Chapter 1
The second son of the Pinsche family brings misfortune wherever he goes.
Rachel recalled the most famous rumor about her cousin and looked across at the very subject of that rumor. Her cousin Isaac Pinsche, the subject of that absurd rumor, wore a gloomy face that suited it all too well, staring only at the floor.
The carriage jolted as it sped along, forcing Rachel to sway violently in her seat. Soon, excuses and apologies drifted from the driver’s seat, claiming the rain-slicked road had made slipping unavoidable. Rachel muttered curses under her breath and straightened herself.
“Look at this weather, Isaac. The moment you decided to go to this party, it started pouring. …Poor Miss Grayson.”
Anyone could see it was mockery aimed at that absurd, insulting rumor. But Isaac showed no meaningful reaction to Rachel’s words.
He had no interest whatsoever in the party, or in the woman called Miss Grayson who was its host. It was a party attendance forced upon him entirely by his grandmother, against his own will.
He had only learned that he had to attend this birthday party today—this morning.
And he had only learned around noon today that he would have to accompany his terrible cousin who mocked him with every word she uttered. …Damn it.
“It’s the first party she’s hosting, so she must have prepared so diligently, and then suddenly this rain. I really do feel for Miss Grayson.”
Rachel said twice that Miss Grayson was pitiful, dripping with sympathy that she wouldn’t spare even an ounce of for Isaac.
In the meantime, the carriage that had briefly stopped began moving again. The coachman soothed his irritated horses on the ruined road and hurried toward Dilton Manor, the old mansion where the party was being held.
Pulling a mirror from her bosom to check if her hair was disheveled, Rachel muttered,
“Fortunately, I’ve attended countless parties that I’ve ruined. I’ll have to greet her and tell her that story. It’ll be quite a comfort to her. Won’t it?”
It wasn’t particularly directed at Isaac. So Isaac kept his gaze fixed out the window and his mouth shut.
Isaac thought of the woman Rachel had been chattering about incessantly since earlier.
Yes. That wealthy woman.
According to Rachel’s explanation, she was the woman scheduled to be the happiest today, the complete opposite of him.
Sasha Grayson.
She was said to be the niece of Duke Grayson and the cousin of the young marquis. That woman who had lost her parents in an accident when she was young and grown up like a hothouse flower under her grandmother’s excessive care.
It was only after holding her grandmother’s funeral that she could open the mansion and appear before people, so perhaps “prison” was a more fitting description than “hothouse.”
“By the way, those aren’t your clothes, are they?”
Rachel, who had been prattling on about Miss Grayson without being asked, looked Isaac up and down and asked.
Isaac, admiring his cousin’s sharp eye for only now noticing his unsightly appearance, answered, “Yes.”
“Good heavens. The arms and legs are all too short. Don’t you have even one proper suit? Who did you borrow it from?”
“It was one my brother had ordered.”
Isaac answered nonchalantly, and at his answer, Rachel’s face, which had been full of mockery, quickly stiffened.
Rachel soon rolled her eyes and muttered lowly, “Ah, Edmund.”
“If things had gone as planned, it would have been Edmund, not you, riding in this carriage with me.”
“…Edmund wouldn’t have accompanied someone like you in the first place. Rachel Wox.”
A sharp reaction finally slipped out from Isaac, who had been ignoring her words the entire time.
Far from being flustered, Rachel raised her eyebrows and sneered at him.
“Oh, really? Anyway, Edmund would have handled this much better than you. That heiress would have shown interest in him at once. I hope she doesn’t laugh at you when she sees you, Isaac. Goodness, how can you not have even one proper suit? Is your wardrobe filled with nothing but military uniforms?”
“….”
“But you’re going to take off that uniform soon anyway. Aren’t you? The 4th Infantry Regiment. My friend says it’s a place where only dead-end posts are gathered. Old soldiers nearing retirement, or officers who have fallen out of favor with their superiors and had their promotions blocked like you….”
“Wox.”
Rachel’s excited chatter stopped. Isaac, who had been quiet the entire time, looked down coldly at his cousin, who was taking out her frustrations on him.
Yes. This was truly nothing more than Rachel venting her anger. It was the figure of someone taking out her frustrations on the unlucky Isaac to avoid the discomfort of having to accompany a cousin she found awkward and detestable, and to avoid facing her own recklessness in having brought up someone already dead.
“Rachel Wox.”
Rachel didn’t answer whether Isaac called her name coldly or not; instead, she glared at him with a sharp expression.
Silence flowed for a moment. The two said nothing and glared at each other for some time, but it was Isaac who broke the silence and moved first.
When he shouted something to the driver’s seat through the window, the carriage soon stopped in the middle of the muddy road.
The door was roughly thrown open next.
“Isaac!”
Rachel shouted at the back of her cousin descending from the carriage without looking back, as if it were absurd.
“Are you crazy, Isaac Pinsche!”
He paid no heed to her shouting and walked away in the pouring rain, soon quickly growing distant with large strides befitting his massive frame.
Rachel glared at the retreating back of her cousin, who had refused her company by getting out himself rather than making her get out, grinding her teeth.
“That fool. Even if he walks there alone, without an invitation….”
Rachel’s face, which had been muttering, soon stiffened palely.
…Ah, damn it.
“You can’t turn back now that you’ve taken the invitation, Isaac!”
＊＊＊
The rain poured down without cease, pattering.
Getting rained on was nothing to make a fuss about for him. He was a veteran soldier who had endured countless environments harsher than this.
