“I was already thinking of changing my approach.”

Across from Michael’s bedroom, the window of Iris’s office lit up. The moment Michael spotted the white crown of Iris’s head through the bright window, he frowned.

Iris would probably have to stay up all night again today to handle the work he passed her. Not leaving a single complaint despite receiving all that work, she truly was a tenacious woman.

Estella also came up beside Michael before he noticed, watching Iris. Michael was still frowning when she told him firmly,

“There’s only one reason our Knight Order helps you, my lord. We don’t want to serve that woman as our madam while holding the pride of knights.”

“I know that well. That’s why I’m trying.”

“I’ll tell the other knights that you’ve stopped your pointless playboy act. It will be news every woman in our order is happy about.”

The blue cloak signifying the Hagbris Knight Order fluttered lightly behind Estella. After giving her lord a light salute, she quietly left the bedroom, leaving behind one firm line.

“Please be sure to divorce Iris Oppenheimer.”

Even without being told, he would absolutely divorce Iris Oppenheimer. Michael threw a light sneer at the already departed Estella.

Iris was by now sitting at her desk, flipping through documents. With a mountain of documents remaining, her hands were very busy.

The more Michael looked at Iris, the more his brow twisted. When anger boiled up again from deep in his chest, he finally couldn’t stand it and yanked the curtain shut.

‘Iris Oppenheimer….’

The moment he repeated Iris’s name in his heart, the hand gripping the curtain began to tremble. The crime she committed, the crime her family committed, even her looks and name were so loathsome they made him nauseous.

A daughter who committed murder just like her father. Whenever Michael faced Iris, who resembled Wilhelm so much that it practically proved she was his child, he had to struggle with all his might to suppress his twisted impulse.

“…Goddamn it!”

Michael roughly knocked over the vase on the windowsill and spat out curses. Irregular shards of the broken vase flew in every direction.

His teeth, clenched with all his strength, ground together sharply. Since some point, hallucinated voices echoed in both of Michael’s ears and bound him.

“Ah. Even the House of Hagbris bows its head before Duke Oppenheimer. For all that acting high and mighty, in the end even Count Hagbris can’t do anything in front of money.”

“So the saying that one given an angel’s name never falls must be a lie. Michael Hagbris took a woman guilty of degeneracy as his wife, so isn’t he just as fallen a man?”

“Of all women, to be engaged to Iris Oppenheimer! They say the reason Michael Hagbris’s father died was that the ducal house of Oppenheimer secretly swapped his carriage wheel….”

Unable to bear it any longer, Michael staggered over, picked up a porcelain piece on one side of the bedroom, and threw it. It was a desperate struggle to push away the hallucinations by making another noise.

The porcelain shattered against the wall, not the floor. Apparently shards flew when it broke, because drops of blood dripped from Michael’s hand.

To make matters worse, remembering his father, who died five years ago through the Oppenheimer family’s scheme, Michael finally couldn’t endure his anger. After panting for a long while, he turned toward the curtain with eyes rippling more coldly than ever.

Tightly shut while he lost to his anger, the curtain hung before him. Beyond it was Iris Oppenheimer.

A woman who didn’t even blink no matter how much work he passed her or how many stacks of documents he flung out the window. A tiresome woman who smiled and tore up divorce papers even when he kissed other women right before her eyes!

He would divorce Iris Oppenheimer no matter what. Even for the honor of his father, who ended his life early, he couldn’t let that woman be entered in the family genealogy.

He could never divorce Iris Oppenheimer with such pitiful acting. Before that tenacious woman, he was in no position to pick and choose his means and methods.

‘Let’s see just how long you can last, Iris Oppenheimer.’

Michael felt determined once more.

He would drive that horrible Oppenheimer bloodline out of the mansion.

No matter what, without fail.

***

Iris’s day always began an hour earlier than everyone else’s. She woke in the early dawn while everyone slept and got ready alone.

A woman who strangled a newborn to death was the maids’ number one object of avoidance. She prepared alone because none of them wanted to touch her, but Iris didn’t mind at all. If the maids helped her, she would have to sit motionless for a long time, facing herself in the mirror.

Everyone in this world has one object they dislike. For Iris, that object was the mirror. Except in the morning, she never looked in a mirror during the day.

Iris was only twenty-five. But in the mirror before her stood not a lovely twenty-five-year-old lady, but an old person with hair gone completely white.

In truth, Iris originally had glossy black hair. She was so proud of and loved her black hair that she named it when asked which body part she liked best.

Who could have known her hair would turn entirely white in just a few years? Iris’s lips drew a crooked arc as she stared into the mirror.

‘My hair is white enough as it is, and with dead eyes on top of that, it’s an even worse sight.’

Just like the eyes of a dead fish. Mocking herself in the mirror, Iris draped a shawl roughly over her shoulders and left the bedroom just like that.

Even though spring returned, winter’s chill hadn’t vanished yet, so gray breath puffed out with every exhale. It wasn’t as bad as the prison where she was locked for five years, but Michael’s mansion was quite cold.

Crossing the quiet, chilly corridor, Iris headed to the library. It was her favorite place in this mansion after the garden.

In fact, the Hagbris family was among the most storied in the empire. If Iris’s natal family, Oppenheimer, was the wealthiest house in the empire, Michael’s family, Hagbris, was the empire’s finest noble lineage.

Michael’s father, Elias Hagbris, was a famous mathematician and philosopher who collected books as a hobby during his lifetime. Thanks to that special hobby, the library of the Hagbris mansion overflowed with precious books.

Iris crossed between the bookshelves with a faint smile. Without Michael, her surroundings were astonishingly peaceful.

The Hagbris mansion’s library was good in every way, but if she had to name one thing she disliked, it was the height of the shelves. With so many books, every shelf was enormously tall.

For lame Iris, even climbing the ladder wasn’t easy. As she stood on tiptoe, reaching out with difficulty, someone approached and took the book down for her.

There was no one in this mansion who would help a murderer. Into the view of the briefly dazed Iris came hair of pink as bright as cherry blossom petals.

A man as handsome as Michael was looking down at her from directly above.

“Is this the book you were choosing, madam?”

The smiling man lightly held out the book. Iris didn’t even think of taking it, staring at his face rudely.

The man wore a knight’s uniform with a blue cloak. He was clearly a member of the Hagbris Knight Order.

She thought she met everyone after a week living in the Hagbris mansion, but apparently not. The man’s face was utterly unfamiliar to Iris.

Still holding the book, the man smiled more deeply. His voice, when it came again, wasn’t as beautiful as Michael’s, but it was full of gentle warmth.

“I’m Joshua Fate, in charge of inspecting the mansion as of today, madam. My face must be unfamiliar to you.”

Oh. Iris belatedly realized her rudeness and lowered her gaze. She snatched the book Joshua offered and said coldly,

“Thank you, Sir Joshua. But from now on, it would be better for you not to help me.”