
“Rubio?”
He only wheezed softly, without a word.
Téllez suddenly grew worried and stared at his spouse. Indeed, the Rubio he knew should have shown his face, said he was back, and then slipped away again like a squirrel……
Until just before they parted, hadn’t he growled and glared at him? And the gift had been burned early on.
Remembering how Rubio, in his white nightshirt, had shouted at him to hurry up and go away, he snickered unknowingly, and at that, Rubio clung tighter and wrapped both legs around his waist, squeezing.
It was at that moment that the smile slowly wiped from Téllez’s mouth.
“……Ah.”
An omega’s pheromones, which betas could never know, were stimulating his skin.
At the man’s expression, suddenly turned cold, the servants read the room and cleared his path ahead. Holding Rubio, who trembled the moment bare skin brushed, Téllez strode up the stairs.
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