The mansion where the party was being held, Dilton Manor, was atop that hill. Isaac turned off the road that was completely covered in mud and onto a side path where bushes grew thickly.
As he walked in the rain, he saw several carriages that had dropped off their masters turning around to go back.
He looked just in case, but the carriage Rachel was in was nowhere to be seen yet. She was probably waiting for him to give up and come back.
“What on earth? Someone walked here?”
So Isaac had no choice but to arrive at the mansion on foot.
After walking almost twenty minutes without rest, Isaac was soaked from head to toe. His small suit with its short sleeves clung to his entire body, soaked by the rain.
It was a wretched sight.
“…Ah, good heavens. I’ll have to call for Mr. Jason.”
The mansion’s servant, who had snorted at the young page’s whisper, turned pale the moment he saw Isaac. He soon left his post with a dumbfounded face, saying he would fetch the butler.
Only the young page and Isaac remained. The page looked up at Isaac, soaked by the rain, as if seeing something strange, and asked, “Did you really walk here?”
Isaac did not answer the child.
Before long, the mansion’s young butler returned with the servant. The butler Jason, just as the servant had done earlier, opened his eyes wide the moment he saw Isaac, and soon quickly ushered him inside.
The floor that the servants had painstakingly polished to a gleam just for this day was smeared with muddy water dripping from his clothes everywhere Isaac walked.
Beyond the back of the young butler, who had turned ashen, the hall with yellow light seeping out could be dimly seen. The party was already in progress.
“Excuse me, but I think I must check the invitation.”
The butler requested cautiously, and Isaac mechanically pulled the invitation from his breast and handed it to him.
While the young butler carefully checked the wet invitation, the servant standing beside him cautiously called, “Mr. Holton.” The two men then exchanged a somewhat meaningful glance.
“Is something wrong with the invitation?”
Without warning, Isaac cast his shadow over them and asked. The servant who had been exchanging glances with Jason opened his mouth slightly at the wretched and gloomy-looking figure and shook his head.
The servant desperately cast his gaze to the butler again with frightened eyes at the stranger’s overwhelming build and the oppressive, gloomy air he radiated.
It was their young master’s birthday party that must end properly and successfully. They knew all too well how much effort their master had put into this party. A full two months. It was a party prepared over two months.
“Er, there is no problem with the invitation, however.”
Jason said to Isaac with a relatively sociable-looking smile.
“I fear it would be difficult for you to enter in that state.”
Isaac looked down at the butler speaking carefully yet quite distinctly to him. Then he slowly looked over his own appearance.
He should have considered himself lucky to merely be wet from rain; having pushed his way through bushes, he was halfway soaked in muddy water.
“So first, let us prepare separate clothes….”
“Ah.”
Isaac cut off the butler’s words as if realizing something and opened his mouth.
“…So you’re saying I can’t enter looking like this?”
In a low, grating voice, Isaac muttered as if reciting. While smiling.
It was truly a delighted smile. Unable to contain the joy seeping out, Isaac laughed, and when the already unusual-looking man laughed gloomily, the servant grabbed the butler’s sleeve tightly with a blue face.
That man is bad news. He absolutely must not be let in.
“Jason!”
Just then, the door to the hall across the way opened, and a woman with a neat impression poked her face out.
“Bring some more dry towels! And a few more umbrella stands too…! Ah? Who is that?”
Before Jason could explain anything, the woman came out from inside and quickly approached. She was a young woman with glossy, wheat-colored hair elegantly twisted up, wearing a luxurious dress.
As she approached, the butler quickly whispered to her and explained the situation.
That woman.
Isaac recognized at a glance that she was Sasha Grayson. The wealthy heiress Rachel had bored him talking about the entire way here.
“Ah. So that’s why you’ve left him standing here like this? …Jason.”
Before the butler could even finish speaking, she frowned and looked at him as if scolding him.
“What are you doing when we should be assigning servants right away to give him a room?”
“No, miss. I was just about to….”
“…I suppose it will be difficult to attend in this state.”
Isaac cut in, interrupting their continuing conversation.
Pointing out the obvious fact the two men had wanted to point out moments ago, Isaac spoke to her.
“No, sir.”
Then she turned to him with a resolute face and spoke.
“Please forgive the servants’ discourtesy. The butler in particular has only recently taken over duties from his predecessor and is quite inexperienced in many ways. I shall give you a room right away. And lend you new clothes.”
Fucking hell.
This isn’t what I wanted.
“….”
Of course, he couldn’t voice that unfiltered regret as it was. Though Isaac had a terrible reputation in social circles in many ways, he did possess the bare minimum of social skills.
“Jason, what are you doing? Call someone right away!”
Not long after the woman pressed the butler somewhat irritably, two servants approached them.
Just as Isaac was about to follow them with a resigned face, a small handkerchief was suddenly held out to him from the side.
It was that woman, Miss Grayson, wearing a smile that seemed both appropriately troubled and delighted.
“Thank you for coming all the way here in this weather. …Mr. Pinsche.”
Isaac stared blankly down at her as her red lips moved, uttering his surname.
Then, as if he had seen something repulsive, he jerked his gaze away from her face unnaturally.
Whether he did so or not, Miss Grayson said to Isaac’s retreating figure, turning away without responding to his silence, as if encouraging him,
“I’ll wait for you inside. Take your time getting ready.”
Whether he answered her words or not.
“You must attend the party.”
She continued.
“…Of course. Most certainly.”