Chapter 10……………………………………
A man with pale blond hair close to the color of wheat and skin as smooth as if carved from white pearl—Millard Winchester—smiled faintly.
He stopped turning the pages of his documents and blinked eyes of a violet hue more beautiful than any jewel.
At the look that seemed to ask whether he was serious, Liam fell silent.
Millard lowered his gaze back to the papers and spoke in an elegant, unhurried tone.
“You want me to commit adultery? With my brother’s wife, no less?”
“What’s wrong with that? Doesn’t it perfectly fit the image you’re trying to maintain—of a butcher who can’t control himself around women?”
“A ‘butcher who can’t control himself around women,’ and you think the Duchess would just fall for that?”
At Millard’s sarcasm, Liam clicked his tongue, muttering that his lord didn’t understand women.
“Her husband is parading around with a mistress and turning her insides upside down. Now imagine a younger, more handsome man trying to seduce her. What do you think would happen?”
“So you’re saying I should seduce the Duchess and dig up my brother’s weaknesses?”
“If you don’t like that idea, then why not just find someone suitable and get married already?”
So that was his real point.
“Enough. Marriage, of all things.”
“Isn’t it a hassle to keep hiring different women just to pretend your private life is a mess? Just get married already!”
“If I don’t act like a butcher who’s either obsessed with women or roaming the battlefield, His Majesty might at least spare my neck.”
As he spoke, Millard idly rubbed his own neck and smiled faintly.
“If I want to live even a little longer, I have to stay true to my role.”
“……”
“Isn’t that right?”
Despite the smile on his lips, his eyes were cold. Liam let out a sigh.
“I just don’t understand His Majesty’s thinking. Why on earth he treats you this way.”
“Watch your mouth.”
At Millard’s warning, Liam lowered his voice and almost whispered.
“You’re the one who earned all those merits on the battlefield—so why does he favor Duke Mason instead?!”
As Liam said, the emperor’s favor was directed not at Millard, but at Edwin.
The emperor had loved the empress, and Millard was the empress’s son—but he did not resemble the emperor in the slightest.
Because of that, rumors spread that Her Majesty must have committed adultery to give birth to Lord Millard.
Millard resembled the late emperor’s younger brother, the former Duke of Mason, far more than the emperor himself.
Considering that Edwin was actually the illegitimate child born between the former Duchess of Mason and the emperor, it was deeply ironic.
“Well, still, you achieved such great merit this time that even His Majesty won’t be able to keep his mouth shut,” Liam said, trying to sound cheerful after worrying himself sick. “Let’s not borrow trouble!”
“I’ll take my leave now. Please don’t overexert yourself—get some rest. You’ll need to go to the imperial palace tomorrow.”
“All right.”
Millard gave a slight nod, and Liam bowed before leaving the room.
Marriage, huh.
In truth, it wasn’t only the emperor that made Millard reluctant to marry.
If it weren’t an overly conspicuous match, the emperor would likely turn a blind eye.
Even knowing that, Millard had declared he would never marry—because he had experienced the worst possible first love.
In every sense… she was the worst.
He was lost in thought when a sound came from the window.
Tap. Tap. Tap-tap.
At first, he thought it was merely rain striking the glass, but the rhythm was strangely consistent.
…No way.
A sudden premonition struck him, and Millard rose from his seat.
The sound from the window felt like a signal—one he had once promised to someone long ago.
As if possessed, he approached the window and drew back the curtain.
Outside stood a woman balanced on a tree branch, with jet-black hair that looked as though it had been spun from the night sky itself, and jewel-like crimson eyes.
Hello.
Her lips formed the word silently, careful not to be heard. Her face was painfully familiar.
Millard immediately opened the window and held out his hand.
As though accepting an escort, the woman took his hand and stepped gracefully over the window frame.
Water dripped from her rain-soaked robe, leaving marks on the floor—but such things didn’t matter.
“…Master.”
“Yes, Your Grace, Duke of Winchester.”
She was Millard’s former teacher—and now the Duchess of Mason.
“No. Millard.”
The woman who had abandoned him, his first love—
Trisha Rosenthal.
Before Millard first received an imperial command and departed for the battlefield, the two of them had been teacher and student.
