Garden of May - Chapter 13
Chapter 13
“A proposal?”
“I want to buy you.”
“Buy me?”
“Literally. I want to spend the night with you. I’ll pay you… a certain sum.”
Theodore let out an irritated laugh, and Lady Vanessa’s cheeks blanched. It was a ridiculous charade. Proposing such a thing upon their first meeting, while pretending to be some naive maiden unfamiliar with men.
Theodore’s gaze raked slowly down Vanessa’s mud-splattered figure, her hands trembling. Her face, pale as death, looked ready to faint. It wasn’t a face of love, nor l*st, nor even infatuation.
“Lady Vanessa.”
At the sound of her name, breathed out like a sigh, Vanessa’s shoulders flinched.
“I think we’ve dispensed with the pleasantries. Tell me why.”
Vanessa, her pallor deepening with each moment of shame, swallowed hard. Perhaps she saw a flicker of possibility in his lack of immediate refusal.
“I need a child.”
“A child?”
“Any man would do, but I would prefer you to be the father. Of course, I’ll compensate you sufficiently. I will raise the child with all the love I can muster. The absence of a father won’t matter. I’ll never contact you again.”
Every word she uttered was astounding. Theodore let out a hollow laugh.
“So, you want to pay me to sell you my seed? Is that what I’m understanding?”
At his blunt phrasing, Vanessa’s face flushed crimson.
“That’s… the gist of it, but… putting it like that…”
“Does the meaning change if you dress it up with pretty words?”
“Well, not… exactly…”
“Vanessa.” His voice, as he uttered her name, was incredibly gentle, almost elegant. For a moment, it was almost deceptive.
“Have you lost your mind from the heat?”
Theodore leisurely lit a cigarette as he waited for her response. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t give a woman spouting such nonsense a second glance. He hadn’t left yet because he’d been rather bored these past few days, the rose garden, bathed in the May sunshine, was vibrant, and Lady Vanessa, dew-kissed and desperate in her plea, was rather beautiful.
She was like a summer rose drenched in rain, so fragile that a single touch might leave him soaked.
“You should at least show me some respect as a lady…”
“If you wanted respect, you should have made a better offer. Instead of offering money to cheapen yourself.”
Lady Vanessa now trembled as if confronted by a thug. She’d acted so brazenly, yet she couldn’t bear to hear such v*lgarity directed back at her. Theodore smirked, his gaze lingering on her.
The golden strands of hair that cascaded over her slender neck were like sunshine, her flushed cheeks vibrant. Her eyes, tilted upwards like a skittish kitten, her perfectly sculpted nose, her red lips, her classically shaped jawline, and her unusually pale skin, which looked as if it might smudge like cream at his touch.
Even to his eyes, accustomed to the beauties of the capital, Vanessa was uniquely beautiful.
If his initial interest had been mere curiosity towards someone seemingly desperate, her face had bought his remaining patience.
“Is life boring?” he asked, slowly lifting his gaze from her reddened ears.
“Boring enough to want to waste it with someone like me?”
“…Yes.”
Theodore watched her defiant act with a strange lack of displeasure. He could guess why Lady Vanessa so desperately wanted a child. Rumors of Count Somerset offering his niece as a bargaining chip were rampant in Ingram’s social circles.
The custom of preserving premarital chastity had long been discreetly broken, and a child would prevent an irreversible scandal. It must be desperate and dreadful for her. If she were sold off like this, she would spend her entire life serving an old man.
Human compassion. If it weren’t for that, he would have dismissed her as mad and walked away.
“This isn’t such a bad proposal for you either. I have an annual allowance of 30,000 pounds, which I can access once I have a child. I’ll pay you 20,000 pounds each year for five years.”
“Oh, is that all?”
“If that’s not enough, I’m willing to pay more later. We can draw up a contract for a percentage of my future earnings.”
Her rambling conditions were pathetic. Theodore let out a languid laugh.
“But what am I to do? I’m not exactly in dire need of money.”
A spark of defiance returned to Vanessa’s downcast face.
“I know your uncle, Mr. Ross, is embezzling management fees. I have proof.”
Ah, now resorting to blackmail. He chuckled. The more this conversation went on, the more it felt like an amusing play.
“Embezzlement?”
“The money he receives for maintaining the garden.”
“And how did you learn this?”
“…I saw the ledger.”
“You investigated the old gardener to blackmail me?”
