Chapter 8
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Dear, I believe you may be misunderstanding.
Episode 8
"I trust the meal was satisfactory, Miss? Your room is nearly finished."
"Thank you, Julie."
When Grace returned to her room, Julie, her personal maid, greeted her while arranging the bedding.
Grace collapsed onto the neatly made bed with an exhausted gait, as though all strength had drained from her limbs.
The moment she closed her eyes, her stomach churned.
Though she lay in the quiet comfort of her room upon a soft bed, her insides roiled as if she were aboard a ship tossed upon turbulent waves. She must have eaten something that disagreed with her.
Grace rose slowly with a quiet sigh.
"Julie, would you bring me a glass of plum juice? My stomach is unsettled."
"Do you believe you've eaten something disagreeable, Miss?"
Julie, having dimmed the lamp's brightness appropriately, examined her mistress's complexion carefully upon hearing her languid voice.
"Yes, it seems so."
The moment Julie saw Grace's weary smile, she understood the situation.
'She must have endured another tirade at the dinner table.'
The men of the Oellin Family were desperate to torment Grace.
Why they couldn't help but harass her at every opportunity—this beautiful, intelligent, and lovely young lady—was beyond comprehension.
'They say Oellin men are destined to consume women. Truly, what useless bloodlines they possess.'
Julie pursed her lips in displeasure and quickly left the room.
The Oellin patriarch and his son were particularly harsh toward women.
Though they treated their daughter this way, their standards for servants were scarcely higher.
Even Carol, who had served as head maid since the mistress's lifetime, would leave to chop firewood the moment she exchanged words with Marquess Oellin.
Like father, like son—Norman too often treated the female servants as though they were vermin.
Julie believed her young mistress's frail constitution had developed from growing up between such a father and brother.
Had the environment not been so barren, her mistress would have accomplished far greater things.
The patriarch had so thoroughly crushed her spirit that the flower meant to bloom fully withered half-opened.
The real problem was not Marquess Oellin, but Norman.
'Calling himself a brother, yet unable to celebrate his sister's good fortune. How contemptible.'
As Julie muttered complaints while pouring the plum juice for Grace, she secretly retrieved a piece of ice from the storage and placed it in the glass.
On her way out of the dining room, she spat discreetly onto the forks and knives used only by Norman and Marquess Oellin.
* * *
"Sigh, what a mess."
After Julie left, I stirred for a moment before pushing myself upright.
Being scolded by Father had become so routine that it no longer felt like much of anything.
The way Norman and Father united against me, pressing in from all sides—I could let it go in one ear and out the other.
My self-worth wasn't fragile enough to be wounded by such things.
There was only one existence that could make me tremble, and that was Lucas Black.
I closed my eyes, feeling the breeze drift across my skin.
The moment the image of Lucas Black's gleaming blade held high flashed through my mind, the nausea intensified.
My entire body trembled as though I'd been cast into an icy lake.
"Compose yourself, Grace."
I drew a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the fear that threatened to consume me.
Deliberately pushing away the afterimage of that blade's edge, I recalled Lucas's blue eyes.
Those eyes like sea jewels set upon a master sculptor's masterpiece.
Fortunately, the cold that had drained from my body gradually began to return.
It wasn't Lucas Black himself that I feared.
It wasn't his fierce expression, nor his towering frame that seemed capable of lifting someone like me with a single hand.
What made me tremble was the vivid memory of the sharp blade's edge that naturally became associated with him.
That was what made me unbearable.
The memory of that blade's edge reflecting crimson blood and moonlight touched my greatest weakness.
Aichmophobia.
It was a phobia I'd carried since childhood.
Especially when I saw needles or sharp edges, my appetite would vanish and chills would run through me.
When I was younger, it was merely that.
But as I grew, the phobia only intensified.
Yet the day my manageable fear reached its peak was the very day I first met Lucas Black.
The sharp edge of a blade reflecting moonlight.
Spurting blood.
A clenched mouth and screams pouring through the gaps between my teeth.
I truly had no way to endure it.
For roughly a year afterward, my worsened phobia left me unable to even properly hold a fork.
Marquess Oellin regarded me with the same disdain one might show a cripple.
Saying I was too shameful to present to anyone.
Even beneath the contemptuous gazes of my father and brother, I did not crumble.
What was fortunate was that unlike my family, colder than daggers, the servants of this Estate treated me with kindness.
Perhaps they pitied me, crushed beneath such a father and brother.
Pity, or perhaps kinship.
