Chapter 1.1 – The Beginning of the Story 

Elia Roang. A noble lady of the Roang Earldom, on the verge of her nineteenth coming-of-age.  

She had already graduated from the dull academy, and, unlike others, had blown away any intention to wander around the Imperial Palace with her diploma searching for a job, like leaves in the wind.  

“Yaaawn.”  

Her life consisted only of lazing around, lazing around, and lazing around.  

Her only brother, the Earl of Roang, had gone to the Imperial Palace since dawn as usual, and the mansion’s servants were busy after finishing breakfast.  

Elia, having just woken up in her cozy fourth-floor bedroom, didn’t even think about getting up and just yawned.  

“My Lady, you’re awake now, aren’t you?”  

The only one who looked after her, as always, was Daisy, the servant who had raised Elia since childhood.  

Daisy brought her a basin of water, helping her start her late day, still groggy from sleep.  

“My Lady, are you really not going to tell me about your visit to the Duchy yesterday?”  

No sooner had Elia lifted her still-damp face than Daisy handed her a towel, probing about yesterday’s events.  

“Sigh. Why do you keep asking about that every time?”  

“Well, you said you were going to meet your fiancé, so we dressed you up with all our might.”  

“So, you want to hear what others thought of it? Isn’t it enough if I’m pleased?”  

“Sometimes it’s good to hear a third party’s perspective. Accept criticism humbly, accept praise shyly, and prepare for a better next time.”  

“Oh, how can I ever win against you in an argument.”  

The truth was, yesterday’s events weren’t memories Elia wanted to recall. She had been forced to visit the Duchy because of her brother Eugene’s stubbornness, who came home early.  

Because of that, Elia had to cancel all the plans she had made for the day.  

Of course, her plans were simply to read her saved books while lazing around.  

But the outing that ruined her routine seemed to Daisy like a ray of light in a dull day, like a gentle rain moistening a dry garden.  

“Daisy, how many times do I have to give you the same answer before you give up? Nothing happened. I wore the frilly dress you picked out, and those… what shoes were they?”  

“Southern-style shoes from ‘Serzian’.”  

“Right. I wore those Serzian or whatever shoes to the Duchy. Of course, there was no welcoming greeting, and I just had to pretend to listen to Eugene’s chatter that no one cared about while sipping tea.”  

Elia frowned, still feeling the taste of the Duchy’s tea in her mouth from yesterday.  

“And guess what they served for dinner?”  

“No way.”  

“No way, indeed. It was that dreadful duck again. The Duchy’s chef must have a vendetta against ducks. Or maybe he wants to make me and ducks enemies?”  

“Hmm……”  

“Oh! There was one thing different…….”  

Elia paused deliberately, seeing Daisy’s eyes full of anticipation.  

“For dessert, they served a pitch-black tea newly imported from the East. Supposedly good for digestion? After drinking that, I rode the carriage home. The end.”  

“……Really? That’s all?”  

“What were you expecting? That the Duke would see me and say I was beautiful, or comment on my unfamiliar outfit?”  

“But, My Lady, you really were beautiful!”  

Thanks to the servants’ desperate efforts after the sudden news of her outing, Elia had managed to go to the Duchy in quite a decent outfit.  

“Your platinum hair was shining as if you’d applied oil, even though you hadn’t.”  

“I hadn’t? I didn’t even know.”  

“And your outing dress! Last year it was too big, but yesterday it fit perfectly and looked wonderful on you.”  

Daisy passionately described how beautiful Elia had been, using all sorts of flowery language. Daisy’s extravagant praise was nothing new, so Elia wasn’t surprised.  

“Sure. Thanks to you, I was a little pretty yesterday, but it’s useless for the Duke. Even if Poitiers’ youngest daughter, who’s stirring up the social scene lately, threw herself at him, he wouldn’t be interested.”  

“My Lady, you are beautiful too! No, you’re even more beautiful!”  

“Daisy, you’ve never even seen Poitiers’ youngest daughter.”  

It was a bitter truth for a noble lady to admit, but Elia unhesitatingly told Daisy the reality.  

Edmund Raspe. Head of the Raspe Duchy, and possibly the next Emperor of the Empire.  

The Duke, admired by all, was Elia’s fiancé, but he had never shown the slightest interest in her.  

