Chapter 3
A pale blue dawn broke over the count’s estate, which had remained brightly lit and in a state of chaotic uproar all night long.
Having not slept a wink after the sudden wedding-night oath, Elio dragged a single small luggage bag out and climbed into the Schünhardt carriage like a convicted criminal.
Just as she was catching her breath, overwhelmed by the gazes of dozens of knights who were saddening horses on the still-damp grass and shooting her sidelong glares as if she were public enemy number one, a man draped in a wizard’s cloak stopped by the carriage door and muttered a warning.
“The Holy See is going to splatter this scandal all over the entire empire. Thanks to the lady, our Commander’s honor is about to hit rock bottom, so make sure you act like you’re in a normal, legitimate relationship in front of other people. Damn it, stop shaking like that! Anyone would look at you and think our Commander actually forced himself on you!”
Elio wanted to protest and ask why this man’s tarnished honor was her fault in the first place, but the moment she parted her trembling lips to speak, the carriage door slammed shut. Ignoring the man who had just banged the door shut and ordered the driver to move, Elio swallowed hard.
“The potions.”
Elio jerked around. Across from her, a pair of dark eyes stared at her coldly.
“I-I brought them. More than twenty.”
Carlos’s gaze slowly swept down from her cheek and came to a stop at her thighs.
Faltering under his silently fixed stare, Elio hastily added, “If you apply the potion, it really heals right away. Look. My cheek is almost healed, too. It’s not a fake.”
Carlos lowered his gaze back to the book he had been reading.
Elio fumbled awkwardly at her bruised cheek and thighs before flushing with embarrassment.
Unlike her, with skin that radiated a healthy glow and hair as smooth as ebony, the man’s flawless, refined appearance and the relaxed, leisurely way he read his book struck a nerve, leaving her feeling deeply resentful and aggrieved.
It seemed she was the only one who had spent the entire night wide awake after yesterday’s uproar.
Was it at least a minor relief that he didn’t seem intent on holding her accountable for her father’s crimes?
Elio unfolded the newspaper she had been clutching and crumpling in her hands. The very paper delivered by carrier pigeon this morning. She forced strength into her throat, which felt locked up tight enough to scrape metal.
“…Carlos von Schünhardt. Completes wedding-night oath before the blue orb with the daughter of the Count of Aquitaine.”
Carlos turned a page quietly. Elio read on, word for word.
“The Imperial Court has expressed deep regret over this unilateral annulment of betrothal, which occurred just as preparations for marriage with the Princess were underway. Rumors suggest that the Lady of Aquitaine played some trick with Lord Carlos’s drink…”
Elio’s pupils dilated violently.
“…raising suspicions that she forcefully violated an incapacitated Lord Carlos—!”
Carlos turned to the next page.
“Ha…”
Elio raked a hand through her hopelessly tangled hair.
She couldn’t for the life of her understand how this could possibly be in the papers already. It was as if someone had planned it all out and written the article in advance.
And why on earth was it being framed as her forcing herself on him…?
“……Excuse me. Hey. Lord Carlos.”
“Mm.”
“What do you make of this front-page article?”
“I think news travels awfully fast these days.”
The corners of Elio’s mouth twitched upward in sheer, unadulterated disbelief.
“Ah…. Is that so. I wonder how it managed to make the papers in less than a day?”
“The security at the count’s estate must be absolute garbage.”
“My Lord!”
Carlos lifted his eyes from the book and looked at her. Elio took a deep breath, then slowly spoke again.
“What is your game?”
“Game?”
“Even if the Temple makes a fuss about hauling you before a court, they can’t unilaterally dissolve your betrothal with the Imperial family without the consent of the entire House of Lords. And yet you chose to acknowledge a wedding night with me. Don’t you have some other objective?”
Carlos closed his book.
