Because the baroness, mistress of this house, would right now be in a half-crazed state after suffering some tremendous humiliation. So if I moved faster than anyone else and used my silver tongue to take hold of her…

Crack!

“……?”

From the backyard came another crack, the sound of something hard being split apart. What was that? Had the baroness’s household also forgotten to bring in their laundry?

Out of curiosity, I rounded the fence and peered into the backyard. There was no clothesline strung up there. What I found instead was something large and black.

Crack.

“Surely not……”

I murmured without thinking.

I had expected a day like this to come eventually. But to encounter it in a place like this.

“A Russian brown bear……”

Russia was commonly called the land of brown bears, and fittingly, the brown bear’s range stretched from Europe all the way to Kamchatka.

On top of that, this was the mid-nineteenth century, before industrialization had truly taken hold. It was not at all strange for a brown bear to have wandered into the baroness’s backyard.

It was then that the bear raised both arms above its head.

Just as I thought those arms were unusually long and well-built for a bear, there was a flash, and the axe blade in the bear’s hands caught the sunlight.

Crack.

Dry firewood split with a satisfying sound.

“Hah……”

It was not a bear, thankfully. A man of extraordinary build exhaled a long breath and took off his coat. It was a winter officer’s coat that looked just like a bear’s fur pelt.

When he stripped off his uniform jacket as well and rolled up his shirtsleeves, I drew in a sharp breath before I could stop myself.

Having lived for twelve years as a young lady of good family in a conservative small town inside a classical novel, the sight of back muscles and forearms clearly defined even through a shirt was a visual shock almost too strong to bear.

But doing axe work in just a shirt in this weather? Was this some kind of event? Or was this finally the perk that came with being a transmigrator?

When he sensed my presence and turned his head sharply toward me, I flinched and stepped back without thinking.

‘Terrifying……’

Black hair, deep and striking features, cold grey-blue eyes. He was a chillingly handsome man who made me embarrassed for having thought Dmitri was good-looking just moments ago.

His expression and dress made it obvious he was a soldier, and a young officer who would have reason to visit the baroness’s household could only be……

I was standing there lost in thought when he suddenly knitted his brows.

“Oh, that is, well, um……”

I fumbled in confusion. Meanwhile the man began walking toward me, step by step.

“Wh, what……”

What was one supposed to do when approached by a handsome man carrying an axe?

Under normal circumstances I might have joked that I’d hear him out, but faced with the actual situation, only one thought came to mind.

‘Run…… run……!’

I spun around and broke into a run. Or tried to. Until my wretched nineteenth-century shoes tangled my feet beneath me.

I squeezed my eyes shut and braced to fall, when something flashed across the edge of my vision. It was the felling axe. The one that had been in the man’s hands just moments ago.

Thud, thud, the sound of something rushing toward me, and then a firm support caught me at the small of my back.

“……?”

The scent of a winter forest brushed past my nose. I opened my eyes to find a pair of cold, blade-grey eyes looking down at me. The man had come running to catch me before I fell.

“Oh…… thank you.”

But why go to such lengths……?

The man had no need to answer that question. The frozen earth crumbled beneath the heel of my nineteenth-century shoe, and a poorly covered pit revealed itself beneath.

“I set a trap.”

The man’s voice was a deep, resonant baritone that seemed to vibrate in the air.

My mind went briefly blank before I collected myself.

“A trap……?”

“Wild animals keep digging up the vegetable garden.”

He gestured toward the pit with his chin. Looking at it properly now, the hole was far deeper than it appeared from the outside, and a chill ran down my spine. In my shock I had completely forgotten that I was still practically in this stranger’s arms.

A new voice rang out just then.

“Rodion Nikolayevich! Rodion Nikolayevich!”

The baroness burst through the back door of the residence and came striding into the yard. The man set me upright and turned away as if nothing had happened.

The baroness spotted him and stamped her foot in exasperation.

“What on earth are you doing chopping firewood? That’s what the servants are for!”

“I had no outlet for my energy here and grew restless. Had I known you were inside, I would have come to greet you.”

“Don’t lie to me, Rodion Nikolayevich! I called your name from inside any number of times!”

‘Rodion…… where have I heard that name before?’

The impossibly long names of countless characters from the Russian novels I had read over the years swirled chaotically through my mind.

