32

“No. Father is watching Earl Portman, so if the Earl clears up the misunderstanding, everything will be resolved. Got it? All these misunderstandings started because of you. Isn’t that right?”

Mars still refused to admit his fault.

“So tell Earl Portman this. Tell him to forgive all my mistakes and to speak well of me to Father.”

Mars was making unreasonable demands.

The more Elsia spoke with him, the more she realized he wouldn’t listen.

She gave up on stalling and decided she had to escape his grasp. Only then could the Portman knights subdue Mars.

Elsia tried to stomp Mars’s foot with her high heel.

But Mars seemed to read her mind, and the sword grazed her neck.

Elsia felt the presence of liquid on her neck and a stinging sensation.

“You dare try to attack me? Take off your shoes right now!”

Mars shouted at Elsia to remove the shoes she’d tried to use against him, but she couldn’t in her current position.

“I’ll need you to put away the sword first if I’m to take them off.”

Elsia pretended to be frightened, stammering her answer.

“D*mn it!”

Mars tried to remove Elsia’s shoes himself, but her full skirt blocked him.

“Lift your skirt and bend your legs back.”

Lift her skirt? Elsia hesitated.

“Hurry up!”

Mars pressed her with the sword, and she had no choice but to lift her skirt and remove her shoes herself. Better her than him.

Luckily, Mars moved the sword in sync with her movements until her hand reached her shoe.

She tried to measure the distance to strike Mars with the back of her head, but he kept watching, so there was no chance.

“You ruined everything for me! I worked so hard for that territory, and you took it from me?”

Instead, Mars became more agitated, shouting louder.

“I agreed to an engagement with you, whom I didn’t want to marry, just to please my father, and now I have to suffer this humiliation! Who would like a woman with ugly scars like you? Who likes a flawed woman? Disgusting.”

Scars? It was a hurtful insult, but Elsia didn’t care.

If Adrian had said such things, she’d be shocked, but coming from Mars, it didn’t affect her at all. She wasn’t planning to live with him anyway.

But his words felt oddly familiar. Why?

Elsia felt strange.

“Elsia!”

As she rolled her eyes, thinking over Mars’s words, Adrian’s voice called out. Adrian looked at her with anxious eyes.

“A… Adrian…”

Elsia regretted not being able to greet Adrian, whom she’d waited for all morning.

She wanted to call him, but Mars’s sword threatened her neck even more.

“Adrian? Are you Adrian?”

Mars asked, and Adrian nodded slightly. When Mars saw Adrian’s face, he began to tremble.

“You’re the one engaged to Elsia? Adrian, you again? Why do you keep blocking my path?”

Elsia was surprised. Mars knew Adrian? And ‘again’?

—Because you two were close, I’m the one who gets scolded by my father for not winning your heart. Who do you think you are? You’re nothing.

It was similar to what that child had said in her memory. Scarred, disgusting—the words matched.

That meant the child she hated to even imagine was… Mars.

His voice had changed, so she hadn’t recognized him. But the tone and words matched that child.

So that child’s frequent visits to Portman made sense. He had only pretended to be kind after she lost her memory.

‘That’s right…’

Thinking back, as a child, he’d always smiled silently in front of adults.

He’d rarely spoken to her, perhaps to avoid revealing he’d caused her trauma.

He’d wounded her with harsh words, then pretended to be a polite fiancé.

The more Elsia thought, the angrier she became.

He’d hurt her and Adrian, yet lived as he pleased, receiving territory.

There was a reason her heart never turned toward Mars.

And now he was causing trouble because he’d lost what he had.

Elsia could not forgive Mars. She was no longer the girl who would just sit and take it.

“Adrian, you ruined everything for me. Why did you show up? You were chased away, so why are you back to interfere? Who do you think you are, bringing the Earl to the club? Who do you think you are…”

Mars cried out his grievances like a madman.

Elsia glanced sideways at Mars. He was distracted by Adrian.

Now was her chance. But she had nothing to attack Mars with.

She needed another plan to escape—she couldn’t stab his eyes, and needed something to tie his hands and feet.

Elsia looked to the maids and knights, then glanced at Mars’s legs, signaling to them.

She hoped someone would understand.

Everyone seemed confused by her signals, except Marie, who nodded.

Thanks to Marie’s long service, she seemed to understand Elsia’s intentions.

Elsia received a dagger from the knight, hidden from Mars.

