“What brings you—”
“Dampierre.”
The valet at the entrance glanced up at him, then—without so much as a reply—clicked open the locked door. Olivier let out a hollow laugh. Where had he stashed his manners? Suppressing his rising irritation, he mounted the steps in brisk strides.
The sight above was an even more ridiculous spectacle. Five or six servants stood in a row to receive him, yet each one merely stared blankly at Olivier with uniformly flat, expressionless faces.
“Not even a greeting?”
Olivier spat out sarcastically, but all that returned was a peculiar silence. As if they had known he was coming all along, they showed not the slightest hint of surprise, merely standing in a row like perfectly aligned chess pieces.
“We have been expecting you.”
The servant guided him in without changing expression by a fraction. Following the head servant with brisk strides, Olivier cast a sweeping glance around the interior—spare, yet extravagant.
Glancing at the tapestry hanging on the wall, Olivier recognized it at once as a precious treasure passed down over centuries and narrowed his eyes.
How could something rarely seen even in an art gallery be here...?
The servant led him past the drawing room and parlor, beyond the study and a small guest chamber, finally halting before a large door at the innermost end. Olivier let out another hollow laugh.
“Receiving a guest in the bedchamber? What difference is there from a courtesan?”
“His Grace would ask that you refrain from such uncouth speech.”
Olivier furrowed his brow.
“How would I know if he isn’t already stripped bare inside? Whoever your master is, he is utterly mad—”
“Duke, do come in.”
Just then, a soft voice called out from inside the door. Olivier stopped short, sifting through his memory for a moment. It was a voice somehow familiar.
“Step aside.”
In the end, Olivier all but shoved the servant aside and grasped the doorknob with his own hand. Pressing the smooth brass handle in his palm in one swift motion, he threw the heavy door wide open.
“Duke Olivier Dampierre is entering.”
From behind him, the servant quietly announced.
As Olivier entered the room slowly, his face twisted in distaste. The purpose of this damned house—or rather, he could fully surmise that it was intended solely for debauched sexual escapades.
Luxurious carpets from distant lands, extravagant porcelain, and all manner of excessive ornaments garish enough to hurt the eyes...
Most of all, the sight to behold was a monumental bed large enough for seven or eight to lie upon at once. It seemed an attempt to evoke some sensual atmosphere, but to Olivier’s eyes, it looked like nothing more than a mosquito net dyed red.
And that shadow seated there, scarcely clad, was undoubtedly a loathsome vermin.
“Ha...”
Even without that, the room, red on every side, was suffocatingly hot and stifling. It was April, when flower buds were just beginning to bloom, yet judging by how fiercely the fire in the fireplace roared, they must have stoked it without end. It was an obvious ploy to make him shed even a single layer, and Olivier had not the slightest intention of obliging.
Instead, he folded his arms tightly. Frock coat, cravat, lambskin gloves, and a cane gripped all the tighter lest he leave it behind. While he stood fully armed as if preparing for battle, the shadow on the bed glided into motion.
“I thought you wouldn’t come unless I provoked you. Olivier. Your temper is like a flame, after all.”
With a soft rustle of fabric, Mademoiselle R revealed herself.
“What...”
Bewilderment flashed across Olivier’s face.
Damn it. It was a face he knew all too well.
If it was her... Yes, her promise of funds for the New World investment would certainly not be an empty check. Olivier bit down hard, feeling like a beast caught in a trap.
* * *
Save for the sound of firewood crackling in the fireplace, Olivier lost his words for a long moment as he looked at her face, until finally he furrowed his brow.
“Why are you doing this?”
His thoughts snapped apart. This was someone he ought not to be seeing. At the very least, she should not have received him clad in a négligée that left her stripped bare, everything so plainly visible...
“Olivier Dampierre.”
She murmured as if in a dream.
“Do you remember? That time when you... me...”
“Enough with the delusions. We are not on such terms that we should see each other like this.”
Olivier cut her off. He truly did not wish to give her even a single moment’s leverage.
Mademoiselle R murmured as if at a loss.
“How can you still be so unchanged? So uniformly cold, so cruel.”
Olivier responded icily.
“I am the one with questions. I had thought you might finally have learned some dignity, yet you are still wallowing in the mud.”
“Those words... wound me.”
She lowered her head as though she might cry at any moment. Tears gathered at the tips of her trembling brows.
“But I know. You had no choice but to give me up.”