‘Well, it’s not like I’m interested in him either.’  

Elia herself had never had any interest in the Duke since childhood. In short, they were less than strangers.  

Of course, if she said this in front of her brother Eugene, he would jump up in outrage.  

In fact, she’d already said it several times.  

<Less than strangers? If Duke Raspe hadn’t looked after us, what would have become of the Roang Earldom? You and I would’ve ended up on the streets!>  

Eugene’s nagging never ended briefly, always leading to praise of Duke Raspe.  

<If you like Edmund so much, why don’t you marry him instead of me?>  

Elia, fed up with his endless praise, would argue back with things she didn’t need to say.  

“Daisy, just give up already. Maybe if I send a letter of breaking off the engagement to the Duchy…… No, he’d probably just shrug it off. Unless he hears I’ve fallen down the stairs and died, he wouldn’t come to the mansion or anything……”  

“My Lady!”  

“Oh, Daisy, you’re really loud today. What did you eat for breakfast? Let me have some too.”  

Daisy raised her voice, startled at the mention of dying.  

It had been over ten years since Elia’s parents, the Earl and Countess of Roang, had died in an accident, but the servants here always avoided speaking of death in front of Elia.  

Even when Elia joked about dying, they were alarmed.  

They all knew Elia pretended not to care, deliberately treating death lightly.  

“Still, My Lady, in the end, Duke Raspe will marry you, won’t he? He may seem uninterested in love now because he’s so busy…… but later, he’ll fall deeply for you.”  

“Ugh. Daisy, hand me that blanket. I suddenly have goosebumps here. Is some ridiculous cold wind blowing?”  

“How shy!”  

“If you know I get embarrassed hearing about love, could you tone it down?”  

“You’re almost of age, My Lady. How can you still be shy about love?”  

Daisy, only seven years older, treated Elia like a child.  

Just because she wasn’t crazy about love stories.  

‘Love, who cares about that.’  

No matter how grand it is, one carriage accident and you could be gone. If you die, it all disappears.  

“Daisy, I’m done washing up, so go find your own love now.”  

“You need to eat breakfast.”  

“I’m too lazy. I’ll read in the library, so call me if you find your love.”  

“You can’t, My Lady! You can’t go out looking like that. At least put this on.”  

“Why? Afraid I’ll freeze to death?”  

“What if visitors see you and say the Roang Earldom’s servants are so incompetent they can’t even care for their noble lady?”  

“Hm. Instead of worrying about my health, you try to force me for your own reputation. Nice persuasion.”  

“Then wear this. Oh, blue really suits you. If the Earldom’s crest were this elegant blue, I’d dress you in it often.”  

Daisy finally wrapped the blue shawl around Elia and took away the used towel and washbasin.  

‘Always so fussy. The visitors are always the same people, and they don’t even come to the fourth floor. And what if someone does see me…….’  

With childish defiance, Elia looked in the mirror.  

Her white clothes were a mess like crumpled paper, and who knows what she did while sleeping, but the buttons on her chest hung like leaves on a dead branch.  

‘……Well. At least Daisy didn’t nag me to change. She really knows me well.’  

Feeling a bit guilty, Elia wrapped the blue shawl tightly and left her bedroom, hoping for another dull and peaceful day.  

❖ ❖ ❖

❖ ❖ ❖

“Phew…….”  

Elia, rolling on the library floor, closed the book she had been reading with a sigh.  

‘Why can’t I read today? At this rate, I’ll only finish one out of the thirteen I’ve saved.’  

Since she couldn’t focus, Elia tried blaming the weather. She’d felt sluggish since waking up, so maybe it was the gloomy weather.  

But looking out the window, it was as bright and sunny as could be, unlike the chilly morning.  

‘So it’s not the weather. Maybe today just isn’t a reading day.’  

At times like this, it was better to just have some tea and take a nap.  

“My Lady! Lady Elia!”  

As Elia was tidying up her mess, someone screamed outside.  

So urgent that one might mistake it for a fire alarm.  

“She’s here! She’s here!”  

Even before Elia could invite them in, the mansion’s servants burst open the library door, fussing among themselves.  

Elia blinked, holding her book, confused by the situation.  

“My Lady! What do we do! What now!”  

