“Kyaaaah!”
The maid let out a piercing shriek.
Shattered pieces of a teacup and a broken teapot lay scattered at her feet.
Tears streaming down her face, the newly hired maid looked up at the young master standing before her.
Pale skin, an emaciated frame, and hollow cheeks.
His raven hair was as dark as the midnight sky, and his gray eyes shone as clear as a full moon.
Having only recently come of age, the young man looked like an exquisite masterpiece meticulously shaped by an artist.
Delicate lines and sharp contours, eyes slanted sharply like a cat's, and distinct features in his nose and lips. Not a single flaw could be found in him.
“I told you. Do not touch my body.”
“I—I didn't! I was only trying to pour the tea…”
“Damn it.”
What difference did that make?
The man stepped down from the bed and slowly approached the maid collapsed on the floor.
“Get out of my sight.”
“B-but Madam said… Kyaaa! M-my Lord!”
The maid gasped in terror as her master stepped onto the broken shards of glass with his bare feet, completely indifferent.
The jagged points sank deep into his soles, and blood began to seep out.
Yet he showed no sign of pain, simply glaring down at the maid with cold detachment.
“You seem to take me lightly.”
“No, it's not like that! I was only following orders! Madam told me to serve you tea and talk about the marriage…!”
“Do not utter that cursed word in my presence.”
“M-my Lord.”
Ryan leaned closer to the maid, then picked up a sharp shard from the broken teapot off the floor.
The pointed edge was perfectly suited to scratch or cut through flesh.
“No, don't! Please don't do that!”
Realizing his intention, the maid dropped to her knees in desperate pleading.
“Dying now or dying later—it all ends the same, doesn't it?”
“No, you can't! My Lord! Head Maid!”
“Why? Weren't you wishing for my death as well?”
“No, never! That really isn't true!”
At that moment, the head butler and the guards outside noticed the commotion and rushed over.
“Young Master! Calm down, please!”
· · ·
Ryan watched them with dry eyes, then clenched his hand tightly around the ceramic shard.
The sharp edge dug deep into his palm, and blood gushed forth like water.
A metallic stench rose alongside the deep crimson stain.
Unlike the maid, who was trembling like a drowned rat, the head butler approached him slowly, as though this scene were all too familiar.
“My Lord, we must treat the wound at once!”
“Enough. Get this maid out of here.”
Ryan tossed the shard to the floor. Her legs having given out beneath her, the maid crawled backward on her hands and knees.
As the guards helped her to her feet, she burst into tears and sobbed from the depths of her chest, “I can't do this anymore. I really can't!”
The head butler signaled with a glance to have the maid removed immediately, then ordered someone to fetch the physician.
Meanwhile, Ryan casually lay back on the bed and stared out the window with an empty expression.
“The physician will arrive shortly.”
“That maid will quit. How many does that make now?”
· · ·
“It will be hard to find another maid after this. Wouldn't you say, Butler?”
Despite Ryan's mocking tone, the head butler merely bowed his head.
“There are plenty of maids who wish to serve the House of Soltaire, my Lord.”
“What a pity for them.”
“Your bride will arrive soon, my Lord.”
Bride.
That single word caused Ryan's features to twist and crumble.
“She is a virtuous young lady. From the family of Count Winterlit. She has lovely golden hair…”
“Shut up.”
The head butler hesitated for a moment under Ryan's sharp gaze, but pressed on.
“I am certain you will find her pleasing.”
“Since the maids were of no use, you've decided to bring in that noble lady to keep by my side.”
“This is for the sake of the Soltaire family, my Lord.”
“More precisely, for the Duchess of Soltaire.”
Ryan gritted his teeth.
Ryan's mother, who had borne both the eldest and the second son, had passed away early from the very same illness he now suffered from.
After her death, the current Duchess of Soltaire had entered the house—a young woman who gave birth to the third son.
She was young and cultured, but she was equally greedy.
She was the one who had nudged the eldest son toward a pious life until he became a priest.
The new Duchess had tried to shove Ryan onto the path of the priesthood as well, but unfortunately for her, his interests lay strictly in military arts and politics.
