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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 4
Chapter Title: A Business Proposition
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The moment an inexplicable anxiety spread through me, I disobeyed my mother again.
I opened the document.
After that, I threw aside the silver candlesticks and everything else, clutching only the crumpled document as I began to run toward the mansion.
‘The Duke… he’ll never let me go. He’ll hold on to my corpse if he has to. As collateral.’
Her words rang in my ears.
I quickly found the Duke’s office and threw the door open.
Strangely, there were no servants on the first floor where the Duke’s office was located.
And when I opened the door, the cloying smell of blood assaulted my nose.
I collapsed right where I stood.
‘M-Mother… B-Brother…?’
As I mumbled, the Duke, his face stained with red blood, looked down at me.
His eyes fell on the document in my hand.
‘So you’ve come, Imeline. For a family of swindlers, you all seem quite close. I suppose it was a good thing I used a gun instead of a crossbow. Now, give me that document.’
The Duke smiled faintly, glancing at the gun in his hand.
I smiled back at him.
‘You’ll kill me even if I give it to you, won’t you?’
The Duke chuckled at my words.
‘I’ll kill you even if you don’t.’
I knew I had done something foolish, but I also knew there was no turning back.
The Duke aimed the gun at me.
‘Goodbye, Imeline.’
There was no escape.
In that case, instead of begging for my life, I would curse him with all my might. That was my decision.
‘You’re insane. If there’s a next life, I’ll make sure to destroy you. You miserable psycho bastard!’
It was then that I rose to my feet.
*Bang!*
The Duke’s bullet pierced my heart.
His red eyes held no emotion.
✵ ✵ ✵
Eric brought a cold ice pack to my hand.
I looked into his red eyes and pulled my hand away. As I glared at him, breathing heavily, Eric frowned with a bewildered expression.
Then, a moment later, as if he’d realized something, he quickly stepped back like a well-mannered gentleman and bowed his head.
“My apologies, Lady Imeline. I also apologize for taking your hand without permission.”
An apology?
A chill ran down my spine as I wondered what this polite nobleman’s true nature was.
Red eyes, just like his father’s.
Was his heart the same as Duke Orleans’s?
I recoiled as if I had touched something filthy. Eric read the displeasure on my face and held the ice pack out to me.
“I am sorry, Lady Imeline. But if you don’t treat it properly, you’ll be in pain for a while.”
Acting like a courteous gentleman. Acting like a kind man. Was it a trait of the men in this family to be doing something else behind your back?
I snorted. Eric’s eyebrow twitched. It was probably surprising that the country bumpkin who had always groveled before him was suddenly acting so arrogant.
I snatched the ice pack from his hand and pressed it against my burning skin.
“I don’t need an apology that’s all talk.”
Then I stood up and faced Eric. He rose to his feet as well.
“Money, on the other hand, is a different story.”
I stared directly at Eric. I expected him to glare back, but he didn’t. Instead, with an odd emotion in his eyes, he simply said:
“This is your true self, isn’t it?”
The way he said it, his eyes so closely resembled Duke Orleans’s that I flinched in spite of myself.
Cold, emotionless eyes.
There was no trace of emotion in Eric, who wore the exact same expression as the Duke who had pointed a gun at me. He had always pretended to be so kind. I suppose blood really is thicker than water. Was Eric Orleans the same kind of man?
I said.
“What do you mean?”
“You know better than anyone what I mean…”
“Why don’t you just say it…”
*Because I have no idea what you’re talking about.*
I fought the urge to be sarcastic.
“How should we settle this?”
“Settle what?”
“You said you’d prefer money as a form of apology.”
He rummaged inside his coat, looking as if he were about to write a check on the spot.
‘I thought he was just a stuffy rich boy, but he knows how to throw his money around, too?’
Was it really like father, like son?
I decided to test him and named a large sum.
“One hundred thousand gold.”
One hundred thousand gold was the amount a respectable noble family might spend in a month. Of course, it was a pittance compared to the monthly budget of the Orleans dukedom.
