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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 7
Chapter Title: The Northern Duke, Cyrus Karha (3)
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It was a long time later that Ariana finally came to her senses.
She could still feel Cyrus's palm pressed against her back.
Just like the hand that had covered her mouth earlier, the one pressing against her back was cold. The chill seeped through her thin, seasonal dress, making her shiver.
She tried to subtly pull away from him, but his red lips moved first.
"I have bestowed a favor upon you. You now owe me a debt."
Ariana was dumbfounded by his unexpected words.
What utter nonsense. If he hadn't appeared in the storeroom in the middle of the night, none of this would have happened.
However, Ariana replied without revealing her true feelings.
"I was unaware that His Grace, the Northern Duke, was one to impose debts for unasked favors."
"Of course you wouldn't know. We only just met today. It would be wise to remember it from now on."
"I don't believe there will be any need to know more, as we won't be meeting again."
"Well, neither you nor I know what the future holds, do we?"
Ariana lifted her chin and glared at him.
Cyrus spoke as if he were flirting with a woman, yet his eyes remained chillingly cold.
However, his excessively beautiful appearance masked the cruelty coiled within those eyes.
Had Ariana been an ordinary woman, his words might have made her heart flutter.
But Ariana, who had endured countless hardships and even death, remained utterly unmoved by Cyrus's kindness, beautiful as a moon god.
"Does His Grace, the Northern Duke, desire something from me?"
"What could you, who isn't even treated as a proper lady, possibly give me?"
"We've only just met today, yet Your Grace seems to know a great deal about me."
"There is nothing I do not know."
"How envious. I seem to know nothing at all."
"In that case, shall I bestow another favor upon you?"
"There are countless individuals who desire Your Grace's favors; I shall yield to them."
"Are you not curious why your mother cherishes her first daughter more than you, her own blood?"
Ariana's eyes widened.
She already knew why Rachel was particularly lenient with Helena. She had learned it by chance.
That secret had been so tightly guarded that if it hadn't been for the Third Prince, she would have lived and died without ever knowing the reason.
'How does this man know such a thing?'
Ariana wanted to know how much Cyrus knew, and what his true intentions were for sneaking into this mansion.
She didn't want to get involved with him, but knowing his intentions would make it easier to deal with him in the future.
So, she replied readily.
"Please, bestow upon me your valuable wisdom."
"And what will you give me in exchange for this valuable wisdom?"
"What could you possibly want from me, a woman confined to the ducal estate and treated worse than a maid?"
Cyrus gently lifted Ariana's chin with his index finger.
He looked down at Ariana, as if amused, and spoke.
"You don't seem to be ashamed of your situation in the slightest."
"Because I am not the one who should be ashamed."
Cyrus lowered his head slightly, bringing his excessively beautiful face closer. It was then that Ariana realized she was still pressed tightly against him, trapped in the narrow space between him and the storage shelves.
She tried to pull away from him, but a low, intimate voice flowed from his lips, close to her ear.
"Helena is not the former Duchess's child."
Ariana pressed her lips together.
"In truth, she is Rachel Bronte's blood daughter."
Cyrus knew precisely.
The truth that the Western Duke, Rachel, Jacob, and the old Duchess, along with Helena, had meticulously concealed.
"Are you surprised?"
"I am surprised."
"You don't seem particularly surprised."
"You are too close to see my face, so perhaps you cannot discern my surprise."
"You're not probing further. Did you already suspect the situation?"
"By no means. I was merely too astonished to express it properly."
It was unlikely that Cyrus, who knew even Helena's birth secret, would be ignorant of Ariana's circumstances.
For Ariana, who was treated as a nuisance, to already know their truth would be suspicious, so she decided to feign ignorance a little longer.
"How could Helena be my mother's blood daughter?"
"You don't seem particularly curious, but I'll tell you. Rachel was already pregnant with Jacob's child when talks of her marriage to the Eastern Duke began."
The Western Duke, who had planned to marry Rachel to the Eastern Duke, was greatly enraged upon learning the truth. He immediately tried to summon a doctor to terminate the pregnancy, but Rachel and Jacob knelt and pleaded.
"Rachel threatened the Western Duke, saying she would die if the child was killed. The Western Duke, who had to send Rachel to the Eastern Duke no matter what, had no choice but to concede. So, he found and brought a daughter of an unknown noble family from the countryside of Seoryeong, one who only held a baronetcy."
Marianne of the Baronetcy of Wood.
The Bronte Duke's first wife.
Marianne, from a powerless family, had no choice but to marry Jacob under the Western Duke's command.
She pretended to be pregnant immediately after marriage and raised Helena, Rachel's biological child, as her own.
As soon as Rachel gave birth, she was married off to Dongnyeong without proper postnatal care, and Marianne fulfilled the role of Duchess under constant surveillance.
Until Rachel returned to Seoryeong.
"Around the time Rachel returned, Jacob divorced Marianne. Jacob claimed Marianne had committed infidelity, leading to the divorce and her return to the countryside, but Marianne never reached the Wood Baronet's estate."
The powerless Baron Wood dared not inquire about his daughter's whereabouts from the Duke Bronte. He likely had an inkling of what had happened. But knowing that speaking out would only lead to death, he remained silent.
Rachel, who remarried Jacob immediately upon returning after giving birth to Ariana, had such a harmonious marriage that she quickly became pregnant again and gave birth to Victoria.
