Chapter 59
Vailleon fell silent for a moment.
How was he supposed to react? His thoughts were a mess.
Marienne lowered her voice sharply.
“He’s completely insane, isn’t he?”
She glanced nervously toward Chloe, afraid someone might overhear. When their eyes met, she quickly flashed a reassuring smile.
The two young ladies kept exchanging awkward little laughs, as though something between them was weighing on their minds.
“This won’t do. Let’s move somewhere else.”
Marienne tugged lightly at Vailleon’s sleeve. As they walked toward the nearest study, the words from earlier kept echoing in his ears.
“He said he’ll make me confess that I like him.”
The moment the study door closed, Vailleon pulled Marienne into his arms from behind. He buried his face in the soft space between her neck and shoulder. Her skin smelled faintly of sunlight.
“Ugh—Sir Beers…”
“I knew it.”
“Your lips just brushed me… Ah—it tickles.”
Marienne flinched and huddled her shoulders. Before lifting his head again, Vailleon breathed in her scent once more.
“I expected this.”
“You suddenly hugged me… Expected what, exactly?”
“The duke.”
He spoke the word tersely, then released her and apologized for his impulsiveness.
He was already on edge about his lover’s safety, and now that Cain had involved himself, his patience had reached its limit.
“I knew the duke thought of you… that way.”
“Huh? How? Wait—are you clairvoyant or something?”
Marienne gasped in surprise. She demanded to know since when and how he had realized it.
Looking at her innocent, trusting face made his chest ache.
“You didn’t notice?”
“Of course not! That guy—ugh, sorry—that guy likes me?”
She even made a gagging motion, as if the mere thought sickened her.
He wished that reaction could give him some comfort.
Vailleon stifled a sigh. The more Marienne showed how much she despised Cain, the more it would provoke the man.
He cursed his own insight. If only he could stay ignorant and just be angry at what was right in front of him.
But he could already foresee what was coming, whether he wanted to or not.
“When someone likes another person, it always shows somehow, right?
But that northern bastard—he didn’t show a single sign.
He just kept picking on me over and over, and then suddenly, today, he says that!
Wouldn’t you be mad too?”
“The day after he threw your necklace into the pond.”
Vailleon’s mouth tasted bitter.
“You were feverish and rambling that day. I don’t know if you remember, but you said he wanted to take you to his duchy as a maid.”
“Yes, he did. That bastard.”
“That’s when I felt like my heart dropped.”
Marienne still looked completely puzzled.
Lovely, brave Marienne—she knew so much about Vailleon Beers but remained oblivious to signs directed at her own heart.
He licked his lips nervously. His mouth felt dry.
“When the duke finds something he likes, he tries to own it.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s a thing or a person.
Even if it already belongs to someone else.”
That was the nature of Cain Blackwood.
“Everyone fears the duke. Even his enemies show him respect when he’s in front of them.
In a world like this, there’s nothing the Blackwood duke can’t have.
And yet…”
“Is it because I hate him?”
Marienne asked cautiously.
“Because I made it obvious from our first meeting?
Left such a strong impression by openly despising him?
Kept hovering nearby saying I’d rather lose my hair than deal with him?”
As she spoke, horror spread across her face.
“So in the end, I just… triggered the perverted bastard’s instincts?”
“It’s not your fault.”
Vailleon denied it immediately.
“You were just unlucky, that’s all.”
“Ughhh…”
“Still, the duke probably couldn’t stand that someone like you—someone who defied him—risked everything for my sake.”
Vailleon bit the inside of his lip.
“What’s so special about Vailleon Beers that even Cain Blackwood can’t win her heart?”
“My god, that’s exactly it!”
Marienne grabbed his hands in excitement.
“That’s exactly how that crazy man acted!”
She looked astonished that he could describe the scene so perfectly despite not being there.
Vailleon smiled faintly.
“My lovely Miss Marienne. Didn’t I tell you before? Most people—besides you—think that way.”
Marienne frowned, her fine brows knitting together.
“Idiots, all of them.”
“Objectively speaking, it’s true.”
“They’re wrong! They don’t even know who the real good person is.
Every one of them is a fool. A total fool!”
Watching his lover get angry on his behalf made something warm surge in his chest.
He felt the urge to hug her again—maybe even…
A kiss, perhaps.
Her face when she was surprised at the ice cream shop was so cute…
No, that wouldn’t do. If he kept thinking like this, he might actually do it.
She looked especially beautiful today—and so defenseless.
But he didn’t want their first kiss to happen in a study with his family right outside the door.
“Did you tell him that I’m your lover?”
He tried to steer the conversation elsewhere. Fortunately, Marienne didn’t notice his distraction.
“Of course I did! And he didn’t care at all! Ugh, thinking about it again makes me mad. You know what he did?”
