CHAPTER 04
Pedro looked at the calendar and wondered.
His birthday was coming up soon. What would he receive this time?
‘Last year, I got a sword.’
It had been a magnificent sword containing more than twenty percent meteoric iron. It was so expensive that even if he sold his homeland, the Sachsen territory, he wouldn’t have been able to afford it.
With treasures of this caliber, the price wasn’t the only issue. The qualifications of the owner mattered as well. There was absolutely no way the lord of some tiny territory at the edge of the Empire could purchase something like this.
Yet Seiana had gone out of her way to obtain such a weapon for him, her fiancé.
Pedro didn’t feel particularly grateful.
Because he hadn’t been able to have what should have rightfully been his, all because she had recklessly interfered with his life.
The territory he had always considered his had ended up going to his younger brother, and the sense of loss had been indescribable.
It was all Seiana’s fault.
She could have simply married him obediently like an ordinary noble lady. The fact that a woman who was nothing special aside from her family name had used her family’s power to crush him was a severe blow to his pride.
That was why he deliberately made no effort to hide his contempt.
When they were young, he had been more interested in tormenting Seiana, who had made him feel miserable, than in the benefits her family could provide.
No matter how much he mocked her and deliberately treated her cruelly, Seiana could never stand up to him.
The more anxious and fearful she became around him, the better Pedro felt.
The more he could control Seiana, the precious daughter of the Estarotte family that oppressed him, the more important and powerful he felt.
〈The reason I can’t inherit the territory is all because of you.〉
〈If you weren’t so greedy, my life wouldn’t have been twisted like this!〉
Whenever he said things like that, Seiana would be overcome with guilt and try to compensate him with anything he wanted.
Since he had grown accustomed to accepting it all as his due, even the Count Estarotte family had begun to seem laughable to him.
As long as he had Seiana in the palm of his hand, they wouldn’t be able to do anything.
If there was one thing in this world he believed would never change, it was Seiana’s feelings for him.
Seiana had pale silver-white hair with a faint sky-blue tint and deep blue eyes. Her overall coloring was so cool that she gave off a cold impression, but whenever she was in front of Pedro, she became like cotton candy melting softly beneath the spring rain.
There had been times when he found himself captivated by her face, but with Hailo, her second older brother and Pedro’s superior, watching him with a fierce glare, he couldn’t lay a hand on her.
So he reached out to another woman.
That had been two years ago.
‘She’s too easy. It’s not even fun.’
Seiana wasn’t the only one. Women were simply too easy.
If he showered them with a few sweet words and treated them well, they would immediately fall for him.
The fun was in winning them over. Once they fell into his arms, they became boring.
‘I’ve been playing with her for too long. She was just too innocent because I was the first man she’d ever had.’
Eventually, his mistress gave birth to his illegitimate child.
Pedro had never intended to have anything to do with the child, so he was caught off guard, but he couldn’t make a huge mess of things before marrying Seiana.
〈I’m not an adult yet, so I can’t marry you properly. Let’s get married the year I come of age. Just bear with me until then.〉
He whispered sweetly and coaxed her into waiting, barely buying himself some time.
In reality, he had absolutely no intention of marrying some commoner woman with nothing to offer him.
He wasn’t crazy enough to throw away Seiana, who already had everything.
Pedro had no reason to abandon her.
Seiana, whom he had beaten down and chipped away at with cruel words, was the perfect woman for him.
Her constant desire for affection was bothersome, but when he thought of the wealth she would bring him, it was an annoyance worth putting up with.
Of course, she was still something he couldn’t have until next year.
He was already growing bored with his current mistress and needed some new stimulation.
There was a woman who had recently started working as a maid, and she kept catching his eye……
Unlike his previous mistress, this one wasn’t so easy to handle, which made things all the more entertaining.
He was looking forward to the thrill of bringing her down.
But just then, he sensed a commotion outside.
“What is it?”
How dare they make such a racket while he was in the mansion?
Pedro was thoroughly irritated.
He decided he would give them a piece of his mind and was approaching the door when—
BANG!
The door flew open violently right in front of his face.
If he had taken even one more step forward, he might have been seriously injured.
A chill ran down his back.
“Wh-What…… Lovey?”
Standing in the doorway was Seiana Lovely Estarotte, the legal owner of the house and Pedro’s fiancée.
He couldn’t believe that the woman who normally couldn’t even make a sound louder than a footstep for fear of upsetting him had just violently thrown open the door.
‘Am I dreaming?’
There was no way Seiana Lovely Estarotte would do something this brazen.
But it was far too early in the morning for him to be dreaming.
Realizing that this was reality, Pedro’s face twisted.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“What do you mean? I just opened the door.”
Seiana, who normally became flustered whenever he merely frowned at her, had actually talked back to him.
Pedro’s mood darkened further.
Had treating her well lately made her forget who held the upper hand?
“Huh? You just opened the door?”
