Previously
Duke Vandermeer hires mercenaries to injure Aracella Hugo and frame Damian for the attack to sabotage their marriage. Aracella easily defeats the five mercenaries using her overwhelming purple magic and brings the survivor to Damian as a pre-wedding gift.
Near noon, the unwelcome second son arrived.
The Duke sat across from him, deeply ill at ease.
Word had only just reached him: four of the mercenaries hired through the guild had crawled back half-dead, while the sole survivor had been taken by Aracella.
Damian, who bore an uncanny resemblance to the Duke save for the eyes he inherited from his mother, remained utterly unruffled, sitting with his long legs casually stretched out before him.
The Duke feigned ignorance.
A faint smile touched Damian’s lips, unsurprised by the reaction. His father had always made a habit of playing dumb whenever cornered.
It was petty, base, and narrow-minded to the extreme.
Damian produced a neatly folded document from inside his uniform coat.
It was the confession wrung from the surviving mercenary the previous night.
The Duke tried desperately to mask the turmoil on his face after scanning the contents.
Damian spoke without the slightest change in expression.
The Duke’s hand trembled violently against the armrest.
Unable to contain his rage, he barked,
Damian’s cold, dispassionate gaze pressed down on the Duke, heavy enough to crush him.
The Duke ground his teeth until his jaw hardened, his mind racing through calculations.
If this were brought into the open, Damian would hardly emerge unscathed. The Marquis’s household might fly into a rage and call off the match entirely. That was precisely why Damian had not reported him immediately, coming in person to extort him instead.
The Duke was momentarily struck speechless, and Damian pressed on quietly.
Under ordinary circumstances, Aracella would have delivered the mercenary straight to the authorities. But her objective was this marriage, so she had passed him to Damian—to serve as a weapon against his own family.
At last, the Duke recognized that so long as Damian and Aracella remained aligned, he had no way of preventing the wedding.
An alliance between two people cut from the same cloth proved far too solid to breach.
Damian applied the final pressure.
Cornered by his son’s chill resolve, the Duke was forced to yield.
Damian offered a charming smile as he drew another parchment from his breast pocket.
It was the formal letter of consent for the marriage of Aracella Hugo and Damian Vandermeer.
Damian handed him a pen. The Duke stared back, stunned and utterly derisive.
In the end, however, he had no choice but to affix his signature in silence.
Taking the signed consent and leaving the damning confession behind, Damian departed with a look of quiet satisfaction.
Once he was gone, the Duchess hurried into the study, fretting over her husband.
Without a word, the Duke slammed the paper onto the table in fury and brought his fist down upon it.
His blood boiled at the thought of those incompetent mercenaries who could not even handle a single young woman, leaving this mess in their wake.
In truth, the mercenaries had been denied any such chance, captured instantly by Aracella’s magic.
Oblivious to the truth, the Duke lit a cigar in bitter resentment.
Only after drawing in a deep breath and exhaling a cloud of smoke did the furnace in his chest begin to subside.
Meanwhile, the Duchess skimmed the mercenary’s statement and felt so dizzy she nearly collapsed.
The Duke raised a hand to silence her, lost in thought.
Repeated attempts to derail the marriage had all ended in miserable failure.
Worse, the Duke had exposed far too many vulnerabilities. Pushing any further risked far greater losses and an uncontrollable scandal.
After a heavy silence, the Duke spoke.
He knew that continuing this gambit would only bring ruin down upon his head; retreat was his only option.
Marriage did not automatically confer the succession.
Though the will stipulated that whichever son married Hugo’s granddaughter would be named heir, the declaration carried no legal force until proclaimed officially by the Vandermeer Duchy.
And while the Emperor wished to honor his late friend’s testament, he would hardly meddle directly in an internal struggle between a duke’s sons.
The Duke spoke with cold composure.
The Duke turned his wrath upon his wife, driving her back in fright.
Roaring in anger, the Duke kicked the table.
He stormed out of the room.
Left behind, the Duchess was wrapped in desolate misery.
Oscar stepped toward his mother.
The Duchess turned to him with tender eyes.