“First, the book, please! What happened to your hair?”  

“Anyone have a comb? What are we going to do.”  

Five servants, seeing Elia’s even messier state than in the morning, looked devastated, as if the world had ended. Their unusual behavior, so different from their usual calmness, left Elia bewildered.  

“Hey, someone explain. What’s going on?”  

Just then, Daisy rushed into the library and slammed the wide-open door shut.  

“If you shout with the door open, everyone outside can hear!”  

Elia felt relieved to see someone she could talk to, but Daisy was just as frantic.  

“My Lady! You have to go out right now. Your clothes, my goodness. At least wrap the shawl…… Just hang on a bit. Your hair will look fine once we comb it.”  

“Daisy, what’s happening! And unless you found your love, I said not to come find me…… Ugh.”  

Elia’s question was drowned out by the servants wielding combs. They surrounded her front, back, and sides, mercilessly attacking her hair.  

Finally, Daisy applied some makeup to Elia’s lips, hurriedly fetched from the bedroom.  

“Wait, what’s that for? What is all this?”  

“My Lady, there’s no time. He must be coming up now. He’s here!”  

In this chaos, Daisy’s eyes sparkled. Elia was swept by a sense of foreboding.  

The only time calm Daisy acted like a cat discovering snacks was……  

“My Lady, your love has arrived.”  

Only when that damned love was involved.

❖ ❖ ❖

Thanks to the servants’ efforts, Elia’s hair was saved from looking like a beggar’s, and they wrapped the blue shawl around her again.  

“My Lady, your indoor clothes… To be honest, it looks like you grabbed something that’s been in the laundry basket for a month.”  

Elia couldn’t argue. After rolling on the floor, her white indoor clothes were even more of a mess than in the morning.  

“So don’t throw off the shawl just because you’re lazy. Okay?”  

At Daisy’s insistence, Elia nodded obediently and adjusted the shawl once more.  

“Hey, maybe that’s it? Even Edmund would want to deliver the breakup letter in person.”  

“That’s absolutely not it! You should’ve seen the Duke’s expression yourself!”  

“Expression? Edmund made an expression?”  

“Go see for yourself. Quickly, now.”  

“Daisy.”  

“Yes, My Lady.”  

“Can’t you come with me?”  

“……I’ll go with you to the drawing room.”  

“Thank you. I really don’t want to meet him. I don’t even know why he’s here. I really don’t.”

The absurd news that ‘love has arrived’ delivered by Daisy was nothing short of shocking.  

<The Duke said he definitely came because he had business with you, My Lady.>  

For the Duke to visit his ‘fiancée’ without any prior arrangement, just because he wanted to see her—  

It was something that hadn’t happened even once in over ten years. Elia had never even expected it!  

‘Is someone messing with me, lying just to tease me?’  

The engagement between Elia and Duke Raspe was so famous that no one in the Empire was unaware of it. A marriage between a crumbling Earldom and the Empire’s greatest house—everyone spread romantic stories about it without hesitation.  

But what remains after stripping away all that romance? Nothing but a political marriage with not a hint of feeling between them.  

‘If only Eugene were a woman. Or if Edmund were a woman, or at least had a younger sister…’  

The Duke had no sisters, and Elia was the only woman in the Roang family, so their engagement seemed inevitable. Their ages were close enough that everyone considered it a blessing for the Roang family.  

But for eighteen-year-old Elia, it was a tragedy. She had never imagined herself loving the Duke, or being loved by him.  

“My Lady, do well in there!”  

Daisy, who had accompanied Elia only to the drawing room, wished her luck. Elia felt like a student heading into an exam.  

‘What is Edmund scheming this time…’  

The Duke was always the problem.  

If not for Edmund, she wouldn’t have been dragged to the Duchy yesterday, wouldn’t be staring blankly at her precious books today, wouldn’t be gripping the drawing room door with such unease!  

‘…Well, it’s not like he’ll eat me. He probably doesn’t even care that much.’  

Elia squeezed her eyes shut and pushed open the drawing room door. The scent of tea filled the room, and the presence of a man both unfamiliar and familiar greeted her.  

Afterward, Elia would recall this day again and again.  

Always with the question, ‘Why did the Duke act that way that day?’