Whatever it was, through their consideration and support, my phobia improved.
It had gotten to the point where I only needed to be careful around injections and needles....
"...I never thought I'd meet him again like this."
And all of this was happening amid talk of marriage.
Grace clutched her aching head.
The fingertips pressed against her forehead trembled once more.
'Sigh, here we go again...'
She clenched her quivering fingers into a fist and pressed down firmly, then drew a deep breath.
The one consolation was that Lucas Black, whom I had met in person, was not quite as terrifying as I had feared.
Of course, his intimidating appearance was unavoidable.
But his manner of speech and those eyes were the most courteous of any man I had ever encountered.
Though admittedly, my frame of reference was limited to Father and my brother, both rather extreme examples.
"That doesn't mean I can accept him, though."
Grace murmured uncertainly.
I desperately wanted to avoid this marriage by any means necessary.
Father would surely be furious if he knew, but given the opportunity, I would have been content to live as a spinster.
But what that man was thinking remained a mystery.
"...Lucas Black."
I gazed quietly at the spot in the distance where I had seen him off.
A man breathtakingly handsome, terrifyingly so.
The one who had draped his coat over my shoulders as I stood in my nightgown, telling me to return it myself.
I simply could not fathom Lucas Black's intentions.
He had been visibly angered by Father's rudeness.
So why had he invited me to his Estate in the first place?
He could have simply sent a servant to retrieve it.
"I simply cannot understand it."
Grace's expression grew grave.
I was intelligent enough, but when it came to men, I became as helpless as a lost child.
Especially since the only men I could observe closely were such poor examples.
Because of this, I interpreted Lucas's invitation as malicious rather than benevolent.
"Could it be...that he wants me to bring something that day?"
Suddenly, Grace's head snapped up.
"Yes, it could be a gesture of gratitude or apology."
Come to think of it, Father and Norman had always been that way.
Whenever I made a mistake, they seized upon it.
Father would lose his temper, but Norman would take something from me or destroy what I possessed.
Lucas Black was surely different from Norman, but he must have invited me because he wanted something from me.
Grace's expression brightened as if she had found the answer.
Yes, if that were the case, things would be simpler.
I could prepare a gift he would like, return his coat along with it, and have a conversation.
Perhaps even suggest that a marriage between us would be difficult to achieve.
My next concern was finding a gift worthy of him.
It was then.
"Miss, I've brought your juice...."
Julie had scarcely opened the door before it swung shut again.
Smack!
"Grace Oellin, you shameless harlot!"
Norman burst in with a roar, shoving Julie aside as he stormed through the threshold.
Grace, who had been sitting by the window, sprang to her feet the moment he entered, her gaze fixed upon him.
More precisely, upon Julie—who stood behind Norman's shoulder with the wide, startled eyes of a frightened rabbit.
"...!"
Julie's panic dissolved the instant her eyes met Grace's, and she nodded urgently.
She bolted straight toward Grace's vanity.
The moment Julie's hand touched something atop the vanity, Norman's massive palm came down across Grace's cheek.
Crack!
The blow was so violent that Grace's head snapped violently to the side.
The already serene and hushed air of the room plummeted into suffocating silence.
"You ought to conduct yourself properly, you dissolute little wretch."
Norman's sneering voice rang in her ear with a sharp, piercing whine.
Grace drew a short breath and slowly turned her head to regard Norman.
"I told you not to strike me, Norman Oellin."
The light in Grace's eyes as she gazed upon her brother was remarkably composed.
Not a flicker of fear, not a trace of grievance—only a serene, crystalline calm.
'Heh.'
As if to mock that very composure, Norman spat out his words in a vicious tone.
"What's wrong with an older brother personally correcting a girl whose conduct brings shame upon the family?"
Norman sneered with all his might, yet he could not make even a single lash of Grace's eye tremble.
'Damn this woman!'
Those who did not know her spoke of Grace as a delicate lily, fragile and ephemeral.
They spoke thus only because they did not comprehend her true nature.
Grace was no flower that could be crushed at a moment's notice.
Rather, she stood unmoved—like a statue with an iron core driven deep within.
She seemed to mock him, despite his years of effort to break her.
And that was what infuriated him most.
This woman—appearing fragile yet unyielding, seeming ready to crumble yet never truly breaking.
He harbored a burning desire to twist that haughty, delicate neck of hers one day.
Brought to you by Valir Scans! To support our team and enjoy the latest releases, please read directly on our official site: valirscans.org