Chapter 1
“My Lady. The Duke has returned.”
It was late at night, and the whole world was covered in darkness.
That short, ordinary sentence dragged me into hell in an instant.
Once again, my husband came home only after every light on the streets had gone out.
And there I was, wearing a plain white dress, sitting blankly in a room that wasn’t even our bedroom.
How much longer do I have to endure this living hell?
As I stared into space, that question suddenly came to mind.
How much longer?
And… why?
By the time those unanswered questions filled my head, noise erupted outside.
“Eloise! Eloise Mason!”
“…I think you should go out, My Lady.”
Hearing my husband shout my name loud enough for the entire mansion to hear, the maid who had come to get me, Nelly, turned pale.
My husband was frightening now that he no longer called me by my first name alone.
Instead, he constantly called me by my maiden name, as if I were no longer his wife.
It wasn’t just me who feared him.
Everyone in the mansion did.
It wasn’t unusual to see the young maid trembling like this.
Especially at times like these.
He was even more violent.
“All right. I understand, Nelly. I’ll go. You stay here for a while, then return to your room.”
“M-My Lady… should I call the knights?”
Nelly looked at me with trembling eyes.
I didn’t need to ask to know that they were filled with pity.
It wasn’t anything new.
I had long grown used to being pitied by the people in this mansion.
Poor Lady.
Pitiful Lady.
The beautiful lady whose beauty was her greatest crime.
The laundry maid.
The gardener.
The stable keeper.
Every servant in the mansion whispered behind my back.
If there was a reason my husband despised me…
It was because I was beautiful.
They said I had charmed my husband with my beauty…
And that same beauty made him doubt my faithfulness.
Even though they all knew that all I did every single day was quietly breathe without attracting anyone’s attention.
I never met anyone.
I never went outside.
I was simply a quiet lady.
Yet because of my appearance, their master drowned himself in alcohol every night.
They pitied me for having to endure all of this simply because I was beautiful.
But none of them could stop the husband who tormented me every night.
Instead, they hid behind me, staying silent so they wouldn’t become his next target.
Looking at the maid who had gathered all her courage to offer me help in a mansion full of people like that, I quietly smiled.
If the knights came, I would be free from him for a little while.
But the result would always be the same.
Unless one of us died…
There was no way for either of us to escape this meaningless cycle.
I quietly stood up.
“Tell the Duke to wait in the bedroom. I’ll be there shortly.”
“M-My Lady…”
“Thank you for worrying about me, Nelly.”
But…
It’s all right.
Repeating the words that had become nothing more than a habit, I quietly left the room.
To meet the husband…
Who no longer loved me.
Once…
Yes, once…
We had been just as happy as anyone else.
We held each other close.
We talked about little things every day.
Simply being together made us happy.
After enduring so many hardships, happiness had finally found us like rain after a long drought.
We were so lost in that happiness that we couldn’t see anything else around us.
Because we had found each other after so much suffering, we treasured one another.
We both wanted to give more.
And receive more.
Those were the happiest days of my life.
Our love became the talk of the entire Empire.
It ended with a magnificent wedding so grand that people called it the wedding of the century.
Countless people came to congratulate us.
And we were happier than we had ever been.
But the relationship we thought had reached its happy ending through a love story others envied…
Started to crack from an unexpected place.
Among the Five Great Noble Families of the Empire, the Fontaine family of the Central Region held the greatest power.
A man with perfect status, wealth, and appearance.
The most desirable groom in the Empire.
How could a country girl from the distant North steal him away?
As someone who rarely attended social gatherings unless I was with my husband, I was never welcomed by high society.
The curious and jealous looks soon became filled with malice.
Before long, outrageous rumors began to spread.
They said I was a notorious seductress in the North.
They said my skills in bed were so incredible that even the Duke of Fontaine had fallen for me.
They even claimed that there wasn’t a man in the Empire I hadn’t slept with.
Those rumors spread throughout the entire country.
As they passed from one person to another, they became even crueler.
I was called…
The Empire’s seductress.
The greatest villainess of the age.
The witch from the North.
Some people even secretly approached me…
Asking me to teach them my techniques in bed.
Up until then…
I could still endure it.
My husband and I simply laughed bitterly and said people were being ridiculous.
He loved me.
And I loved him.
I believed that one word—
Love.
—was enough to make every rumor meaningless.
But neither the Crown Prince…
Nor my father…
Had any intention of stopping.
The Crown Prince constantly summoned me to the Imperial Palace by using the Princess as an excuse.
At the same time, he kept sending the Princess to my husband, whispering over and over that I was having an affair with the Crown Prince.
The rumors continued to grow.
Until finally…
I became known as…
“The Crown Prince’s mistress.”
