Chapter 01
“I do not expect you to act like my wife. Just spend money quietly and live as if you do not exist.”
Klaus spoke to the small pale woman standing before him, who looked like she would collapse if lightly touched.
The small woman with snow-white silver hair, Roana, parted her lips slightly. Her wide purple eyes showed that she was startled.
‘Did I scare her? This is troublesome.’
Klaus clicked his tongue inwardly.
Just imagining her crying already gave him a headache. Since long ago, he had always been terrible at dealing with small and weak things.
However, the words that came out of Roana’s mouth were completely different from what Klaus expected.
“Wow, can I really do that?”
“…What?”
For a moment, Klaus thought he had heard wrong.
“I mean, can I really live like that? My lifelong dream was to relax and live without working.”
Now it was Klaus’s turn to be shocked.
He stared at Roana with a dumbfounded expression. But there was no sign that she was joking or lying.
Roana was truly happy with all her heart. Her purple eyes, now filled with bright joy, sparkled much more vividly than before.
Klaus silently looked into Roana’s purple eyes. It was unexpected that a woman who looked so small and weak could show such strong vitality.
Meanwhile, Roana was feeling something completely different.
As Klaus’s silence grew longer, she became very nervous.
‘He said I could relax and do nothing… he is not changing his mind now, right?’
Roana anxiously waited for his next words.
“Do you even understand what this marriage means? Do you understand what kind of relationship we have?”
After a long silence, Klaus asked in a low voice.
“Of course.”
Roana answered quickly.
“First of all, before meeting yesterday, we were complete strangers. Then suddenly our families agreed to a political marriage.”
Roana recalled the wedding from yesterday.
After weeks of exhausting carriage travel from the north to the south, she had worn a heavy dress and a long veil dragging across the floor while listening to hours of sermons in front of a priest.
It was a grand wedding, but there was no romance in it, and even the wedding kiss was skipped.
Klaus and Roana exchanged wedding rings with dry, emotionless movements before leaving separately and sleeping in different rooms.
Then, as soon as morning came, Roana heard that Klaus was looking for her and came to his study.
“This is not just a simple political marriage.”
Klaus spoke in a cold voice.
“That’s right!”
Roana nodded brightly in agreement. Her cheerful reaction surprised Klaus once again.
“I was chosen by the elders of the family to keep an eye on you, Duke.”
The Bruggen Ducal House, currently led by Klaus, was divided into two factions: the Imperial faction and the Anti-Imperial faction, also called the Prince’s faction.
Klaus and the direct bloodline of the family belonged to the Prince’s faction, while the elders and some retainers supported the Emperor.
To restrain Klaus, the elders contacted the Rius County family, Roana’s family.
The Rius family had faithfully served the Emperor for generations and strongly supported the Imperial faction. They agreed to send their daughter in order to watch Klaus, who was showing suspicious political movements.
The elders placed Roana, who supported the Imperial faction, beside Klaus to block him from forming a marriage alliance with another Prince faction family.
“And even after knowing that, you are fine with it?”
Even from Klaus’s perspective, this marriage was unpleasant, but for Roana, it was even worse.
The elders had only brought her here to pressure Klaus, and they did not treat her like a proper duchess. Klaus himself also had no intention of taking care of her.
Roana had become someone looked down on by both sides. This marriage was nothing but humiliation for her.
Yet she did not seem upset at all. She did not look frightened or hopeless either.
Seeing that, Klaus became confused.
“Do not worry. I will never bother you, Duke. I will truly live quietly like I do not exist. I will stay in the separate residence you gave me and never even step into the main mansion.”
Roana said this with a bright smile.
‘Is this woman sane?’
Klaus blankly watched his wife, who should have been miserable, genuinely looking happy.
After leaving Klaus’s office, Roana walked lightly toward the separate residence prepared for her.
Not allowing a wife into the main house and making her stay separately was an extreme insult. But Roana thought differently.
When she heard “separate residence,” she imagined something like a prison, but when she actually saw it, it was completely different.
The Bruggen family’s separate residence was built in the southern architectural style that emphasized elegant curves. It was sturdy and beautiful. It was also very well maintained and cozy.
A peaceful, beautiful, and comfortable residence with barely any visitors—it truly felt like a dream.
“This is where I will live? It feels so calm and peaceful.”
