Chapter 07
Late at night.
Normally, this would have been the hour when the Count’s study was already dark.
Arnaud Dience was the kind of man who slept and woke at fixed hours unless business demanded otherwise.
To him, credibility was the foundation of business, and self-discipline was the only way to preserve that credibility.
“Is something troubling you, my lord?”
Seeing the lights still on in the study, Alfredo asked cautiously.
Arnaud set down the document he had been reading and looked at him.
“I have work.”
Work?
After staying up all night yesterday, the Count had reviewed nearly every document and issued instructions for countless tasks.
As a result, Alfredo had been drowning in work all day and hadn’t even been able to accompany the Duchess-to-be to her theater rehearsal.
There should have been almost nothing left for the Count to do.
“Where on earth did all this work come fr—”
Before Alfredo could finish, the sound of wheels came from outside the window.
A carriage.
At the same time, Arnaud’s eyebrows lifted.
“So they’ve finally arrived.”
“M-My lord… forgive me for asking, but…”
Were you waiting for them?
Before Alfredo could voice the question, the front gate opened.
Because the study was close to the entrance, a weary voice drifted in from outside.
“I’m exhausted. Please bring some snacks for me and the boy. We’d appreciate it if you brought them upstairs. We’re going to keep working on the script.”
“We?”
At that moment, Arnaud’s cold voice echoed through the study.
Alfredo shivered as the temperature in the room seemed to plummet.
Arnaud strode past him and opened the study door.
“It’s quite late. For the sake of the Dience family’s reputation, is it truly so difficult for you to return home earlier, Lady Luiza?”
He’s picking a fight.
Only then did Alfredo fully understand the Count’s intentions.
He hurriedly signaled to the nearby maids.
“Ah…”
Watching the maids scatter like a receding tide, Luiza smiled with an unreadable expression.
That smile only made Arnaud’s face harden further.
Lately, instead of losing her temper, she had been smiling more often.
And every time she smiled, his mood sank to rock bottom.
“Right. Speaking of the Dience family’s reputation… there was actually something I wanted to say, but I kept forgetting because I was busy.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s end rehearsal here for today. We’ll do the remaining scenes tomorrow.”
Luiza turned to the man standing behind her.
The man.
Yes, when speaking to the servants, she always referred to the slave she’d bought as that boy.
According to him, he was nineteen, and physically he was unmistakably an adult.
Yet she insisted on calling him a boy, as though that somehow erased the fact that he was a man.
If she had actually brought him into her bedroom and done something indecent with him, Arnaud probably wouldn’t have paid him this much attention.
But she hadn’t.
Because of rehearsal, she was hardly ever seen around the mansion these days.
The only time he’d caught a glimpse of her was briefly yesterday morning.
She’d been reading in the library, apparently unaware that he was there.
As she read, she eventually looked up.
Her eyes—sharp like a cat’s, yet sometimes languid—turned toward the window.
More precisely, toward the slave working in the garden beyond it.
At first, she had looked at him with the calm appreciation one might have for a work of art.
Then something strange appeared in her gaze.
Fear.
Why would Luiza be afraid of a slave she’d bought herself?
No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t find the answer.
Bang.
Luiza entered the Count’s study and shut the wooden door behind her.
“Huh. That closed louder than I expected. I figured what we’re about to say probably shouldn’t be overheard, so I shut it. You don’t mind, do you? Though I suppose being alone in a room with me must be suffocating.”
Lately, Luiza had developed a habit of saying strange things.
Annoyed, Arnaud replied,
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Good. Then let’s talk.”
She stood upright by the door.
He wanted to invite her to sit, but before he could, she spoke.
“If this play succeeds, I’ll be able to pay off my debts.”
As if.
Giving up on offering her a seat, Arnaud picked up the teapot.
While pouring her tea, Luiza continued.
“Then let’s break off our engagement.”
His hand froze.
The teacup wasn’t even half full.
Arnaud slowly looked up.
“…What?”
“Oh, don’t worry. The play is definitely going to succeed. Which means our engagement will definitely be over, Count.”
A loose strand of hair brushed gently across her face.
Somewhere, a breeze had found its way into the room.
* * *
He had expected her to say something like this:
“How can you be so sure the play will succeed?”