“I don’t understand why you’re insisting on taking responsibility for me. If anything, you could easily pin a charge of defamation on our family, and you have plenty of other options! You could just ki—kill me quietly where nobody would ever know, or…”
“You really take me for the kind of bastard who would murder a woman I spent my wedding night with and even notarized before a priest?”
Elio widened her eyes in sheer absurdity and shouted, “The whole premise of spending a wedding night together is a lie in the first place! And now I’m about to be treated like some piece of trash who forced herself on an unconscious man…!”
“Don’t worry. I’ll correct it.”
“What? What are you going to correct?”
“That it was by no means forced.”
Stretching out his long legs, Carlos picked up a fresh stack of documents.
“That we enjoyed it together with sound minds.”
Elio sat with her mouth hanging open, stunned by the calm, matter-of-fact tone of the man cutting through the morning breeze.
“……Good grief. He really has lost his mind…”
❖ ❖ ❖
At that very moment, in the capital of the Lübeck Empire, bright, high-pitched laughter echoed through the imperial palace.
“Ahahahahaha. Hahahahk-kuku-hahahk.”
“Your Highness. Please, for the sake of your dignity…”
The Princess, letting her wavy red hair tumble wildly as she laughed with her entire body, wiped a tear from her eye and straightened up.
“Oh, seriously, he’s completely out of his mind. Ahahahahk.”
The nursemaid let out a heavy sigh and began brushing out the Princess’s hair.
“Incapacitated by an illicit brew and forcibly violated… Hahahk-hahahk.”
With a strawberry macaron in one hand and the newspaper in the other, the Princess started giggling uncontrollably all over again.
After heaving for a long moment, she managed to wipe away the tears clinging to the corners of her eyes. She tossed the newspaper aside and picked up a book of scripture.
“By the way, what family is Aquitaine again? I’ve never even heard of them.”
“They’re a backwater at the southern edge, apparently. A fallen noble house that barely managed to keep its name on the peerage registry.”
The Princess bit down crisply on a macaron and hummed.
“Aquitaine. Aquitaine. Aquitaine. Hmm. Why on earth would he pick a place like that?”
“In any case, only by sharing a wedding night with a noble lady and having it officially recorded in the blue orb could he break off the match with Your Highness. And since they’re fallen nobles, cleaning up any mess afterward will be easy, too.”
At the nursemaid’s textbook reply, the Princess arched an eyebrow and tapped the scripture lightly.
“I wonder…. Knowing my dear brother, I’d wager there’s quite a different reason behind it.”
The nursemaid gasped in shock and dropped her brush.
“Your Highness! Please, not that ‘brother’ nonsense!”
“Oh, come on. Even if he’s an illegitimate son, a brother is still a brother.”
“Your Highness! If anyone heard you…!”
Unfazed, the Princess shrugged her shoulders and burst into another wave of helpless laughter.
“Nursemaid. Isn’t our dear brother simply brilliant? How on earth did he think of a way to call off a marriage with his half-sister like this?”
Clutching the scripture and the peerage registry in her hands, the Princess crinkled her eyes with a bright, beaming smile.
❖ ❖ ❖
Elio nervously rubbed her thumb over her thumbnail.
The carriage rocked heavily as mud splashed up against the windows. Passing through thick briars, the path grew increasingly rugged as the Ogre Mountains loomed closer.
Should I just run away the moment we cross the Ogre Mountains? But wait, even if I run, how am I supposed to survive…?
If a rumor spread across the entire empire that she was some trashy lady who had preyed upon Schünhardt, what kind of out-of-his-mind employer would ever hire her?
Sell potions…?
No… if I keep brewing high-grade potions every single day, I might actually die from magical exhaustion….
Swish-swish.
The sound of leaves rustling frantically filled the air. The trees were so densely packed that hardly any sunlight filtered through, leaving it pitch-dark despite the early hour.
She needed to figure out a way to survive, but her mind felt as blank and murky as a blackout.
As her head drooped slowly, her shabby grey dress came into view. Stroking the worn linen and the limp, frayed sleeves, she let out a bitter laugh.
