The Villainous Marquis Is Obsessed With Me

Chapter 73: Poisoning The Water

The next morning, the soft, golden light of dawn filtered through the heavy velvet curtains, painting the bedchamber in warm hues. Penelope sat up on the mattress, her eyes instantly fixing on the sleeping man beside her. Aside from the grim days when his injuries left him bedridden, this was one of the incredibly rare moments she had ever found him truly asleep in their bed.

Usually, he was gone before the sun even cleared the horizon, either on his way to the barracks or in his study. Penelope made it her plan to follow him someday to the barracks, if only to see what things were like over there, and if he trains there, since he never does any of his workout routines in the manor.

A small, tender smile dawned on his lips. She leaned in closer, propping herself up on her elbow to stare at his features, which were remarkably softened by sleep. She leaned closer. Without the sharp, guarded intensity that usually masked his expressions, he looked almost peaceful.

"So handsome," she whispered to herself.

Unable to resist the temptation, she reached out and gently poked his cheek. Her heart did a little flutter when he didn’t stir, but she quickly found the restraint to stop. Instead, she simply continued to study his face, tilting her head slightly as his deep confession from the night before echoed in her mind.

She still found it hard to believe that the Marquis of Vandalia was the very same boy she had run into all those years ago.

The difference between the man lying beside her and the boy from her past was shockingly stark, but then again, she barely had a clear memory of that fateful night. Her mind was a blur of grief and shadows, but she vividly remembered he had possessed strikingly long hair.

It also made sense now why he had been so lean—gaunt, almost—since she now knew he hadn’t been living the wealthy, pampered life the rest of high society had painted for the Devereux heir. He had been a survivor masquerading as a prince.

For Penelope the night had also been a breaking point of her own. It had been exactly a year since when she lost her mother, and the agonizing pain of that grief had not yet faltered.

Suffocated by the cold walls of her own home, she had slipped out of the barony into the dark to take a lonely stroll. It wasn’t as if anyone in the household would ever care about her whereabouts anyway. Even back then, her father and the servants were far too preoccupied catering to Mirabel and her mother, leaving Penelope to wander the night like a ghost. She had not feared the night either, cause the only light she had been taken from her. But unfortunately for her, on that night, it started to rain.

*************

FLASHBACK

*************

The sky had been a bruised, heavy grey that evening, weeping a steady, cold drizzle that eventually gave way to a sudden, violent downpour.

By the time Penelope managed to find a small, sheltered stone alcove near an old town square, the fabric of her dress was already thoroughly soaked, clinging uncomfortably to her small frame. She shivered, wringing out the hem of her skirts as she looked out at the sheets of rain obscuring the cobblestones.

Looking at how heavy the storm was turning, she began to wonder if she would even be able to make it back to the estate tonight.

A tiny, fragile hope sparked in her chest, the thought that perhaps her father would realize his eldest daughter was missing from the dinner table and send the guards with lanterns to come find her.

But just as quickly as the hope surfaced, she crushed it down. She knew better than to rely on that. Her father’s gaze was always fixed elsewhere, always anchored to the bright, demanding presence of Mirabel and her mother. If Penelope disappeared into the night, it would likely take them until morning to even notice her empty seat.

Pulling her knees up to her chest, Penelope sat on the damp wooden bench beneath the overhang, looking around the unfamiliar surroundings. A pang of anxiety tightened in her throat as she realized she had walked much further from home than she intended.

She had wandered deep into a quieter, older settlement on the fringes of the territory—a place that looked entirely different from the grand, manicured gardens of her family’s estate, yet she knew it was still technically a part of Rosehill.

"Mirelda must be worried sick," Penelope whispered to the empty air, the thought of her loyal maid giving her a sudden burst of restless energy.

She stood up from the bench, pacing to the edge of the shelter and peering out into the dark, rain-slicked street. Guilt gnawed at her stomach. "Maybe I shouldn’t have gone on that walk..."

Peering out once more into the rain-slicked street, Penelope’s eyes narrowed, focusing on a dark silhouette standing entirely still in the middle of the road. The rain was pouring over whoever it was, drumming ruthlessly against their shoulders, yet they didn’t even flinch.

Was the person okay?

Why would anyone in their right mind stand motionless under a torrential downpour like this?

She had fully intended to mind her own business, after all, she was just a child herself, lost and cold, but then to her bafflement, the figure suddenly moved. A sharp grip of anxiety took over her chest. She watched, paralyzed, as the shadow made his way toward an old, stone community well at the edge of the square. With a slow, deliberate movement, he pushed aside the heavy wooden covers.

Penelope’s eyes widened in sheer horror as the person’s intent became terrifyingly clear.

She wouldn’t claim to be exceptionally smart, but she possessed a horrific, intimate familiarity with despair. She was still actively grieving a mother who had taken her own life, so to see someone else walking that exact same dark path, driven by a hopelessness so absolute that they were standing at the precipice of death, it made something deep within her chest spike with pure panic.

The sight didn’t just frighten her; it frustrated her. It angered her.

She knew she was meant to stay put, that a sensible noble daughter would mind her own business and stay under the shelter. But she could not. Not in a case like this one. The overwhelming, suffocating helplessness she had felt when she couldn’t save her own mother surged to the surface, transforming into a desperate, frantic energy.

Doing something completely reckless and stupid, Penelope dashed out from under the stone alcove and sprinted into the freezing rain.

The lean, gaunt figure had already climbed onto the slick stone rim of the well, balancing precariously at the edge of the black abyss. But before they could take that final, fatal step into the depths, Penelope lunged forward.

With all the strength in her small body, she snatched his wrist just in time, her fingers locking around his skin like a vice, anchoring him to the world of the living.

"What are you doing?!" she screamed, her voice cracking as she fought to be heard over the ruthless drumming of the rain.

The figure froze. As if utterly stunned that another soul would be out in this storm, let alone tracking his movements, he slowly turned his head to look down at her. But his long, dark hair was completely plastered to his head by the downpour, veiling his face in a wet, tangled curtain. Penelope could not see a single feature of the boy she was holding onto.

"Hey, Let go," the boy rasped, panicking as he tried to wrench his arm free. His voice was incredibly hoarse, sounding parched and utterly dry despite the sheets of water cascading over them.

But Penelope held on with a ferocious, white-knuckled grip. She refused to let go even if he said so. She couldn’t bring herself to do something like that.

But as he began to pull back, fighting her weight to force his way toward the edge of the abyss, Penelope’s mind raced. She knew she couldn’t match him in pure physical strength for long, so she resorted to the sharpest weapon she had: her words.

"Stop!" she shrieked, tugging him backward with all her might. "That well is used by the townspeople here! If you jump in, you’re going to ruin the only clean water they have! If you wish to die, then do it somewhere else, but don’t poison their water with your corpse!"

It was a harsh, bizarre thing to yell, but it worked. The brutal logic of her words slammed into the boy’s heavily conditioned mind. Even in the depths of his suicidal despair, the deeply drilled instinct to not cause trouble or be a useless burden to others made him hesitate. He stared at her through the dark strands of his hair, his body locking up as her words successfully broke his momentum.