Chapter 3

‘Why isn’t he coming?’

She had definitely felt him coming after her earlier.

She had thought he was coming to find her.

Quite a bit of time had passed, but around where she was hiding, there was not even the faintest sign of anyone.

She could not even hear a voice calling her name and wandering around looking for her.

‘I was actually waiting.’

For that familiar voice, calling her name and desperately asking where she was.

But all she could hear were the chirring cries of insects and the flutter of night birds flying around.

And now and then, only the cheerful laughter of people coming from over there.

What finally came was resignation.

‘No doubt he went back.’

Just as she had said, there were plenty of young ladies in the hall for Kalan to mingle and play with.

That young lady who had been tickling his chin earlier, for example.

Or the young ladies who had been fanning themselves while looking at Kalan as though he were delicious.

Besides, even if he did not bother running after her to catch her, Ailey would foolishly return to Kalan once enough time had passed.

As though some homing instinct toward him had been imprinted into her.

‘Right.’

Why would he bother looking for a woman like that.

Desperately looking for her. That was only her own wishful thinking.

‘Idiot, fool, rotten bastard…….’

The more she thought, the more miserable she became.

Today, she had even chosen and worn her dress according to Kalan’s taste.

Unlike usual, it was slightly low-cut at the chest, so her grandmother had given her a great many reproachful looks, asking how she could wear something so shameful.

And she had already been feeling even more hurt lately because, ever since he had come of age, Kalan had been too busy receiving lessons to become the family heir to see her.

“Do you know how much I tried to look good for you…….”

The moment she looked down at the dress made from flowing satin, made by pouring in all of her allowance, sorrow surged up in her to the limit.

She remembered the hours she had spent busily at the dressing table while enduring the skeptical looks from the maids.

She could see it clearly in their eyes too.

The thought that just because she dressed up with this much care and went there, would Kalan Ledaire really welcome her gladly?

She had carefully ignored those looks and thought hard over every choice as she got ready.

And in the end, it had turned out like this.

“……I knew.”

The truth was, she had known this would happen.

That is, she had known full well that Kalan would once again spend time with other young ladies and not spare her even a glance.

More than anything, that fact deeply hurt Ailey’s heart.

Ailey clenched her wavy hair, puffed up with heat, and muttered,

“It’s not fair…….”

Fresh anger surged up in her.

Crash.

It felt as though the bag holding all the grain that had been piling up had suddenly burst open all at once.

“It’s really not fair.”

As she had said, she hated that she had devoted her pure feelings for so long to a man who was not even new.

She was angry that she had to worry he might go on fooling around after marriage too, the same way he freely toyed with his lower half now.

And the chastity she had carefully kept precious so she could give it to him…….to him, it was only something unnecessary and burdensome because they were friends.

That was what felt unfair.

‘He’s just that kind of filthy bastard anyway.’

She hated the thought that even simply sharing a bed with him on their first night would make her feel tainted.

He would probably bring that thing to her, something that might even be diseased from rolling around with so many other women.

And while doing that, he would probably spout some nonsense about how, since they were friends, he really did not want to do this sort of thing in the first place.

The moment she imagined that scene, her blood pressure shot up in an instant.

She even felt that it would be better if he said being with her on their first night was too much of a burden and simply walked out, leaving her to become a bride abandoned on her wedding night.

The moment her thoughts reached that point.

“……As if I can’t do it too?”

The words came spilling out in a drunken mess.

‘A bride needs something new. So what should she do?’ Ha ha. Ho ho……

The words she had heard in the ballroom ran chaotically through Ailey’s mind.

“If he’s not new…….”

Ailey forced strength into her blurring eyes and spat it out.

As her swaying hand clenched into a fist, the champagne pooled at her collarbone ran down along the hollow of her chest and soaked the neckline of her dress.

Soon, a rather vicious remark slipped out.

“Then I just don’t have to be new either.”

‘Why wouldn’t that work?’

Come to think of it, was that not ridiculous?

People overlook the debauchery of young noblemen before marriage, so why should the debauchery of young noblewomen be any less tolerable?

Right now, Ailey could see nothing.

The modesty and chastity her grandmother had hammered into her ears day after day had long since been forgotten amid her desire for revenge.

Even that voice that used to glare fiercely at young ladies enjoying free love and snap that she must never become like that.

Everyone else does it. So why can’t I?

‘That’s right. I’ll just…… grab any random man passing by…….’

The words she had blurted out in anger were, at some point, turning into sincerity.

“Right. I’ll do it.”

In the end, Ailey made up her mind.

If there’s a man passing by right now, whoever he is, she would give him her purity.

Even if he were ugly, short, or even old.

Even if he were a man everyone in high society avoided and wanted nothing to do with.

‘How hard could that be.’

With a mind drenched in alcohol and far from sane, it even felt to her as if selling her chastity off cheaply to someone like that would be the greatest revenge against Kalan.

It was an impulse close to self-destruction, the kind she would deeply regret once she sobered up.

But by then, her reason was already gone, too late to realize it.

Ailey repeatedly tried to get up in search of just any man, only to slump back down again, swaying.

“Hm? Me too, with another man…….”

It happened when Ailey, after falling over several more times like that, bit her lip, clenched her fist, and trembled.

“With another man?”

A strange voice came from right beside her.

“Hic.”

Ailey began hiccuping as though she had swallowed the wrong way. Then she rolled her eyes and looked around.

‘Who was that?’

From the beginning, she had deliberately come into the most secluded and darkest place in the Imperial Palace, so everything around her was submerged in still shadow. The only sound was the quiet cry of a night bird.

After looking around several times, Ailey tilted her head blankly in confusion.

“……There’s nothing here?”

Had I drunk so much that I was hearing things?

Or did ghosts appear in the Imperial Palace too?

‘Ghosts are scary though…….’

But just as Ailey was about to feel a chill creep over her, the voice she had thought she must have heard wrong spoke to her again.

“With another man, what exactly are you planning to do?”

A voice so low it was chilling, yet sweet and refreshing, curled around her ear. It was such a beautiful voice that it was hard to believe both things were possible at once.

Hic.

Ailey hiccuped again and instinctively covered her ears, which burned as though touched by fire.

Then she turned her head toward where the voice had come from.

“Ah…….”

And then she saw him.

In the shade not far away.

His face hidden by shadow, only the silhouette down to his chest revealed in the moonlight, there stood a man.

His formal clothes, dressed entirely in white, somehow called a priest to mind.

But it troubled her that for a priest, his body was far too sensual.

“…….”

The stole draped over his broad shoulders flowed down along the sharply defined lines of his body and continued over the thick muscles of his chest.

His chest was so broad that the hanging stole left a considerable gap between it and the torso below. His narrow, inverted-triangle waist and his long legs wrapped in the uniform were tall and striking as well.

He was the sort of man who seemed handsome from his body alone.

To the point that no matter what face was attached above it, that body alone felt worth something.