But the rich are often the stingiest…
“Fine, one hundred thousand gold. I’ll deliver it to you personally.”
“What?”
Eric stared at me as if to ask if there was a problem.
There is a problem, you fool…! You’ll deliver that much money personally?
I briefly realized there had been a miscalculation on my part.
One hundred thousand gold was a huge sum, and I had expected Eric to be furious. But now I saw that Eric possessed enough wealth to casually offer that amount as an apology.
So the rumors about Duke Orleans making a fortune in business weren’t false after all.
I felt a little angry.
Last night, there had been a hint of pity mixed in with his contempt. And just now, he had even tried to apply the ice pack to my hand himself.
This bastard was trying to console a frightened me with money. The proof was that even as he was spending a hundred thousand gold, those red eyes of his couldn’t look me straight in the eye.
I was so dumbfounded that I said.
“And which one is your true self?”
“What?”
Eric began walking into the drawing room, looking quite displeased to be having this conversation on the stairs.
“Madam Margaret Beaufort.”
But at my next words, Eric stopped in his tracks. He turned back to me.
I scoffed and said to him.
“You’re preparing a business venture with that lady, aren’t you? Does your family… no, does your father know about this?”
Eric’s face hardened.
Watching his red eyes fill with alarm, I knew I had hit the mark.
I should have known when he so readily offered a hundred thousand gold.
This was something I had heard in my dream.
‘I don’t understand why Lady Margaret is trying to involve the Young Lord in her new business. The Duke is one thing, but the Young Lord is too rigid. He’s not cut out for business.’
‘Anyway, we need to speak with the Young Lord and see if we can get an opportunity for ourselves…’
It was something the collateral branches of the Orleans family had chattered about when they came to greet my mother, my brother, and me.
They had been talking amongst themselves in the hallway, saying that the Young Lord must be feeling threatened by the marriage between his father and my mother. Why else would he start a business on his own without telling his father?
‘To think that dream was all true…’
It was surprising enough that the horrifying dream was turning out to be reality, but it was also shocking that this prim and proper young master had schemed to start a business behind his father’s back.
Did this mean that Eric and Duke Orleans didn’t share as many secrets as I thought? Could it be that Eric didn’t know about the dangerous Orleans secret written in the document from my dream?
I needed to find out which it was.
If Eric distrusted his father, then he was an enemy of Duke Orleans. And the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
We might be able to become friends.
“Are you blackmailing me right now? I believe I just offered you money as an apology.”
Anger laced Eric’s voice.
From his tone, I could tell. Ah, this pampered young master had grown up without ever being blackmailed.
Did that mean Eric was a good person? Or that the world had been uniquely kind to him?
Either way, it didn’t matter.
Just then, a maid brought an ointment for the back of my hand. Because of her presence, Eric, though unable to hide his displeasure, couldn’t say anything more.
While the maid applied the ointment, Eric just glared at me. As soon as she left, he spoke.
“Where did you get that information?”
The relatives were right. Eric truly had no business acumen.
He was too straightforward. As if I would answer him just because he asked.
I sat on the sofa opposite him and crossed my legs. He looked quite displeased that a blackmailer would dare to sit so brazenly before him.
“I can’t reveal the identity of my source. What’s important is that if the Duke finds out his son went into business behind his back…”
“Wait. What source?”
I gave him a secretive smile. Eric looked utterly baffled.
It was a bluff, of course, but Eric didn’t seem to have the eye to distinguish between bravado and bluster.
I rolled my eyes.
If the future really unfolds as it did in my dream… there’s no way to stop Duke Orleans’s madness. For my family to survive, we have to escape from him.
But there was no way Duke Orleans would let us go quietly.
The dukedom possessed immense wealth and power. Besides, the Duke’s goal was that land, a title in name only, left behind by the viscount.
The Duke must have approached my mother from the very beginning with his eyes only on that land. Even if we ran, he would hunt my mother, my brother, and me to the ends of the earth.
So, for now, it was better to place a little hope in this proper young master.
“…Go into business with me.”
