Chapter 5

Judith kicked at the blanket and flopped back down onto the bed. At that moment, a neatly folded set of clothes on the bedside table next to the bed caught her eye. The sight of the dark blue dress she had worn in haste, along with her stockings and undergarments laid out tidily, made her breath catch. Beside the table, the logo embedded in the wall tugged at her nerves. A spear and shield crossed diagonally, ringed with roses around them. The man Elijah had chosen. It was the emblem symbolizing the Müller family. In that case, this meant she was in a guest room of the Müller family…. Could it be that I had stripped in front of the servant who guided me to the room? No. Please. It can’t be. It absolutely cannot be! Dragging herself across with her hips, Judith snatched up her clothes from the table. Not remembering was unbearable. With trembling hands, Judith picked up her clothes. At that moment, something fluttered down onto the blanket.

Judith picked up the paper that had fallen onto the blanket and unfolded it irritably.

Your m*ans are my type. I had fun yesterday, and I’ll come find you soon.

‘Your m*ans are my type’? What fun? And what did ‘I’ll come find you’ mean?

Without even thinking to wash her sweat-soaked body, Judith gathered up her clothes and put them on as she thought. If it was m*ans……. then it had to be connected to the marks on her chest, didn’t it? Don’t tell me, did I sleep with a man whose face I don’t even know?!

“I’ve lost my mind!”

Judith Loewe, remember. Remember what happened last night! No. Even if she remembered, what had happened would not become something that never happened. Better to just lock herself in the lab and never come outside. Then who would teach the classes? She also needed to start the restoration work on the dancing figure painting. Ah, this is driving me insane.

Judith kept smacking her forehead with her palm and shaking her head. All right, think carefully. Was there any face among the guests invited to Elijah’s engagement ceremony that I didn’t know? The guests invited yesterday had almost all been people from Bayer. Most were faces she had met at least once, directly or indirectly, and in the case of the men, there did not seem to be anyone newly added. If there had been, Elijah would have chatted about it in the waiting room. That girl was very interested in new people. She must have looked over the guest list for the engagement ceremony, and since she had said nothing, that was the same as saying that the only people who entered the banquet hall yesterday were people from Bayer.

Then what happened yesterday made no sense. If it was a man from Bayer, he would not want to spend a night with gloomy Judith Loewe. In large cities, they might dismiss a night between a man and a woman as simple amusement, but Bayer was a closed place, not an open one. There could not be a fool who did not know that the moment rumors spread that you had spent the night together, it would end with marriage.

“Then who was it? Could it have been the server who stayed by my side and kept pouring me drinks all through the engagement reception?”

No. It can’t be. The people of Bayer were rather gentle, and once they took someone in, unless there was an exceptional reason, they tended to keep ties for a long time, almost like family. That was why wealthy newlywed households like Elijah and her fiancé’s were popular to those looking for work. Once you got in, it was a dream job where you could stay attached for life. So there could not be some idiot who would throw away a hard-won position for a one-night affair with a woman he did not even like. The culprit had to be one of the guests at the engagement ceremony.

Fastening the buttons down the back of her dress, Judith thought that she should get the guest list from Elijah. Someone might be playing a prank. Yes, if it were a prank, that would be best. Judith hugged her bruise-covered chest with both arms and narrowed her brow. Even though the marks on her chest could not have appeared for no reason, she still wanted to deny it. To tell herself that nothing had happened last night.

Judith stamped her feet and punched at her head, which still throbbed from the hangover. How can I remember absolutely nothing from yesterday? My mind feels like a blank white page. She had never drunk enough to get this intoxicated before. She had not even known what her drinking habits were like. If memory loss had been her drunken habit, she would never have touched alcohol in the first place. This is insane, truly.

Judith came out of the room and approached a Müller family housekeeper who was wiping the windows.

“Excuse me, where is Elijah?”

“Ah, if you mean Madame Müller, she left early this morning for Duarte with the master.”

“For Duarte?”

“She said she wanted to travel all over the world before the wedding.”

She was doomed. If they were traveling all over the world, that meant it would take at least more than half a year.

“If I wanted to check the list of the engagement ceremony visitors, who would I need to ask?”

“That would require the master’s permission. Even if you are a friend of Madam, I cannot simply tell you the names of the master’s guests.”

“Ha. Right. Yes. Thank you.”

D*mn it. She had lost the way to infer what had happened last night. If, as the note said, she really had spent the night with him….? The note said he would come find her again. She needed to know who he was in order to avoid him or do anything at all. What if he was a swindler? He knows me, and I do not know him. I want to deny this wretched situation. If only she knew who he was, she could at least make some kind of plan. Her heart thrashed uneasily as though she were clutching a bomb.

Judith bit her nails as she recalled that dreadful note.

Your m*ans are my type. I had fun yesterday, and I’ll come find you soon.

D*mn it. I wasn’t having fun at all. I’m anxious because I don’t know who you are!

* * *

Under a sky thick with dark clouds, a picturesque mansion came into view. Judith opened her handbag and took out some bills. Her mouth still reeked badly of alcohol, and her head felt heavy. The hangover was severe. Driving in this state was impossible. So she had left her car at the Müller mansion and caught a taxi. When the yellow taxi stopped in front of the Loewe Earl’s mansion, Judith held out the bills she had prepared toward the driver.

“You can keep the change. Have a good day.”

“Thank you, Miss. I hope you have a pleasant day.”

At a rather large amount, the taxi driver’s face brightened. Judith opened the car door, stepped out, and quietly looked up at the reddish-brown brick house. Loewe, which had protected the frontier from enemies for a long time. Had they said that the King loved faithful and steadfast Loewe? If he had loved them, he would not have left them as frontier nobles. Even knowing it was only a tale made up to inflate the renown of the Loewe name, her pride did not fade.

A title like Earl in this age was no more than an ornamental phrase, like an embellishment in song lyrics, but people like Judith’s grandmother still staked their lives on such things. Noble honor, pride, things like that.

“It is, in fact, an old manuscript recorded as far back as five hundred years ago. They say it is a poem written by the captive King, who adored a Princess of a neighboring country. After several years of courtship, the captive King married the neighboring Princess, and it is said he loved only her. Even if one searches the history books, they say the captive King had no consort other than the Queen, so he truly must have been a King blinded by love. You must have heard at least once the story of the King who disemboweled himself at her side on the day the Queen fell ill and died.”

So that was why there were so many cars parked outside the gate. Judith quickened her steps at the sound flowing out from the drawing room.