The lock had clearly been broken when someone kicked the door open with tremendous force. Even the hinges were hanging loose.
Although the property belonged to Seiana, Pedro was the one who actually lived in the house, and he considered everything that belonged to her to be practically his own.
His anger rose to the top of his head.
Seiana noticed his gaze falling on the broken door and briefly looked at it herself, but she didn’t seem particularly concerned.
“Hmm, I suppose I was a little rough. But so what? It’s my property. If I want to break the door or set it on fire, isn’t that my choice?”
Her voice was calm and composed, but there was something strangely fierce about the way her eyes glittered.
Pedro realized that something was seriously wrong.
‘Could it be……! Is she angry because I didn’t reply when she couldn’t come the other day because she was sick?’
Pedro actually thought that if anyone deserved gratitude, it was him.
Not only had she unilaterally canceled a meeting he hadn’t wanted to attend in the first place, but he hadn’t even complained about it.
However, despite eagerly draining Seiana’s wealth, he was still only her fiancé.
If they were already married and there were no way to undo it, things might have been different, but for now, he had no choice but to placate her.
“Haha. Lovey. I suppose you’re quite angry?”
“Me? Do I look very angry? Why?”
Her sharp eyes seemed to ask:
Do you have something to feel guilty about?
He had intended to smooth things over nicely, but it seemed she was trying to force him to admit that he had done something wrong.
Stay calm. Stay calm…….
Pedro repeated it to himself.
He ground his teeth, thinking that once they were married next year, she would regret everything.
He was just about to open his mouth and apologize when—
“Ah. Well, that’s not important. Anyway.”
“……”
“Happy birthday, Pedro. I brought you something you might like as a birthday present.”
Pedro’s eyes lit up.
A birthday present could only be the magnificent South Selvia-bred horse he had wanted so badly.
He felt all his anger from moments ago disappear.
He was so delighted that even Seiana’s face—which he normally found utterly tiresome—looked especially beautiful to him today.
“I was originally going to give it to you on your birthday, but I managed to get it a little earlier than expected. Waiting was rather difficult.”
“Haha. That happens. I understand.”
Since it was going to belong to him anyway, what difference did it make whether he received it on his birthday or a little earlier?
In fact, the sooner, the better.
Just imagining the envious faces of his fellow knights when they saw him riding the magnificent horse to work tomorrow made it difficult for him to suppress his grin.
“So, should I go downstairs now?”
“No. There’s no need. We can have them bring it here.”
“Huh?”
A horse?
Inside the mansion?
Pedro was puzzled by what she meant.
Then he saw someone quietly emerge from behind Seiana, and his face went deathly pale.
The person who appeared behind her was none other than Pedro’s mistress.
And she was holding a child in her arms.
Pedro trembled.
‘Did she find out? When? How did that idiot figure it out?’
Pedro had been absolutely certain Seiana would never discover his affair.
The woman had never once visited the mansion, and whenever he spent time with his mistress, they never went out together. They simply spent the entire day at her house.
Whenever the woman wanted to visit his home, Pedro made excuses, saying that his territory was too far away and that he was staying at the knights’ quarters, making it difficult for him to bring outsiders there.
Because of that, his mistress didn’t even know that Pedro lived in the townhouse.
Seiana almost never came to the capital, so he had considered the possibility of them running into each other practically nonexistent.
……So how?
Pedro opened and closed his mouth a few times before coming to his senses.
If he admitted everything here, he would be completely finished.
“This……”
“……”
“Who is this?”
At Pedro’s attempt to feign ignorance, Seiana, his mistress, the escort knights Seiana had brought with her, and even the servants secretly watching the situation all wore utterly incredulous expressions.
Their faces practically screamed, Is he out of his mind?
Pedro cursed inwardly.
To escape this situation, he desperately tried to maintain an air of complete calm and pretend he knew nothing.
But it was difficult to hide the slight trembling at the corners of his mouth.
“I don’t know her. So who is she? Why did you bring her here, Lovey?”
At his shameless attempt to deny everything, everyone’s incredulity turned into contempt.
His mistress looked deeply shaken by the betrayal, tears welling up in her eyes.
Seiana gave a derisive snort at the absurd situation unfolding before her.
“You care so much about bloodlines, yet I suppose you’re not very interested in the child who shares your blood?”
“Th-That’s……”
“Ah, is it because the bloodline is too lowly? The Sachsen family isn’t exactly an impressive house, after all.”
“What did you say? How dare you! ……Aagh!”
Pedro, his eyes blazing with fury, lunged toward Seiana.
But one of her escort knights immediately seized him and twisted his arm behind his back.
It was a pathetic sight for a man who held the position of an Imperial Palace knight.
‘There’s no way the stupid Seiana could have figured this out on her own. I don’t know how she found out, but that lowborn woman must have whispered in her ear after realizing that I would never marry her.’
Pedro was convinced that if he could just sweet-talk Seiana enough, he could somehow get out of this situation.
