FTPWR 11

Chapter: 11

A man who had built walls between himself and other people and lived that way until he was over forty.

He was so cold-faced that he never even spared a glance at anyone who approached him, to the point that he had even earned the strange nickname “the Defective Duke.” There was no way he could possibly have liked marriage.

In that sense, Vanessa thought Ian had really remained just as he had been in his youth.

Even so, she still remembered the face he had shown her in her previous life when he had suddenly spoken to her on her birthday.

That man, who had been nothing but blunt and stoic, had been unusually gentle that day. Gentle enough to make her wonder if he was even capable of speaking in such a voice.

Perhaps that was why she had thought Ian Ruscliffe was not simply an emotionless block of wood.

What a ridiculous misunderstanding.

The person she had proposed marriage to now was not the Ian Ruscliffe in his forties, but the Ian Ruscliffe in his twenties.

Sighing softly, Vanessa placed the letter on the bedside table.

‘It’s a marriage based on a contract anyway, isn’t it?’

There was no reason for her to feel hurt, nor was there any reason to blindly let herself be dragged along according to whatever he wanted.

It was merely a wedding she needed to hold. A marriage without even a hint of excitement. Did she really need to put that much effort into it?

After all, there was only one thing she wanted.

‘I have to make sure the Marquess of Leonard’s family never obtains a ducal title.’

And that wasn’t the end of it. She intended to destroy them so thoroughly that not even the foundation of their estate would remain.

If she wanted to take the first step toward that goal properly, she had no time to waste on emotional exhaustion.

This was a marriage she had forced through for the sake of her revenge.

Living a life where she relied on someone alone only to be disappointed, trusted them only to be hurt—doing that once was enough, wasn’t it?

So she needed to stop attaching meaning to Ian’s actions.

She must not confuse the Ian in his forties with the Ian in his twenties.

Even if the Ian in his forties had been a kind man toward her, the Ian Ruscliffe in his twenties would not be.

Only after making that resolution did Vanessa finally close her eyes.

‘I’ll think only of revenge.’

‘The Young Lady was extremely firm about what she wanted… She said that if the jewels weren’t removed, she would wear a completely plain dress….’

Early in the morning, Ian let out a quiet laugh at the words delivered by the salon employee who had come to the estate.

A plain dress, was it? He had always thought her choice of words was rather unrestrained.

After telling the salon madam to do exactly as Vanessa wished, Ian sent her back and stared blankly out the window.

‘Did she really dislike it that much?’

She usually enjoyed wearing jewels and accessories, so he had assumed she would like them.

Remembering Vanessa wearing the fitting dress, Ian habitually placed a cigar between his lips.

“…It’s a shame. It suited you well.”

The jewels embedded in the dress had glittered in the light of the chandelier.

Yet the splendor of the jewels themselves had failed to capture his attention.

She was beautiful enough to overwhelm even the excessive sparkle of the jewels.

Whenever the jewels along the neckline glittered, it looked as though a bright light had been switched on around her face.

More than anything else, he had wanted her to wear that one piece.

The more his thoughts continued, the faster the cigar between his lips burned.

“Why did it have to be me?”

If he were in her position, he would never have chosen ‘Ian Ruscliffe’ as his marriage partner.

Even when he had handed her that absurd contract, he had secretly hoped she would refuse.

He had thought that not being able to marry her would be better than someday having to watch her bring up divorce.

And yet, what could possibly be going through her mind that made her determined to proceed with the marriage, even though she was accepting conditions that any ordinary woman would have rejected without hesitation?

He had been curious, but he could not bring himself to ask.

In truth, he already knew.

He simply did not want to hear the definite answer from her own lips.

But in the end, she had said it firmly, as though telling him not to even dream.

‘Why would you need to be sorry? It’s a contract marriage anyway….’

A contract marriage.

The moment he confirmed that she had no feelings for him, absurdly enough, disappointment burst forth inside him.

He had endured everything so well until now, yet he could not get past that one thing.

“…Is it that bastard again?”

Carlyle Leonard.

The man who was originally supposed to become Vanessa Charose’s husband.

Ian did not know what had gone wrong between them to give him this opportunity, but he hated the thought of being Carlyle Leonard’s replacement.

That was why, wanting to probe Vanessa’s true feelings, he had simply brought to life one by one the things he had always imagined doing.

‘…If it had been Carlyle instead of me.’

Would Vanessa Charose have rejected it as excessive, just as she had now?

“Damn it.”

It was childish beyond belief.

He had delayed giving her an answer about marriage because he was afraid she would discover his secret. Yet, because he could not bear to lose her, he had accepted the marriage while piling condition upon condition onto the agreement.

And now he was afraid she might divorce him.

If that frightened him so much, he should never have agreed to the marriage in the first place.

Madman Ian Ruscliffe.

Ian had been mentally tearing himself apart when, all of a sudden, he hurriedly extinguished the half-burned cigar and flung open the window.

“Denion!”

The butler came running in alarm at his master’s shout.

“What is it, my lord?”

“Open every window right now. Not a single one left closed.”