She opened her arms wide to embrace him, but Oscar merely gave her a cursory pat on the back before pulling away.
He cared far less for his mother’s wounded feelings than he did for the fate of Damian’s marriage.
The Duchess grasped his hands fiercely, promising to make it so no matter the cost.
Yet while his mother lost herself in fierce ambition, Oscar’s mind drifted to Aracella.
To his eyes, she was the most stunning woman he had ever beheld, and the thought that she would belong to his half-brother gnawed at him.
He took immense pride in his ability to charm women; it had always been his specialty, and he was convinced Aracella would prove no different.
Countless women throughout the Vandermeer estate had already fallen prey to his whims.
Damian might possess sharper looks, but Oscar was the firstborn son who commanded the family’s favor.
He believed that alone would suffice to ensnare Aracella, just like all the others before her.
On the eve of the wedding, the final terms of the prenuptial agreement were settled.
Damian and Aracella visited the temple under the pretext of filing their marriage registration, though their true aim was to have the contract certified.
Wishing to avoid suspicion, their casual banter about marriage seemed entirely natural.
Aracella spoke as they strolled through the temple corridors.
From a distance, their exchange looked wonderfully affectionate, reinforcing the public illusion that this was a union born of love.
Yet reality could not have been further from the truth; the picture was mere theater.
While awaiting the priest in the reception room, Aracella reviewed the marriage contract once more.
Over the past month, drafting this document had proven the most exhausting endeavor, as both sides sought clauses that would shield their respective interests.
Aracella’s gaze drifted to the final clause.
Curiously enough, both Damian and Aracella had agreed to this condition simultaneously without a shred of hesitation.
Neither harbored any desire to become entangled in sentiment or invite messy complications.
Aracella looked straight at Damian, offering a firm reminder.
Damian gave a faint, questioning tilt of his head.
Dressed in a gown of soft lavender matching her hair, Aracella offered an unruffled smile.
Damian replied, looking mildly taken aback.
To him, vengeance held far greater weight than love.
Indeed, countless men had harbored feelings for Aracella, only to mask them beneath rude posturing out of wounded pride.
In the end, though, they all confessed their feelings, which had only ever annoyed her.
Damian looked slightly nonplussed.
Aracella smiled as innocently as an angel.
At that moment, the high priest tasked with certifying the contract stepped into the room.
He was a man of long service, renowned for his unbending integrity, which made him worthy of their trust.
The middle-aged priest cast an eye over the contract Aracella handed him.
Though he immediately grasped that the impending marriage was a calculated arrangement, he showed no sign of perturbation, remaining thoroughly composed.
At Damian’s stern condition, the priest gave a solemn nod.
When a contract was consecrated in the temple, the presiding priest was bound by absolute secrecy from disclosing any detail to the outside world.
After the priest notarized the agreement and filed an official copy, each of them took their respective copies and made their exit.
Damian and Aracella bid each other farewell as though they were merely attending someone else’s ceremony, turning on their heels to head in opposite directions.
It was the very last day the two would ever walk separate paths.
Frederick raised an eyebrow as he listened to the subordinate assigned to keep watch over Aracella.
He had been told they visited the temple merely to submit their marriage registration, so why had they sought an audience with a priest licensed to notarize legal oaths?
Aracella enjoyed good relations with her family, and Damian commanded the Red Falcon Knights. Neither had any cause to demand an oath of certification.
Frederick tapped lightly against his desk, recalling how confidently Aracella had insisted she had been seeing Damian in secret.
Doubt flared brightly within his crimson eyes.
He produced the documents delivered by his subordinate days earlier—the findings of the background check run on Damian. It clearly stated that an arranged marriage had been brokered between the Duke of Vandermeer and Marquis Hugo.
‘So it was never a love match!’
A faint, mocking smile curled Frederick’s lips.
He did not yet grasp the entire web of circumstances, but this was enough to draw a clear conclusion.
Aracella was not marrying Damian Vandermeer out of love. Some manner of coercion lay behind this union.
His smile deepened. After all, it was always the prince who rescued the princess held captive by the enemy.
He issued the command with a radiant look, the warm light of the setting sun illuminating the bright smile on his pale face.