My Disfigured Duke Husband Helps Me Plot My Revenge
Chapter 101: Curiosity Growing

Chapter 101: Curiosity Growing

The moment Leonor entered the library looking even more beautiful in a nightgown and robe, Desmond knew the day would hurt.

However, he would rather have her close than anywhere else in the manor. Even if he couldn’t touch her, at least he could admire her.

God left him with one eye so he could at least witness the woman who was his wife.

Desmond never fully engrossed himself in the book he was reading. He was thinking about many other things. Particularly, he noticed Leonor had pulled a pillow onto her lap and leaned into it while she read something intense in her book. Her eyes moving quickly was the way he knew she must have been reading something captivating.

"What are you reading today?" Desmond asked her seemingly out of nowhere.

Leonor felt embarrassed as she peered at the duke from over the top of the small book she held.

"I don’t know if you would be..." she muttered, but stopped herself. Would he be offended that she didn’t pin him as a romance lover quite like her? "It’s a romance novel," she admitted. "Cheesy and lighthearted as they come."

She couldn’t see his lips but knew he was smirking as he spoke again.

"Read it to me," he said.

"You want me to read you a story?" she asked, stunned.

"That’s what I want for my birthday," he said. "For you to read to me."

Leonor seemed shocked but she relented by pulling out one of the footstools from underneath the table between the couches. She planted herself on the cushioned stool after pushing it to the couch he was lounging on.

"I’m going to start over," she said. "The part I’m on will ruin the whole story for you."

"Whatever you need to do," he said, using a quiet voice.

Leonor began to read from the beginning just as she said she would.

Desmond rolled to his side and shut the book he was reading, no longer interested in its contents and looking forward to Leonor’s voice.

To him, she had always had a sweet voice. He wondered if she was a singer because he thought she would sound like a songbird.

Thoughts like that made him realize he was perhaps more Valerio than he realized. He had to push such thoughts away or he would become hopeful like Valerio as well.

It was a story about a knight who started as a peasant and never dared to dream of more until he fought off a monster in his village and was recognized by knights for his talent. After winning a sword fighting competition the knights agreed to officially make him an apprentice so he could live out his dream as a knight and support his mother financially since his father passed away. ¹

He met the princess of their kingdom and dared to dream further to win her heart. However, he had to go through many trials for the king to consider him worthy of his daughter. There were a lot of prejudices in the fantasy world.

Desmond thought it was interesting Leonor would like a story that was as much adventure as it was romance. There was a theme of yearning and he wondered if she could relate to it at all.

The setting of the novel reminded him of what he heard of Montclair’s past where monsters roamed free.

There were many twists in the novel, but Leonor didn’t even come close to reading them before she realized Desmond had fallen asleep listening to her.

Hearing his soft breathing, she closed the book and put it on her lap, observing his hood since his head had fallen to the side and the fabric concealed his face completely.

Her shoulders slouched as she stared at Desmond. She wondered if he knew how much the words she told him about loving someone else haunted her.

She placed the book on the table and turned towards Desmond who was unaware of her eyes as she watched him.

"Do I dare to keep wishing for more?" she whispered miserably. "Who would I be betraying then?"

The perfect man was within her reach but she said things that made it so he could never dare to love her. She was the one who shut down any possibility of a romantic future for them.

It made her wonder why she continued to daydream about a marriage where she had his love and they had permission to touch one another. They could hold hands and sleep beside one another and she wouldn’t feel so lonely in a situation of her creation.

She felt unbelievably selfish.

Perhaps he didn’t want her in that way. He wasn’t jealous when she loved another and he promised to never touch her as if it were easy for him.

She did not know his longing or the late miserable nights when he sat there in pain or fear. Flashes of the war kept him up late and there was never anyone at his side to take away the burden.

He wished he could rely on her but he never wanted to burden her with his scarred mind or body. It wasn’t a life she asked for.

After watching him so peacefully for a while, Leonor felt strange courage and she started to reach for his hood. She wanted to see the face he kept so well hidden from her. Only flashes of an eye or a half smile were all she ever saw.

She knew the scar wouldn’t bother her but she had never fully seen his face despite how much of her heart he occupied. He was her husband and the closest person to her, after all. At least that’s how she justified her blooming feelings.

With one of her thin fingers, she began lifting the material, wondering how he was possibly sleeping with such weight on his face.

Lips were revealed to her and the darkness of his scar reached a short way into the right side of his mouth. He was lying on his right side so she couldn’t see the scar much more than that.

She wondered if he had ever kissed anyone before.

However, before she could go further, a hand grabbed her wrist and she was abruptly stopped, the hood falling back in place.

His one eye was wide and his heart was racing so he seemed out of breath. He gripped her wrist tightly as if she was there to harm him.

She had never seen someone wake up in such a fright who wasn’t actually in danger.

"Ouch," she muttered as she tried to pull her arm from his grasp.

It seemed he realized where he was and that someone wasn’t trying to harm him when she tried to pull herself from his grasp. He quickly let her go and sat up on the couch.

"I’m sorry," he said, his voice giving way to the panic he felt. "I forgot where I was for a moment."

"I just wanted to tell you I was going to my room to rest until dinner," she said. "I’m feeling a bit tired."

She held her wrist as she stood up and Desmond felt awful that he responded to her in such a way.

Rarely could someone ever sneak up on him while he slept. It also filled him with unbelievable anxiety that she had seen a lot of his face and realized who he was.

"I will see you at dinner," he said, unable to move from where he was on the couch.

He couldn’t glean anything else from her response other than he responded too harshly. It made him feel awful.