The Scent of Grass

Every time he drew her pale skin between his lips, a sweet fragrance rose from her.

"Haah—"

With every deep exhale, Cesare felt his mind go hazy, as if he had taken opium.

Thud. Thud.

Each time his sex crushed into her delicate membranes, her white body writhed beneath him.

"Nngh, ah, hhk, haah."

Whenever their sweat-slicked skin met, the heat seemed to transfer more than it should. Flesh clung to flesh, and the sensation of their very beings seeping into one another. He braced the back of her arched throat firmly and pulled her into a fierce embrace. Her long arms wound naturally around his neck.

"Ah—, nngh."

Her full breasts pressed hard against his solid muscle. The rougher their breathing grew, the thicker the air became. The sound of skin striking skin rang sharp through the room, and that resonance turned into a tremor that spread like a wave.

"More... hhk. Do it."

She could barely keep up with his movements, yet she urged him on all the same—as if she wanted him to crash into her with all his strength and shatter completely.

"You can't even take it properly—!"

With her face buried against his shoulder, she shook her head back and forth.

"I—I can take it."

Her breathless voice scattered into the air. It was almost childish. The right answer would have been no—but her desperate breathing and trembling body clouded his judgment.

In the end, as if driven by instinct, he laid her back down on the floor. Green eyes, brimming with water, gazed up at him.

"Did you know?"

"Mm?"

"You smell like grass."

He did not know the name of it, but the scent carried a green freshness even here, on this cold floor in the rain. Blue veins stood out along the back of his hand where it gripped her waist tight.

"Damn it."

He spat the curse low. His head felt as if it were on fire.

"Out—!"

The moment the head of his cock struck her cervix, her body convulsed. He saw her dangling toes curl in midair.

He cupped one soft white sole, unmarked by any callus, and drove his hips faster.

Her hazel hair swept across the church floor.

"Ah, ahh—!"

Her nails raked his forearm. Then the world before his eyes flashed white.

At some point, the rain had stopped.

"Ngh."

He wanted to ask why she clung to him with such desperation, what the tears she spilled meant.

It was far too quiet to blame on desire alone.

When he wiped away the tears welling at the corners of her eyes, she wore an expression he could not read—subtle, unfathomable.

The strange premonition struck him then: that this look, once seen, would brand itself into his mind whether he wanted it or not, and torment him for a long time to come.

This moment, in the damp air, where trembling and breath tangled together.

She was a truly strange woman.

To seize hold of a stranger whose name she did not even know as if he were her only salvation, to shake him so thoroughly—and then to wear that calm, blank face as if she knew nothing at all.

That day, a carriage had stopped in front of the cemetery.

He was still turning that moment over in his mind.

"Cesare!"

At the loud call of his name, he blinked slowly.

"...Yeah."

The scene in the rain-soaked church vanished in an instant, replaced by a cold, severe room with a stag's taxidermy mounted at its center.

Barely pulled free of his reverie, Cesare lightly swatted away Lucio's hand waving in front of his face. He was aware he had been wearing a vacant expression.

"So touchy."

"...Hah."

Cesare dragged one hand down his dry face and let out a sigh.

"What were you thinking so hard about?"

"...Am I, objectively speaking, a mediocre man?"

At the uncharacteristic question, Lucio snorted.

"The young ladies in the capital who were fond of you would thrash you for saying that."

Even if the class system had crumbled, the wall between nobility and commoners still stood. And yet those proud young ladies had gone to every length just to catch Cesare's eye once. When Lucio clicked his tongue and scolded him, Cesare bit his lower lip. He had asked the wrong person.

"I shouldn't have asked."

But Lucio's eyes flashed, as if he had pieced something together from the question.

"Don't tell me it's still because of that woman from back then?"

Struck dead center, Cesare's body gave a slight jolt.

"Th—"

"You seemed to have cooled off... so something must have brought her back to mind, eh?"

When it came to matters of the heart, Lucio was a step—no, ten steps—ahead. If it showed that plainly, there was no use hiding it any longer.

"Actually, that mansion—"

"You must have had a wet dream."

"......?"

Instead of snapping at Lucio for cutting him off, Cesare simply stared with a blank face. Lucio gave him a pitying smile and patted his shoulder.

"There's nothing to be ashamed of."

Perhaps he should be grateful the woman's identity—that she was a Pignatelli daughter—had not been found out.

"That's not it!"

"I know your every move. You haven't had time to meet a woman. You've been wandering around with your head barely screwed on. Am I wrong?"

Even if he left out that she was the young lady of the Pignatelli Mansion, it would come out soon enough.

"It's not that. Let's talk business."

At the sudden return of Cesare's flat demeanor, Lucio looked as if the wind had gone out of his sails and stepped in front of the board he had set up. A large regional map was pinned to it, marked in several places—and over the Pignatelli Mansion, a bold red X had been drawn. When overlaid with the projected map of the Planned City, the mansion sat dead center.

"Right. This affair has come to rest, rather unexpectedly, on your efforts."

Lucio stressed the importance of the Pignatelli Mansion.

The royal family still stood, but this was a chaotic age in which little remained of them but symbolism. In the capital, the Industrial Revolution had driven citizens not to the colonies but swarming into the cities like ants, and the cities had prospered as never before. Yet cities that had swollen without preparation had become breeding grounds for plague.

And so the Planned City had been conceived. With the Industrial Revolution came the mass production of iron, making it possible to build proper water and sewage systems.

"If others lay the groundwork for the Planned City first, we'll be at a disadvantage."

There were several candidate sites for the Planned City, and a number of men had been dispatched to acquire land in those districts. Cesare gave a heavy nod.

"Yes. The Baron must secure this national project."

And the man most earnest about this venture was Lucio's father—Albert Perez, head of the fallen Perez baronial house.

"They say titles are losing their meaning, but my stiff-necked father is not the sort to care about such things."

"Because he is a noble in the truest sense."

That was also why Cesare, though he did not relish the plan to take the Pignatelli Mansion, had thrown in his lot with it. After he had come to owe Albert his life, he had resolved to serve him.

"It's not as if we're taking the Pignatelli Mansion for free. We're only persuading them to sell. Don't take it too seriously."

Even when they offered a fair sum of money, the refusal had been absolute—so there was no other way. This was merely the cornerstone of a vast design; they could not afford to be blocked here.

"I know."

"I only get one chance to meet her, so once your visits pass the halfway mark, I'll play the wingman."

"...I have no feelings for her. Don't expect me to pretend I do."

"Of course."

Lucio beamed and clapped him on the shoulder.

At Lucio's urging, the Zordsa automobile he had ridden in rolled to a stop before the mansion.

"Hah."

This was only his second visit, yet the place already felt familiar. Cesare, uncharacteristically tense, clenched and unclenched his fists over and over.

I was too disoriented last time, but facing her now is going to be awkward.

He had no idea whether he ought to acknowledge her or pretend nothing had happened.

"Welcome... I see you've come alone."

"As you can see. Thank you for the warm reception."

Mrs. Pignatelli, who had come down in person to greet her guest, let her gaze rake coldly over Cesare's face. Calculation disguised as disappointment showed plain. It was not merely that the hospitality had thinned—he had the sense that some balance of profit and loss was already being weighed in her mind.

"You've arrived right on time. Appiano, was it?"

"Yes."

Even his stiff tone did not seem to faze Mrs. Pignatelli; she carried on as if it were of no consequence.

"I hear you'll be taking Delfina out."

"I thought we might go to the nearby countryside."

"Hmm..."

At the faintly unconvinced look on her face, he came to a dead stop.