Trisha taught Millard many things, including horseback riding.
Having never received a proper education as a prince in his childhood, Millard later astonished the imperial palace with his brilliance—thanks entirely to Trisha.
If it were known that his teacher was Trisha, a woman of foreign blood, it would surely cause an uproar, so only a few knew the truth.
While Trisha regarded Millard as nothing more than a student, he loved her.
“If I return safely from the battlefield, there’s something I really want to say to you, Master.”
“Usually, when people say that, they either don’t come back—or never get to say it.”
“Are you cursing me right now?”
“Of course not. I want you to return safely too.”
“……”
“I mean it.”
Seeing Trisha smile at him beneath the setting sun, Millard fell momentarily silent.
“If you come back safely, Millard, we could go on a trip together. Somewhere not too far, of course.”
Trisha Rosenthal sometimes acted as though she understood his feelings, hinting at them in subtle ways.
But none of that mattered.
All that mattered was returning alive. After that, he would somehow win Trisha’s heart.
He had been young. Foolish.
He had never even considered that Trisha might choose someone else.
And the price for that ignorance was far more brutal than he had imagined.
“Greet him, Millard. This is my wife, Trisha.”
“Pleased to meet you, Your Grace, Duke of Winchester. I am Trisha Mason.”
The one who welcomed Millard back from the battlefield was Trisha—now the wife of his half-brother and rival.
“So, what brings the noble Duchess of Mason here?” Millard asked, greeting her with a mask-like smile.
Trisha, for her part, calmly wrung the water from her hair.
That infuriatingly serene demeanor displeased Millard.
“Did you come here openly as a spy, on your husband’s orders?”
“My coming here has nothing to do with Edwin.”
Millard watched Trisha askew as she dried her hair with the towel he had given her.
“Nothing to do with my brother?”
“That’s right.”
She brushed aside her rain-soaked hair, tucking it neatly to one side.
Her exposed nape caught the moonlight, glowing pale white.
A question that had suddenly occurred to him slipped from Millard’s lips.
“Then how did you know I was here? Did you plant a spy?”
“This was the place you lived as a child, so I thought I’d check—just in case.”
“And that alone was enough for you to be certain I was here?”
“There was no way not to know.”
After a brief pause, as though recalling something, Trisha continued.
“Because the roses my mother cultivated are still preserved all around the estate.”
“……”
“You might not know this, since you’ve only recently returned from the battlefield, but these days it’s fashionable to decorate gardens with white or blue flowers.”
Yet this estate remained exactly as Trisha’s mother had once tended it—covered entirely in red roses.
The meaning was clear.
“I thought you hadn’t changed at all. Even back then, you were a child who foolishly clung to the past and regretted what had already gone.”
In fact, this was the place where Trisha and Millard had first met—when they were called ‘the foreigner’s daughter’ and ‘the cuckoo prince.’
When rumors spread that the empress had committed adultery to give birth to Millard, she sent him to this estate.
Under the pretense of sending a sick child away to recuperate, she effectively confined him there.
Because he had been sent away to stay out of the emperor’s sight, Millard could meet no one but the elderly butler who managed the estate.
Around that time, Trisha’s mother—who was acquainted with the butler—was hired as the estate’s gardener.
Trisha secretly followed her mother, happened to meet Millard, and that was how their bond began.
Pitying Millard, the old butler did not report their interactions to the empress.
At least, not until Millard was sent back to the imperial palace.
“The garden…” Millard said calmly—or perhaps as though spitting the words out.
“Just because the roses remain doesn’t mean everything else can stay the same.”
“……”
“Everything around those roses has changed.”
At his words, Trisha lowered her gaze.
Guilt—and something close to resignation—slowly surfaced in her crimson eyes before fading away.
“I know.”
“No, Master. You don’t.”
As though telling her to get lost, Millard waved a hand dismissively and turned toward his desk, ignoring her.
“If you have something to say, say it quickly and leave. If it’s nothing important, just go.”
“There will soon be an attempt to poison Her Highness the Princess.”
At Trisha’s calm words, Millard stopped in his tracks.
He turned back to her, all traces of humor erased from his face.
