Chapter 9: Deviance

Due to personal reasons?Youhwa?won’t be able to translate anymore but don’t worry?Breezee?will continue this series. The schedule will be 1 chapter every Monday for now.

She blinked and looked around, all unfamiliar scenery, so it wasn’t very pleasant.

“When did I e out of the main gate...”

Psyche, who looked around and murmured, sighed. Someone grabbed her and stopped her, but she was angry, so she just ignored it and walked recklessly. Maybe it was the guard guarding the main gate.

“Ah.”

She was sure they were all over the place trying to find her.

“Who cares!”

It was a freedom I hadn’t enjoyed in a long time.

If I knew this, I would have e out more often.

Every time I tried to get out, I’d run into the Duke’s opposition.

“No, it’s dangerous.”

She sneered to herself, mimicking the Duke’s face and voice that had e to her naturally.

“Well, it’s always dangerous.”

There were many restrictions on what could be said to have been only seen by the Duke at the Duke’s residence.

But keeping a good marriage was more important to each other, and to Psyche, so she did not do much against him.

I thought about the past again.

Before the marriage of the two, she did not know why, but Psyche had asked this question.

It was right after the contract was signed between the two.

“Do you trust me?”

I thought that the contract was more reliable than the faith that came from the relationship, but I was curious about what the Duke thought.

Clint, at the question, had a very troubled face. After a long pause, he spoke cautiously.

“I trust you.”

Clint seemed to smile.

“Isn’t it important between couples, trust or faith? Even if it’s a contracted relationship, I’m going to trust my wife from now on.”

It was an unexpected answer and I remember nodding my head because it wasn’t wrong.

“I’m not revealing all of my secrets, are you saying you want to trust me?”

The sincere response was amusing, so she asked again.

“Isn’t it something you can trust even if you don’t have to reveal all your inner feelings?”

Psyche laughed because it was a very exemplary and typical answer.

“I don’t know the truth, can you tell the truth?”

“Well, I don’t think it’s necessarily a good thing to show all your emotions. Even if there is no such thing, a relationship that you can trust without it is a true relationship.”

It seems that Clint laughed lightly. Then he added,

“So now, my lady, you can trust me anytime.”

Psyche, who recalled the conversation, made a deflating sound without realizing it.

“Trust, faith.”

It is not funny. The more experienced the con man, the more he asked her to trust him. She turned away from her past thoughts.

The air outside the castle was unfamiliar, so I felt refreshed. Time passed quickly as I walked around looking at the surrounding trees. I walked without feeling it was boring.

At first, she was angry, but now she was intrigued. She came here and stayed only in the Duke’s house, and this place was a different place for her because she had never e out.

She looked around and headed for the most eye-catching place.

“Are you selling all of these?”

The merchant who was arranging the dried herbs in front of the shop was surprised to see Psyche because her clothes were so colorful that they did not fit in there.

But Psyche didn’t care what she looked like, because she’d never been outside, and she didn’t have any idea how anyone other than the nobility would see her.

“This is how they display and sell.”

She murmured to herself and was busy looking at the herbs whether the merchant spoke or not.

“Oh. This, this will wither if you do this.”

“Ah! How did you know? It’s expensive, and I’m losing money because it withers quickly.”

“You can’t let it see the sunlight, because it only grows in the shade. You just need to move it.”

She muttered to herself, carefully changing the position of the herb.

“It will be effective in half a day.”

“Oh really?”

The merchant’s face turned red.

“Can I pay the price with jewelry?”

“Of course! Anything is possible!”

It turned out to be a pretty satisfactory deal when I paid with the necklace I wore every day, a thin gold ring excluding the wedding ring, and the pearl earrings I wore fortably.

“I’ll e back later to buy it, so make sure to leave it out.”

She deliberately chose dried herbs to make them easier to carry, and she savored the most expensive herbs she had not yet bought.

“It’s a really good herb. So you must save it and sell it to me.”

She made another promise, just in case someone else bought it because it didn’t look like there was anyone in this place who’d pay this much for herbs anyway.

The moment I thought that I should e back later, someone suddenly cut in between the merchant and Psyche and spoke.

“Huh? Who is this?”

