The rough, unpolished twigs and leaves of the wreath pricked his hand.

Despite the irritating pain, Rude remained silent for a long while, gripping the laurel wreath.

Then, he let out a dry laugh.

“…Young master?”

How could one not understand the meaning? This was an unequivocally clear rejection.

Merche had returned the final proposal he had so persuasively negotiated and urged upon her.

I do not wish to be with you.

That damnably calm voice seemed to echo in his ears.

Rude gritted his teeth and called the servant closer.

“You. You’ve seen me with Merche a few times.”

“Pardon? …Ah, yes. That’s right.”

“How was it?”

“…What, what do you mean?”

“How she treats me. How did it seem to you?”

The servant’s eyes darted about nervously at the unsettling atmosphere.

“She was always respectful…”

“Was it special?”

When asked again if she was especially respectful to him compared to the others, the servant tilted his head quizzically.

Especially… can you say that?

Merche was always kind and generous to Rude, but that’s just how she was originally.

Moreover, as Rude was the head’s son, she would have felt the need to pay special attention to him.

The servant hesitated to answer.

His patience worn thin, Rude asked again in a chillingly low voice.

“In your view, who does Merche treat most obsequiously and laugh with the most?”

It took some time again, just like before, but after carefully pondering, the servant finally answered this time.

“If it’s someone like that, I suppose it would be Miss Karin, the lady’s close maid.”

Being obsequious was something she did to nearly everyone, so it was hard to rank.

However, when it came to the person she laughed with the most, it was clear.

While Merche often gave perfunctory or shallow smiles, she rarely showed smiles that stemmed from genuine joy.

As far as the servant knew, Karin the maid was perhaps the only one she smiled at like that.

“The young lady is someone who rarely laughs in the first place. I think I’ve only seen her sincerely laugh a couple times while working here. Like when she’s with that scary-looking wolf and when she’s with Karin?”

“…But she smiled at me too. During lessons and breaks, she definitely smiled at me.”

“Nah. That’s a different kind. Anyone could see that she smiled at you so as not to hurt your feelings, young master.”

The servant grinned tactlessly, as if asking how he couldn’t even tell that much.

“Since the young master has such a, well… unique personality, I think she tried harder than usual to smile in order to accommodate that.”

She never once sincerely smiled at me? Why? Why can she smile so well at the maid she keeps by her side but not at me?

…Just pity, you say. Really, not even for a single moment. Did you never desire me?

“Why is she so kind to that extent?”

The subject was omitted, but the servant realized it referred to Merche.

To the ill-tempered young master with seemingly empty eyes, the servant hesitated before conveying the fact that was plainly obvious to him.

“That is the lady’s innate nature. The young lady is an inherently kind person. She was born that way.”

It wasn’t that she found you particularly likable or pitiful and thus saved you, but simply because she was always a kind person to begin with.

He was never special to Merche.

If anything, there was only pity and compassion, nothing else existed in the first place.

Tuk. The sound of a taut string snapping was heard again.

Amidst his vision darkening endlessly, Rude let out a bestial groan.

Don’t make me laugh. No matter how much you deny it, I’ve seen through your desire, Merche.

−I have never thought you were lowly. Not even once. I didn’t have such thoughts.

Not lowly? Impossible. He was truly lowly. From his bones to the dirty blood flowing through his body, everything about him was lowly.

Otherwise, he couldn’t have devised such a vicious plan.

If Merche struggled to the end. If she denied her desire and rejected his hand. Then there was only one way left for him as well.

His deep violet eyes sank into the abyss of darkness.

In the hell Merche had dragged him down to, he raised his head.

“That thing. Dispose of it out of my sight.”

“…This laurel wreath? …Hmm. It does look a bit foolish, but still, Miss Merche gave it to you. You still want to throw it away?”

Instead of answering, Rude roughly snatched the laurel wreath from the servant’s hand.

He approached the fireplace on one side of the room, where a fire had begun to be lit as winter approached, and threw the wreath into the blazing flames.

Crackle crackle, the flame-engulfed wreath charred black and slowly turned to ashes.

Looking down at the sight, Rude sneered.

It was a rotten idea from the start.

My noble, virtuous, kind savior.

To imagine a happy future holding hands with her.

He, with a black essence, and she, with a white essence, could not walk the same path.

