Chapter 1 – Mistress Apprentice

“Do you perhaps need a mistress?”

“…….”

“How about me?”

At noon, when the dazzling early-summer sunlight scattered countless shimmering reflections across the lake.

Aaron, thinking perhaps she could not possibly have meant those words for him, unconsciously looked around. But unfortunately, on the narrow bridge crossing the little stream inside the park, there was no one there except him and her.

Ah. Letting out a small sigh without realizing it, Aaron nevertheless barely maintained a polite smile.

“That joke goes too far, Chloe Everdeen.”

“No, I’m very serious.”

As if they were not words carelessly thrown out, Chloe looked straight up at him. Even the sunlight caught on the large glasses that covered half her face, so it was impossible to tell what expression she was making. But the sight of her two small hands clenched so tightly they had gone pale seemed to show that, in her own way, she had asked with tremendous resolve.

“Hmm.”

If it was not a joke, then this was an even bigger problem. Aaron’s neat brow narrowed faintly.

How on earth had he ended up facing such an awkward and absurd situation? All he had done was politely greet the daughter of a respected mentor and his junior at the university, whom he happened to run into on a narrow bridge where avoidance was impossible.

“So, you’re asking me to make you my mistress?”

“Yes.”

“You?”

“Yes.”

Her answers came without hesitation, but because of that, Aaron found himself at a loss for words.

Had he lived so recklessly that he looked like the sort of man who would get requests like this from just anyone? He unconsciously reflected on his past conduct, but no matter how much he thought back, he could not recall ever behaving so loosely that he would give off the image of someone who never turned away willing women.

And it was not as if he were even close enough with this woman to hear something like that. If there was any point of contact between them, it was only that at the funeral of Professor Everdeen, her recently deceased father and a mentor Aaron deeply respected, he had helped the woman when she was flustered and did not know what to do.

Ah, and there had been a time when he saw her at a banquet and asked how she had been doing. Exactly once.

“Do you really understand what you just said?”

“Yes. I told you that I would like you to make me your mistress, Senior.”

Even in the middle of this, the woman spoke clearly and distinctly. His blue eyes, stripped of all composure, swept over Chloe.

That was exactly it. Setting aside this absurdity for the moment, if she was truly sincere, then at the very least should she not match her words and actions and have some sense of proper and appropriate TPO? In other words, was this really the sort of situation in which one made an offer to become someone’s mistress?

This was neither a pitch-black night that concealed shame and humiliation, nor a banquet reaching its late stages where people had drunk enough for reason to grow soft, but the middle of a crowded park at three o’clock in the bright afternoon, while the glaring sun was still high in the sky. It absolutely was not something to say in a place like this.

If one possessed ordinary common sense.

“Chloe Everdeen, I mean…….”

Before he could even finish speaking, Aaron took in Chloe once again.

Ha, now that he looked, even the woman’s attire was unbelievable. She wore a simple cream-colored dress buttoned all the way up to the neck, so old-fashioned that frankly not even his grandmother would wear it, lace gloves of a similar color, and her black hair was neatly braided into one. No matter how carefully he looked, the only exposed part of her body was her face, and even half of that was covered by glasses.

The point was, no matter how generously one looked at it, there was truly not even as much as the tiniest speck of dirt rolling on the roadside that could be called sexually appealing, or in cruder terms, arousing.

Fine, let her clothes be what they were. He had no intention of picking apart someone’s personal taste.

“Just in case, I’ll ask, do you know what a mistress is?”

“A woman who is not a wife, but with whom one shares affection and a deep relationship.”

……Had she looked it up in a dictionary? Barely suppressing the laugh that almost escaped him, Aaron deliberately hardened his expression. But at Chloe’s next words, that expression collapsed once more.

“In vulgar terms, a relationship where they pursue pleasure and have s*x without being bound by responsibility or duty…….”

“Stop.”

It was not wrong, but somehow he found himself speechless. Had there ever been a day in his life as bewildering and embarrassing as today? This situation, for instance, having a heated conversation in broad daylight with a woman wearing such a solemn face.

Once his thoughts reached that point, Aaron wanted to leave this place. As quickly as possible, preferably. In truth, even if he treated this as nonsense and rudely walked away at once, the woman would have no grounds to complain. She was the one who had made an absurd and improper proposal.

But Chloe Everdeen was the daughter whom his respected mentor had loved so dearly and been so proud of. If she made a proposal like this to another man, and rumors spread, and as a result the worst happened and her prospects for marriage were ruined, Aaron could not simply reject her flatly and leave.

Nor could he do so as a senior who ought to guide a junior who might otherwise fall onto a bad path.

“Come with me first. We need to talk.”

“Ah, do you need to discuss terms? If there are any conditions you want, I can match them as much as you like, Senior.”

“……Let’s move somewhere else first.”

Please. 

Aaron moved first. Passing by her, he crossed the narrow bridge ahead of her, and behind him came the soft sound of light shoes hurrying after him in quick little steps.

Absurdly enough, they sounded very cheerful.

***

Chloe Everdeen was not originally the kind of person bold enough to suddenly make the shameless proposal of asking a man to make her his mistress.

Nor did she like Aaron enough to want to become his mistress, and ordinarily she had little s*xual curiosity to begin with.

She was the only daughter of the distinguished Everdeen Earldom, a noble house with a rather long history though not particularly wealthy, and her father was a physicist of great renown in academic circles, while her mother, unlike what one might expect of a noble young lady, was also a talented person who had graduated from university.

So naturally, when Chloe, who had grown up in an atmosphere devoted to study, said that instead of preparing for her debut like other young ladies, she wanted to enter university and become a physicist like her father, the couple gladly decided to support her.

With her parents’ support and encouragement behind her, Chloe entered university with excellent grades, and while the young ladies her age made their way into society and sought prospective husbands, she received scholarships the entire time and graduated top of her class. After graduation, she had been set to participate this year in a research project begun in her father’s laboratory, where he taught as a university professor.

If only her parents had not suddenly passed away in a tragic accident.

“So you’re Chloe. Nice to meet you. I’m your uncle, Mark.”

“H-hello.”

After the funeral ended, an uncle she had not even known existed suddenly appeared. According to inheritance law, that uncle took possession of the Everdeen earldom, all of its property, and the legal and customary role of guardian over Chloe, who was unmarried.

However, her uncle wanted to dispose of the reluctantly inherited Chloe as quickly as possible. Naturally. What affection could he possibly have for a niece he had never even seen before, one whom he suddenly had to care for, as if she were his own daughter?

Thus, the most appropriate method he chose for sending Chloe away, one that would not invite criticism from others, was marriage.