Roana excitedly spoke to the servants who guided her there.
The servants were already looking at her like she was strange.
‘Did the shock of the marriage make her lose her mind?’
‘No, she probably became desperate and gave up on everything.’
Roana could hear the servants whispering, but she only smiled brightly.
“You may leave now. I can handle the rest myself.”
Roana dismissed the servants.
The servants looked even more confused after seeing her refuse service as well.
But Roana did not care. She truly liked being alone.
“Yes, your personal maid will arrive soon. If you need anything, please ask her.”
After all the servants left and she was finally alone, Roana threw off her uncomfortable skirt and collapsed into an armchair in the living room while wearing only her underskirt.
The warm southern breeze entered through the window and gently brushed through her silver hair.
“Haaah…”
Roana stretched lazily while enjoying the warm climate, so different from the north.
“So this is my home now. And I can spend every day relaxing and doing nothing!”
She truly loved it.
Roana was not happy about this humiliating marriage because she had gone crazy or given up.
She simply had values completely different from the people of this world.
In truth, she was someone who remembered her past life.
In her previous life, Roana had been an ordinary modern person. She worked as a barista and owned a small café. One day, after going to argue with her landlord for suddenly raising the rent despite the café doing well, she died in a traffic accident.
When she opened her eyes again, she was here.
It took a very long time for baby Roana to adapt to this world. She had to work very hard.
That was because, in this world, Roana was born as an illegitimate child.
The shame of the Rius family, symbol of immorality, cursed child born with ominous silver hair…
Those were the words used to describe Roana.
Nobody openly abused her. No matter what, half of the blood of Count Rius still flowed through her veins.
However, sometimes indifference was even scarier than open abuse.
From the moment she was born, Roana lived without receiving any attention. The Countess of Rius had accused Roana’s mother of being a witch and chased her away from the estate, leaving nobody to care for her.
Once Roana became able to feed herself, the indifference of the Rius family became even worse.
They treated her as if she did not exist.
Young Roana dressed herself alone, washed herself alone, and secretly sneaked into the kitchen to steal bread like a rat.
The real problem began when Roana turned six.
During the harsh northern winter, the firewood ran out, but nobody brought more. She spent the night trembling in the cold and eventually caught a terrible fever.
In her feverish state, Roana kept whispering for help, begging someone to help her, but nobody in the Rius family came for her.
And so, six-year-old Roana was left abandoned in her room for several days.
That experience completely changed her.
After that, Roana never again asked anyone for help, and even when there was food in front of her, she developed a habit of hiding hard bread beneath her bed.
If she did not remember the happy and ordinary family from her previous life, she might have gone insane.
Then, in the year Roana turned twenty, a marriage proposal arrived from the Bruggen Ducal House in the south.
Originally, the proposal was not for Roana but for Beth, the Rius family’s legitimate daughter.
“We cannot send our daughter!”
After realizing that her precious daughter would obviously be used as a political tool if she married into the Bruggen family, Countess Rius strongly opposed the marriage.
“But we cannot reject this marriage. The other side is the Bruggen Ducal House.”
At Count Rius’s words, the Countess bit her lip.
After a long silence, she suddenly thought of someone else.
“What about Roana? She still carries half your blood.”
“But would they really accept Roana…?”
“Then are you saying we should send our Beth instead?”
“Fine, fine. We will send Roana.”
And so, Roana headed south in place of her half-sister Beth.
The journey to the south was exhausting. But Roana endured the long carriage ride thinking that anywhere had to be better than the Rius estate.
Still, until the wedding itself, she could not be certain that this place would truly be better.
Klaus Bruggen, the man introduced as her husband, was so cold and intimidating that just looking at him frightened people.
Roana had been a little scared when she saw his pitch-black hair and blood-red eyes.
The disapproving gazes from the elders, who hated that she came instead of Beth, and the hostile looks from Klaus’s followers also made Roana shrink back.
After the wedding, while lying alone in her room, she could not sleep because she worried about whether she could survive here in the south.
—“I do not expect you to act like my wife. Just spend money quietly and live as if you do not exist.”
But all of Roana’s worries disappeared with those words from Klaus.
‘A life where I can do absolutely nothing? This is the best!’
Rolling around happily inside the separate residence, Roana screamed with joy inside her heart.
