Chapter 07
The Grand Duke’s study, which I was entering for the first time, was the North itself in every sense of the word.
Cold, hard, and orderly.
Dark reddish-brown wooden bookshelves filled the walls, a gray carpet covered the floor, documents were piled high on the desk, and a fireplace blazed brightly nearby.
Aside from the sofa for receiving guests where I was sitting and the table directly in front of me, there was hardly anything that could even be called furniture.
I had taken out and put on the same dress I had worn when I first arrived at the Grand Duke’s residence. Having grown accustomed to the comfort of my maid’s uniform, I found it terribly uncomfortable.
And sitting across from me—
The man who was harder to look at than any luxury in the world was seated there: Grand Duke Varkan Escar.
‘So I finally get to see your face, Your Grace.’
My first impression of the man filling my field of vision was that he looked as though someone had gathered up every harsh aspect of a northern winter and painstakingly molded them into human form.
Jet-black hair, beneath which were long, cold eyes. And more than anything, those black irises that seemed to pierce straight through me.
He radiated such a fierce and oppressive presence that his gaze alone was enough to intimidate anyone.
He wasn’t the protagonist of the original novel, nor was he anything more than a second male lead, yet his presence was overwhelming.
And, above all—
‘Damn, he’s handsome.’
His looks, his physique, even that dangerous aura surrounding him.
Unfortunately, he was exactly, exactly my type.
Of course, the aide and commander of the knights standing behind the Grand Duke were also men whose looks were more than worthy of admiration.
‘But they’re not my type.’
Then—
I tilted my head as I looked straight into Varkan’s eyes, which were fixed on me.
‘Those eyes… Where have I seen them befo—’
Just as I was overcome by a strange feeling—
After scrutinizing me sharply for quite some time, Varkan casually opened his mouth.
“You seem to have taken quite well to your duties as a maid, Your Highness.”
My eyebrow twitched at his words.
His first greeting was Are you enjoying being a maid?
‘He was the one who made me do it.’
Strictly speaking, the person who had ordered me to work as a maid was the Grand Duke himself. I was only doing what I had been told, so why was he looking at me as though he were angry?
I found his attitude absurd, but instead, I put on an innocent, sunny smile and replied,
“Yes. It’s all thanks to Your Grace’s thoughtful consideration. Perhaps because the Grand Duke’s residence is such an old estate, there was quite a lot of built-up grime. Since this is the estate where I’ll be living from now on, I happily scrubbed all that grime away.”
“……”
I did well, right? Hehe.
At my calm and shameless response, Varkan’s smooth brow twitched ever so slightly.
He remained silent for a moment before folding his arms across his solid chest and speaking again.
“I’ve heard what happened. There was an incident in the busy district of the Grand Duchy a short while ago.”
I quickly answered.
“It wasn’t an incident. It was more like a natural disaster.”
“You are likely the only person who would call it that, Your Highness. It was the failure of the knights assigned to protect you. They failed in their duty.”
“My goodness.”
I clasped both hands in front of my lips and lowered the corners of my eyes.
“How bleak.”
“……”
At my words, Varkan narrowed his eyes. The commander of the knights and the aide standing behind him both widened their eyes.
“You really don’t have even an ounce of flexibility, do you?”
“…Flexibility.”
Varkan rolled the word around on the tip of his tongue before giving a cold scoff.
“You seem unaware of what a convenient excuse the word ‘flexibility’ can be. On a battlefield, where even a minor mistake can lead directly to death, people lose their lives because of that sort of ‘flexibility.’”
I slightly raised my shoulders.
“But this isn’t a battlefield.”
“Is there such a thing as a separate battlefield? Wherever people live or die, that place is a battlefield, Your Highness.”
“……”
Wow.
I was genuinely impressed.
That iron wall was so impenetrable it seemed a needle wouldn’t be able to pierce it.
‘There’s just no talking to this man.’
So he was actually going to punish the knights? After coming back after a week, the first thing he wanted to do was punish the knights who had been assigned to protect me?!
I narrowed my eyes and said sharply,
“You must live a really difficult life. You don’t have any friends, do you?”
“……”
Varkan’s gaze grew even colder.
“You are using language unbecoming of a princess.”
I grumbled in response.
“It’s not like there’s a law that says princesses have to speak a certain way.”
I leaned comfortably against the back of the sofa and shrugged. Varkan narrowed his eyes.
“I can see why the rumors about the princess became what they did.”
“What kind?”
I tilted my head.
“What kind of rumors?”
Varkan remained silent for a moment, simply staring at me.
