Chapter 28
It was a voice that was neither too loud nor too soft. Startled, Adeline let out a startled gasp before she could even cover her mouth. Noah Miller’s leg, which had been heading toward the entrance hall, suddenly froze in place.
Is it really Noah?
I saw the lights go out with my own two eyes just a moment ago.
“Noah, is that you?”
Adeline had no need to catch her breath or hesitate. She stepped closer to Noah. Turning around should have been natural, yet Noah stood rooted there like a stone.
Adeline grabbed his arm with a light tap.
“Why did you get out of the carriage?”
Noah had desperately hoped for a hallucination in Adeline’s voice. He slowly exhaled the breath he had been holding.
With his surprised expression carefully blanked, he turned back, now wearing a casual smile as if nothing had happened.
“Adeline? Why aren’t you asleep and here?”
Adeline scanned Noah with a puzzled gaze. On this late night, what urgent business would require him to be dressed in a suit? Even the patient himself had no place to go alone.
“I was the one who asked first. Where have you been?”
Adeline’s persistent questioning today made Noah’s heart start beating irregularly, wondering if she might have found out something.
“Just a moment.”
Noah loosely undid the buttons of his shirt with his hand. The pressure of her questions felt as if it was choking his throat.
“I met an outside doctor briefly and came back.”
“An outside doctor? Why?”
“I don’t doubt my personal physician, but it seemed there was no way around it. I wanted to get better too.”
Adeline nodded, convinced by his words before she could ask anything more. Noah brought his finger to her lips, gently stretching them sideways.
“It’s a secret. Understand?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Now it’s Adeline’s turn. Why were you out there?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
Adeline felt a pang at the thought that Noah had gone out at night to see a doctor. She wanted to ease his worries, but she had no reason to reveal that the money from selling her villa would go toward developing medicine. She stayed silent.
Still, she wanted to tell him.
Just hold on a little longer.
There might still be hope.
‘It seems the Miller Duchy’s finances are in poor shape.’
Even with the heir ill, they weren’t developing medicine. It had to be that reason. Or perhaps they simply couldn’t let outsiders know.
“Oh, right. Earlier, the light in Noah’s room went out…”
“Ugh…!”
Before Adeline could finish her sentence, Noah understood exactly what she meant. She was talking about Albert.
No escape hole. None.
No words to convince Adeline. None would come to mind.
Noah’s throat tightened as he gazed at Adeline’s troubled face. He felt an overwhelming urge to kiss her. With only one thought in his mind, he had no room for any other thoughts.
“Head… hurts… ha, Adeline…”
Noah deliberately fell onto her, pretending to collapse, and touched her waist. Once the crisis passed, the desire to push her onto the bed right away grew stronger.
Why did it have to be a night like this?
Before he could even reach the bed, he wanted to strip her bare right here. Noah rubbed his lips against her neck and let out a pained groan.
“It hurts…?”
Yeah. Fuck, it hurts like hell. Like hell.
“Touch it…”
Should he rub her hand against his cock instead of his head?
But just like always, Noah held on to his sanity and rubbed her hand against his forehead. Ah, soft… fuck.
“No fever…”
“Ugh!”
Adeline quickly wrapped her arms around Noah’s shoulder at the sound of his pained scream. She pulled him into her embrace.
They needed to get him to the room first.
The questions swirling in her mind sank beneath the surface.
“Noah. Just hold on a little longer. The room is right here.”
“Mm… ha, I can’t even breathe…”
What to do?
Climbing the stairs, Adeline chewed on her lips.
“Your room. Uhh, your room, Adeline.”
“I know.”
The closer they got to the room, the rougher Noah’s breathing became. Panting heavily. Adeline’s worry deepened with each breath. She never imagined he would go out at night. She didn’t even know why it had happened at this exact timing.
It was a relief that no seizure had occurred outside.
“Ugh…”
As they approached Noah’s room, Adeline opened her own door as he requested. She didn’t think deeply about why he wanted her room instead. Noah’s rough breathing had disrupted her thoughts.
“Noah, are you okay? Pull yourself together.”
Adeline laid Noah on the bed and lightly slapped his cheek. His eyes were rolled back. She reached for the buttons on his shirt that were partially undone. With trembling fingers, she undid them one by one.
“Noah!”
Still, she had experienced something like this before, so Adeline remained more composed than she would have been otherwise. She immediately reached for the bell on the bedside table, but the bell wasn’t there. When she had laid Noah down, she had knocked the table and the bell had rolled away. Yet she had no time to worry about that now.
“Just hold on a little longer. I’ll make you breathe.”
Adeline knew what to do. She needed to help Noah breathe. She climbed onto his body, sat on his stomach, parted his pale lips, and leaned in to match his breathing. She slowly exhaled into him.
She pulled back for a moment and checked on him. When she blew again, his breathing still looked strained.
‘Alcohol scent?’
A pungent aroma reached her. The same scent she had noticed faintly when helping Noah earlier. Startled, she hadn’t even registered it, and her shoulders stiffened.
Noah yanked Adeline’s head back sharply. As if protesting that she wasn’t breathing, he rubbed his tongue against hers. Her spine tingled. Her hand gripping his shirt tightened.
“Haah… mm.”
Adeline opened her eyes with her mouth slightly parted. Unlike her, Noah’s cheeks were faintly flushed. Wrapping his tongue around hers, he pulled her even closer with urgent movements.
Adeline’s upper body was forced down by Noah’s powerful grip. The hand fiddling with her earlobe and the tongue relentlessly tracing the soft underside of her palate made her feel heat spreading through her body.
Yet a completely different sensation dominated her mind.
‘Noah… looks perfectly fine?’
Even now, gripping her head from behind like this was something a patient unable to breathe should not do.
Adeline stared at Noah for a long time.
Something felt off.
***
The security at the Miller Duchy was extremely tight. Over hundreds of years, there had never been an outsider who entered or left without the guards noticing.
Therefore, the butler was bound to be shocked when he heard Adeline’s words.
“You say there was someone in the young master’s room when he left?”
He asked again, unbelieving. Adeline nodded slightly, brushing her arm aside.
Adeline took the butler into the drawing room and casually looked around the space that held only the two of them. Even with the door closed, she lowered her voice.
“I definitely sensed someone. At first I thought it was Noah. When I went for a walk earlier, I saw him turn off the light. But the one who actually came in through the gate was Noah.”
The butler, who hadn’t known Noah had gone out last night, opened his mouth in surprise. He knew everything there was to know about Noah.
He was one of the few who understood Noah’s schemes well.
‘No way.’
The butler dismissed the thought that came to mind.
‘He’s been staying quiet lately.’
Noah had always been obsessed with women, but after starting his schemes, he had become tame. Then, suddenly, the illness had returned. The butler hoped it was not so, staring at the lady who looked uneasy.
Adeline bit her lip slightly.
“It seems like a thief might have broken in.”
“I haven’t heard there was anything missing…”
“That’s what’s strange. The guards were definitely on their posts at that time.”
The butler called the guards and checked again. The guards replied that no one had come in.
Adeline’s face grew even more serious.
“Then there’s only one answer.”
“One?”
“Someone from inside the residence was in the young master’s room.”
The logic was quite plausible. Whether for some reason or for perversion or whatever, Noah had definitely been in his room. Adeline emphasized this again. As she spoke, she occasionally stared into empty space and chewed her lip. She looked lost in thought.
“Yes. I’ll check right away. Lady, keep this quiet for now.”
The butler left at once to find Noah. Everything that happened in this mansion would reach his ears.