chapter 5
Could it be that he threw away the cigarette he had been smoking because of me?
There was no reason for him to be considerate of her even in such trivial matters.
With a bewildered expression, Ivnia asked,
“You said it doesn’t matter because you’re immortal. Why put it out?”
“You’re not.”
The man answered as if it were nothing important. He lightly rubbed his hands together and interlaced his fingers.
Resting his chin on them, he said,
“Anyway, to keep it simple, I have no intention of marrying you. And I certainly have no intention of eating you.”
“...Why?”
Even though Ivnia had already expected him to say that, she asked for a reason anyway.
Ironically, the so-called Monster Grand Duke was, objectively speaking, not a bad marriage prospect.
The rumors that he ate people were false, and in reality, he was considerate toward the weak.
If one could marry him, he would be considered a good husband no matter who his bride was.
It seemed that after hearing of the death of her older sister—the woman originally meant to become his bride—he had simply given up on the marriage arrangement altogether.
A question suddenly crossed Ivnia’s mind.
Why did it have to be her sister?
“Do I look unappetizing?”
The moment the words left her mouth, he erupted into a violent coughing fit.
Apparently, there was no magic that could stop coughing. His nose turned red before he finally managed to regain control of his breathing.
Covering his mouth with one hand, he beckoned to her with the other.
“Stand up for a second.”
“Pardon?”
“Stand beside the chair.”
His voice was still rough as he urged her again.
Since he rose to his feet first, as if demonstrating what he meant, Ivnia obediently followed his instructions.
Once he confirmed that she was standing properly, the man lightly snapped his fingers.
The next moment, Ivnia realized they had been transported somewhere else.
Having experienced it once already, she was not nearly as startled this time.
As she looked around, Agram briefly explained their location.
“A storage room just below the top floor of the tower. I figured it’d be faster to show you than explain it.”
As he spoke, he stepped toward the wall in front of them.
Because there were curtains hanging there, she had assumed there would be a window behind them, just like the slanted walls around it.
Instead, a large painting was hidden behind the curtain.
A woman?
In the portrait, which looked as though it had been painted yesterday, a beautiful woman sat at an angle, smiling.
Her shimmering blonde hair, lake-blue eyes, and rosy cheeks made her look utterly lovely.
Ivnia was staring blankly at the woman preserved in the past when Agram suddenly held out his left hand, displaying the wedding ring on his finger.
“I’ll be direct. I’m married.”
“What?”
“I already got married. To the woman in this painting. About four hundred years ago.”
Only after several moments did Ivnia finally understand what he was saying.
Not that the shock faded.
She simply stared at him blankly as he continued speaking in an even tone.
“My wife was an ordinary human, so she died before I did. I’ve been waiting for her to be reborn.”
“......”
“An old acquaintance of mine has a bit of prophetic ability. He said your sister was her. That’s why I made a contract with your ancestor, telling him to send a daughter of your family to me around this time. That’s the whole story behind this marriage arrangement.”
Could there be a more moving story than this?
A man who loved his wife so deeply had spent centuries alone, waiting to meet her again after she departed before him.
For her alone, he had spent all those years repeatedly cherishing moments that, compared to the span of his life, were little more than fleeting instants.
It was the kind of beautiful story that could bring tears to one’s eyes.
The dizziness she felt was probably because they had suddenly come to such a high place.
“Do you understand now why I said I can’t marry you?”
“...Then my parents were doing something meaningless from the beginning. I wasn’t the person Lord Ram wanted.”
Count and Countess Hessen had truly wasted their efforts.
They had never needed to bring in and raise an orphan who resembled their daughter.
Emilia never would have needed to hide from the eyes of others.
They had come up with that desperate plan because they couldn’t bear to send their precious daughter to marry a monster.
But the man standing before her was not someone worth avoiding marriage with at all.
No matter what husband Emilia found, he could hardly be better.
His looks were so extraordinary that one could search every theater troupe in the nation and still doubt they would find someone as handsome.
His wealth rivaled that of the royal family.
And when problems arose, he preferred solving them through conversation rather than force.
That kind of patience was something a monster should not have possessed.
Most importantly, unlike ordinary political marriages, this one would have contained love.
He was a man who had waited hundreds of years for his deceased wife.
Once she was reborn, there was no doubt she would be cherished beyond measure.
Turning her gaze toward the window, Ivnia murmured,
“I’m jealous of my sister.”
Even at the grave she had sought with the determination to die, she had been told that she was not needed.
Which meant she had now lost even her usefulness as a corpse.
The air seemed to leak out of her.
“You said you were forced to come here?”
Slowly blinking, Ivnia replied,
“Yes.”
“You don’t get along with your family?”
“No.”
“Then I suppose you don’t really want to go back home.”
Whether she wanted to or not, she couldn’t.
The reason the Hessen family had taken in and fed an orphan of unknown origin no longer existed.
So where was she supposed to go now?
She had left the hometown where she had lived her entire life and had even lost the one place where she had intended to die.
Do I have anywhere to go?
With damp eyes, Ivnia looked down at the village spread beneath the castle.
Perhaps because the building stood on elevated ground, the height was dizzying.
If she fell from here, her body would probably be unrecognizable.
After taking his eyes off the portrait of his wife, the man turned to Ivnia.
Persistently, he asked,
“Is there anywhere you want to go?”
“No.”
“If you want to settle somewhere else, I can help.”
“Thank you, but I’ll manage on my own.”
“Stop being stubborn and accept help when it’s offered.”
“You really don’t need to.”
He had already been more than kind to her.
There was no need for him to take responsibility for fools who had wasted their lives trapped in ridiculous misunderstandings.
The emotions she felt now—the crushing despair that was breaking her apart—belonged entirely to her.
Because the man she had believed was the cause of all her misery had, absurdly enough, never once been cruel to her.
He was the one person who had deceived no one from the very beginning.
“Don’t be ridiculous, kid. Do you think life is that easy?”
Agram suddenly raised his voice.
As though this were his own problem, he became angry on her behalf.
“What horrible thing do you think is going to happen to a sheltered noble girl like you wandering around alone without an escort? Decide where you want to settle, figure out what you’re going to do there, write me a ten-year life plan, and bring it to me. Then I’ll let you go.”
As he spoke, he rummaged through his pocket as though craving a cigarette.
He pulled one out and brought it toward his mouth, but suddenly frowned and stopped.
Then he spat it out and snapped it in half.
Hearing the crack of something hard breaking, Ivnia turned her head and saw that the cigarette had transformed into a stick-shaped candy.
Holding out the end that had not touched his mouth, he said,
“Eat it. It’s strawberry flavored.”
“I don’t like strawberries.”
“Then orange.”
The moment he flicked his fingers, the red stripes decorating the candy’s surface turned orange.
She simply couldn’t understand why someone so naturally kind had gained a reputation as a monster.
Most likely, he was so profoundly lazy that he had deliberately spread those ridiculous rumors to avoid visitors.
For some reason, Ivnia suddenly felt like crying.