“I swear I did not hear you. In any case, the firewood is all split, so I’ll take my leave.”

The man called Rodion swept on his black coat. But the baroness had no intention of letting him go. She pressed both hands to her chest and came hurrying down the steps.

“Good heavens, Rodion Nikolayevich! You really mean to leave just like that? Your aunt has been subjected to such humiliation, and you refuse to challenge him to a duel!”

‘Ah……’

So this was the person. The subject of the gossip that had woken me this morning.

The endpoint of each loop was always slightly different, but the starting point was always the same. A morning that began with Olga’s chatter.

Right, he was the very “Count Morozov” that Olga had been going on about. Rodion Nikolayevich Morozov, the baroness’s nephew by marriage and the worst rake in all of Saint Petersburg.

‘But that man…… a rake?’

The reason I knew of him despite never having met him was that he was the protagonist of the second part of “The Death of Ivan Ivanovich,” an unfinished manuscript discovered after the author’s death.

Tragically, the author died of tuberculosis midway through writing the second part, and what became of Rodion after that was lost forever.

Even so, the man standing before me now seemed, in every respect, far removed from the word “rake.” He was certainly extraordinarily handsome, but he had the unmistakably ascetic expression of a man who was clearly a soldier, and that rigid, almost compulsively flat manner of speaking……

At that moment, Rodion and I made eye contact. He looked away without a word.

‘What……?’

It was the baroness who broke the awkward silence.

“Oh, Rodion Nikolayevich, this aunt of yours will grieve herself to death! To leave me like this, with not a soul to lean on……”

The baroness was half-wailing, but Rodion’s expression remained unmoved.

“I will say it again, Aunt. When Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov said ‘the vodka bottle is empty,’ it was not a metaphorical slight against your empty soul.”

“But……”

“He is not a man clever enough to devise such a metaphor in the first place. So let it go. I have no intention of risking my life in a duel with a drunkard over something so trivial.”

To clarify, the Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov Rodion just mentioned was not my fiancé Ivan Ivanovich. That would be his father.

Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov means Ivan, son of Ivan, of the Ivan family. So Ivan Ivanovich’s son Ivan Ivanovich is my fiancé.

Does that give you a headache? Unfortunately, that is Russian literature for you. Imagine how I felt, having devoted my entire twenties to it.

“Oh, my poor heart! I shall collapse right here and die! The whole city knows that dreadful Ivan Ivanovich said such an outrageous thing about my gambling habit!”

I watched Rodion Nikolayevich exhale a long breath. Even the sight of his breath misting in the cold air looked like something out of a classical painting.

He turned to face the baroness and said firmly.

“No.”

“But.”

“That will absolutely not happen, Aunt. Now I will take my leave.”

“Th, then let’s ask this young lady here!”

The baroness was desperate. She walked over quickly and seized my arm with one hand.

“You came to see me, didn’t you, miss? You look familiar.”

She looked at me as she spoke. My arm ached a little where she gripped it, but I managed a smile.

“Yes, baroness. I sent word this morning. I am Katerina Vladimirovna Shatova, granddaughter of Count Makarov.”

Katerina’s maternal grandfather, Count Makarov, who had passed away long ago, was quite well-regarded in this town. At least, he had been, before a string of thoroughly Russian-novel-worthy scoundrel sons-in-law had torn the family apart.

The baroness’s eyes lit up the moment she recognized who I was.

“Ah, it’s coming back to me now! I used to have such a sharp mind, but age has dulled my memory. In any case, what do you think, Katerina Vladimirovna? You must have heard what I was just discussing with my nephew here?”

I glanced quickly at Rodion. Remarkably, he was standing quietly with his hands clasped behind his back, waiting for my answer.

“Well, um……”

I cleared my throat unnecessarily and opened my mouth.

“If I may venture a guess…… it seems the baroness believes Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov has insulted you? And the gentleman here…… your nephew, does not agree?”

Rodion gave a small nod at my question.

“Rodion Nikolayevich Morozov. I’m afraid my foolishness has been troubling a stranger. Aunt, if you wish to reproach me, perhaps at a later……”

“No, Rodion Nikolayevich! Your aunt is in a perfectly rational and composed state right now. I simply wish to hear this young lady’s objective opinion.”