Chapter 1. Prologue
“Vivian, couldn’t you have worn at least a veil?”
As the black door of the reception room opened, the gaze of Count Darthion, his eyes like those of a heated serpent, fell upon me.
My father, Count Darthion, was the kind of pathetic man whose testicles shriveled up at the sight of an expressionless woman like me.
“It’s not as if covering my face can hide my curse forever.”
In my previous life, I had blindly obeyed the Count’s word as if it were law.
But after marrying Lucas, I learned that the Count’s commands were merely outdated rules that applied only within this mansion, so speaking my mind should be fine.
“W-why, you…!”
The Count, his face contorted, stammered while glancing nervously at the guest.
Just then, the large upper body of the man sitting across from the Count, with his back to the door, bobbed up and down.
Was he laughing just now?
“It’s quite all right, Count. I would like to formally introduce myself to Lady Vivian.”
He was a man who, despite speaking politely to my father the Count, had a curiously terse way of speaking.
“Yes, let’s do that. Vivian, come quickly and sit here.”
The Count gestured to the spot next to him.
Sitting next to my father didn’t appeal to me much, but it seemed better than stealing glances at the guest from the side, so I moved.
He must be the famously ugly Frontier Count. That hideous old bachelor notorious for traveling across the country under the pretext of marriage proposals, pestering noble ladies.
In my previous life, I had certainly received a marriage proposal from the Frontier Count around this time. Just as it fell through then, it will likely fall through this time as well…
Having lived by the imperial etiquette of not looking directly into the eyes of a stranger for the first time, I slowly lifted my head.
However, the person before me was not who I had expected. My body stiffened, and my heartbeat quickened.
He was twice the size of Count Darthion, taking up most of the sofa.
The sleeves of his reddish-brown suit were stretched taut, as if they might burst. It seemed that even if I threw a glass at him right now, the glass would shatter first.
His broad shoulders were also prominently pushing against his jacket. Above them, a strong, long neckline was exposed.
A primal fear made my breathing shallow involuntarily.
I had seen a man with such an outstanding physique in my previous life as well.
Suddenly, I thought I knew who the man before me was. I forced my stiff neck upward to confirm his face.
“Theodor Parhen. Greetings.”
A low voice that filled the space, and dark hair as black as midnight.
Red eyes resembling solid, shining rubies.
The dry, desolate image of him at thirty-four, the last time I saw him in my previous life, was nowhere to be found.
Meeting eyes full of the vitality and impetuousness of his twenties, I felt as if every cell in my body had frozen solid.
Why was Theodor sitting in front of me?
I was so shocked I couldn’t move a muscle.
He silently gazed at me with eyes like fiercely burning candles.
Just then, the Count spoke in a highly excited voice.
“Vivian, Theodor has sent a marriage proposal. Take a look.”
A proposal? For a moment, my ears felt muffled, as if I were underwater.
Unless the word ‘proposal’ had some other meaning I wasn’t aware of, it meant he wanted to get married.
Watching Theodor’s large hand touch his eyebrow and then fold together, my mind went blank, and I couldn’t look away.
“…This isn’t some errand for the Frontier Count, but you yourself proposing to me?”
As I said this, my body was trembling as if doused with cold water on a winter’s day.
Theodor didn’t answer immediately. He paused for a moment, then smoothly rose from his seat.
Don’t come closer, please. I pressed myself as far back against the sofa back as possible and squeezed my eyes shut.
“It’s a thousand mercies I came early. It seems I’m not the only one who wants you.”
As Theodor finished speaking, a thick fabric touched my dress with a soft thud.
Cautiously opening my eyes, I saw that he had covered me with the jacket he had been wearing.
Seeing that, my body unknowingly stiffened even more.
Unable to bear my silence, the Count chimed in loudly from beside me.
“The Frontier Count? Surely you don’t think I’d sell my youngest daughter off to the desolate edge of the border? That’s preposterous. Theodor, it’s wonderful that you’ve come. Vivian, have you forgotten already? He’s the boy who used to work in our house.”
How could I possibly forget this man?
The Empire’s first commoner-born knight, a loyal subject who gained my husband Lucas’s trust and rose to the position of Knight Commander. Theodor Parhen, the only familiar face in the imperial court where I knew no one.
“…I know him well.”
The Count looked Theodor up and down and spoke with an admiring expression.
“Back then, I just thought he was a very diligent child. I never imagined he’d return so grown-up.”
The reflected light from the gold watch on Theodor’s wrist stung my eyes.
Why did he look like a young entrepreneur just hitting the road to success?
According to the flow of my previous life, he should have just joined the Imperial Knights as a naive new member.
“Haha, it’s still a small enterprise. I’m trying to expand it as far as my means allow, though.”
“How modest. Offering a whopping five million gold as a bride’s dowry!”
Theodor hadn’t taken his eyes off me for even a moment.
His cold, unreadable face seemed unchanged, but the man I knew was not someone who exuded such a combative and suave atmosphere like this.
The kind who wears such a smooth jacket and drapes it over a woman.
Moreover, a strange, inexplicable scent emanated from the jacket’s lining. Even the sensation of the jewel embroidered on his handkerchief tickling my arm was extremely unpleasant.
Still trembling, I picked up his jacket and placed it on the floor. It was the greatest act of defiance I could muster.
Theodor, unperturbed by my discontented action, opened his lips.
“Soon, I will propose to you properly.”
The vivid madness radiating from his gaze seemed like it would ignite a fire wherever it touched.
I barely managed to swallow the curses rising to my throat, biting my lip so hard I tasted blood.
“Sending the proposal in advance is because of fear. The fear… that I might lose you.”
A numb shock spread through me, as if a chandelier had fallen on my head.
He visibly curled the corners of his mouth and added,
“Would you believe me? That there’s a man who couldn’t sleep a wink last night thinking of you.”
Theodor Parhen. The man who killed me is now asking me to marry him.
