I flinched at the voice of a familiar man. I turned around slowly, tightening my shoulders. I thought I got out of here safely, I thought it was all over…
“……your Majesty.” Raymond was the man who came down the stairs to the party and called me.
Did he run over or something like that? His breathing was unusually disturbed. As I bow, his voice was heard overhead.
“Get up,” I could feel Raymond staring at me.
“Ellie, you·····.” He clouded the end of his words with a firm face. He’s staring at me with complex eyes then turned his head obliquely.
He looked like he didn’t know what to say or how to say.
Don’t tell me you notice something?. “If you’re worried about me, I’m fine. I’ve been under a lot of stress for the past few days, and I’m just getting better.”
Raymond’s eyebrows narrowed as he spoke with a calm face. “A sickness?”
“Yes, the original gastrointestinal disease has recurred and is being treated by the Duke.”
I used to get a stomachache because I was sensitive. This was a fact that Raymond knew well.
“Oh,” he exclaimed and laughed as if he was dumbfounded.
“That’s what happened ·····.”
“Is there a problem?” Raymond shook his head when asked back with a face that he knew nothing.
“Wait, I still have a question to ask.”
“What else is left.” I was starting to get nervous because I wanted to avoid this position quickly.
“········Please speak.” Suddenly, he contorted his face as if annoyed by my calm answer.
“How long are you going to be so polite. There is no one else here but you and me.”
“Even if you do not have eyes to see, it is the law and morals to be polite to the Emperor. I am no longer the Empress.”
I bowed my head with courtesy.
“Ha. Yeah, if you really want to, I’ll have to match the rhythm,” he said coldly.
“Croft Young-ae, raise your head,” he stood right in front of me, narrowing the distance with a big stride.
“Raise your head, Young-ae. It’s an order.”
Disobeying the Emperor’s orders is a felony, so I slowly lifted my head.
Then, as if waiting, the black eyes that seemed to have assimilated into the night sky met my eyes.
Raymond looked at me with eyes full of unknown heat. It seemed like he was mad at me. But now, there was no reason to be angry with me in this situation.
I don’t know if I’m mad at him.
A cold wind blew between us, who only looked at each other and didn’t say anything.
Not wanting to endure this situation any longer, I decided to put an end to this uncomfortable silence first.
“Your Majesty, if you don’t have anything to say to me, I’d like to go back.”
For a moment, his eyebrows twitched restlessly. And soon his voice, unable to hide his anger, rang out. “It’s your side who asked for a divorce, but I don’t know why you’re angry.”
When they got divorced, he was expecting her to act like a friend, as she did before.
I couldn’t stand it and laughed a little bit. His eyes became fierce.
“Your Majesty, I’m just following the law as a nobleman.”
I don’t know what he likes, but I couldn’t be as comfortable with him as I used to be. Since I had never been friends with him, my love that supported our relationship had ended, and all ties to him were broken.
He looked at my expressionless face and twisted the corners of his mouth. “I never knew you were such a clear person……. Ah, maybe this is your true form. Dancing casually with a man you meet for the first time…”
At that time, I said, “If you say more than that, you’re insulting me.”
His words as he was about to cross the line were cut coldly. It was then that Raymond shut his mouth to admit that his words were harsh.
“If you have nothing more to say to me, I’ll go back.”
“…who is that man?” I looked back at Raymond, who had turned halfway around.
“The man who danced with you, I mean.” ha. I couldn’t help but burst into laughter.
“Is it so important to your Majesty who the man is?” Raymond stopped when asked.
It’s like he doesn’t understand himself even if he thinks about it.
He frowned, but in the end, he didn’t open his mouth anymore. I couldn’t understand why he was so obsessed with him, but he was showing a clear hostility to a man he didn’t know. like being jealous.
Jealousy, Raymond to me? Have you been clouded by going through too many things at the party? It was a brief moment, but he laughed at himself as he thought about it, and Raymond’s face hardened coldly.
I didn’t mean it that way, but it didn’t seem so bad that he took it that way. I looked at him with a hard face and opened my mouth.