She nodded slightly to Marie as their eyes met.

She could wound Mars out of his sight with the dagger, but needed to figure out how to get it.

‘Sir Elliot will bring it secretly.’

Marie mouthed the words to Elsia, without speaking aloud.

Elsia didn’t want to involve Elliot, who was still young, in something dangerous.

But as she watched, she saw that Mars and the Welsley knights were focused on the maids, knights, and Adrian, paying no attention to Elliot.

He was so young, they didn’t consider him a threat.

Adrian seemed to notice Elsia and Marie’s plan and tried to pull Mars’s attention even more.

“When I visited Elsia as a child, I saw a suspicious boy—brown hair, golden eyes—who said harsh things that caused her to lose her memory.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

Mars stammered, as if something struck him.

“Stop saying nonsense!”

The more Adrian brought up childhood stories, the more Mars seemed to panic.

While his gaze was fixed on Adrian, Elliot crawled behind Mars and Elsia, unnoticed by others, and slipped a dagger into Elsia’s hand.

Fortunately, neither Mars nor his knights seemed to notice Elliot.

“What are you doing…?”

By the time Mars realized Elliot’s presence, it was too late. Elsia stabbed Mars’s thigh with the small knife and slashed it.

“Aaaargh!”

As Mars screamed in pain, Elsia struck his hand holding the sword, causing it to fall limply to the floor.

Hearing Mars’s scream, his henchmen turned to help him, but the Portman knights and Adrian quickly rushed in and subdued them.

Mars and his henchmen, having lost their chance to turn the tables, were soon bound and forced to kneel.

“What are you people, ruining my life like this?”

Mars glared at Elsia and Adrian, breathing heavily. Elsia stepped closer to Mars.

“You kept calling me insane, didn’t you? How does it feel to be beaten by someone you said was insane?”

“You crazy woman. Untie me now. Right now!”

Mars struggled to break free, but one of the Portman knights kicked him, knocking him over.

“She’s the Lady of Portman. Watch your mouth.”

At the knight’s words, Mars bit his lip in frustration.

“Did you enjoy pretending to be my fiancé and deceiving me all this time? Ugh, it’s disgusting. I wish you’d died—my heart would have been at ease.”

Elsia intentionally repeated the words Mars had said to her, whispering them into his ear as he lay on the floor.

“What… what did you say? Say it again? What?”

Mars grimaced and tried to lunge at Elsia, but Adrian quickly pinned him back to his knees and drew a knight’s sword to Mars’s neck.

“If you say one more word of nonsense, this sword will graze your throat.”

Mars could only glare at Elsia, unable to move.

She had merely returned the words Mars had said to her, yet he became furious upon hearing them. It was absurd.

‘If it’s unpleasant for you to hear, don’t say it to others…’

Having said what she wanted to Mars, Elsia felt much lighter.

After the situation settled, Elsia sat in a chair Marie brought and received treatment from the attending physician. He applied medicine and wrapped her neck wound with a bandage.

It stung but wasn’t a serious injury. Elsia was relieved it ended with just this.

Adrian handed the sword he was holding to a knight and approached Elsia.

“All my efforts to protect you were wasted. I didn’t expect to be so useless.”

Adrian sighed deeply, blaming himself. Elsia found his self-reproach endearing and couldn’t help but smile.

“Time changes things, so I’ve changed too. Who else but me should protect my own body?”

Elsia gently tapped her neck wound as she spoke.

“No. I failed today, but from now on, I’ll protect you.”

Adrian took Elsia’s hand and pressed his lips gently to the back of it, as if handling a delicate instrument.

“Is that enough?”

Elsia winked and grabbed Adrian’s arm, her fingers slowly trailing from his hand to his wrist and shoulder.

“Ahem.”

A coughing sound rang out. Marie had deliberately made the noise to remind them there were people around.

Elsia quickly withdrew her hand from Adrian and stood straight, pretending nothing had happened.

‘Without thinking about those around us, we got lost in our own world in front of everyone…’

Elsia felt her face flush. Marie quietly came beside her and whispered so only Elsia could hear.

“The Earl will arrive soon, so hold back for now. Once everything is resolved, you’ll have plenty of time—just wait a little, okay?”

Upon hearing Marie’s words, Elsia’s face turned red, and she quickly covered it. But Marie’s teasing gaze lingered.

Then the sound of the door slamming open was heard. Earl Portman had arrived.