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Chapter 1
My Contract Marriage Was Interrupted
Sometimes, reality can feel more unreal than a novel.
Usually, there are two cases when that happens.
The first is when one is so lost in romance that all of reality seems like a story.
The second is when something so improbable, something you’d only expect to see in a novel, actually happens right before your eyes.
Odette Benoît Celestine.
The fourth princess of the Celestine royal family, called the royal family’s useless one, had always been careful not to fall into the first case.
From the very first memory she had, carrying the label of a bastard made it all too easy to want to indulge in fantasy and ignore reality.
Yes, it had always been like that…
“Would you consider a contract marriage with me, Your Highness?”
…Am I dreaming?
Odette blinked her almond-shaped eyes and looked up at the man standing before her.
Duke Walter Ertmann.
The head of the Ertmann ducal family, whose influence in the empire could not rise any higher.
A war hero who had recently returned after suppressing a rebellion in the north.
The terrace where they now stood was also part of the banquet hall celebrating his victorious return.
For someone like Odette—a princess no one paid attention to, a weed among royalty—there could never have been any connection to such a famous person.
And besides, Duke Ertmann had been rumored to be romantically involved with the third princess.
Yet here he was, proposing to her.
And he used the words “contract marriage.”
Odette, unable to believe her ears, asked cautiously:
“Excuse me, but are you sure you have the right person?”
“Odette Benoît Celestine. I want you.”
Ah, so it wasn’t a mistake.
Odette let out a short sigh at the fact that he had even used her middle name, Benoît, perfectly.
“My apologies. Since you just returned to the capital, I thought perhaps you might have confused me with someone else.”
“If I looked like a fool who couldn’t even identify the person he intends to propose to, I apologize.”
“That’s not what I meant. It’s just… so sudden.”
Sudden didn’t even begin to cover it—it was utterly unrealistic.
Walter Ertmann…
It almost felt like she was dreaming.
But it couldn’t be a dream. His face was too real, too detailed.
Eyes of jade green, staring at her so emotionlessly it was almost chilling.
Hair as black as midnight, praised in newspapers until one was sick of it, and an air so rigid it seemed he had never smiled in his life.
Yet, from that stillness, his sculpted, statue-like features stood out even more.
There’s no way I could remember Duke Ertmann’s face in such detail.
She had only ever glimpsed him from afar.
She had only just noticed the color of his eyes.
So this could not be a dream. Surely not…
…a contract marriage?
Walter’s expression was cynical, bored, and detached—hardly the face of someone proposing marriage.
Could it be that the intention behind the proposal had changed without him realizing it?
Odette’s mind was in chaos.
Everything was confusing, but what confused her most was the very thing he had proposed:
A contract marriage.
For reasons unknown, the reason she was standing there was because of that contract marriage.
The problem was that the person standing in front of her—Walter Ertmann—was absolutely, positively, under no circumstances someone she wanted to be tied to.
Marrying someone rumored to be involved with the third princess?
Impossible.
After hesitating, she asked:
“Have we met before?”
“If Your Highness does not remember, then we have not.”
“Then you cannot know me well. Why are you proposing to me? If you have no convincing reason, I will report your rudeness to His Majesty.”
When Odette narrowed her large eyes and spoke sharply, Walter’s sharp gaze softened slightly.
Almost as if he were amused.
“Does a proposal need a reason? I want you. That is reason enough.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“That is something we can remedy from now on, isn’t it?”
“What nonsense…”
“Call it nonsense if you like. But I think it’s not a bad offer.”
Walter interrupted her mid-sentence and added, his signature arrogant gaze fixed on her:
“I hear that within a few days, His Majesty will arrange a position as the second wife for a sixty-year-old border count. Naturally, the child of His Majesty would be chosen for that role. And the obvious choice is… the illegitimate fourth princess, Odette Benoît Celestine, with no mother or relatives to back her up.”
“If you don’t secure a suitable marriage partner immediately, you’ll end up marrying someone old enough to be your father and leave for the harsh borderlands, won’t you, Princess?”
“…You’re right.”
In the end, Odette admitted her situation.
If asked whether she needed a marriage partner, she could not deny it.
She had to quickly find a suitable partner to avoid being sold off by her father.
The reason she was attending this banquet today was solely for that purpose.
“But that’s my concern. I appreciate your interest, but I already have someone I wish to marry.”
“I know. Count Louis Clovis.”
