Chapter 25 Love Or Hate?
He wants to treat her like she’s nothing.
He wants to crush her pride to the bottom of the pile, and then reach out to her like a rag and treat her with warmth.
Then she’ll only look at him for the rest of her life.
… like he did when he first saw her in that pool of blood.
But at the same time, he had the contradictory feeling that he wanted to protect her, to keep her so precious, so innocent, unaware of the filth out there.
To look into her eyes every morning, to kiss her white legs, to give her the most precious things.
For the first time, Pride realized.
His feelings for Delphine were not those of a child’s first love, nor were they those of a saint’s worship.
Nor was it the naïve loyalty of wanting to protect her, as he had when he decided to marry her.
It was a perfect love-hate.
A muddled mixture of hate and love that had been deposited since childhood.
Perhaps these feelings had been in his heart since he first decided to marry her.
By having her as his wife in this place that has become the Pride Manor, he is now trying to imprint a reversed hierarchy…
The blizzard, called mania, continued to blow through the open window.
His body went cold.
His head was pounding.
‘You’re the first guest to visit me in this weather…’
Pride, finally ready to face the guest, slammed the window shut.
***
“A woman?”
Delphine, who had been cowering in her study, asked.
Betty, who had been handing her a cup of hot tea, nodded quickly.
“Yes, Lady. It was a woman.”
Then, catching Delphine’s eye, she added, “What was it?
“Lady… I hope I didn’t interrupt you earlier…?”
“Nope. Absolutely not. You’re a lifesaver, Betty.”
Delphine replied firmly and soon turned her attention to the window.
Already, thick snowflakes were beginning to flutter.
A blizzard would soon follow, and no one in the Empire would be able to travel on the roads.
Through this weather, a woman has come to visit.
Who is she, and what is her connection to Ioannes?
“… My lady, by the way.”
Betty, who had not yet left the study, spoke up again.
“Yes, talk comfortably. Relax, you and I have saved each other’s lives now.”
Delphine said with a hint of self-deprecation.
Betty didn’t remember Ioannes’ existence, but she did remember that she had saved her life on the day of the treasonous event.
“I hope I’m not saying too much.”
Relieved, Betty finally spoke her hesitant words.
“… The guest who just came in seemed to know the master very well.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, she came knocking on the door in this weather, and said, ‘I want Ioan here, please…'”
Delphine’s eyebrows shot up at that.
Is she calling him by name?
Did she know the ‘old’ Ioan as well?
“… that guest. Did she appear to be a noble?”
“No, Lady. Just a commoner. Or less.”
Betty had seen plenty of aristocrats in her time working for an aristocratic family, so she was probably right.
Commoners. And if she was close enough to Ioan to call him by his first name… What?
Delphine was lost in thought.
“And I’m telling you this, more than anything else, because of your… appearance.”
Betty, studying her hardened face, added cautiously.
“Something about it.”
“Well, the red hair or… The color of her eyes, a little…”
Betty said, nervously and awkwardly.
“You look a bit like her.”
“What?”
Betty added in a panic.
“Of course! I mean only in features; not in looks at all… of course, though I’m sure I could look at her.”
Delphine’s eyebrows rose unconsciously.
“But certainly nothing compared to the Lady…”
Betty’s voice trailed off in a whimper, perhaps offending her.
A woman had come through the madness.
A face that looked like her own.
Delphine’s brow furrowed, and she turned to her slave, who had left the house.
Ioan. What has he been doing all this time?
***
Pride stared at the woman before him with cold eyes.
Unkempt auburn hair.
Deep green eyes that reminded him of a swamp.
It was a woman he met in a cabaret he stumbled upon as he left Pembroke Manor and wandered like a wild dog through the third arrondissement.
She looked him up and down, her nervousness evident in her expression.
“You… Ioan, right? You remember me?”
Instead of answering, Pride’s mouth curled into an uncomfortable frown.
He hadn’t forgotten the day, though it was an unpleasant memory.
It was the first time he had ever attempted to hold a woman.
At the time, Delphine was too distant, too saintly to be touched by a lowly creature like him.