From that moment on…
The proud and honorable name of Fontaine slowly began to collapse.
“…What did the Crown Prince promise you?”
“…What?”
“Or… did you make some kind of deal with Count Mason?”
“Ash… Atheord. What are you talking about…?”
“…I honestly don’t know what you’re thinking anymore… or why you’re staying by my side.”
It happened so suddenly.
The trust my husband had always placed in me…
Collapsed in an instant.
Was it because I was accused of being the Crown Prince’s mistress?
Or because it was the Crown Prince who constantly mocked him?
Or perhaps because the rumors had become so detailed…
That anyone would believe them.
No matter what rumors he heard before, Atheord had always comforted me and told me everything would be fine.
But from that day on…
He began keeping his distance.
He still loved me.
Yet at the same time, he couldn’t hide the betrayal that kept rising inside him.
As for me…
I had believed foolishly that rumors alone could never break us.
So little by little…
I stopped speaking.
He came home later every night.
Every time we met, his words were filled with resentment.
Day after day…
He became more exhausted.
And I slowly lost all the life in my eyes.
Unlike fairy tales that end with…
“They lived happily ever after.”
Our ending…
Was tragic.
Life was never a fairy tale.
And mine least of all.
Yet despite everything…
I still couldn’t let go of my husband.
The one who finally pushed me to give up…
Was none other than…
My own father.
“Isn’t it time you returned to His Highness the Crown Prince?”
Those were the first words my father spoke after visiting my home for the first time in a very long while.
He had asked for everyone to leave us alone, so I thought he wanted to discuss something important.
Even though he had stayed in the capital for so long…
He had never once visited his daughter.
Or even his younger sister.
Instead, he always remained by the Crown Prince’s side.
And this was the first thing he said to his married daughter.
To return…
To the Crown Prince.
The moment I heard those words…
It felt as though lightning struck my mind.
I realized the truth.
Yet I desperately wanted to believe I was wrong.
Clenching my trembling hands together, I looked at my father.
“…Father… don’t tell me you mean…”
“Didn’t I tell you before? His Highness the Crown Prince wants you. It is only right that you obey him.”
Ignoring how shocked I was…
My father answered calmly, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
The mastermind behind everything…
Had been my own father.
My lips turned pale as I struggled to speak.
“Everything… everything was your doing? Just for something like that?”
“Something like that? A noble family’s duty is to serve the Imperial Family. It is the responsibility of every noble. It is also for the good of our family. Haven’t I told you that countless times?”
“For that reason… you slandered your own daughter? You even made up such horrible lies?”
“I brought you from the North to the capital for that very reason. Didn’t I tell you the Crown Prince wished to see you?”
“Hah…”
My father remained completely calm.
There wasn’t even the slightest sign that he thought he had done anything wrong.
The Crown Prince wanted me.
Our family had to serve the Imperial Family.
It would benefit our house.
Therefore…
Everything he had done was perfectly natural.
He didn’t care how deeply his daughter had been hurt.
He didn’t care how much our family’s name had suffered.
To him…
Only loyalty to the Imperial Family mattered.
That was why we had left the cold, lonely North and settled in the capital.
The man who had abandoned my mother and me his entire life…
Living only as the Imperial Family’s loyal dog…
Said all of this as if it were obvious.
“Now that things have come this far, it won’t take long before the Duke of Fontaine divorces you. His Highness has prepared many things for you, so get ready by tomorrow and—”
“Dairik! Dairik!”
I couldn’t listen anymore.
I couldn’t bear hearing those disgusting words…
Or looking at the man I had once called Father.
As I screamed for the head butler, Dairik, he immediately rushed into the drawing room.
“My Lady, are you all right?”
“T-That man… throw him out! Right now!”
“Eloise!”
As I cried out in despair, Dairik looked back and forth between me and my father in shock.
Just standing in the same room as him was unbearable.
Thinking that I had called someone like him my father all these years…
Trying to ignore every doubt simply because he was my father…
It was all too horrifying to endure.
“Throw him out! Don’t ever let him come back here again!”
“Eloise! I am your father! How dare you—!”
As I practically screamed, Dairik shouted toward the people outside.
Servants rushed into the room.
They grabbed my father, who continued shouting, and dragged him outside.
Holding my throbbing head, I watched through my blurred vision as the man once praised as the Empire’s greatest warrior was forcibly dragged away.
Even while the pain overwhelmed me…
One sentence reached my ears with perfect clarity.
“His Highness will never give up on you, Eloise! Come to your senses and—!”
Bang!
The door slammed shut.
Everything became silent.
“My Lady!”
As my consciousness slowly faded away…
Only one thing came to my mind.
“Rose.”
It was my husband’s smiling face…
A smile that had already become nothing more than a distant memory.