However, Helena was Rachel's sore spot.
"It must weigh on her mind. Helena is of the Western Duke's bloodline, yet she's only known as the daughter of a rural baroness."
"That must be why she's even more lenient with Helena than with Victoria, her third child."
When Helena was old enough to keep a secret, Rachel told her the truth.
Upon learning the truth, Helena chose to resent Ariana rather than Rachel and Jacob.
She believed that because of Ariana, she couldn't reveal her true lineage as a descendant of the Western Duke and had to live as Marianne's daughter. Even though Ariana herself hadn't chosen to be born that way.
"What is your reason for telling me these facts?"
"Because I'm interested in what you plan to do next."
"I have no intention of doing anything."
"Oh?"
"Yes, Your Grace. I am merely a woman not even treated as a proper lady."
Ariana pushed against his chest with both hands, and the palm that had been steadying her back easily fell away.
Ariana took a step back from him, then looked up at him with a composed posture and spoke.
"It has been a once-in-a-lifetime honor to meet His Grace, the Northern Duke."
"Once-in-a-lifetime, you say. Does that mean you never wish to meet me again?"
"If you understand, Your Grace, you should also know how to show the courtesy of feigning ignorance."
"If you've heard rumors about me, you would have also heard that I possess no such thing as courtesy."
"Rumors are merely rumors; I only believe what I see and hear for myself."
"So, what do you make of me, having seen and heard me yourself?"
It seemed Cyrus had no intention of letting Ariana leave just yet.
Ariana swallowed a sigh and replied.
"How could I dare to evaluate Your Grace? However, this boundless honor has been quite overwhelming for me just once, and I am exceedingly weary, so I shall take my leave now."
She quickly tried to move, intending to depart before he could detain her again.
"Second Lady Bronte."
At the address, which she was hearing for the first time in both her past and present lives, Ariana stopped and glared at him.
Cyrus silently watched as her blue eyes, which had been calm throughout, now blazed as if infused with fire.
"I am neither a Bronte nor a Lady."
"Then what should I call you?"
"Nothing at all."
A cold smile touched Ariana's lips, then vanished.
"There will be no need to call me anything, will there?"
***
Cyrus did not try to stop her further.
He only left the storeroom after the sound of Ariana's footsteps, fading down the corridor as she exited the kitchen, had completely disappeared.
Isaac, who had been perched on a tree outside the storeroom, wore an expression as if he had witnessed something he shouldn't have.
"Cyrus... what on earth did you do?"
Isaac couldn't believe what he had seen with his own eyes.
Cyrus had entered the storeroom even though there was no need, then chatted with Ariana even though there was no need for conversation, and even pulled Ariana close to use concealment magic when there was no need for physical proximity.
Furthermore, even when Ariana clearly showed her displeasure, he continued to flirt like a common street Casanova, and even divulged all the Bronte family secrets he had painstakingly uncovered.
While Ariana's coldness in front of Cyrus was surprising, what truly made Isaac's heart plummet was Cyrus's unprecedented behavior. No, perhaps it had already fallen and rolled far away.
Cyrus's attitude towards Ariana was, to that extent, extraordinary.
Unlike Isaac, who was filled with consternation, Cyrus remained calm.
"That woman has value."
Even that answer was no answer to Isaac.
He's flirting and babbling secrets just because she has value? Cyrus Karha, of all people?
What kind of man was Cyrus?
If someone had value, he was the type to extract whatever was useful from them, regardless of age or gender, even through torture.
There was no reason for Cyrus, who could even draw his sword on the Emperor if necessary, not to do the same to a woman treated like a maid in the Bronte family.
Yet, he had emerged after dawdling and acting in ways he normally never would, only to speak of 'value'.
'Is he sick? Is the water in Seoryeong not agreeing with him?'
Isaac was so bewildered that he began to worry about Cyrus's health.
Feeling Isaac's gaze, Cyrus asked.
"Why?"
"Are you... perhaps not feeling well? Like, a headache... or something?"
"I'm perfectly sane."
Cyrus knew what Isaac was thinking, but he offered no excuses to alleviate his concern.
Normally, Cyrus would have clutched Ariana's throat and threatened her to spill everything she knew.
But Ariana didn't seem like someone who would easily reveal her cards just from such tactics.
He didn't know why he felt this way about a mere sixteen-year-old girl.
Ariana didn't seem like an ordinary girl.
Aside from the brief flicker in her eyes when she first met Cyrus's gaze, Ariana had remained composed and calm throughout.
Even someone who had endured countless trials wouldn't have been able to act so coolly in front of 'the rumored Northern Duke'.
—"I never expected His Grace, the Northern Duke, to visit the Bronte Ducal estate at such an hour. Had we known, everyone would have come out to greet you."
The moment he saw her, not only concealing her embarrassment but even sneering, he was certain that Ariana possessed something significant.
So, to test her, he mentioned the secret of Helena's birth, a secret that had been difficult to uncover but was of little great use, and Ariana seemed to already know the truth.
For a girl confined and abused within the mansion to know the secrets that the Western Duke, Rachel, and Jacob had meticulously hidden was not a situation to be easily dismissed.
If he could get his hands on what Ariana was hiding, dealing with the Western Duke and Eastern Duke in the future would become much easier.
'If she proves useless, then I can discard her when the time comes.'