“You should know very well.”
At his meaningful gaze, I blinked rapidly before suddenly clapping my hands.
“That I’m crazy?”
The commander of the knights standing behind him cleared his throat, while the aide adjusted the arm of his glasses and turned his head away.
Varkan pressed his lips together tightly before opening them a beat later.
“…I did not put it quite that way.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. You can keep living your refined, dignified life from now on, Your Highness. I’m going to keep living however I want, just like I am now.”
“……”
For a moment, the air in the study froze cold.
Regardless—
I stood up with a victorious smile and gathered the cumbersome skirt spreading around me.
“And I’ll say this one more time. If you insist on punishing the knights who were assigned to protect me…”
I paused.
“…I’ll make sure I receive exactly the same punishment as them.”
At my terrifying threat, Varkan’s eyebrow rose very slowly.
“Do as you please.”
At Varkan’s curt reply, I snorted lightly.
‘He thinks I won’t do it just because he told me to?’
I raised my chin slightly, turned my back on the Grand Duke, and said,
“Remember that.”
BANG—
The door closed after the princess left, and a brief silence descended over the study.
Varkan leaned back against the sofa, rubbed his face, and sighed. His aide, Roan, approached him.
“Are you uncomfortable in some way, Your Highness?”
“…Uncomfortable?”
Yes.
Perhaps this feeling was what discomfort felt like.
Varkan stared into empty space and muttered,
“She’s a strange woman.”
There had been something that honestly surprised him when he first saw the princess.
Her dazzling platinum-blond hair and delicate yet distinctly defined features. Her coloring was so vivid that it seemed almost alien, completely out of place in this bleak northern land.
For a princess who had been dragged here as a hostage after suffering through the horrors of war, her eyes were far too full of vitality.
He had certainly been told that she had lost her mind from the shock of the war.
But after actually speaking with her, it seemed she wasn’t insane after all.
Then again, if someone asked whether that was normal, the answer was definitely no.
‘If she isn’t normal, then she must be crazy.’
There was a powerful sense of incongruity about her.
Was she pretending to be crazy? Was she genuinely insane? Or was she insane but occasionally had moments when her sanity returned?
He simply couldn’t make sense of the woman.
Varkan furrowed his brow and asked Roan,
“So. What did the princess appear with after disappearing in the busy district?”
“Yes, Your Highness. They said she returned carrying several small bags filled with something, cradling them carefully in her arms.”
“What was inside them?”
“That is…”
For some reason, Roan hesitated.
“Why? Was it something dangerous?”
“No, Your Highness. …We still don’t know.”
“What?”
Varkan looked at Roan. With a deeply troubled expression, Roan continued.
“When the knights assigned to escort her approached to check the contents, Her Highness suddenly bared her white teeth and… w-well… woof, woof…”
Varkan frowned.
“Woof?”
Roan answered with an expression twisted by humiliation.
“Woof, woof, woof, woof! …She made noises like a barking dog and threatened to bite their throats out on the spot if they came even one step closer. So they couldn’t bring themselves to restrain her by force and ultimately gave up on checking the contents.”
“……”
The study once again sank into silence.
Varkan recalled the princess who had sat directly before him moments ago, answering every one of his words with such crisp defiance.
For a brief moment, he had wondered whether perhaps the princess was merely pretending to be insane.
Now he felt utterly foolish for having entertained the thought.
‘She really is insane.’
The matter was settled neatly.
Yes, he had thought there was something strange about her.
The woman didn’t avoid his gaze. Instead, she boldly met it head-on, almost as though she intended to stare straight through him.
Other people often became frightened simply when his gaze happened to pass over them, yet the princess had met his eyes without the slightest hesitation.
Her blue eyes were striking—clear as a winter lake, yet deep as an afternoon sky without a single cloud.
Thinking that was simply because she wasn’t in her right mind made things somewhat easier to understand.
Come to think of it, those eyes…
‘Where have I seen them before…?’
Where had it been?
Just then, Commander of the Knights Deros asked,
“Then, what shall we do about the punishment for the knights who escorted Her Highness? She is being so adamant about this…”
At Deros’s question, Varkan rested his chin on one hand and fell into thought.
There was no question that the knights were responsible for losing sight of the person they were supposed to protect in the middle of the busy district.
In the North, the rule was simple: if you did something wrong, you were punished.
However, now that the princess had gone so far as to defend the knights, simply pretending nothing had happened was also awkward.
After a moment, Varkan’s lips slowly parted.
“…The punishment will be carried out as scheduled. However—”
