RAMHM Chapter 13

Why Is This Coming Out Here?

"Madam?"

"Madam! Your appearance—!"

"Oh my, Master!"

"Count!"

I locked the bedroom door. After encountering Count Acacia, I'd urged the coachman recklessly and fled to the estate. Throughout the carriage ride from the Imperial Palace back to the estate, I wept without stopping.

"Madam! Madam, what's wrong?"

"Are you hurt somewhere?"

The sound of knocking and worried voices came in alternating waves. I pulled the pillow over my head and pressed my ears shut tight. I didn't want to hear anyone's words, didn't want to tell anyone my feelings. I hated Novian too much. As much as I'd loved and relied on him—that much I hated him.

Do you know how hard it is to watch someone you love suffer?

That single sentence tore my heart to shreds. Novian had never once said anything unpleasant to my face. Even when I struggled, he'd only repeated that it was fine, that I was beautiful, that I shouldn't worry about anything.

'Tell me.'

That watching me like that was hard for you too. That you were exhausted too. If he'd been honest with me, even if it hurt a little—I would have pushed myself to smile more beautifully for him.

'You can be as spoiled as you want, Adrienne.'

'You're my wife. Your pain is the same as my pain. So don't hide it.'

He'd said such sweet things. Even on those precious days when we only saw each other once every few months.

Was that sincere, Noah?

So you were exhausted—and met this woman instead of me? While whispering that you loved Adrienne, you wanted to be with this woman? Enough to want to kiss her before even holding a hundred-day funeral after I died? After I'd cried until the pillow was soaked through, at some point even the tears stopped coming. What did he mean by his 'complete' mistress? Was he asking her to move into the Grand Ducal Estate and live there?

To become Bliea Acacia like this and enter the Grand Ducal Estate to live like a shadow?

Given Novian's personality, he would never make his mistress—this Bliea who wasn't even of noble birth—the next Grand Duchess.

How can it be this miserable?

If Bliea kept her promise with him and became his mistress, living quietly in or near the Grand Ducal Estate?

Then what about me?

Not Bliea, but Adrienne? Could I—who is Adrienne—live like that? I, who in an instant became neither the daughter of Pirreta nor Novian's wife. I, who must hide without revealing my identity properly to anyone. Imagining such a life, even with this healthy body, my chest felt suffocated and tears poured out.

I would probably live unhappily for the rest of my life. Even if I received my husband's love in a mistress's body, that wouldn't be me. And if he said he loved the dead Adrienne, not Bliea, I could only be hurt.

If you love me, why are you holding this woman, Noah?

I would spend my entire life suffering in such anguish before ending it. Jealous and resentful of the new Grand Duchess who would help Crown Prince Bardenaldo, whom he would establish as the next Emperor. The imagination alone made me breathless.

God—why do you play such tricks on me? I could only keep thinking that. While giving others both a healthy body and a companion, why won't you give me even one of the two properly—why? No matter how much I thought about it, there was no clear solution.

Count Acacia, who'd become my husband, seemed to wish I'd become Novian's 'official' mistress as soon as possible and leave this estate. The maids too, secretly waiting for Novian's contact, seemed to hope they might also move their residence to the Grand Ducal Estate that had no mistress.

When the crying subsided and only despair filled my head completely—I remembered Rhodness's face, with whom I'd been together just moments ago.

'I'll ask once more. Do you need help?'

That unfamiliar, beautiful man who spoke as if he knew my entire situation. The man who seemed to know my true self.

I was betrayed by Novian, whom I trusted like a rock for years—how can I trust that man I just met?

When I grew quiet in the bedroom, I heard the sound of Yona quietly opening the door and entering. I closed my eyes pretending to sleep and felt Yona's touch wiping my feet. The man who'd naturally found and brought my shoes came to mind again.

What can you help me with?

What do you want?

What do I want? Even thinking about it again, it was utterly ridiculous. I bit down hard on my molars to keep a hollow laugh from escaping. The body I wanted to beg to be healed was dead, and inside the body of the mistress I wanted to kill—I was firmly lodged. And Novian...

'I mean, so you won't cry like that? I have no hobby of interfering in lovers' quarrels.'

I clearly remembered that man's cool face, not hiding his contemptuous expression when he saw Novian's affair. A man who approached asking if I needed help, then showed those strange eyes—whether contempt or surprise. Seeing that face, I'd clutched my head, dizzy from the rising alcohol.

'If the words "Do you need help?" come from your mouth one more time...'

'Then you'll have to say precisely what I should help you with, yourself.'

What about you should I trust? What are you, anyway? And...

If you help me like that, what should I give you in return?

When I held in my mouth the words I couldn't quite ask—I'd heard a commotion. Count Acacia, more ashen-faced than when he'd collapsed, calling for me, and Rhodness's strange gaze sweeping over my entire body. Neil handing over my shawl he'd picked up from the hall from a distance, facing Count Acacia, and then—the images replaying in my head cut off there, abruptly.

When I opened my eyes, I'd been laid neatly on the bed and changed into nightclothes. Though I'd only had one glass of champagne at yesterday's party, my head ached terribly. As if it would literally split. When I shook the bellpull frantically, Yona came running in a rush, carrying wash water.

"Madam! Are you all right?"

With slightly tearful eyes, she pressed down firmly on me as I tried to sit up. It was an extremely rude action to do to a noblewoman, but I had no strength left to point it out.

"Someone who can't even hold their liquor—just how much did you drink!"