Arnaud Dience was a cold-hearted businessman.
He wasn’t the type to trust uncertain promises.
If he responded that way, she’d simply invite him to watch a rehearsal.
Judging by Leo Fier’s performance today, it wouldn’t be long before he reached a genuinely impressive level.
Of course, Leo wasn’t improving so quickly because he was a born acting genius.
It was because I was a genius director.
His face is perfect for Romeo.
Sometimes an actor’s appearance matches a role so perfectly that their performance seems twice as good as it really is.
That’s exactly what happens when a rookie actor bursts onto the scene like a comet, only to disappoint in every project afterward, leaving audiences wondering where that brilliant acting went.
Usually, the answer is simple.
The director of that first project understood the actor perfectly—from casting to performance direction.
In those cases, the actor delivers lines as naturally as breathing, as though they aren’t acting at all.
Leo had shown that potential today.
With his rebellious features alone, he embodied a young, hot-blooded Romeo.
With that much potential…
Once he met Shin Geurim’s direction, he could absolutely soar.
And it wasn’t just the atmosphere his face gave off.
He’s handsome.
Everyone has different standards of beauty.
No one is universally attractive.
But there are faces that appeal to the general public.
That’s exactly what he had.
The most universally appealing kind of rebellious face.
The sort of face that made strangers turn around for a second look.
Women would come back for a second… a third viewing… just to see that face again.
To convince Arnaud of that, I’d first have to make sure rehearsal—
“Why?”
“Hm?”
His response caught me off guard.
Across from me, Arnaud Dience no longer looked arrogant.
His face had gone completely rigid.
“Why do you suddenly want to break off our engagement?”
Suddenly?
I’d decided that from the very beginning.
Of course I had.
Luiza had spent the original story spreading scandal after scandal while desperately clinging to Arnaud to prevent the engagement from ending.
Eventually the slave auction happened.
After that, Arnaud himself annulled the engagement.
Even afterward, Luiza milked everyone’s sympathy by acting like she’d been cruelly abandoned.
As a result, House Dience was branded as a family that had betrayed its oath to a ducal house.
That earned Arnaud’s lasting hatred.
Later, during Luiza’s trial, he even testified against her.
This cold-blooded man—
A man who considered time more precious than gold—
Actually spared his own time just to take revenge on her.
If I wanted to lessen even a fraction of that hatred…
Then the engagement absolutely had to end.
Only after I had earned some recognition through the play.
And in a way that caused the least possible damage to House Dience’s reputation.
“I’ve been thinking,” Arnaud said. “Why did you buy that slave… and never even lay a finger on him? Did you suddenly become concerned about me? Impossible. The very first time we met, you said this marriage was a profitable deal only for you.”
“You got yourself quite a bargain, pretty boy.”
Yeah.
That insane villainess really had said something like that.
To a ten-year-old child.
When she herself had only been nine.
“The Dience family is nothing but wealthy common trash. Do you even know proper noble etiquette?”
Thinking about that…
It made perfect sense why Arnaud despised me so deeply.
It even made sense why he’d wanted to contribute to Luiza’s execution.
“Then there was this script.”
Arnaud picked up the Romeo and Juliet manuscript from his desk.
Why did he leave it somewhere so easy to grab?
The thought barely crossed my mind before he continued.
“I was surprised. I never imagined you wrote this. The love story felt… surprisingly sincere. For a moment, I almost believed it. I wondered if perhaps you’d fallen in love. That maybe you loved that slave… and feared that love would destroy you.”
Arnaud removed his glasses.
Behind them, his violet eyes gleamed.
It was the first time I’d ever seen Arnaud Dience lose his composure.
“But no. Now that I’ve heard you speak of ending our engagement, I understand. You want to break it off precisely when this play convinces everyone that you’ve fallen in love with someone.”
“That’s…”
I pressed my fingers against my temples.
Even now…
Why was this man’s diction so ridiculously good?
“In the end, you simply want me to abandon you so you can earn everyone’s sympathy! You can’t bear being hated across the Empire anymore! You’re the refined Lady Messena! If the vulgar nouveau riche throws you away after you stage a grand romance, public opinion will turn in your favor!”
