But before she could react, the man had already turned around and walked away, talking with the mansion’s butler.

He was a man of very quick movements. Despite his muscular, thick build, he had an agile side to him.

Thanks to that, Melissa Grey was left alone, but.

“We’ll help you, madam.”

Soon maids came to assist Melissa in getting up and moving.

She almost twisted her ankle getting out of the carriage, but Sir Hilton caught and steadied her.

Her whole body was in tatters. The injuries Melissa had sustained weren’t the kind that could be healed by a few days of treatment from a skilled physician.

Her ankle, which had been in shackles for so long, was almost rotting.

The only parts that could be saved were where sensation remained; the dead flesh had to be cut away. Emerson, who had cleaned up the cut flesh then, had said:

“There might be aftereffects even with treatment. You might have difficulty walking.”

Still, she focused on treatment for now, applying extraordinarily effective medicine thickly on the wounds and using splints so she could essentially walk by putting weight on one leg.

Should she be thankful that at least she hadn’t been called a crippled bride?

When she should have been resting, she had pushed herself through a wedding ceremony, so it was no wonder her wounds were aggravated.

“This way.”

Though it was dark and hard to see, this place that was originally Miellin’s castle looked old.

There were traces of peeling paint and broken walls here and there.

When they opened the entrance door, it made creaking and squeaking sounds. The maid explained with an awkward expression.

“The castle is quite old, isn’t it? It actually has a very deep history. The Miellin Count family has protected this place for over 200 years.”

She seemed to be making excuses, worried that Melissa might criticize the old castle gate.

But contrary to the maid’s concerns, for a 200-year-old castle, it was well-preserved and had a dignified, elegant appearance.

The gold-embroidered feather pattern tapestry passed down from the previous dynasty was still a valuable cultural heritage traded secretly in antique markets.

Since the Sys Imperial family had erased traces of the past when they took power, nobles in the capital couldn’t use such intricate feather patterns.

Melissa carefully observed the dust-covered tapestry in a corner of the first-floor lobby. When she touched it, black dust came off on her hand.

Hung under the stairs where light didn’t reach, it seemed no one had recognized the value of this tapestry.

“We cleaned but the du-dust. With limited staff, we couldn’t manage such detailed areas. I’ll make sure it gets washed when we go upstairs.”

“No, there’s no need to go to such trouble.”

Melissa shook her head. She didn’t want to make people uncomfortable right after arriving at the mansion.

She was going to die anyway, this marriage was accepted thinking it would just prolong her life briefly.

This was just a temporary shelter to pass through, not a place she would stay long, so she held her tongue, thinking the servants didn’t need to adjust to her.

Melissa carefully observed the castle while climbing to the second floor.

The spiral staircase leading to the second floor was designed to wind around a massive pillar in the center of the lobby.

The library was on the second floor, and she could understand why Countess Miellin had only used the first floor.

‘It would be easy for elderly people to slip.’

It would be difficult just to climb up and down the stairs in the first place.

But it’s beautiful as it is, without needing to fix or repair anything about the castle.

The gold decorations carved into each stair railing were so antique that even the previous owner seemed to have left them untouched.

‘The Countess was someone who valued aesthetics over convenience, after all.’

As she reached the second floor and looked up, she could see massive grayish-white pillars majestically supporting various parts of the castle.

It made her heart swell, looking as if giants were protecting this place.

‘What a wonderful house she lived in.’

I should have visited while she was alive.

Back then, the elderly dance teacher seemed quite strict, so I used to run away.

“Young lady! Won’t you come back quickly?”

She heard the clear voice of the elderly woman in her faded dress, a brownish-gray dress that was out of fashion, like an auditory hallucination.

No, that’s not it – the sound of her tapping the piano with her fan, saying to keep proper time. Even the sound of her dropping her magnifying glass due to lack of strength in her hands and picking it up with an “Oh dear.”

She missed it. Those times when the Countess would come running while nagging, getting out of breath, and Rael and she would go back asking, “Are you alright?”

“Got you, you rascals!”

“Eek! Teacher is a liar! Pretending to be tired when you weren’t!”