She still couldn’t quite believe she was about to become the young duke’s fiancée.
And all because she had supposedly forced herself on him… and now he was breaking off his engagement with the Princess to marry her instead.
Was it really just a scheme cooked up solely by her father and the clergyman? Elio eyed Carlos with a look brimming with deep suspicion.
There was clearly some other motive at play for this man. Otherwise, not only would he have no reason to acknowledge a fake wedding night, but he certainly wouldn’t go so far as to fork over a bride price as if it were a legitimate union.
As Elio tried to fathom the man’s inscrutable motives, she instinctively clenched her hands together.
No matter what this man’s true purpose was, she might end up dead either way—murdered out of spite by the Princess whose betrothed had been snatched away, or executed by the Duke for ruining his son’s marriage prospects.
A wave of frustration welled up inside her chest. She had never asked for anything grand. She just wanted to live freely without getting beaten….
“Wh—What? Were you just laughing?”
“No.”
She had clearly seen the corner of his lips curl into a crooked smirk, but with an expression indicating he had no idea what she was talking about, he replied with an immediate, deadpan face.
“You’re not secretly laughing at me right now, are you?”
“You certainly have a habit of falsely accusing me.”
Carlos brushed a long finger across the lips that had just curved upward.
“I—I’m actually being completely serious!”
“Yes. You look serious. Try to relax a bit.”
“Wow, it must be real nice making light of it when it’s happening to someone else!”
“It’s about my fiancée. Hardly someone else’s problem.”
“Your fiancée is about to be thrown in a prison cell!”
Seeing a man who looked thoroughly unconcerned about properly standing up against the imperial backlash, Elio slapped her own thigh in frustration. Carlos leaned back against the headrest and nodded.
“Well, she’s certainly earned a cell. Conspiracy, defamation, illicit solicitation… If they dig deep enough, she’s looking at at least three years.”
When he called himself a bastard earlier, he brushed it off, but now he thought she deserved prison time? Was he actually a complete bastard after all…?
Her lips trembling, Elio curled into a corner of the carriage. A spray of rain blew in through the crack of the open window. Without even sparing a thought to wipe away the moisture, she tugged frantically at her sleeve and muttered in a rapid-fire murmur.
“That’s my father’s crime. I didn’t conspire with him. I truly had no idea my father would pull something like that. Once again, I don’t expect you to take responsibility for me. Please tell my father—”
Clack. The window slid shut.
The driving rain that had been soaking Elio’s shoulder was abruptly cut off.
Thump, tap-tap. Only the heavy, muffled sound of the rain remained.
Faced with a deafening, suffocating silence, Elio nervously raised her head and locked eyes with a pair of beast-like pupils.
The man’s unfathomable gaze was fixed squarely on her. As Elio parted her lips to speak, he curved one corner of his mouth and muttered under his breath.
“Right. The child bears no sin. I don’t hold children accountable for their parents’ sins.”
It sounded like a monologue—somewhere hollow and chilling. It made her feel like a criminal all over again.
As the downpour grew heavier and the man’s intensified hostility pressed down on her, Elio swallowed hard in silence. Her breathing grew humid and stifling as the rain lashed against the carriage windows, blurring the glass completely.
“My bride seems quite terrified. Your face has gone a shade of blue that’s quite a sight to behold.”
“…Isn’t it only natural to be scared when I don’t even know what kind of person you are? And we aren’t even married yet. It’s just a fake oath.”
“You certainly have a sharp tongue.”
He let out a strangely twisted, mocking chuckle, and Elio moistened her parched lips.
Inside the stuffy confines of the carriage, he pulled out a cigar and lit it. Exhaling a cloud of grey smoke, his fierce, predatory gaze swept down over her like a starved hound ready to tear its master apart.
Just like their very first encounter last night.
The overwhelming intensity of his first impression rushed back, an unforgettable memory she could never shake.
