Summer Vacation – Q of Hearts (Part 4) Note: Please don’t read it in the little pop-up for the reader. For some reason it doesn’t reflect my later edits (which I often make a lot of after publishing), so please click ‘view original’.
“Uuu, my body feels heavy.”
Oh yeah, Dominique was on top of me. I have to push him off! My eyes snapped open and I gathered power in my arms, and slapped my palms towards the source of the weight.
But, the weight wouldn’t even budge. It seems that my attack had no effect at all.
“Nn, Camille, you’re up?”
“Mnn? …Huh? Achille’s voice?”
I turned my head left and right, observing my surroundings. I was laying on a canopy bed in a room that I didn’t know. From on top of a blanket, Achille was leaning on me. …So Achille was the source of the heaviness. For now, I’m relieved that Dominique isn’t here.
“Why am I in a bed?”
“…You don’t remember?”
Achille peered into my face at point-blank from atop the bed.
“Dominique…?”
“After he went on a rampage, I restrained him and locked him up in the bas.e.m.e.nt.”
I wonder how long it’s been since then… I wonder if Dominique did anything to me after that. …I can’t tell. What am I gunna do if it’s turned into a situation where I can’t be a bride? My dress is fine, and it doesn’t seem to have been torn off though. Because I have no idea what happened while I was out, I’m feeling anxious.
“Achille… I, by Dominique,”
I looked up at Achille timidly.
“-… Achille, what do I do?”
Huh? Droplets are dripping onto the sheets. From along my cheeks… warm water is flowing down endlessly. Aahh, am I, crying? How selfish. Even though all of this is my own fault. To think I’d start crying once things became inconvenient for me.
“It’s fine now, Camille. It’s fine now.”
Achille hugged me, blanket and all.
“After you collapsed, Dominique was immediately thrust away by one of our maids. He didn’t do anything to you.”
“…Really?”
When I asked him this, Achille’s embrace became even firmer.
“Really. You just drank yourself out cold. How are you feeling? Do you feel bad at all?”
Like what, he continued to gently stroke my back.
“Mmn, I seem fine. I only drank one cup after all… What about Déborah’s wedding reception?”
“I don’t think it’d be in a good position to start.”
“…Sorry. Even though it’s your Oneesan’s wedding reception, things turned out like this.”
“I’m the one who’s sorry. I should have realised earlier… I let you be in danger, didn’t I?”
“You’re wrong, I was careless.”
Neither of us will let the other say that they’re wrong. It doesn’t seem that things will go anywhere at this rate. It seems that Achille was thinking the same thing, bceause he gave an awkward, bitter smile.
“Well, the one most in the wrong was Dominique… But it might be good that this happened, as long as you’ve learned not drink and then willing follow strange men.”
“Mmn. I won’t drink anymore, and I definitely won’t follow men alone except for you, Royce-sama and Otousama.”
Hearing my words, Achille gave a satisfied smile. His lips came down on my forehead.
“Nn… Achille.”
“Camille…”
Like that, Achille’s lips came down from my forehead, and before I knew it, he had taken my lips. A tongue pa.s.sed through my lips, and stroked the inside of my mouth. …Achille-sama, aren’t you escalating things each time you kiss?
“Nnn-… Hu-…”
“…Camille-, n-,”
Suddenly, somebody vigorously knocked at the door.
“‘Scuuuuse meee, I’ve brought the key for the bas.e.m.e.nttt.”
I think… I heard Achille give a little tsk. Parting from me with a reluctant expression, he headed towards the door.
“Well done.”
When Achille opened the door, there stood a maid girl with black braids.
“Hm? I know this face…”
After staring at her, our eyes met.
“Aahh, little miss. You’ve woken up, eh? That’s great.”
“…?”
“Camille, this is our family’s maid, Aurelia Trèfle. She’s the maid that thrust Dominique away.”
“Eh-, really? Thank you, Aurelia. You saved me.”
Right! Aurelia was… The Q of Clovers! The one that failed the exam or whatever. Because her atmosphere is just too different from the game, I didn’t recognise her at first.
The Aurelia in the game was a honours student type rival with a docile atmosphere. If you chose the K of Clovers route, Aurelia would appear along the way, and get in the way of the heroine. She was overly serious and a little gloomy, and if you took off her gla.s.ses, she was actually an incredible beauty.
Unlike the other rival girls, she never directly complained to the heroine, but would harra.s.s her in the shadows in a way that she wouldn’t be caught. She’d hide one of the heroine’s important magic books on the day of a test for example, or she’d rip up a dress that the heroine was supposed to be wearing for the school festival, or she’d steal a present that the K of Clovers gave to the heroine for example… In the end, her hara.s.sment of the heroine escalated to physical harm, and her hara.s.sment was revealed on a large scale by them and she was forced to drop out of school. After that, the K of Clovers happily got together with the heroine.
Both Mei and Beatrix were like me, people from another world. Meaning that the possibility that she is as well is high. She seems to have a personality that’s exactly the opposite of Aurelia’s after all…
I want to ask her about it right this minute, but unfortunately, Achille is here. I haven’t told him that I was a high schooler in another world. It’d be, tricky, to tell him after all this time, after all. To begin with, there’s way too little credibility in proving that the original Camille had a different personality.
“Aurelia is working at the villa?”
“…? Well yeah?”
“She won’t come to the main residence?”
“There are no plans for that. She is technically a live in worker, but because her actual home is incredibly close to here… Which is why she’s working with us, after all.”
How should I come into contact with Aurelia from now on? Should I just charge into the village some other day, whilst thanking her for today as well? Mmn, let’s go with that.
“Ah…!”
Oh yeah, I forgot something important.
“Dominique!”
At the base of his neck was a bruise from a forbidden art!