Chapter 4 Who The Hell Are You?
Delphine glared at the blurry figure behind the veil, muttering in a small, muffled voice.
‘Who the hell are you…?’
Then, to her surprise, one of the man’s red lips turned up in a pout.
Her eyes widened in disbelief, and he turned his attention back to the nobles surrounding her, as he always did.
There was no way he could have read the shape of her mouth, at this distance, through the veil.
‘No, I must be overreacting,’ she thought.
It’s not unreasonable, considering the events that have happened to him.
Just two days ago, her father’s throat had been cut in front of her eyes.
Her fingertips trembled and her eyes burned as she thought of the scene.
Delphine bit her bottom lip hard, fighting back the tears that threatened to fall.
She is Delphine Pembroke.
The sole heir to the honorable House of Pembroke.
Therefore, beneath the veil, Delphine Pembroke must not shed tears in public.
***
After the ceremony, Delphine made her way to Pembroke Manor, now Pride Manor.
The moment she stepped out of the carriage.
Delphine’s face was as white as her wedding dress.
Memories of that day, of wading through pools of blood to find survivors, rose up and washed over her like a tidal wave.
“Ugh…”
“Come on, get inside.”
The imperial messenger urged bluntly as she halted, her fingertips trembling.
His manner was more like a jailer escorting a prisoner than a priest.
Delphine slowly crossed the manor’s gates, her steps staggering and unsteady.
But when she finally entered the hall, her whole body once again stiffened.
The mansion, once a sea of blood, had been perfectly restored to its original state in just three days.
The carpets, the antique furniture, the carpets that had been soaked in blood and seemed beyond repair.
Even the chandelier on the ceiling where her father’s blood had splashed.
It was as it had been before.
As if it had been a dream.
Delphine stood in the hall in her wedding dress, muttering to herself.
“A dream…? Yes, everything I saw was a dream.”
Maybe she was mistaking her worst nightmare for reality.
Or maybe she was still in a dream.
A smirk curled her lips as an imperial messenger led her to the inner chamber.
“Lord Pride will be served shortly.”
With those words, he closed the door and left the room.
The messenger’s footsteps were inaudible through the corridor.
The reason for his presence at the door was obvious.
A nobleman’s betrothal must be honoured by a vigil.
So the messenger with the doll-like face would be a witness to the man and his bed.
When the man enters the room, he will stand by the canopied bed as a witness to the sacred covenant, and in the morning he will take away the bloodstained white quilt.
Delphine hadn’t even changed out of her wedding gown and flopped down on the bed.
The bridal veil was heavy, like a crown of iron.
Delphine roughly tore the veil from her hair and threw it violently into a corner.
Ioannes.
“My lady, …are you happy?”
The same slave boy who had looked up at her like a dog and asked, the same man who mingled with the nobility with grace.
Same brown eyes. Same color hair. Same name.
…But were they really the same person?
Add to that the fact that his father, who had always been loyal to the imperial family, had suddenly rebelled, and it all made no sense.
“Think, think….”
She tried to concentrate, but it was as if she had a fog in her head.
Her hands and whole body were trembling like the shakes from earlier.
She nervously clutched the futon in her hands and tried to squeeze out as many thoughts as she could. With a click, the door to the quarters opened.
“…Lady.”
It was the man. A man with Ioan’s face.
Lady?
Delphine was taken aback by the title, and for the first time, she saw the man’s features up close and personal.
Dirty blond hair, tinged with brown, and pale brown eyes.
Unusually white skin.
A face that was lightly pigmented, giving it an oddly colorful appearance as if it had been wet.
…He was a beautiful man.
Beautiful enough to be recognised, even in this situation.
Delphine continued to study the man’s face as if mesmerized.
A face so much like the strangely beautiful slave boy she remembered.
But the figure of a full man, standing tall and thick, neatly covered by a white uniform, was also strangely different from her memory.
Hesitantly, Delphine spoke up.
“…Ioan?”
The man closed the door to the quarters with a click and walked over to her.
“Oh, no. You’re calling me by my first name already, Lady. No.”
His red lips drew a soft line.