“The windows? Why…?”

Before Denion could finish speaking, a carriage bearing the emblem of a red rose came into view.

“Ah….”

“Hurry. Move.”

Ian glared at Denion with eyes as cold as frost before spraying perfume from the bottle on his desk over various parts of his body.

And that wasn’t all.

The way he straightened his slightly disheveled hair and clothes was something he could never have done unless he wanted to look his best for someone he liked.

‘He likes her that much, so why did he add all those conditions…?’

Rather than say it aloud, Denion moved to faithfully carry out Ian’s orders.

“Everyone, stop what you’re doing and open the windows! The lady of the house is coming!”

At Denion’s booming voice from the first floor of the estate, Ian clenched his molars.

As he always thought, that man was definitely worse than even the Crown Prince, who only visited occasionally.

For a butler, Denion had absolutely no hesitation about saying things to his master that no one else would dare say, and when it came to teasing his master, he and the Crown Prince were perfectly matched.

Though Denion would absolutely deny it.

In any case, by the time Vanessa knocked on the estate’s door, they had succeeded in opening every window in the mansion.

‘I’ll have to dock his pay for one month.’

If it weren’t for his shouting, there was no doubt that one or two windows would have been left unopened.

One month seemed like an appropriate punishment for teasing his master.

“Vanessa.”

“Ian.”

“I said I hoped your visit would be prompt, but I don’t recall saying it should be sudden.”

“I came because I have something to say. But… do you normally leave every door and window in the estate open?”

Wrapped in a cape as white as snow, Vanessa shivered slightly.

Winter had not yet arrived, but there were days when the wind felt as sharp as a blade.

Today was one of those days.

“I get hot easily.”

It was an utterly ridiculous excuse, but Ian looked down at Vanessa with a shameless expression.

He did not know why she had chosen him or what she had been thinking.

Winning her heart without revealing his secret would be difficult.

But.

‘It isn’t impossible.’

Now that she had willingly stepped into the tiger’s den, Ian had no intention of letting this marriage end as nothing more than a contract.

Not in the slightest.

Vanessa looked once at Ian’s thin clothes, then once at the disorderly interior of the estate behind him before meeting his gaze again.

No matter how much he disliked the heat, surely this was too much. The wind was still cold, yet he lived with every door and window open?

She subtly shifted her gaze to inspect the servants in the estate, and sure enough.

It seemed Ian was the only one who got hot easily.

Especially that butler. His name was Denion, wasn’t it?

The moment he stood directly in front of an open window and was hit by the incoming wind, he began to shiver.

Vanessa let out a small sigh.

“Are you planning to keep doing this even after I move into this estate?”

“Everywhere except your room.”

“Should I be grateful that you’re preventing unnecessary misunderstandings?”

“What—”

“I just told the salon to remove the jewels from the neckline of the dress. No matter how I think about it, they’re too excessive. Still, since it was a dress you prepared for me, I thought I should come and tell you face-to-face.”

Before Ian could finish speaking, Vanessa poured out everything she had come to say and exhaled as though relieved.

“That’s everything I had to say. I’m leaving. See you at the wedding.”

“Vanessa….”

Bang.

Unlike when she had demanded the marriage, the estate door closed mercilessly.

Ian froze with a blank expression.

“Oh dear….”

A sympathetic sigh came from behind him.

There was no need to look to know exactly who had made it.

“…Denion, three months’ pay.”

“Yes? No, my lord, that—!”

“Six months.”

“Three months was far too merciful a punishment.”

They knew why their master had opened all the windows, but from the perspective of the future lady of the house, who knew nothing about it, her reaction was completely understandable.

Apparently, their master did not understand that at all.

However, Denion knew all too well about his master’s desperate unrequited love. He could not bring himself to tell Vanessa that the young lady’s perfume was too strong and that his master had been unable to endure it.

For his master, that perfume was a curse.

There was no way Denion could presume to understand the feelings of a master who could not reveal his emotions even in the face of a long-standing unrequited love because he could not break that one curse.

Thus, Denion quietly gestured to the servants standing behind him to close the windows.

There was no perfume left to be carried away, so there was no reason to keep the windows open.

Moreover, Denion was particularly sensitive to the cold, and the wind blowing down his back forced him to clench his teeth as they chattered.

If he showed that he was cold in front of the lady of the house, she would surely have misunderstood.

Watching his friends make a mess of things was amusing, refreshing, and satisfying.

Watching his master make a mess of things, however, was painful.

If anything went wrong, Denion knew he would be the one left to deal with the aftermath.

‘You held it in well, Denion.’

Just then, another gust of wind blew, and Denion instinctively hunched his body and muttered,

“Brr, it’s cold.”

“Six months’ pay.”

Argh!

Denion silently screamed in agony.

Perhaps it was the result of becoming far too compatible with His Highness the Crown Prince. His mouth had apparently become more and more uncontrollable.

“Six months… I’m so moved by my master’s generosity that I can’t stop my tears.”

I suppose my date with Anisha, who recently opened a flower shop in the capital, will have to be postponed for six months….