Arnaud glared at me, fury blazing in his eyes.
So that was it.
The face hidden beneath his calm mask.
The inferiority complex.
The resentment born from spending his entire life looked down upon as the heir of a nouveau riche family.
I’d struck directly at it.
A ruined princess with nothing left daring to speak of breaking off their engagement.
Because Luiza Messena was a duchess in name only now.
Because anyone believed they could treat her however they pleased.
Everyone had.
When Luiza was burned at the stake, her crimes were exaggerated beyond recognition.
They claimed she’d seduced the Emperor to sell military secrets to an enemy nation.
That she’d slept with countless men despite having a fiancé.
That she’d even sold her grandfather’s urn.
Even though Luiza was too foolish to serve as a spy.
Even though she treated men like luxury accessories yet hated being touched.
Even though her grandfather had always been harsh with her…
She had hidden his urn beneath her bed until the very end.
But none of that mattered.
People needed the villainess at the stake to deserve absolutely no sympathy.
“That’s why you wanted to end the engagement…”
“When I was nine, my parents died in a carriage accident.”
I interrupted him.
In the novel, Luiza’s childhood—despite her reputation as a deranged collector—appeared only once.
She drunkenly confessed it to Rudy.
“That night, after the funeral, my grandfather told me to marry you.”
“I…”
“I refused. Back then, I still believed people should marry someone they loved.”
“…”
“Then my grandfather slapped me.”
Arnaud’s brow furrowed.
“He told me I was merchandise.”
“How dare you slander the dead—”
I let out a small laugh and held my head.
He really thought I was lying.
“He said I had no choice. That for the family’s sake, I had to marry into the wealthy Dience family. That the only value left in Luiza Messena—the only thing my weak parents had left behind—was the price I could fetch. And if I didn’t like it, he’d throw me out onto the streets that very night and let me starve.”
“My lady…”
“After that day… I pitied myself. I hated dressing myself up in the name of House Messena when I’d never wanted any of it. So I kept buying myself expensive clothes, expensive shoes… expensive men… as gifts for the pitiful girl I was.”
“And you think that excuses—”
“Believe it or don’t. I don’t care.”
I slowly raised my head.
I knew what my face must look like.
A complete mess.
I’d gotten too emotionally invested.
A nine-year-old girl.
Forced to trade love for wealth and status.
It reminded me far too much of…
Shin Geurim.
I, too, had traded away the life I never wanted.
No—
My mother had made that choice for me.
She’d sold me to a chaebol family.
She signed the contract after giving birth.
Once I entered elementary school, we’d never see each other again.
In exchange…
They would fund her Hollywood career without limit.
That’s right.
The day we’d gone to see that play together…
Was the last day I ever saw my mother’s face.
Through my blurred vision, I heard Arnaud breathing.
Curious, I wiped away my tears.
When my vision cleared…
He merely looked… stunned.
I’d expected as much.
Even so…
For some reason, it still hurt.
“But there’s one thing I have to say. If you looked closely at the characters in this play… then you’ll understand what I mean.”
“…What?”
I walked toward him.
Arnaud instinctively stepped back, but I stopped close enough to hear his breathing.
Then I took the script from his hand.
“I’m not ending our engagement because of another man.”
I looked straight into his eyes.
“I’m ending it because of you.”
There was one major difference between this script and Shakespeare’s original.
Count Paris.
In the original, Paris relentlessly pursued fourteen-year-old Juliet and stood in Romeo’s way until the end.
But in this version…
Paris was the same age as Juliet.
And he said this to her:
“I want you to be as happy as I want to be. Tell your parents you refuse a marriage you don’t want.”
Of course…
Those words had no power.
They changed nothing.
But to Juliet…
They became a great source of comfort.
“As much as I pitied myself… you must have pitied yourself too. How miserable it must have been, being forced to marry a reckless noblewoman you never wanted. So I wanted Paris to be just as happy as Juliet.”
I smiled faintly.
“That’s why I want to end our engagement, Count.”
“…!”
The expression on the Count’s face at that moment…
How should I describe it?
It was an expression Shakespeare had never written.
The look of a man who’d just been struck in the back of the head with a club…
Too stunned to think.