When she opened the mahogany door with wooden patterns, the sound of laughter from that day brushed past her ears and faded behind her.

“This is the space madam will use. It’s the room that the Countess used when she was young.”

“Then it must be quite old.”

“Yes. Since we couldn’t dispose of the Countess’s belongings at our discretion, they remain intact. If madam permits, we’d like to clear out the old items…”

A quiet room where the past had settled. The maid was asking Melissa’s opinion on how to dispose of these things.

As if enchanted, Melissa entered the room and picked up a frame placed on top of the old bookshelf.

“…”

It was a handkerchief with crooked flower embroidery. The Countess had framed the handkerchief and placed it among her mementos.

In the corner of the handkerchief, a name was embroidered in clumsy stitches.

[M. G.]

Melissa. Grey.

It was her first flower embroidery from when she was 12 years old.

***

“How’s the new madam?”

“Don’t even ask. She’s super demanding.”

“Really?”

Reizen had just gotten off the carriage and was heading to the back door after handling delayed paperwork.

He suddenly stopped walking when he heard maids chattering while hanging laundry outside.

“As soon as she arrived, she started pointing out cleaning issues.”

“How so?”

“She doesn’t even say much. Just swipes her finger across the wall like this to check for dust, and gives us looks.”

“Wow, that’s high-level. Scary. Is this what they mean by ‘noble blood will tell,’ even if they’ve fallen?”

“That’s not all. She said she couldn’t use the room the previous Countess used, so she’d use a room on the first floor instead, and now the butler is in chaos trying to clear out a room!”

“She made the butler give up his room as soon as she arrived? Oh… what are we going to do?”

“What can we do? I have a family to support, so I’ll try to endure as long as I can, but if it doesn’t work out, I’m thinking of begging His Highness to let me work in the capital.”

“Really? Oh, this is really bad…”

The maid carrying laundry made a tearful face.

They arrived in the morning, so it’s been barely half a day at the castle.

Making a maid cry in just half a day – should they call it a new record? Even the fastidious Sion took two days.

“Hmm.”

Reizen, who was about to go out on horseback to check on the knights and inspect the territory, bit his lip.

He tried to take a step, but his feet wouldn’t move as if glued to the floor.

Still, having held a wedding ceremony in the capital and brought her all this way as his bride, it didn’t feel right to leave her alone.

“Ah.”

Something seems seriously wrong. Should he just go?

Reizen stood in front of the door leading to the back garden. As he grabbed the doorknob to turn it, he furrowed his brows again with an uneasy look.

***

Bang bang bang!

“Madam! Is something wrong?”

Bang bang bang!

The sound of someone banging on the door from outside was loud. Melissa tightly gripped the doorknob of the temporary guest room and squeezed her eyes shut.

“Madam! Please open the door!”

Her dry lips had been bitten so much they were bleeding. Melissa anxiously bit her nails, unable to do anything in front of the door.

A bitter taste of blood started coming from her already short nails.

“Madam!”

“What’s going on?”

Along with the maid’s voice, a familiar physician’s voice was heard outside the door. It was Horrux, the imperial physician sent by the Emperor to ensure a quick pregnancy after marriage.

“I tried to help her change, but madam locked the door…”

“If it’s locked, just break it open!”

“But how could we…”

“Step aside!”

Horrux pushed the maid aside and rattled the doorknob. Melissa, who was watching silently from inside the door, started breathing rapidly.

The problem arose from having to change dresses before the meal. The maids had tried to approach Melissa from behind to undress her.

While it might have been natural for them, Melissa was startled by their sudden reaching hands. It reminded her of the humiliation she suffered from maids in the imperial palace.

So she had closed the door asking for just a little time to collect herself, but they wouldn’t even allow that moment.

“Ju-just wait. Ti-time…”

Her vision blurred. Her sight turned white, and like she’d been running, her breath caught in her throat, which felt constricted.

Just a moment. Just a very brief moment would do.

Horrux finally brought an iron bar, broke the doorknob, and flung the door open.

—

T/N: CAN Y’ALL STOP TRAUMATIZING THIS GIRL FOR A SECOND HERE