“Julia, you really have no feminine charm whatsoever. No softness, stiff and rough, and on top of that, violent.”

After the commotion that night, Henry’s attitude shifted to open mockery.

Every time they crossed paths in the corridor or their eyes met, he made sure she could hear his slick sneering.

“And that nose of yours, held so high. Quite the lofty, exalted lady, aren’t you?”

Henry’s taunting never stopped.

His pride wounded by Julia’s refusal, Henry borrowed the courage of alcohol a few days later and flung open the annex door once more.

“You’re back again? You never get tired, do you.”

But Julia no longer trembled.

“Watch carefully. See what happens!”

The moment the door opened and Henry moved to approach, she lifted a chair without hesitation and hurled it at the window.

Crash!

A sharp, splintering sound tore through the night air once more.

She stared at Henry without expression.

It was a cold warning: touch her, and she would fight back even if it meant breaking things.

Henry flinched and faltered, and in that moment the servants came running.

The tense standoff and the commotion between the two reached the ears of the main house’s owners immediately.

“Stop this at once!”

The marquis’s thundering command came down.

“Julia is already busy enough with her household training. This is no time for you to pester her with your drunken nonsense. You are forbidden from entering the annex from this point forward.”

It was a firm order.

“Henry, I’m disappointed in you. Leave the hardworking, diligent Julia alone. Everything she does is for your benefit. You shouldn’t be getting in the way.”

Even the marchioness, whom Henry trusted, shot him a sharp look, and he had no choice but to click his tongue and back down.

“Ah, fu…”

Barred from the annex, Henry grumbled with irritation.

Separating Henry from her was not for Julia’s sake, but for the coldly calculated reason that he was disrupting the education of an important asset being groomed as the family’s future administrator. Even so, she was grateful.

After that, whenever they crossed paths in the main house, Henry poured even more open contempt and venom on Julia.

“Haah… what a bleak situation. Like it or not, we’d have to test our compatibility at some point to produce an heir or not.”

But Julia did not react to a single word.

She didn’t get angry when insulted, didn’t flinch when he pushed, and didn’t waver at the occasional soft word he threw her way.

Julia passed by him with empty eyes, like a doll with all emotion removed.

Yet even that numb non-response was no exception to Henry’s pursuit once he set his sights on a target.

Something like a faint heat began to settle into the gaze he kept on her, the way someone might crave a forbidden fruit.

Left unchecked, it could turn into obsession.

The psychology she studied in her household training said that highly aggressive predators chase their targets simply because they run.

Henry leaned toward the aggressor rather than the victim, toward offense rather than defense.

In other words, running away forever would never solve anything.

‘…Some kind of drastic measure is needed.’

Julia thought it over.

She needed to pull Henry’s attention away from her, attention that showed no sign of cooling.

‘Isn’t there a good way?’

Days and days of deliberation passed, and then something from her herbology lesson surfaced in her mind.

As befitting a high-ranking noble house, the Rodev Marquisate handled a wide range of medicinal herbs, and the greenhouse in particular cultivated several rare varieties.

Assassination threats were not uncommon for high-ranking nobles, so keeping a family-exclusive antidote made from rare herbs unavailable on the open market was a necessity, and they also stocked various herbs in preparation for unexpected epidemics or outbreaks.

Of course, possessing all manner of rare herbs difficult to obtain elsewhere also served as a display of the family’s formidable power and wealth.

Julia, as a member of the Rodev Marquisate, studied herbology as general knowledge, and she finished familiarizing herself with most of the rare herbs cultivated in the greenhouse.

‘Shinebell.’

The herb resembled lily of the valley, and true to its name, it shone, though not in its appearance. The name referred to what happened when it was ingested: the mind and vision would flash and sparkle as though fireworks were going off, inducing hallucinations and abnormal reactions.

Mixed with alcohol in particular, the effect was immediate, and it commonly caused fainting, so it required caution as a substance used in abductions and luring. Careful handling was advised.

‘If this is combined with Shade herb, which has aphrodisiac properties…’

Used in small quantities, both Shinebell and Shade herb left no lasting harm to the body.

However, there was a critical weakness in using them as a drug: tolerance.

Because of tolerance, an effect that worked once would not necessarily carry over the next time.

Frequent use rendered it ineffective, so its value as a drug was not particularly high, but that very characteristic earned it the status of a rare herb, and fortunately the Rodev Marquisate kept it in the greenhouse.

‘Good.’

She couldn’t know how it would turn out, but attempting one move to overturn the board was far more worthwhile than going on living in dread.

‘Nothing good happens if you do nothing. You have to act.’

Julia played the role of a well-behaved future marchioness burning with a love of learning, and between lessons she made occasional visits to the greenhouse.

Catching the moment when the watchful eyes grew lax was not particularly difficult.

With the small scissors she hid in her sleeve, she quietly cut the stem of a Shinebell plant and harvested leaves from the Shade herb.

It was a stroke of fortune that, as the future marchioness of the Rodev family, she had access to the rare herb greenhouse under heavy security.

She prepared the herbs that way, extracted the active compounds, and waited for the night Henry came home drunk.

‘Wait for when he’s drunk enough to be senseless. Fortunately, he drinks like it’s water.’

Days of patience stretched on, and then one night Henry was spotted staggering back to the annex.

Julia took a thin nightgown and undergarments from her wardrobe, concealed them under a shawl wrapped around her, and made her way to the main house.

Henry was forbidden from entering the annex, but there was no restriction on Julia crossing over to the main house, so she was able to enter his chambers without difficulty.

Reaching the door of Henry’s bedroom, Julia drew a deep breath.

Then, with trembling hands, she knocked.

Knock, knock.

From behind the firmly shut bedroom door came Henry’s voice, hoarse and mumbling.

“…Who is it? Come in.”

He likely assumed it was an attendant or servant coming to tend to his hangover.

“It’s me.”

The door opened and Julia stepped inside. Henry, sitting on the edge of the bed, squinted and blinked several times.

“You, what are you doing here?”

His tongue was thoroughly slurred.

Henry mumbled in disbelief and tried to push himself up from the bed, then immediately lost his balance and dropped back down.

It was only natural he was bewildered. The fiancée who thoroughly ignored him had come of her own accord.

Julia met the confusion spreading across Henry’s face and gave him a cold smile.

Even in a situation like this, manufacturing a seductive or alluring expression was physically beyond her.

“I thought it over carefully, and I don’t think it’s good for either of us to let things stay this cold between us.”

“What? Hah, now you come to me with this?”

“Before it gets any later.”

Lowering her gaze shyly, Julia let her eyes sweep quickly over the inside of Henry’s bedroom.

Just as expected, a shelf held distilled spirits and crystal glasses.

Henry was a reckless fool who couldn’t resist alcohol and women, so having drink close at hand was well within her calculations.

“It’s my first time… I’m quite nervous…”

Julia spoke hesitantly and glanced toward the glasses, and Henry nodded with bleary eyes.

“Right. You drink too. Well, you won’t be giving me that line about being underage and declining alcohol now, will you? You’re coming of age next year.”

“Yes.”

Just as expected, Henry offered the drink, so his guard would be down.

Julia approached the glasses with an air of hesitation, quietly dropped in roughly half the prepared compound, and mixed it with the distilled spirits.

Then she prepared two glasses, one for herself and one for Henry, and handed one to him.

“I’ve heard there’s such a thing as a drink to cure a hangover. Does it actually work?”

“A hangover cure, really. I wasn’t even drunk in the first place.”

Henry snorted with amusement and grabbed the glass with a swaying hand.

He lifted it boldly, his throat working in a large swallow, and downed the spirits in one go.