“Utter madness.”
Olivier grimaced in disgust. His grandmother, Eleonore Dampierre, had also been given to extreme leaps of logic, but this... this was truly irrational.
She was a woman who already kept innumerable men of Ejyon society beneath her heel. Some had even wagered their very lives to win her.
Be that as it may, Olivier simply wanted to commit that woman to a madhouse as quickly as possible.
“Oli.”
She called to him with a tender light in her eyes. There had been a time when they were close enough to address each other so casually. That much, at least, was true.
“You used to say I was beautiful.”
But now, Olivier was losing his patience. Sweeping his eyes over her with deliberate contempt, he furrowed his brow.
“What difference is there from a well-groomed beast?”
“Don’t look at me with such scorn, Oli.”
“If you didn’t do things worthy of scorn from the start, there would be no need.”
Eyes brimming with deep revulsion stared coldly down at Mademoiselle R before he turned away.
“I have no time to waste on cheap trash. Farewell.”
As Olivier strode across the room, Mademoiselle R raised her voice.
“You truly won’t regret this? After treating me like this?”
His boot, advancing without hesitation, stopped dead. Slowly turning around, Olivier fired back sharply.
“Why, will you give me money, then? How much?”
As he advanced with a sneer, stride after stride, Mademoiselle R faltered and retreated.
His voice grew colder with the nauseating feeling welling up inside him. All that remained of their relationship, already reduced to ashes, was a profound revulsion that had gained even more weight from this day forth.
Mademoiselle R gritted her teeth.
“Oli. Do I not know you? A man who exploits the scandals of high society yet whose own bed is cold. You find the scent of perfume revolting. A man too fastidious to properly meet anyone, living a tedious life.”
Even as the half-naked woman spewed abuse, Olivier looked down at her without altering his expression by a hair. Having listened blankly, he muttered as if he had lost all interest.
“The state of my bed is my own affair; I decline your needless concern. More than that...”
He gestured pointedly downward with his eyes, then gave a slight shrug.
“I can certainly say I feel no stirrings on that end. You come so cheap that even the appetite for arousal is spoiled.”
“Oli!”
The temperature in the room boiled up suffocatingly. Unable to shake him no matter what she said or did, Mademoiselle R trembled and shrieked in fury.
“You—broken as you are—who could you possibly love? You don’t believe in such sentimental nonsense!”
For an instant, a faint crack streaked across his porcelain-like face. Yet Olivier erased the fleeting emotion as if nothing had happened.
After pondering briefly, Olivier suddenly spoke.
“No, did I not tell you? I am to be married soon.”
* * *
A silence like the aftermath of a bomb blanketed the room.
Barely recovering from the shock, Mademoiselle R murmured with effort.
“You, speak of married life? Don’t make me laugh. It will be a match arranged by Eleonore, obvious enough. What could you possibly do with a woman like that?”
“Well, that is none of your concern.”
Olivier donned a relaxed smile. So composed was his expression that Mademoiselle R fell into confusion.
“I shall soon be a bridegroom; I cannot remain in such a sordid place any longer.”
Olivier tilted his head at an angle and leisurely crossed his arms. His face had wholly regained its courteous, relaxed smile.
“Olivier, I beg you.”
Her body, exposed so brazenly that it made little difference whether she fastened or unfastened her clothes, approached as though she would throw herself at him at any moment. Olivier quickly stepped back, widening the distance between them.
“Enough.”
When he even raised his cane to point at her, Mademoiselle R whimpered.
“Olivier, I was a fool. I realized my heart too late; I regret it. Please.”
“Madame. Step aside.”
“Oli, don’t go.”
She blocked the door before Olivier’s eyes. In her desperate movement, the négligée that had barely been hanging on slipped down, revealing a body left without a single veil.
As though even touching her with his hand would be repulsive, Olivier lifted his cane and ruthlessly shoved her shoulder aside with its tip.
“Even my hand is loath to touch you? How can you humiliate me so?”
Even as her despair gradually turned to rage, Olivier gripped the door handle and replied lightly.
“Since you know no shame, I shall open the door myself.”
He threw the door wide open with a resounding bang. The gazes of the servants lined up before the door flicked toward them for the briefest instant before hastily dropping.
“Do not drag another’s life into the gutter with you. Resolve your unsightly domestic affairs with a family court judge. Or perhaps the metropolitan police...”
“Oli!”