Episode 1. The Beginning of Betrayal
That day was especially dark.
Even the white wedding dress Everett carefully held looked dull in the dim light.
She glanced at the weather outside as she walked, then stopped her thoughts once she entered the office. She was standing before the man whose presence made even storm clouds disappear.
“I’m here, Frederick.”
She shyly called her husband’s name. Normally, she wouldn’t dare speak it, but today she wanted his praise—she had done something for him.
At last, Frederick raised his head. When he loosened his cravat slightly, the faint scent of oak moss brushed past her nose and made her heart flutter.
“You’re here?”
At his short reply, Everett blushed. She hesitated for a moment, then looked down at the wedding dress she was holding against her chest and spoke softly.
“You asked me to prepare the wedding dress back then. It’s finally finished.”
“You didn’t send it to a dress shop? You made it yourself?”
Her fingers were full of tiny pricks from the needle, but she didn’t feel any pain.
“…Yes. I didn’t have much to do in the mansion, so I tried my best. It’s not perfect, but I worked hard on it.”
It had been ten days since she came back to the mansion.
Everett had put her whole heart into making the dress. Frederick had said he needed a wedding dress—surely that meant he finally planned to hold their long-awaited wedding ceremony.
He must be preparing our wedding.
She stayed up late every night, sewing it stitch by stitch. At last, it was complete.
Frederick brushed his growing beard once. His reaction was faint—maybe he didn’t like it? Sensitive to his smallest expression, Everett hugged the dress closer and asked carefully,
“Maybe I should add more decorations…”
“What do you think of Viscount Ventink?”
He suddenly interrupted her.
Viscount Ventink?
The unexpected name made her flinch.
“…Who is Viscount Ventink?”
Without a word, Frederick took out a photo from his notebook and handed it to her.
A bald old man covered in liver spots stared back from the picture.
“This man. Do you like him?”
Do I like him?
She tried to read Frederick’s meaning from his tone, but she couldn’t understand what he wanted.
“…I’m sorry. I don’t know what kind of answer you expect.”
She smiled awkwardly, thinking he might find her foolishness cute—like he used to.
But this time, Frederick’s face stayed cold.
As she nervously erased her smile, his next words fell like ice.
“I want a divorce.”
A divorce.
Instead of a marriage, he was demanding a divorce.
“Divorce me, and marry this man. I’m being generous, so don’t refuse. Viscount Ventink is old and very ill—he won’t live long. When he dies, his wives will inherit part of his fortune. You’ll live comfortably as a noblewoman until then. Not a bad deal, is it?”
His tone was calm, almost kind—as if he were offering her a favor.
“W–What are you saying…? A divorce? Did I do something wrong? I’ll fix it!”
Her trembling voice barely held together.
Frederick, expecting this reaction, continued coldly.
“You didn’t really think I considered you my wife, did you?”
“If I’m not your wife… then what am I?”
“A wife on paper, that’s all. Was there ever anything real between us?”
Frederick gave a mocking laugh.
Their marriage had never been normal.
But Everett’s feelings were real.
She had loved him—completely.
He had been her only light—the man who saved her after her own family abandoned her for not inheriting their power.
“An incompetent child! How could something like you come from my blood!”
Everett had not been born with the special ability passed down in the Pelham family.
The power her father valued most—the family’s mark, their proof of nobility—had skipped her entirely.
Because of that, she wasn’t even recognized as a daughter.
At birth, she had almost been thrown away like trash. Her mother had saved her, but years of her husband’s cruelty drove the woman into madness.
“I should never have given birth to you. I want to burn the womb that carried you.”
Her mother grew weaker day by day and eventually died.
Even her two older brothers turned their backs on her.
“If you hadn’t been born, Mother wouldn’t have died in misery. You’re not my sister.”
Everett didn’t even have time to grieve.
Right after the funeral, her aunt Charlotte arrived from the south with her daughter, Hedia.
“Our Hedia has inherited the family’s power. Look.”
