[BL]Reborn as the Empire's Most Desired Omega
Chapter 140: Fashionable Monsters

Chapter 140: Chapter 140: Fashionable Monsters

Lucas lay curled beneath the silk throw, one leg bent awkwardly over a pillow, as if that made a difference. It didn’t. Everything still ached.

His back. His thighs. His pride.

The pillow did nothing for that, either.

"I am not fragile," he muttered.

Windstone, seated precisely one meter away with a tablet in his lap and an expression made of granite, didn’t glance up. "Of course not, Your Grace. You merely require strategic immobilization."

Lucas narrowed his eyes. "You sound like Trevor."

"Thank you," Windstone said flatly.

Lucas sighed and tried, heroically, to sit up straighter. He got about halfway there before his muscles made a noise of protest, and Windstone, the bastard, reached over to adjust the pillow behind him without comment.

"Is this revenge?" Lucas asked, peering at him. "For refusing to eat those awful vitamin bars?"

"No," Windstone said. "That was understandable. "This"—he gestured at Lucas’s general state—"this is entirely self-inflicted."

Lucas made a sound halfway between a cough and a laugh. "You’re here only to supervise me."

Windstone didn’t deny it. He merely looked over the rim of his glasses with the mild disappointment of a man who had once seen actual battlefield injuries handled with more dignity.

Before he could reply, a soft knock interrupted them. One of the palace attendants stepped in, spine straight and expression careful.

"I’m sorry to disturb you, Your Grace, but..." He hesitated, just long enough to be suspicious. "Marchioness Fitzgeralt is here. She wishes to visit you."

Lucas blinked.

Windstone looked up, very slowly, as though calculating how far he was from the nearest escape route.

"Right now?" Lucas asked, voice rising just enough to betray a sliver of panic.

"She’s in the waiting salon," the attendant confirmed. "She declined refreshments and said she would wait precisely ten minutes. Not eleven."

Lucas groaned and let his head fall back into the pillow. "Trevor’s grandmother."

Windstone, for once, didn’t correct him. "She’s punctual."

"She’s terrifying."

"She’s family." View the correct content at NovelFire

Lucas peeked at him with one eye. "That makes it worse."

The attendant cleared his throat. "Shall I tell her you’re indisposed?"

Lucas sat up on instinct, then winced as his spine reminded him exactly what he’d been doing the night before. "No. No, gods, no. That would be even worse. She’ll storm the room and drag me out of bed herself."

Windstone shut the tablet with a gentle click. "Then I suggest you attempt to look slightly less like you’ve been debauched for seventy-two hours."

Lucas shot him a look. "You’re very lucky I’m not allowed to throw things while healing."

"Yet," Windstone said, already pulling a comb from the nightstand drawer with the air of someone preparing a body for court.

The door burst open like it had personally offended her.

Marchioness Fitzgeralt swept in, not a hair out of place, coat draped like a royal mantle, and heels that clicked with enough force to count as punctuation. She did not acknowledge the attendant. She did not pause at the threshold. She did not stop for air.

"Oh, good," she said with sharp satisfaction. "You’re not dead."

Lucas blinked at her from the bed, blanket up to his chest and a pillow awkwardly half-fallen behind him. "Unfortunately."

Windstone rose with the grace of a man who had lived through worse. "Marchioness." NovelFire

She waved him off. "Windstone. I see you’re still alive. Pity you didn’t bolt the door."

"I considered it," he replied mildly, "but I thought it would be more polite to let you break it down yourself."

Lucas was still staring at her in open disbelief. "You just—walked in."

"I announced myself," she said, removing her gloves with the precision of a noblewoman preparing for an interrogation. "You had time to at least look presentable."

"I’m injured."

"You’re not bleeding," she said, already sitting down in the nearest chair and examining him like a prized horse with a limp. "And I raised three boys. Don’t test me."

Lucas looked to Windstone for help. Windstone was suddenly very interested in reorganizing his tablet folder.

The Marchioness leaned forward, eyes sharp as glass. "Now. Let’s get you presentable and get you out of this room to socialize with me."

"So, you want a distraction at the tea parties you were invited to?" Windstone asked without shame.

The Marchioness didn’t even blink. "I want a proper heir who doesn’t look like he’s been bedbound by a Fitzgeralt for three days straight."

Lucas choked. Windstone made an admirable attempt not to.

She smoothed the cuffs of her sleeves, immaculate even in motion. "Your husband is off terrifying heads of state, and you’re in here sulking with silk blankets and bruised pride. What am I supposed to tell the D’Argente matriarch? That my new grandson is charming but tragically unfit to sit upright without wincing?"

Lucas opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Eventually, he managed, "You could say I’m recovering?"

She leveled him with the kind of look generals reserve for junior officers who dared question orders. "You’re a D’Argente and Fitzgeralt now, dear. We recover while walking."

Windstone coughed gently into his fist. "Technically, he can walk. Just not with dignity."

"Then we’ll manage without it," she declared, rising with such force her chair skidded back half a centimeter. "Dress him. I’m taking him for a drive."

Lucas blinked. "I’m not a dog."

"Correct," she said crisply. "Dogs whine less."

Windstone, traitor to his core, stood and reached for Lucas’s bathrobe. "Shall I fetch the walking stick or let him cling to your arm for dramatic effect?"

Lucas groaned. "You are all monsters."

"Yes," the Marchioness said, already halfway to the door. "But fashionable ones. Ten minutes, Lucas. Or I’m coming back with heels sharper than your attitude."

The door snapped shut behind her.

Lucas flopped back into the pillows with the resignation of a man who knew he had no chance. "If I die trying to climb into that car, tell Trevor I went down fighting."

Windstone adjusted the collar of the robe with surgical precision. "No, Your Grace. I’ll tell him you were dragged screaming by a seventy-year-old woman in kitten heels."