In order to be with Merche, Rude resolved to drag her down to the same hell as himself.

In this hell, you will become the same as me. Couldn’t you at least come with me like that?

If the fundamental problem was that they were different, he would simply dye her essence black as well.

Rude whispered at a distance that didn’t reach Merche.

The change began after Louis Fondo left the castle.

The lessons that had been temporarily suspended due to the guest’s visit resumed, and Merche, as before, spent half a day with Rude each day teaching etiquette.

After silently observing for several days, Merche could finally be certain.

For some unknown reason, Rude harbored a clear hostility towards her.

“Lord Rude. Please straighten your attire.”

“Why? What’s wrong with my clothes?”

Rude looked back at her, wearing only a gown one would put on right after bathing.

“A gown is not something to be worn ordinarily. It would be proper to call a servant, change into appropriate clothing, and then attend the lesson.”

“Merche. You must think I’m so hopeless that I haven’t even mastered such a basic thing. I’m hurt. No matter how stupid I may be, surely I wouldn’t be ignorant of even the most fundamental etiquette.”

“…I did not intend to criticize you, Lord Rude.”

“Of course not. But that’s how it sounded to me.”

This kind of exchange was the dozens’ time today alone.

The way he would find fault with whatever Merche taught, distort her intentions, and mock her.

Due to Rude’s subtle persecution, she now hesitated to utter even a single word.

It was then that Rude, still not having changed clothes, suddenly untied his waistband while strolling around.

Merche hurriedly turned her head to avert her gaze, but Rude’s fingers approached right in front of her nose, gripping her chin and making her face his body.

Merche, who tried to at least close her eyes to avoid the sight, flinched upon seeing something.

Above the bulging muscles and numerous scars, there was a reddish wound that seemed very recent.

One of the healing ones had ruptured, and fresh red blood flowed down his skin.

“This happened while washing up. If I wear those proper clothes you speak of, it seems like it would hurt. So I only put on a gown. You probably thought I was being stupid and couldn’t get rid of my vulgar habits, Merche. But I have my own circumstances too.”

His eloquence, growing astonishingly by the day, was now undeniably aristocratic to anyone’s eyes.

He didn’t curse or suddenly raise his voice or get excited.

He spoke while intently observing Merche’s expression, as if studying her.

“What to do. It goes against etiquette, so should I change regardless of whether it bleeds or the wound hurts from rubbing against the clothes?”

“…Let’s end the lesson here for today. I will call for a doctor, so receive treatment first. Leaving it unattended will worsen the wound.”

Her gentle face had turned grave since seeing the injury and wouldn’t easily relax.

The concern overflowing and dripping from her blue eyes, Rude regarded with a somewhat disappointed, disinterested gaze.

“I’m scheduled to have lunch with Mother tomorrow. You will join us there.”

One moment he was like a hypocritical noble, gently laying traps. The next, an order was issued as if he had suddenly reverted to that coercive and ferocious beast of the past.

When Merche asked for the reason, he stretched his eyes and gave a twisted smile.

“I don’t want to be the son who blunders with etiquette in front of Mother. Wouldn’t it be nice if you sat next to me and helped me do well?”

It was an answer that instantly rejected all of Merche’s potential words of refusal.

Left with no choice, Merche acquiesced and withdrew.

“…Rude?”

On a noon with warm sunlight streaming through the window. At a luncheon with moderately hot afternoon sun, Elizabeth’s shocked voice seeped out, her face frozen in horror.

Merche couldn’t even breathe. Right now. In front of not only the servants but also Elizabeth. Rude had kissed her cheek.

The arm shaded by the sun should have been dyed with tepid heat, but it only grew colder and colder as if buried in ice.

“Rude! What in the world are you doing?!”

“Ah. About that, Mother. I intended to reveal it after some time had passed, but I couldn’t quite hold it in. Still, now that it’s come to this, I will say it here.”

Rude tickled Merche’s soft cheek with his finger as if it were lovely.

He could feel the intense tension rising heatedly from her fair, beautiful skin.

Quite pleased by that, he smiled even more affectionately.

“I love Merche.”

“Rude−!”

Bang! Elizabeth finally lost her composure and threw down the cutlery she was holding.

Her reddened, bloodshot eyes fiercely bore into the face of her son, who was smiling as if it were nothing.