The ability that hadn’t appeared in the main family now bloomed in the branch family.
From that moment, Everett was forgotten.
Abandoned by the Pelhams, she lived like a ghost in the mansion—no lessons, no dresses, no warmth.
She hid in a tiny room barely big enough to breathe, wearing an old maid’s dress to do chores just to stay sane.
Then, one lonely day, she met Frederick.
He approached her without hesitation.
“Are you really fine living like this? Haven’t you ever wanted to leave?”
“…I’m useless. No matter where I go, I’ll just be unhappy.”
“Maybe not with me. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“With you…?”
He held out his hand.
Taking it was Everett’s first act of defiance against her family.
A year later, on her twentieth birthday, she received a gift from her father for the first time.
“From now on, you belong to the Montague family.”
She was to marry Count Frederick Montague—the man who had rescued her.
Following him out of the Pelham mansion, Everett felt reborn.
In the Montague estate, she could go outside freely, her maid bathed her with clean water, and she slept on soft sheets.
She finally felt human.
She believed she could forget her past and live happily with Frederick.
She wanted to stand by his side, support him, give him everything—believing that would make their happiness last forever.
Until the dawn before their wedding day, when Frederick woke her—his body covered in blood.
“Everett, wake up.”
“Blood? Are you hurt?”
“No. I… I killed Marquis Pelham.”
“You killed my father? What happened?”
“He cheated me! He promised me a business contract and betrayed me! My whole investment collapsed because of him! I lost everything—and I snapped…”
Frederick’s pale face and shaking hands told her it wasn’t a lie. His bloodshot eyes turned to her.
“What do I do now? If they find out, we’re both dead. The whole family will fall.”
Morning would bring the end of everything.
Her mind went blank.
Then Frederick grabbed her hand—his bloody fingers trembling.
“There’s one way. Everett, say you killed him instead of me. Everyone knows how your father treated you—they’ll believe it. You’ll get a lighter sentence, and I… and our families will survive. We can start over.”
“But…”
“You and I are family, right? We’re one. I saved you from that house—now you save me.”
“But… tomorrow is our wedding…”
“The marriage papers are already signed. Don’t worry. When you come back, we’ll have a grand ceremony. I’ll rebuild everything, and we’ll live in a better mansion. So please, Everett—save me.”
At his desperate plea, Everett’s heart sank.
In the end, she confessed to the crime for him.
She smeared her father’s blood on her own body and took the blame.
Losing him was worse than losing her freedom.
Reporters called her a monster who killed her father.
“The Marquis neglected his daughter, didn’t he? How could he hide her all this time?”
“They say the wife went mad and died after giving birth. Maybe that’s why the daughter hated him.”
“So she killed him out of revenge? Terrible story.”
Frederick spread lies to make her crime sound believable.
Her painful past became gossip—but because of it, her sentence was reduced.
Seven years.
People called her a wicked daughter, but Everett didn’t care. She had saved the man she loved.
Prison was harsh—but she endured it, because she believed there was an end.
Ten days after her release—
Just ten days back at the mansion, believing she was preparing for her wedding—
Frederick asked for a divorce.
Everett couldn’t accept it. Her wrists and ankles still ached from the iron shackles.
What was he saying?
“This is a joke, right? You said we were family.”
“You believed that? You believed the man who killed your father?”
Frederick’s cold eyes pierced her. Everett panicked.
“I told you… my father never treated me like a daughter! I never saw him as a father!”
“Even so—how could you love the man who killed him? Every time I saw your eyes, I felt sick.”
His words tore through her heart like a blade.
“I thought you were… my everything…”
But seeing his disgusted face, she couldn’t finish the sentence.
She could only open and close her mouth soundlessly.
Then Frederick stood and walked toward her.
“Stay quiet like you are now. Don’t say anything. Just marry Viscount Ventink. Oh—and that dress? You can wear it at your new wedding. It’ll suit you.”
He patted her head with a cruel smile.
