Ch. 20:
‘Pink looks good on you…?’
Liana, who was changing her clothes, tilted her head as she remembered Illyd’s enigmatic words.
All she had worn today was a white muslin apron and a black maid uniform. The clothes she had worn when she saw him before hadn’t been pink either. So why did he say pink looked good on her?
Puzzled, she undid the straps behind her back and remembered that the outfit she wore today belonged to Annie.
‘…No way.’
Blinking rapidly, she groped for her back.
She had haphazardly pinned the uniform at the small of her back to keep the ill-fitting clothes on.
For a moment, she remembered Illyd standing so close to her as he tied her apron, and how after he’d left, Deborah had retied it for her and called her clumsy.
’No way, no way!’
But Liana began to turn red as if she had foreseen something, and the maid uniform fell to the ground.
Her ominous prediction was not wrong. Looking at her body, Liana covered her face and slowly sat down on her bed.
There it was.
The undergarments she had worn today were made of pink fabric.
It was obvious that under the clothes that had not been completely fastened, the hideous pink underwear, like boiled crayfish, had been visible.
Liana buried her face in her pillow, screaming internally.
“What’s wrong, Auntie?” Phoebe, who was reading a book on their chair with her feet dangling in the air, looked worriedly at her aunt. She was acting very strange. “Are you sick?”
“…No, I’m not sick.”
“But your neck is really red…” Phoebe stared at her aunt, concern written all over her face. “Do you want me to call Aunt Annie?”
“No, I’m really fine!” Liana replied, her face the same dark pink color as her underwear. “I’m not sick at all. I just got dizzy for a moment.”
“I don’t think so. I can hear the sound of your teeth grinding from over here.”
Liana managed to smile, trying her best to reassure Phoebe. But her feeble attempts only managed to increase her niece’s anxiety.
***
Three blocks west of the city’s center, the wheels of the black wagon stopped in an alley on 24th street.
Stepping out of the carriage- rented from a company that served aristocrats- was a woman whose face was covered by the hood of her robe. She raised a slender hand to help another woman down from the carriage.
The woman being escorted also had her face covered, but with a lace bonnet.
Thanks to the tightly woven lace, her face was not clearly visible, but the silhouette revealed at first glance that she was an incredible beauty.
The two women walked through the narrow alleyways. After taking a few turns, they stood in front of what looked like an ordinary family home. The woman in the hood leaned towards the wall and muttered the code.
“The night when the dead come to life, and the living in their graves.”
A few seconds later, the brick door masquerading as a wall swung open without a sound. The two women looked around to make sure no one was watching them before stepping inside.
In a red-carpeted, lamp-lit hallway, a man whose face was also covered was waiting for them. “Come this way.”
Following his lead, they walked through a maze of corridors.
After passing several traps, the end of the corridor they faced was another door disguised as a bookcase.
“If you wish to leave, please let us know by pulling on the red book on the top shelf here. Well then, I hope you have a relaxing time.” With that, the man vanished as he had appeared- without a trace. The women finally took off their disguises once they were sure they were alone.
“It’s hard to get into a place like this,” Natasha muttered, pushing back her flaming red hair.
Liana quickly took the young lady’s hat and hung it on the wall. But despite her calm and steady demeanor, her violet eyes could not hide her curiosity about this secret space she was seeing for the first time.
Natasha sat on the couch, turning towards Liana, and warned, “don’t look too closely. Something disgusting probably happened here.”
Liana’s head snapped up at that, and she meekly clasped her hands together. “So, my lady, what time can I expect to be picked up?”
“In about… three hours. Yes, an hour for each person should do it.” Natasha said, doing the math in her head. “If I’m a little late, just wait for me.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Liana replied politely, pulling her hood over her head again. “I’ll be waiting for you at the exit in three hours.” With that, she exited, and the door shut behind her.
Natasha leaned back on the couch. Closing her eyes, she began to breathe slowly and deeply.
This was something she had to do. It was a disgust she could live with for the sake of her goal; a necessary evil. It didn’t take long for her to soothe herself- she had been planning this for a very long time, after all.
After a few more deep breaths, there was a knock on the door, as promised.
Natasha didn’t say yes to grant entry. She got up from her seat and opened the door herself, seeing, as expected, the face of a disgusting man.
A shiny forehead. Greedy eyes. A heavily built man whose vest buttons could pop off at a moment’s notice, and who had combed over the few strands of hair he had left to try and hide his bald head.
“It’s been a long time, Natasha.” In front of her was Marquis Arnold Owen.
***
Natasha rinsed her mouth several times and spat the water into the sink. She had been prepared, but disgusting was disgusting. “That horny motherfucker…”
After swearing, Natasha wiped her mouth and straightened her back. It was awful, but not unbearable: her mother must have done worse than this hundreds, maybe thousands of times.
