Splash. Barbarossa, who had been sleeping until midday, was awakened from his slumber by an unexpected cold water baptism.

As he got up, holding his aching head from the hangover of cheap liquor he had guzzled, he saw a woman smiling brightly at his bedside.

She was beautiful. Barbarossa’s lips curled up pleasantly.

“Hello, Sir Barbarossa. Oh, not ‘Sir’ anymore, I suppose. I’m sorry our first meeting is like this. I tried to wake you politely, but you wouldn’t get up no matter how much I called.”

“Who are you? Cheshire? Windycat? Are you the new barmaid at the tavern… Sorry, sorry. I don’t usually forget a pretty face like yours.”

“Wow, he really is as rotten as they say.”

Striking orange long hair. A teardrop mark under the eye. Though he had a handsome face, the grinning Barbarossa exuded an undeniable smell of depravity.

His attire was shabby, and his tall frame reeked of strong alcohol as if he had fallen into a vat of liquor.

“Ah, let me think. I’ve seen you somewhere… Oh! You’re the woman who gave me flowers in the marketplace, right? Did you come to have a meal with me? What should I do. I’m penniless today.”

Barbarossa, despite having just woken up, skillfully delivered a flirtatious line.

“I’m not Cheshire, nor Windycat. We’re meeting for the first time, actually.”

“Huh? Then what brings such a pretty lady to me? Meeting a beauty like this in the morning, could this be my lucky day?”

The playboy habitually tried to take Anette’s hand and kiss it. Though he had long since abandoned being a knight, he knew women would swoon when he did this.

“My, a man who’s no longer a knight trying to take a strange woman’s hand. You really are living a depraved life.”

“Who do you think you’re trying to touch?”

Following the cheerful woman’s voice came a low, disapproving tone, and Barbarossa finally noticed another visitor.

“Lucian?”

Barbarossa’s face crumpled in confusion as he recognized Lucian, with whom he had shared years of arduous training.

“Hello. Let me introduce myself properly. You’ve heard the news that the Grand Duke recently married, right? This is Anette Porche, the wife of Grand Duke Inkhart.”

“…Ha.”

Barbarossa’s face completely crumpled at this impossibility. It was a debauched morning, just like any other, where he had drunk heavily until late at night, crawled into the house of some woman he met, and fallen asleep haphazardly.

He had expected the woman he spent the night with to have left early for work, leaving the bed beside him empty.

There was no reason for Lucian, who unlike the hopeless Barbarossa lived as a model of a diligent and upright knight, let alone a woman claiming to be the Grand Duke’s wife, to appear before him.

Barbarossa scratched his hair, which had grown long and shaggy as he couldn’t be bothered to cut it.

“This girl is the Grand Duke’s wife? I’d like to say that’s nonsense, but seeing Lucian right there beside her, it doesn’t seem to be a complete lie. Anyway, why are you looking for me?”

Seeing someone he knew from the past twisted Barbarossa’s already warped nature even further.

“For the noble lady of the castle to personally come to this back alley slum. Are you perhaps short on men? Is the young Grand Duke not able to perform? If so, Lucian here… Ah, Sir Lucian does have a handsome face, but he’s not the type to be fun. Too uptight.”

“How dare a man who once dreamed of being a knight of the castle!”

“Sir Lucian, don’t kill him.”

Lucian, enraged by the vulgar words even after learning Anette’s identity, drew his sword and swung it.

“Oops.”

Barbarossa quickly rolled to the side, avoiding the oncoming silver blade.

Even though Lucian hadn’t swung his sword in earnest, the fact that Barbarossa could easily dodge it with a body that had just woken up showed that his reflexes were not bad.

Whew, Anette whistled.

“I heard you were promoted to Captain of the Knights, but it seems your skills have regressed instead? If you want to teach me manners, you should sharpen your blade more, Lucian.”

“His personality is trash, but his skills are the real deal.”

“I appreciate the high praise of my skills, but I dislike compliments from noble ladies. As you know, with my trashy personality, I don’t get along with pretentious types.”

A certain scoundrel who seduced back alley women with noble-like manners retorted sarcastically.

“You’ve worked as a servant, but it seems you’ve never seen a lord who governs a domain? If you had, you wouldn’t have said I came because I dislike my husband. He’s quite a fine man.”

Though Barbarossa’s handsome face dripped with charm befitting his life ruling the back alleys, no matter how handsome he was, he couldn’t surpass the male lead of a romance novel.