Fortune, however, favored that woman. The year Ryan turned seventeen, he succumbed to the chronic illness that had killed his mother.
With that, the third son became the natural heir to the Soltaire dukedom, and Ryan lost everything.
And now what?
A wife? A marriage?
“You would have done better to find me a ghost bride to be buried alongside me when I die.”
“Young Master!”
As Ryan gazed out the window, he caught sight of the crown of a blonde woman's head entering the annex below.
Is that her? That foolish woman sold off in an arranged marriage.
“One month.”
“Pardon?”
“That future wife will flee this estate within a month.”
“It appears there was a minor incident.”
The Head Maid spoke in a dry, hollow voice as she looked down at the shards of glass on the ground.
An incident, she had called it.
Anasta already knew Ryan had shattered the window himself; she had broken glass panes on several occasions in the past.
And above all, there was that intense gaze he had cast down on her while perched on the windowsill.
“Your room is here.”
While she was lost in thought about Ryan, the Head Maid led her toward the adjoining room with a large door.
Anasta instinctively recognized that the room next door was Ryan's.
“We have arranged everything inside properly. If you require anything else, please let us know.”
“It is a wonderful room.”
She remarked as she took in the space, which was far larger and vastly better furnished than her room at the Count's estate.
“However, what is this door?”
She noticed a single door set into the connecting wall.
It appeared to lead directly into the neighboring room…
“The Young Master occasionally locks his door. In such instances, one may enter through here.”
The Head Maid handed a key to Anasta.
“Do you mean forcing entry?”
“Not ordinarily. But when the master refuses to take his medicine or meals, we make use of this door.”
Anasta immediately realized this task would fall upon her.
“Rest well today. I shall brief you on your duties tomorrow.”
Click.
The door shut.
Though it was an unfamiliar environment, Anasta did not tremble in fear.
She had heard plenty of rumors regarding Soltaire's second son before arriving here.
More than that, she had dealt with parents who bore no resemblance to actual parents for twenty years.
She had witnessed enough tears to leave her thoroughly nauseated.
Anger, lust, squandering, greed, and arrogance… Had she not already experienced the absolute worst of human nature?
Therefore, to Anasta, this place was practically paradise.
A very quiet paradise.
Slipping out of her coat, she lay down on the bed.
‘It's soft.’
It was incomparably better than the cold floor she was accustomed to sleeping on.
Perhaps because of that, she slipped into a deep slumber the moment she lay down.
While submerged in a rest so peaceful she didn't even dream, someone suddenly seized her wrist with a firm grip.
‘Again?’
It was the habit of her drunken mother to barge into Anasta's room and do just that.
She would deliberately shake her awake to unleash her fury upon her.
She always had to listen, quietly enduring those insults and curses.
Anasta opened her eyes calmly, only to freeze when she took in a sight entirely unlike the usual.
This was not the Count's residence.
And the person looming over her was not her aging mother, but a man breathtakingly handsome.
“You.”
· · ·
“Why did you take the room right next to mine?”
The man glared down at her, his brow furrowed.
His face was simmering with hostility.
Instead of yielding to sudden panic, Anasta analyzed the situation.
The man before her was Ryan Soltaire.
And the connecting door leading to his room stood wide open.
‘So it wasn't locked.’
Or perhaps Ryan had unlocked it himself.
“Well, well, my sold-off lady.”
Ryan sneered, his voice dripping with deliberate mockery.
“I don't think this is the time for your mind to be wandering off into nonsense.”
“The choice of room was not mine to make, my Lord.”
The answer slid smoothly from between her lips.
Ryan paused for a brief beat, taken aback by her voice, which sounded far calmer and more composed than he had anticipated.
He fell silent, looking down at Anasta lying beneath him.
It was only natural to be terrified when abruptly awakened, yet she wasn't merely calm—she was utterly collected.
And that only provoked Ryan's irritation further.
“Demand another room.”
“I have no right to choose, my Lord.”
“No right to choose? I am a man, and you are a woman. Do you really wish to have something like this done to you?”
As he spoke, Ryan lightly trailed his hand across her lower abdomen over her clothes.
That strange, suspicious touch caused Anasta's brow to knit slightly.
END