She mimicked a smirk.
“Just like this! Right in front of me! Smirking like that!”
She stomped her foot on the floor, unable to contain her anger. The sight was so adorable it nearly killed Vailleon in a whole different way.
“What, is he saying he’s confident he can steal you away?”
“That’s probably what he meant.”
“Ugh, infuriating.”
Marienne grumbled.
“Who does he think he is, ignoring my feelings?”
“Right? I should’ve finished him off when I had the chance.”
Was this what people called a cursed connection?
Every woman he cared for somehow ended up entangled with Cain Blackwood.
First Odette, now Marienne.
And Cain was not a man who could be bound by ordinary morals.
A wave of unease surged inside Vailleon.
He clasped her hands tightly.
He couldn’t let Cain take away the person he had fought so hard to win.
He’d protect her—down to the last strand of her hair.
“Marienne, I love you.”
The sudden confession made her laugh.
“I love you too, Sir Beers.”
“Then what can I do to make you love me even more?”
He whispered it softly, and Marienne’s cheeks flushed pink.
“You don’t need to do anything more.
I already like you enough—maybe even too much.”
“That’s a relief.”
Vailleon smiled faintly.
If only love came with an answer key.
For the empire’s shining chancellor, his first romance was proving far more difficult than any state affair.
◇ ◆ ◇
“Damn it…”
From the mouth of the adorable Marienne Didi—who looked like a stuffed doll—came an unladylike curse.
The moment she swore, she realized something.
She would never, not in a million years, become a romance-fantasy heroine.
Because even when heroines are written as “rough around the edges,” at worst they say things like “Darn it” or “Blast”.
And they only do it in battle, dramatically, like a knight captain.
They definitely don’t stand in front of an elite tailor’s finest dress and mutter “Damn it” in frustration.
“Is this corset… made from whale bone?”
Just looking at it made her ribs ache.
She brushed a hand over the contraption with a crumpled face.
Even when Chloe had forced her to wear a few fancy dresses before, she’d never been strapped into such medieval equipment.
Tucked beneath the lavish corset was a card, written in elegant script.
A guarantee certificate, apparently.
“Salon Lumière de Chacha, the Empire’s finest atelier for three generations, pursues traditional beauty through genuine whale bone corsets and silk petticoats, rejecting modern shaping wear…”
Marienne stopped reading halfway through. The sentence never seemed to end.
And it contained every element she despised.
Three generations? Whale bone? Traditional?
“That lunatic Cain Blackwood is even regressing through time now.”
Stop hunting whales, for crying out loud!
Marienne clutched the corset and silently apologized to nature for humanity’s sins.
Then she stared, horrified, at the mountain of dresses and jewelry boxes delivered to her office.
“Look at this damned man’s taste.”
The neckline plunged so deep it could hardly be called a neckline at all.
If she wore it, half her chest would be exposed.
The design left her shoulders and upper chest bare, then tried to “cover” the exposed skin with an absurdly heavy, jewel-encrusted necklace.
And that necklace? A pink diamond.
A massive stone, a shade darker than her own hair, gleamed proudly at the center. Hundreds of smaller diamonds glittered around it like stars.
She didn’t even want to guess how many carats it was.
“So this was originally meant for Odette, but he sent it to me instead.”
Because the wretched northern duke had changed his target.
“A tiara? He sent me a jeweled tiara now? What am I, a princess?
Oh, great—matching earrings too.
I don’t even have my ears pierced, what does he expect me to do, punch holes in my flesh?”
Anyone watching her might have said she was overreacting, throwing a fit over expensive gifts.
But Marienne had her reasons.
“I didn’t ask for any of this.”
Vailleon spoke so beautifully, even his questions were kind.
‘What should I do to make you love me more?’
He’d probably whisper softly, even in their first kiss—
‘May I kiss you?’
Some people might find that too cautious, but not Marienne.
Her heart would pound harder and harder from the very moment he asked.
“See? Just imagining it makes my heart race already.”
She giggled inwardly, shaking her head.
Cain Blackwood, on the other hand, was the complete opposite.
When someone rubs you the wrong way, they just keep doing worse things—and Cain was the embodiment of that saying.
What use were lavish gifts, the kind that could buy several castles?
He had sent her dresses he thought would “look good” on his woman—directly to her office.
And he did this while he already had a fiancée living in the imperial palace!
Utterly reckless behavior befitting an utterly reckless duke.
“I can’t even carry this stuff, you jerk!”
Did she look like some pampered noble lady with a team of maids trailing after her?
Marienne kicked the enormous velvet-ribboned box. It didn’t budge.
Instead, she discovered there were even shoes packed inside.
“Should I call the atelier and tell them to come pick it up?”
Knock, knock.
Just then, someone rapped on the office door.