Odette’s eyes widened, stunned that he had noticed.
“How could you…?”
“With that gaze so clearly fixed on one person, how could I not notice? Even if I were Count Clovis, I would have known.”
Odette’s face burned red.
A man’s hand touched her cheek—cooler than the night air, yet soft and gentle, as if applying cream, brushing delicately across her skin.
A tenderness completely unlike the arrogance he had shown until moments ago.
“I know who occupies Your Highness’s heart, and that today you intended to propose to him.”
In Walter’s eyes, there was a hint of sadness, as if he were telling a very tragic story.
Odette felt a slight discomfort but quickly pushed the feeling aside and tried to push him away.
“…I don’t know how you know all that, but shouldn’t you step aside? The Count will be here soon, and I will be with him—”
“You seem mistaken, Your Highness. If I had intended to step aside willingly, would I even have come here?”
But his reply was colder than before.
“As I said, I intend to marry you. Somehow, no matter what it takes.”
He seemed determined not to miss his chance.
“What… is he saying…”
Odette muttered in confusion, stopping abruptly.
Only then did she realize that Walter had moved much closer than before.
And with his back to the door, anyone outside might have thought they were engaged in an intimate act.
Just as she tried to push him away, the door opened, and the face she had been waiting for appeared.
Louis Clovis.
“Your Highness, here—”
But he could not finish. It wasn’t because of her.
He had recognized who was shielding her.
“Oh, I didn’t realize Duke Ertmann was here. My apologies. I’ll leave you to enjoy your time.”
Louis greeted politely and quickly left, leaving Odette behind.
“….”
The terrace was once again just the two of them.
Looking down at Odette, the intruder smiled faintly.
“Now that the unwelcome guest is gone… shall we start again, Princess?”
About our marriage.
Odette Benoît Celestine.
The fourth daughter of the Celestine royal family, a bastard no one paid attention to.
That was the name she had carried for twenty-six years.
Her mother had been a palace maid.
Of course, being a palace maid meant she might have been minor nobility or from a fallen noble family.
But there was no way to learn more.
She had been weakly born and died shortly after giving birth to Odette. No one in the palace told Odette anything about her mother.
If not for her silver hair, inherited from her father the Emperor, she likely would not even have been acknowledged as a princess.
Thrown into the palace with no protector, Odette grew up without a shield.
“My mother said you’re no different from street orphans. Pathetic!”
“And don’t think you’re like us just because you carry the name Celestine.”
Her older siblings, especially the second prince and third princess born to Queen Katarina, often mocked and bullied her.
Perhaps they thought this would break Odette, who grew like a weed.
In appearance, it might have seemed to work. Odette endured verbal abuse and even being splashed with tea, yet only smiled foolishly.
“How could I be like my siblings…? I’m just a bastard.”
Odette, the true palace weed, was known to the world.
But she had a secret wish:
Someday, I want to leave the palace and live quietly.
Quietly, for a long time.
Even if as a wildflower.
She wanted to live happily, without being trampled by anyone.
Yet this simple wish was the hardest for her.
Being born into the royal family meant being noticed from the moment she opened her eyes.
Merely existing gave her a stake in the line of succession, a powerful card. Naturally, the royal family was divided into factions over succession.
The crown prince Cedric, born to the late empress, and the second prince Blake, backed by Queen Katarina.
Secretly, Odette aligned herself with Cedric.
Holding the card of succession without the power to protect herself would only result in being used and dying miserably.
“I will be your aide, brother. Since you often leave the palace, I can help monitor the palace and the capital for you.”
Cedric would occasionally test her with subtle questions.
“You were born into the royal family too, Odette. It wouldn’t hurt to dream a little.”
But Odette always answered the same:
“I’m fine. Dreams or anything else don’t matter; when we die, nothing remains.”
No matter how wealthy or powerful, death reduces everything to dust.
Odette wanted to live a long, peaceful life. She wanted love and a happy family.
For that, she sided with Crown Prince Cedric. If she became his aide, he would help prevent her from being sold off in a political marriage.
But even under a shield, one is not completely safe from the sun.
Three months after Cedric left on a border inspection mission, Odette faced a crisis.
“His Majesty intends to arrange the border count’s second wife, I hear?”
“Queen Katarina thinks it’s about time Princess Odette is married off…”
Thanks to Queen Katarina’s schemes, an unwanted political marriage was suddenly looming.