“Delphine?”
He pronounced her name in a low voice, then closed his eyes for a moment.
As if he was thrilled to have pronounced it.
“Delphine… you are my wife.”
Delphine jerked her head up, startled by the conspiratorially low voice.
The man approached her, slowly unbuttoning his uniform one button at a time.
With a thud, the uniform jacket fell to the floor, and her heart fell with it.
Was this really the first night of her life?
With the man who had cut her father’s throat three days ago?
For a moment, her surprise at the devilishly beautiful man’s appearance was replaced by a sharp wave of nausea.
Delphine called out in an urgent tone.
“Ioan? Ioan, is that you?”
The man spoke softly, his demeanor still relaxed.
“My name is Ioan, of course, Lady.”
“You know what I mean, why are you pretending not to know your master?”
“Master?… ah, I didn’t realize that was your preference, but of course I’m happy to oblige, Lady.”
He replied smoothly, loosening the tie around his neck.
His demeanor was still relaxed and smooth, despite the deepening of his eyes, which were now filled with a conspiratorial glint.
His large, hard body stood before her.
Delphine felt helpless, as if she were facing a giant barrier.
“No, I mean…”
She didn’t finish her sentence.
His thick fingers stroked slowly across her bitten lips, slipping inside and probing deeply.
His other large hand stroked the nape of her neck lazily.
Delphine gasped, feeling nervous and anxious.
Ioan. This was something he would never have done to her.
The slave boy dared not even look her in the eye.
‘Who is this man, I don’t know.’
So he’s not really Ioan, then, even though they look so much alike, have the same name and surname?
…Are they twins?
Even if they were, they were born of the same lowly birth.
The Empire would never bestow a noble title on a former slave, no matter how revolutionary his achievements.
As she looked at the man, her trembling eyes filled with confusion, her brown eyes burned as if on fire.
The man’s large hand cupped around her face grew stronger.
It was a careful touch, like stroking a feather, but the touch was too rough and hard.
It was a hand that felt nothing like the hands of a nobleman who never held anything but a jeweled sword.
Are these the hands of a noble?
Delphine desperately searched her memory of three years ago.
What had Ioan’s hands been like?
“What are you thinking, My Lady?”
Did he realize she was comparing him to someone else?
Delphine flinched at the low, dangerous tone in his voice.
For a moment, she remembered the blood rushing from her father’s neck to the chandelier.
The original Ioan, the slave boy, would not have done this to her, his master.
But what if this man really wasn’t Ioan?
Why couldn’t the man who had killed her father so easily cut her throat?
He’s an imperial hero, the Emperor’s closest confidant, and she’s just a noblewoman from a now-defunct traitorous family.
But it was hard to believe that there was anyone else in the world who looked so much like him.
Moreover, there was a strange sense of incongruity in this man’s demeanor.
As if a non-noble wore a noble’s mask.
Or as if something that is not human is wearing a human mask…
Biting her lower lip, Delphine glared at him.
“I wonder if this is why you were in such a… hurry to get married.”
To hide her flinch, Delphine glared at him deliberately.
“You didn’t seek a wife, but a courtesan… to satisfy your nightly lusts, did you?”
Like your mother?
Ioan had been sold to Pembroke Manor for a pittance by his mother, a courtesan in the Third District.
Of all his many entitlements, the boy was most sensitive to the mention of his mother.
Once he beat a servant to a bloody pulp for mentioning his during an argument and was locked up and starved for ten days.
She didn’t say it, but he must have read her mind.
His soft brown eyes burned like dry firewood that had been lit in an instant.
But only for a moment.
Soon his pupils sank to ice-cold, even colder than the extinguished firewood.
His lips curved up in an arc.
He pressed his massive body close to hers in her wedding dress, his heat radiating off her.
In that moment, Delphine felt the courage she had barely mustered crumble to dust.
Despite his cool, elegant expression, he was frighteningly aroused.
Thanks to the bridal training she’d been receiving from her nanny, Delphine was quick to recognise it.
He looked her up and down, his face pale and pale, and then a smirk curled his lips.
“Do you wish to call off this marriage?”