“No matter what your Majesty judges, I don’t think I have anything to say.”
Raymond’s gaze on me darkened, but I turned away from him. His gaze pierced behind my back until the moment the carriage door closed, but fortunately, he did not stop me.
Giddy-! The horseman’s voice rang and the wagon rattled off. It wasn’t until I was completely out of the marquis that I warmed up. And I pressed my chest against the heart that was shaking like a fool.
Mistaking it for jealousy and shaking ‘Wake up,’ he doesn’t love me.
She took a deep breath and looked towards the open window. I looked at the night sky outside the window involuntarily, and then I closed the window with a hard face at the black light that reminded me of Raymond.
A night of deep darkness. A man appeared in front of a huge gray mansion. He is wearing a tailcoat as if he had been to a party, but it was not neat to say that he wanted to look like a nobleman. The man, who walked to the lobby of the mansion without riding a wagon, squinted his amber eyes as he looked at the mansion, which was as big as a castle.
“I don’t think I’m attached to this place,” the door to the mansion, which had been tightly closed, opened the moment Jeremy’s voice spread into the still darkness.
The white-haired butler, wearing monocle glasses, bowed to Jeremy. “Have you been there, Master?”
“It’s early in the morning, what are you doing not sleeping? I’ll come back on my own.”
“Since Master doesn’t even stay in the mansion, shouldn’t I take care of him as much as he does while he’s here?”
“…How come it looks like there’s a bone in the end of it, maybe it’s my misunderstanding?”
(T/N: ‘a bone in the end’ is hidden meaning in a remark)
Jeremy, who smiled at the butler smiling with a casual face, went into the mansion. All the employees returned to the dormitory, so the inside of the mansion was quiet.
Jeremy stopped walking as he saw a black statue in the middle of the lobby of the mansion. Black tiger symbolizing the Duke of Dreuth.
The first emperor had given his blood to the person who helped him establish the empire.
[If your family is always loyal to the imperial family, your descendants will be blessed to be born with one color that symbolizes the imperial family.]
“Look straight! This is the symbol of our family, which has been protecting the empire since the time of the first emperor! But you didn’t get a single color from our family! How was it that something like you was born!” A man with black eyes who grabbed a child’s back scolded him in front of a black statue.
When he saw that statue, a scene from the past he had forgotten about flashed before his eyes. Jeremy gave a sullen, twisted smile.
This place is cold to him, not because there are no people, but because this is his home. Disgustingly. A house that is like shackles that I don’t want to come back to but I have no choice but to come back.
Duke of Dreuth, who has protected the empire since the first emperor. He felt frustrated because that statue seemed to be shouting at him that you were a piece of crap that is not suitable in here.
Rather, it would have been possible to break these filthy shackles if the Duke of Dreuth had also been annihilated on the day the new emperor entered.
Looking at the statue of the Black Panther, Jeremy twisted the corners of his mouth.
I should have come in through the second-floor window like yesterday. As I walked toward the stairs on the second floor, thinking that I had used the main gate for no reason, I heard the butler’s voice from behind.
“Master, I will prepare bath water for you.” Jeremy waved his hand in annoyance without looking back.
“All right, I’ll do it. Stop going in and rest, butler. You know, I’m used to being on my own rather than being waited on.” Just as he was about to go up the stairs, Jeremy stopped when he heard a heavy voice.
“As a nobleman, descended from the duke Dreuth, what pride are you talking about to act like a humble person?” It wasn’t even coming through the front door.
Jeremy sighed and turned around. Dark brown hair. Even though he had reached an age where gray hair was barely visible, the black eyes that looked at him were still shining fiercely.
Jeremy bowed his head toward the Duke of Dreuth. “I didn’t know you weren’t sleeping yet. I hope you have a good night, Duke.”
“Shut up! How dare you look straight into my face with a theme that stole invitations like a thief and went to a party!”
“I’ve gone mad as hell. What a disgrace if your identity is revealed!” The duke’s roar echoed through the mansion.