Something Beautiful

Chapter - 16

Three-quarters of an hour later, Will leads the disgruntled, but also sad, Mrs Bruschweiler and Uncle Monty out of the house, leaving Mrs Kim with her two grandchildren. The grandmother rose slowly, her shoulders looking tense as she turned towards Mingyu. "You definitely don't seriously want to do this!" exacting.

"I meant to do exactly that."

The woman's face turned white hearing those words. "Why?" his insistence. "You can't possibly think I'd believe you had even a speck of desire to marry that hamlet rat."

"I don't want to."

"Then, for God's sake, why are you doing this?"

"Pity," said Mingyu bluntly. "I feel sorry for that girl. And, like it or not, I'm responsible for what happened to her. "That's all."

"Then pay him!"

Leaning back in her chair, Mingyu fatiguedly closed her eyes and stuffed her hands into her pants pocket. "Pay him," he repeated bitterly. "For God's sake I wish I could, but I can't. He saved my life and in return, I ruined his chance of a life of honor. You heard what his mother said, his fiancee has cut off the relationship because she has been 'tainted'. As soon as he returned to the village, he would be a soft meal of a striped-nose man. He will have no honor, no husband, no children. In another year or two, he'll be forced to humble himself by selling himself in the same inn I took him to."

"Omong empty!" said the Grandma. "If you pay him, he can find somewhere else to live. In London for example, those rumors would not be able to follow him there."

"In London, the best thing she can hope for is to be someone's mistress, and that's assuming she can attract the attention of a wealthy old man or a foolish young man to look after her. You've seen her, right, she's not the kind of woman who can make a man passionate."

"There is no need to speak vulgarly" Mrs Kim said stiffly.

Mingyu opened her eyes, her expression looking sinister. "To be honest, I feel quite 'vulgar' giving a gift to a girl who has saved my life by leading her into the world of prostitution, as you proposed earlier."

They stared at each other from across the room, two strong wills clashing against each other in silence. Madam Kim finally gave up while raising her head high. "It's up to you, Hawk," he said half-heartedly, obeying Mingyu as the head of the family. Then he remembered something until he sat dumbstruck to his chair, his face turning deathly pale. "For seven hundred years, our family lineage has never been polluted. We are descendants of kings and emperors. But now you intend to make that obscure woman to produce the next offspring." Extremely frustrated, the Grandmother turned her grief to her other granddaughter. "Don't just sit around, Yugyeom, say something!"

Yugyeom leaned back in his chair, his expression flat. "Alright," he said kindly, accepting Mingyu's decision with a big smile, "when will I be introduced to my future cousin? Or do you mean to let him be in the sitting room until the wedding day?"

The Grandma glanced sharply at him, but the woman said nothing. He sat still, his back straight, his white-haired head held up high, but the disappointment he felt the past hour made him look ten years older.

Yugyeom glanced at Mingyu then raised his glass a toast sign. "For a happy home life, Hawk." He scowled.

Mingyu threw a stern look at him, but other than that the look on his face remained unreadable. Yugyeom was not surprised to see that emotionless face of Mingyu. Like their grandmother, Mingyu almost always hid her emotions tightly, but unlike Grandma, Hawk did so effortlessly, it was so natural that Yugyeom and many people wondered if the man felt emotions other than anger.

For now, Yugyeom is right. Mingyu felt nothing but anger and a sense of helplessness to go through the marriage. As he lifted the glass to his lips, Mingyu pondered bitterly how the game of fate had changed his fate all of a sudden. After years of having fun with the most experienced, most modern, and most depraved women in London, fate turned out to make him bound for life with a prospective wife who is still small and very very innocent. Her instincts say that Lisa's innocence arises not because of inexperience, but because the woman has a soft and kind heart.

In her hands, the woman would lose her physical innocence, yet she was not sure the woman would lose her beautiful eyes, or successfully daubed into a dull and dull modern woman who is just as important a requirement to be accepted into the sphere of nobility as well as a good family connection.

Sighing, he recalled having to tell his mistress that the woman could not accompany Mingyu to Devon next week as planned. Fortunately Roseanne is quite modern, beautiful and sexy. Mingyu had nothing to fear the woman would sulk if she explained about this trip to Devon and her marriage.

"Well, when will we be officially introduced to him?" ulanng Yugyeom's.

Stretching his hands back, Mingyu pulled the bell rope. "Will," he called, as the butler appeared in the doorway, "call Miss Bruschweiler from the yellow sitting room and bring her here."

"Where are Mom and Uncle Monty?" lisa asked somewhat frantically as soon as she entered the sitting room.

Mingyu stood up and walked forward. "They've been taken to a nearby inn where they are happily waiting for the execution of our marriage," Mingyu replied without hiding the cynical tone in her voice. "Despite this, you'll still be here."

Before Lisa could understand all of that, she was introduced to Mrs Kim, who noticed her clinging to her hand-held glasses. With an unspeakable embarrassment from being noticed with such disgust, Lisa lifted her chin and stared back at the old woman.

"Don't glare at me in such an impolite and rude manner" Madam Kim snapped when she saw Lisa's expression.

"Oh, am I disrespectful, ma'am?" ask Lisa in a sweet tone. "Then I apologize. I know it's rude to look at someone. But I really don't know that such manners only apply if we are the ones being glared at."

Mrs Kim's glass-eye handle sagged from her hand and her eyes narrowed. "How dare you patronize me! You're a nobody, a blue-blooded commoner, not of a good breed or pedigree."

"It's fun to have a good pedigree" Lisa exclaimed furiously, "but that grandeur belongs to our ancestors, not us."

Yugyeom makes a strange sound, like one holding back a laugh, and quickly places himself between his angry grandmother and the unwise child who chooses to wage a war of words with his grandmother. "Plato huh?" he asked with a smile and extended his hand.

Lisa shook her head, smiling shyly as she wished she had found an ally within this group of unwelcoming strangers. "Plutarch."

"Similar enough, right?" Yugyeom chuckles. "Since Mingyu seems to be pretending to be stupid, allow me to introduce myself. I'm Mingyu's cousin, Yugyeom."

Lisa placed her hand on Yugyeom's palm. "It's nice to meet you."

"Bend your legs!" madam Kim's orders in a cold tone.

"I'm sorry?"

"A girl should bend her legs when introduced to someone who is taller or older."