Chapter 9
“Is this really my room?”
“Yes. It’s a bit empty, isn’t it? The Duke doesn’t really like bringing things into the house.”
“Even so, this is too…”
It was spacious.
Because there was no furniture, it looked even emptier.
While she stood there, dumbfounded, staring at the lone giant bed in the middle of the room, Emma chuckled softly.
“This room is quite lacking for a young lady like yourself. Tomorrow, let’s look at a catalog together and decorate the bedroom. There’s a lot to do. You must be tired, so please get some rest.”
It didn’t feel lacking at all.
She couldn’t understand what part was supposed to be insufficient.
As Rosaria stood there, confused, Emma naturally guided her to lie down on the bed.
Lying there awkwardly, Rosaria tensed up at the unfamiliar view, strange scent, and foreign texture around her.
“If you need anything, just pull this cord. Sweet dreams.”
Emma kissed Rosaria on the forehead.
She didn’t seem to notice that Rosaria was lying there as stiff as a board.
“Emma.”
Rosaria blinked, startled by the sudden kiss, and called out.
“Yes?”
“What did you just do?”
“I cast a spell so you’ll have sweet dreams.”
Emma laughed gently, finding Rosaria endearing, like a squirrel who had found an acorn too big to carry.
Rosaria stared at Emma’s face, then slowly sat up.
Smooch.
“…Emma, you have sweet dreams too.”
Because of their height difference, she couldn’t kiss Emma’s forehead like Emma did, so she kissed her cheek lightly instead.
Then she hurriedly ducked under the covers, clearly embarrassed.
“Oh my.”
“It’s not fair if only I get the spell.”
Pulling the blanket up to her chin, Rosaria fidgeted with her fingers beneath it.
“Thanks to you, I’m sure I’ll have only good dreams tonight. Thank you.”
With a gentle smile, Emma walked out of the room.
Click—
The door closed.
Rosaria stared up at the dark ceiling and blinked slowly.
‘Is it really okay for me to be here?’
It felt like the clothes she was wearing: soft to the touch but slightly uncomfortable because they didn’t quite fit.
With those uncertain feelings in her heart, Rosaria spent her first night in the Duke of Valencia’s mansion.
‘Honestly, I thought I’d be up all night after that…’
But she had slept so well!
Chirp chirp.
Birdsong signaled the morning.
Rosaria, about to wipe the drool from her mouth and get up, laid back down on the bed.
‘So fluffy. I love it.’
It was a luxury she wouldn’t be able to enjoy again.
She kept rolling around because the bed was so soft and steady.
Roll roll.
Even after turning over once, there was still room on the bed.
She thought she could even jump on it.
Roll to the right.
Roll to the left.
Roll roll roll.
Rosaria kept rolling around on the bed. It was surprisingly addictive.
Then suddenly, her eyes met something on the wall—something with a head.
“Eek!”
Startled, Rosaria jumped up like a freshly caught fish.
‘There’s a head on the wall! A head!’
She flung open the door and dashed out at full speed.
Emma and Simon seemed to notice her along the way, but Rosaria didn’t stop.
Even though she didn’t know her way around, she kept running, trying to get away from the head.
After running here and there, she arrived at the dining room and her eyes sparkled when she saw someone.
“Mister!”
It felt like meeting a savior.
Without a second thought, Rosaria ran straight into the arms of the Duke of Valencia, who was in the middle of his meal.
“…Rosaria?”
The Duke’s body froze as something small, wearing clothes far too big for her, rushed at him and threw herself into his arms.
Unaware of the Duke’s stiffness, Rosaria buried her face into his chest.
“What’s going on?”
“There was a head…!”
“A head?”
What was she talking about?
The Duke looked down at Rosaria’s head.
Though she was a bit disheveled from just waking up, someone had washed her while he was away, and her silver hair had returned to its original shine.
He couldn’t tell what was going on in that little acorn-like head, so he stood there awkwardly. Then Rosaria suddenly lifted her head.
“There was a head!”
“A head?”
Rosaria shouted passionately.
“There was a head in the room staring at me like this!”
A question mark floated in the Duke’s mind.
He’d killed a lot of people in his time, but he wasn’t uncivilized enough to leave corpses in a bedroom.
“It was definitely trying to kill me!”
“I see, so a head appeared and tried to kill you.”
“Yeah!”
“Then we have to go deal with that wicked head.”
“You’ll really get rid of it?”
“Of course. If it dared to glare at you, it shouldn’t be allowed to keep even a single hair.”
It was a reassuring answer just to hear.
The Duke’s words, declaring himself on her side, helped Rosaria calm down.
‘A dangling head! So creepy!’