He was a very tall man. Psyche had to raise her head to see him.

Psyche looked at the man who pretended to know her and narrowed her eyes at what she thought was an oddly familiar face, a man she recognized from somewhere but didn’t know for sure.

Moreover, he would be at least a noble or similar person to recognize her but it didn’t make sense to meet in a place like this.

As Psyche frowned and struggled to remember the man in front of her, the man laughed as if it were ridiculous.

“Wow. You don’t know me now?”

“Who . . Oh! Oh!”

When she tried to pretend to know him, he quickly came up and covered Psyche’s mouth. His hand blocked the words ‘Your Highness the Crown Prince’.

“You’re not going to expose my identity here, are you?”

Psyche stared at the prince, who had silenced her.

“Nice to see you, Miss Psyche?”

His calling, without the title duchess, seemed very clever.

Psyche felt a little strange to meet the prince, who had written everywhere on his face that he looked like a high nobleman.

Come to think of it, unlike her who wore the same clothes she wore at the duke’s house, the Crown Prince looked a perfect moner in appearance.

It was then that she realized how conspicuous she was here. The Crown Prince and Psyche naturally walked down the street.

“I see. So you often go there to buy herbs.”

“Right. Think about it. Why would the merchants bring such expensive herbs? There’s no one to buy them anyway”

Psyche finally understood the whereabouts of the expensive herbs and nodded.

The Crown Prince, who came out to play every time, had placed a separate order.

“But. Because in a place like this, most people don’t know that it’s expensive.”

“Is that so?”

The two naturally walked around and talked fortably. The crown prince showed great interest in making something using herbs, poisonous herbs, or something out of them.

“Even nobles don’t know something like that. I heard that you learned it before. I’m learning history these days. Who learns herbal medicine separately?”

“Oh, is that so?”

“I am very surprised. Madam, no, Miss Psyche can be a professor of herbal medicine at the academy.”

He flattered Psyche by saying that she was great.

“No, that’s not much.”

Psyche was overwhelmed by the untimely pliment.

“I’m telling you, that’s why. I think it’s fate that we met here, and can you be my teacher for a while?”

Psyche stopped walking in surprise at the sudden request.

“What? Suddenly?”

“Not suddenly, I was going to ask you formally when I met you later. But luckily I met you today. Is this what you call fate?”

“Hahaha.”

Psyche forced a smile to her lips.

“What’s with the smile? Oh, the duke doesn’t like it?”

He caressed his chin with his hand, making a worried face.

“Come to think of it, what about the Duke?”

“Yes?”

When the duke was mentioned, Psyche’s face hardened quickly, and she felt bad for the fuss she must have made.

Rather than worrying about the Duke, I thought it was too bad that if he made a fuss about looking for me, the hardships were ultimately up to the employees.

“Did you e out here alone?”

The prince looked around, and when he realized that she was alone, he gave her a very strange look.

Then he gave a big laugh.

“No wonder. With that outfit, did you sneak out? I’m telling you, you don’t disappoint me.”

The Prince, who had managed to stop laughing when Psyche gave him a sullen look, wiped away his smile as much as he could.

“You have a lot of nerve. No. Don’t you know the way of the world?”

“Don’t say that.”

When Psyche walked again with a distasteful look, the prince quickly followed her.

“But thinking about it, it wasn’t like this.”

“My impression?”

She made up her mind to go back to the duke’s house before the motion escalated. because there was no need to make a big deal out of it.

She hurriedly walked, spewing the prince’s words out of one ear.

“You looked so obedient and tender but now you’re different. Did you fight with the Duke?”

The crown prince spoke rapidly like a gun.

That’s what she was like in the real world. She used to go to banquets with the duke all the time and didn’t even talk to another man. Although she was a beauty, her image was relatively light due to the strong impression of the Duke.

Of course, some disapproved of her behavior, but most of all, she was able to walk quietly because of the Duke’s excessive protection, which now seemed to be all surveillance.

Thanks to this, women from noble families who tried to get along with her at first would always fall away on their own from Psyche’s attitude.

A quiet, cold, snobbish duchess gentle only to the duke. That was the nobles impression of Psyche.

“Do you fight? I don’t think so at all. That’s surprising too. I like it very much.”