Chapter 15.4 - ch11 (1/2)

At Rafael’s call, Gerard reluctantly opened his mouth and answered.

“Yes, Your Excellency.”

“Considering your blatant rudeness, the reputation of the Bavarian family is questionable. This time I’ll forgive you because of my wife, but I will not give the same mercy twice.”

Rafael glowered at Gerard as a warning. Noticing Rafael’s warning, a cold sweat broke out on Gerard’s forehead. Rafael was still able to breathe fire, even after just being woken up from his sleep. The fear of the beast of a man, standing in front of him, made him feel dizzy.

Only then did Gerard realise the sheer danger that Rafael posed. It seemed that the rumours that he was an outstanding swordsman, enough to reach the level of Sword Master soon were indeed true. Until a few years ago, he was a brutal butcher who was called the ‘demon of the battlefield’.

Gerard’s spine soon became cold as ice. He realised that Rafael’s warning of ‘I will not give the same mercy twice’ was true. Even now his fiery eyes were shining brightly and were focusing on Gerard’s hands and legs, as if wondering which side he should first cut. The moment Gerard realized this, his jaw briefly twitched.

“Tha…thank you for your generosity, Your Excellency, Marquis of Carnesis.”

This time, Gerard, who gave a polite and cordial greeting from his heart, hurriedly left as if he was running away. ‘If I go back like this, I’ll be in trouble with my master, but at this moment… that’s quite acceptable.’ Feeling the sinister gaze on his back, Gerard quickly dragged his limbs that weren’t moving and hurried to escape from the mansion.

“……”

Now the only people left in the foyer were Annette and Rafael. Annette felt Rafael’s scorching gaze on her. She nervously swallowed her saliva, raised her trembling eyes and then looked up at him.

“I’m sorry, Rafael. You felt bad, didn’t you?”

Annette was deeply depressed by what just happened, so she frankly apologized to Rafael. She pretended to be bold, but in fact, she was so surprised that her heart was pounding wildly. In her previous life, she was sick because of the first night, so she didn’t know something like this had happened. Her own family had ignored and disrespected Rafael so badly.

Annette now finally realised why Rafael was so cold to her when she woke up in her previous life. He had been terribly insulted by her family while she was sick. She was sorry for hating him and calling him cold-blooded without knowing what had happened.

Fortunately, Rafael’s eyes, which looked down on Annette, were no longer blazing with fire. He accepted Annette’s apology without being sarcastic or angry at her.

“I don’t really care.”

Rafael calmly lied about it even though he was just planning to dismember Gerard. When he recalled Annette’s small body lashing out at her loyal, hard-working butler, he felt his anger cool down. Actually, he thought it was a bit fun.

However, he didn’t have any intention to let this go. Although Annette sided with him, he had no idea how she would have acted behind his back. Rafael’s hatred and distrust towards the people of Bavaria were that deep. He spat out harsh words at Annette who was looking up at him.

“It seems the people of Bavaria should really pay attention to educate their servants in proper manners. What happened just now was unacceptable.”

Rafael thought maybe Annette would get angry after hearing what he said. The people of the Bavarian family were arrogant to their bones and their pride was as high as the sky. But Annette’s reaction was very unexpected.

“I know. Well, they’ll take care of it themselves. Now I’m a part of the House of Carnesis.”

Annette replied, recalling her father who abandoned her. In her previous life, she couldn’t get out of the shadow of being his good daughter, but this time she had no intention of doing that again. Rafael, who complained and cared for her until the end, was more family to her than her father, who never showed his face until the day she died.

However Rafael seemed rather surprised to hear Annette’s answer. His cold expression in front of her crumbled for the first time, revealing his honest feelings to her. Annette, on seeing this, somehow felt a little closer to him. As she was in the mood, she looked up at Rafael and asked him with a pitiful expression.

“You’re not thinking of getting rid of me now, right? I just fought with my family and now I have nowhere to go.”

“You’re talking nonsense.”

Rafael held a straight face at her joke. It was clear that he still had no intention of accepting Annette as his family. But Annette wasn’t particularly hurt. In a way, this could have become a serious family conflict, but she was grateful that Rafael had let go of his anger.

“So why did Gerard come here? I thought he was running errands earlier.”

Annette tilted her head, recalling the purpose of Gerard’s visit that she had forgotten for a while. Then Rafael raised his hand with an expressionless face and pointed somewhere. It was where Gerard had been standing before. There were a lot of luxurious boxes piled up there.

Annette wondered what those boxes were, so she looked closely at them. The logo engraved with gold foil on its packaging stood out.