“I’m starting a new business, and I think you’re the right person for the job. I want to hire you.”

“Lady Anette!”

“What did you say?”

Lucian’s face contorted at Anette’s words. Barbarossa was equally dumbfounded.

* * *

To cut to the chase, my proposal was rejected.

I had offered lost honor and wealth to Nicolas, the former tax collector, and shown the direction of revenge to the blacksmith who had lost his daughter.

It wasn’t difficult to persuade them because they had something they wanted. But Barbarossa didn’t want anything. He said he wanted to continue living like this, with his life stuck in the back alleys, and added:

‘At this point, I’m curious how this debaucherous prodigal will later succeed as a mercenary?’

“This makes it clear. Someone like Barbarossa is not worthy to stand before you, my lady.”

“You can’t fill your stomach with the first spoonful.”

“My lady!”

“It’s not like I’m trying to recruit a knight. So it’s fine. His personality may be twisted, but I liked his skills.”

“It cannot be! I don’t know how you intend to use him, but I cannot stand by and let you set foot in this back alley again.”

The pretty hem of my skirt was stained with the filthy mud of the back alley.

Lucian’s face was pale as he pointed to it.

Even though the dress was expensive, it was just the hem of a garment, yet his face turned pale over this dirtiness?

Ah, could it be that?

“Are you shocked to see how far Barbarossa, who once trained with you, has fallen after leaving the knights?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“…”

Sir Lucian turned his head abruptly.

Well. I could have prodded his guilt by saying something like, ‘You should have guided him better as his peer at the time, don’t you share some responsibility for how he turned out?’, but…

“Don’t worry too much, Sir Lucian. Even if I were to come here again, you would surely know about it. How could I come to such a dangerous place without your protection?”

Our poor Sir Lucian. Lucian was relieved by my smile.

I had a hidden card that would allow me to freely roam the back alleys alone without troubling poor Sir Lucian’s precious conscience.

“Anette.”

But before I could return to the castle and talk with my hidden card, Darius called for me first. Why are you calling me, I have things to do right now.

“Where have you been? I was looking for you to discuss the portrait issue.”

“Portrait?”

“Yes, the official portrait of the couple to be hung in the Grand Duke’s residence.”

“Ah, that.”

He was referring to the portraits hung along the gallery displaying the history of House Inkhart. Even Darius’s parents’ portrait showed them sitting together amicably, preserved and exhibited.

‘We’ll have to paint it again when the female protagonist arrives anyway, why bother now?’

What would they do with a portrait of a divorced Grand Duchess? Will you give it to me then, or burn it?

Rather than worrying about disposing of a troublesome object, it’s better not to paint it in the first place.

“Well, do we really need to paint it now?”

“You refused for the same reason in the early days of our marriage, I believe.”

“But inviting a famous painter costs a lot of money…”

“Money?”

The Grand Duke, who no longer had to worry about money thanks to the various cases I had solved, looked puzzled as if wondering why that would be a problem.

No, how could you forget the days of poverty so quickly! When you become rich, you should tighten your purse strings even more!

“Besides, to paint a portrait, we’d have to sit still all day. That’s such a torment.”

Darius narrowed his eyes, sensing something was amiss.

“You don’t want to paint the portrait because it costs a lot of money and you have to sit still all day?”

Darius’s gaze, full of reproach as if I was making up excuses because I didn’t want to paint a portrait with him, hurt, but I had to persevere.

We can’t split a portrait of the couple in half when we divorce, can we? That would look ridiculous. It’s surely going to be a large portrait.

“Is that really the reason?”

Darius asked again as I was thinking of a multitude of reasons to refuse. My body stiffened as if struck at a vital point.

“Ah, well, I think I might have an allergy to paint…”

“Paint allergy?”

“Um, well, you know, when I smell paint, my limbs start to itch…”

“I see. I can’t force Anette to do something she dislikes. We should consider the subject’s opinion too.”

Fortunately, Darius didn’t dwell on the issue.

“If we’re done discussing, I’ll be going now. I have some work to do.”

I hurriedly left, fearing that if the conversation went on, we might actually end up painting the portrait.

“Alright.”

Darius smiled weakly, as if he would let it go.

Ah, there it is again. He’s clearly smiling, but something feels off.

“Anette.”

“Yes?”

As I turned back at his call, Darius just stood there silently.

“It’s nothing.”

“How awkward. I’ll see you at dinner. If I can.”

I deliberately ignored that sense of discomfort.