Perhaps if he held another woman, he could forget her.
He had thought of that once, when he saw a red-haired woman by chance.
‘To no avail.’
Pride’s mouth tasted of cold arsenic.
The woman had mistaken his smile for a sign of approval.
She clung to him, rubbing her unpleasant flesh against his arm.
“You clearly wanted me then… even if you did slip away like that just before.”
True to her word, his attempts that day were futile.
The sight of her naked body only reminded him of his mother, who had sold her body, and eventually her son, for pennies on the dollar.
His lust, his every emotion, always responded to her, Delphine.
Like a dog trained to salivate at the sound of a bell.
No, Guicheal himself was indeed a dog.
A dog in heat for a saint.
“That’s how you see everything in your lowly eyes, isn’t it?”
… So he didn’t have to react to being called lowly.
Pride scoffed bitterly at his own displeasure and self-deprecation.
“And here I thought you were just a barrier guard or something, which is great, of course, but…”
The woman shuddered, rubbing herself desperately.
“But they say you’re a marquis, someone very high up!”
Pride swept her with a frosty glance.
There was only one reason he hadn’t thrown this flesh-pressing woman down immediately.
Aside from himself, the question of how this woman remembered what had happened.
Surely the ‘old self’ had been wiped from everyone’s memory.
He has been warned that memories of intense emotional exchanges may not be erased, so maybe that’s why.
There was one thing that didn’t make sense.
Delphine.
Not only did she remember her past, but she hadn’t even been brainwashed into being a Marquis.
… Why?
It was understandable why she remembered her former self.
She was lonely, and she had always pampered herself like an obedient dog.
Little did she realize that… that was exactly what had driven her away from the manor.
But why didn’t all the brainwashing about the Marquis of Pride work?
‘What price did I pay for her…’
Pride gritted his teeth.
All the while, the woman, who had mistaken his silence for tacit approval, continued to ramble on.
“So, that’s why… for leaving me like that. I forgive you.”
“…”
“So what you didn’t do then. And what you’re doing now, I don’t mind…”
At those words, Pride, finally free of Delphine’s thoughts, showed open disgust.
“Go away.”
“What, what?”
“In light of the day’s events, I’ll forgive you for your sudden rudeness.”
For a moment, she flinched at the frosty tone of his voice.
The woman’s eyes squinted, her pride wounded.
“I’m not… I heard you married the most beautiful woman in the empire in the meantime. Is that why you’re doing this, so you can’t see the likes of me anymore?”
Pride stared at the woman with dark disgust in his eyes.
It was horrible.
This woman reminded him of everything he’d left behind that day, along with his slavery.
The lowliness.
The rudeness.
The act of throwing away one’s pride for money.
They learnt helplessness.
His past…which he had nothing in common with.
More than anyone else, he wanted to be a full-fledged nobleman in front of Delphine.
So he would pretend until the end.
Never, ever, would he go back to the slave boy who crawled like an animal through the bloody mud.
“By the way, does your pretty wife know what you’ve been up to in District 3?”
Pride fidgeted absentmindedly at his waist instead of answering.
But unlike usual, his hand didn’t feel the familiar scabbard.
That’s right, today was an off-duty day, and he wasn’t wearing his sword.
But that was not the only way to kill this woman.
As he searched for a way to kill her as cleanly as possible, and without leaving a trace of blood, the woman’s tongue lolled idly.
“Or is it that you, the so-called demon that not even the gods can save, can’t kill a red-haired woman and let her live?”
Pride realized now.
That’s why this woman is so arrogant.
Believing he couldn’t kill her.
Pride held up his hands, his face showing no emotion.
The woman’s auburn hair was a little disturbing, but it was nothing like her coveted, pure red hair anyway.
“Ioan…?”
The woman, finally noticing the unusual mood, jerked back in horror.
He didn’t want another murder in his mansion, but…
‘I can’t help it.’
It was at that moment that Pride reached his hand to the woman’s throat, his face impassive, as if he were swatting at a troublesome insect.
“… Lord Pride?”
A deep, elegant voice came from the parlor door.