She’d barely finished smoothing her clothes and arranging her hair when she heard another knock. “Come in,” she called.
The second visitor waited a moment before entering. Natasha did not rise from her seat at the appearance of this man, nor did she fix her disgusted expression.
“That’s the face everyone wears after meeting Marquis Owen.” Despite his rudeness, Illyd’s face wore its usual smile.
Today the prince was dressed to imitate a commoner. He wore a wide-brimmed straw hat, a white shirt, brown cotton pants, and thin leather suspenders that were the usual attire of a lowly peasant.
Not that anyone who looked at the way he carried himself would really believe that, of course.
“Do you have anything for me?”
At the tired sound of her voice, Illyd gracefully strode over to her. Pulling a silver case from his pocket, he personally placed the cigarette to her lips.
As soon as it was lit, Natasha inhaled hastily before glaring at him and snorting. “This cigarette is cheap.”
Illyd shrugged and sat down at the table, slouching. “You can’t smoke high-end cigars in this outfit.”
In any case, he was a strange man, but a steady one. Natasha inhaled the smoke deeply instead of saying something unimportant like that, but it didn’t matter, because anything bad for you is bad for you, regardless.
Watching her, Illyd took out a cigarette and put it in his own mouth.
For a while, the only thing entering the room was white smoke.
When Natasha had finished, she finally spoke. “It seems clear to me that the Owens have made a deal with Count Baldwin, and they intend to honor it.”
“When will it start?”
“In two weeks. He said they plan to have the engagement ceremony first,” Natasha added, looking frustrated. “It’s good I pretended to be your lover- it seems my ransom went up quite a bit.”
“Because the crazier you are, the more you covet what belongs to royalty,” Illyd replied nonchalantly.
Natasha eyed him uneasily. “The evidence you showed me before in the parlor- you’re sure about it?”
“I’m sure,” Illyd replied, putting his cigarette out on the table. “I’ve got additional evidence with the Owen family seal on it. It’s a large-scale trafficking operation- there’s no way they can avoid their downfall.”
“It’s not the Owens I want to see go down, it’s the Baldwins. To be clear, this will definitely be my father’s downfall as well, right?”
Illyd smirked at the desperation on her face. Before her expression could harden, he leaned in and whispered, “Of course.”
He smelled like cheap cigarettes. But in contrast with the scent, his manicured nails and arrogant demeanor revealed that he was as aristocratic as could be.
“Drug smuggling is a felony, and while you’ll probably get leeway on account of being an informant, you’ll face forfeiture of property and even the death penalty just for being related to them.”
“It has to be this way.” As Natasha spoke, the words from an old diary flashed before her eyes. She continued as if making a promise to its owner. “It has to be, because I must bring down the entire Baldwin family. I swear it.”
Illyd’s red lips rose in a smooth curve. The prince, who seemed to have a personality so bad it bordered on the perverted, seemed to find the situation of a daughter wishing for her father’s downfall quite amusing. But at the same time, he hadn’t asked her why she wanted to take revenge.
Did he already know? Or did he just not want to get too deeply involved?
Natasha, after deliberating for a while, shook her head. Both options were incorrect. After all, he was none other than Illyd Orpheus Kadogan, the second prince of the Empire. At first glance, he seemed to live a hedonistic lifestyle, but he was in fact terribly uninterested in others.
The reason he didn’t ask is because he didn’t care. She wasn’t interesting enough for him to waste his time on.
‘Why would such a person accept my offer?’
Natasha looked at him with questioning eyes.
His assurances that he knew the source of the drug that pervaded the empire, and that he would help her capture its head if she helped him, were nothing more than lip service.
In truth, she didn’t really think he was going to help her- it seemed more like he was trying to make fun of her. After all, Illyd was the sort of person who could calculate the source of the medicine himself with a few commands if he chose.
But he had been willing to take her hand. And with hard evidence, she had planned the downfall of the Baldwin family, step by step- something she never could have done on her own.
And he had done it on a whim.
Natasha now began to look at him with suspicion, not curiosity.
TL/N: LMAOOOO I WAS WRONG ABOUT THE BLUSH, ILLYD YOU DIRTY DOG!!! They do have chemistry thooo~~ no way he’s forgetting her name at this point (•ᴗ-)✧ also, poor Natasha 🙁 there was no indication of a timeskip so I added a break, but it’s clearly implied what happened between her and the Marquis in this chapter… but we get more background story (her mother was not just a commoner, but also a prostitute?) and more hints to her motivation for bringing down her family. Tbh I really like Natasha’s character, I think she’s very interesting! Let me know what you think, either about her or Illyd (whose name is pronounced ih-leed, btw, idk how confusing you guys find the spelling of his name, I didn’t come up with it but what can ya do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) bc I really don’t know what to think about him yet.