She was doing deep breathing, following the Duke’s gentle pats.
From far away, Emma came running toward them.
“I wondered where you were running off to, and here you are with the Duke. You must really like him, Miss. Like a real daughter.”
Emma laughed brightly. The Duke gave an awkward cough, saying nothing.
“The head tried to kill me!”
“The head?”
At Rosaria’s outburst, Emma looked completely confused.
“Are you perhaps talking about the taxidermy piece hanging in the Duke’s bedroom?”
Seeing Rosaria run off and Emma chasing after her, Simon figured something was wrong and followed them to the dining room. He added a word.
As soon as Simon mentioned “taxidermy,” everyone seemed to realize what Rosaria had seen and gave a reaction like, “Ah, right, there was something like that.”
Everyone—except one person.
“Simon. That is no longer my bedroom.”
“Ah… yes, that’s right. The young lady’s bedroom, I meant.”
After being corrected by Duke Valencia, Simon had to awkwardly amend his earlier statement.
“Taxidermy?”
“What you saw wasn’t some evil thing trying to kill you. It was the head of a white horse I had decorated in the bedroom. I should take it down immediately.”
“What’s taxidermy?”
Since it was a word she’d never heard before, she asked. Emma kindly explained it.
“Taxidermy is when you preserve a dead animal so that it looks like it did when it was alive. It only looks like it’s alive—it’s definitely not. So don’t worry.”
“Why would someone put something like that in a place where they sleep?”
“That’s, uh…”
Emma smiled awkwardly and glanced at Duke Valencia to check his reaction.
Following her gaze, Rosaria looked up at the duke.
“Mister, your face looks weird.”
“That’s because you’re looking up at me from below.”
“No, it’s really weird-looking.”
It was an overly cold reaction. Duke Valencia placed his hands on both sides of Rosaria’s waist.
Twitch.
Had she spoken too honestly?
Realizing too late what she’d just said, Rosaria tensed up, worried she might get hit.
But there was no pain.
Instead, the duke naturally lifted her up and placed her on his lap.
“Now I don’t look weird, do I?”
“Um… I guess not.”
She wasn’t just saying that because she got scared. His expression really did look more relaxed now than before.
Looking up from below makes someone look weird? But he only made that ugly face when the white horse was mentioned.
Rosaria stared at Duke Valencia’s face, curiosity blooming.
Receiving her gaze, the duke suddenly smiled gently and spoke in a low voice, as if whispering a secret.
“You asked why I had that head in my room, right?”
“Y-yeah.”
“It’s so I don’t forget.”
“Don’t forget?”
This is kind of scary…
She felt like maybe she shouldn’t hear any more. But curiosity had already taken over.
Rosaria perked up her ears.
“So I don’t forget the vow I made: that one day I’d leave only the head of the family who uses the white horse as their symbol.”
“Duke, I don’t think that’s something you should be telling the young lady…”
“She asked, so I should answer. It’s not even a big secret.”
“I suppose so, but still…”
It seemed way too cruel to tell a child.
Simon and Emma were worried this might damage Rosaria emotionally. But Rosaria was busy thinking about something else entirely.
The white horse symbol that Duke Valencia hated so much it made him pull that ugly face—
If it’s the family with the white horse as a symbol…
Gasp!
That’s the Oricsa family!
Now she could grasp just how deep the Duke’s hatred toward Oricsa ran.
Come to think of it, Oricsa and Valencia have had bad blood even before the whole Saintess incident.
If Oricsa was a righteous family working in the public eye, then Valencia operated in the shadows—grim and often engaging in illegal dealings.
Out of the four great families of the empire, their compatibility was the worst.
To think he hated them enough to decorate his bedroom with the head of their symbol…
Now it made sense why Simon had reacted so strongly when he thought Rosaria was a member of Oricsa.
But I don’t even know who my parents are.
It would’ve been nice if the novel had mentioned something—anything—about her birth, but as with most side characters, there was nothing.
Just that she was an orphan from the same region as Saintess Cordelia, not even knowing whether her parents were alive or dead.
My silver hair isn’t because I have Oricsa blood… it’s just so I could be kidnapped in place of the saintess.
Silver hair wasn’t common, but it wasn’t unique to Oricsa either.
Rosaria pouted.
Thanks to this misunderstanding, she’d probably end up being hated by all the staff in the Valencia household.
Even now, Simon was glaring at her with intense eyes.
If Duke Valencia had been even a little less sane, the moment he saw me…
Chop!
He might have cut her head off on the spot.
Ugh, horrifying!
The grotesque thought made goosebumps rise on her arms. Rosaria rubbed them and sniffled.
