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Prologue
“Arson? Are you saying someone deliberately set fire to the mansion?”
My voice cracked in shock, sounding choked and broken.
Standing before the grand ducal estate engulfed in flames, my mind went completely blank, as if wiped clean with an eraser.
“I’m terribly sorry, Lady Gianna. The fire spread so quickly, we had no chance to stop it,” the duke’s butler said, bowing his head in shame.
“The flames have already consumed the entire mansion. I cannot begin to atone for failing to protect the duke’s estate…”
“If you’ve got the energy to apologize, use it to put out the fire! What do you think you’re paid for?”
I shrieked, sounding half-delirious.
The grand duke’s mansion burning down? Impossible! Absolutely unacceptable!
My contract depended on that house standing!
“Your Grace, say something! Your mansion is burning right in front of you! Are you just going to stand there?”
I clutched the arm of Duke Lupellen, shaking him violently.
Only then did the duke, who had been watching the inferno with a hardened expression, slowly part his lips.
“Someone set fire to my mansion?”
“Yes! This is arson! A crime!”
The flames reflected off his platinum hair, making it look as though his hair itself was ablaze.
“So, that means… I no longer have a home to return to?”
The Lupellen Grand Duchy’s mansion, steeped in centuries of history and tradition, was being devoured by crimson fire.
And yet—why did his expression look strangely pleased as he gazed upon his burning home?
I caught the faint smile tugging at the duke’s lips.
Has he gone mad? He’s smiling while his house burns?
Who in their right mind would grin as their ancestral mansion, passed down for generations, turned to ash?
Then, hearing his next words, I finally understood the reason behind his smile.
“With the mansion gone, it seems the contract can’t be ended after all.”
Ah. How unfortunate. His whisper slipped right into my ear, hitting me with brutal clarity. That’s when I realized the truth behind the Great Arson of the Lupellen Estate.
“No way… it can’t be…!”
In a panic, I pulled the contract from my breast pocket.
‘This contract shall remain valid until Gianna Hertin arrives at Duke Nox Lupellen’s mansion.’
The clause “until she arrives at the mansion” suddenly stood out as if written in bold.
When I lifted my head again, I saw the duke’s mouth twitching in poorly concealed delight.
So this lunatic had burned down his own mansion—just to keep our contract from ending!
“AAAAAAAAHHHHH!”
I screamed, grabbing the duke by the collar.
“You maniac! You burned your own house down just because you didn’t want the contract to end?!”
But my desperate scream was drowned out by the sound of the collapsing mansion, overwhelmed by the roaring blaze.