Outside the door, Marge and several other maids stood without entering, looking at me with concern. I leaned back against the headboard.

From the murmuring sounds and Yona's words, it was clear they all thought I'd gotten drunk yesterday. Yona wiped my face with a wet cloth with her capable hands. Looking at the distant mirror, my hair was only slightly disheveled but my makeup had been cleanly removed. It seemed Yona had removed it while I slept.

"Today's newspaper?"

As if she'd been waiting, Marge entered the bedroom and held out today's newspapers and gossip magazines. Yona began brushing my hair diligently. I entrusted my head entirely to her and rifled through the gossip magazines frantically. Not a single word entered my head. Leaving behind yesterday's dreamlike situation, I realized it was time to think about how I should live from now on.

I need to get away from Novian.

Divorce. I had to escape from this estate belonging to Novian's vassal. Even if I didn't enter his estate, at least I shouldn't live here as the wife of Count Acacia.

Let's start with divorce.

If it was a marriage directly ordered by Novian, the dowry would have been substantial. With an amicable divorce, I could receive proper alimony. I clutched my splitting head and headed to Bliea's study connected to the drawing room. It felt too much like a warehouse with miscellaneous items for a place to conduct business, but I began scanning the thick books stuck as decorations on the massive bookshelf. I pulled out a book that seemed placed there for me to see—

Thunk.

From inside that thick reference book, another book painted in a dreadful shade of pink fell out.

"Oh, I didn't see anything!"

"...?"

When I picked up what had fallen to the floor, Yona suddenly covered her eyes with her hands and cried out. At the same time, Marge also opened her mouth wide and began hopping around.

"I wondered where Madam had hidden her diary—to think it was hidden in such a place!"

"Diary?"

"Even though I told you that since it's written in that squiggly foreign language, no one could read it anyway... To hide it in a study you rarely even visit. Really, such fussiness."

At Marge's grumbling, I felt as if the pounding headache had stopped instantly.

A diary!

Bliea Acacia's diary! The damned mistress's diary had fallen into my hands! For me, who couldn't quench my frustration even knowing the truth, this was good news. With trembling hands from excitement, I carefully opened that dreadful pink diary. But this...

"...Why is this coming out here?"

My head, which had stopped aching, began spinning wildly again like this morning. The damned Bliea Acacia had written her entire diary in Ellaconian for fear someone might secretly read it.

"This, why on earth..."

In the foreign language I'd failed every time during my Academy days—the foreign language I hated most in the world!

The dungeon monsters he'd intended to use as research material all had their necks rolling around, severed by someone's sword. Covered entirely in that terrible blood, Rhodness was at the dungeon entrance, pouring alcohol straight from the bottle down his throat.

"Wondered where you'd gone."

"......"

"Your Highness."

"F*ck off."

Neil let out a deep sigh and held out a wet cloth. It meant to at least wipe off the blood. Rhodness, not accepting it and only gulping down alcohol, looked remarkably like when Neil had first met him. Not his usual subtly insane self, but that face from two years ago when he'd gone completely mad, some corner of his reason severed with a snap.

"Son of a bitch bastard..."

"Didn't expect to hear such curses just for trying to wipe off your blood..."

"The body?"

"......"

Neil was beginning to realize that this beautiful and dangerous predator reacted strangely to news related to the Grand Duchess Trovika. Even when he'd first met him two years ago—come to think of it, it was when the entire empire was abuzz about the Grand Duke and Duchess Trovika being the couple of the century. When everyone celebrated the meeting of a beautiful couple and made them gossip fodder at drinking parties, only this mad dog had drunk insanely and spilled blood.

"Get your ears pierced and come back."

"The body is still at the Grand Ducal Estate. No one has seen it."

"......"

"And at the Acacia Count's estate..."

Clang! In an instant, the bottle shattered and rolled across the floor. Looking at the alcohol pooling richly on the floor like someone's spilled blood, Neil swallowed dryly.

The rake from that evening, who'd seemed ambiguously leisurely—as if teasing yet helping a married woman—was nowhere to be found. Only the Dog Prince existed—Rhodness, as his aides secretly nicknamed him. Red eyes flashing in the dark night made his spine tense more than a massive monster.

The person his lord seemed ready to kill to satisfy himself was clearly Grand Duke Novian Trovika. After confirming that 'son of a bitch bastard' wasn't himself, Neil let out a relieved sigh and held out a paper he'd brought. The flashing red eyes immediately shook greatly, then soon became smooth like hazelnut shells. By the time goosebumps rose on Neil's arms at that astonishing transformation—

"Apply for the position."

"Pardon? I don't know even the first letter of Ellaconian..."

"Are you joking?"

Then is my lord being serious right now? Sentences dripping with insubordination crackled like flames in his mouth. Neil swallowed them and spoke carefully.

"...Surely not Your Highness?"

Rhodness immediately uncapped a new bottle and poured it down his throat. It was a signal to get lost. Neil, who'd been staring blankly at him, turned and shuffled away, then looked back once more. Rhodness kept repeating the pattern of looking at the paper Neil had given him, laughing with a distorted face, then pouring alcohol into his mouth.

'He's insane.'

And at the same time, every time he tilted his chin up to drink, something unbelievable flowed down—something Neil had seen several times already but still couldn't believe.

'Why does he cry like that every single day?'

Rhodness's tears. Hot ice. Like cold lava—something that couldn't possibly exist in this world, Neil kept witnessing lately.