Chapter 2
“No, Joanna. Trust me. That can’t be true.”
“Then you go instead.”
“Didn’t you want to be a bride? That place will be full of precious jewels and lace. They’ll welcome you as a bride.”
“They say they behead women who displease them and hang them outside the castle. Bell. My sweet sister. Please save me. Bell. Please…”
“You were the one who said no changing your mind later!”
At Bell’s cold words, Joanna glared at her with venom. Bell calmly met that gaze with an attitude that suggested Joanna’s glare meant nothing to her.
This further infuriated Joanna, who whispered with bloodshot eyes full of tears:
“Your ‘secret,’ does anyone else know?”
The color drained from Bell’s face for the first time. Bell gritted her teeth and glared at Joanna while trembling.
Joanna laughed cruelly. Bell clutched her skirt as if she would tear the fabric.
“You!”
“Next Friday at 9 AM. If you don’t go, everyone in the world will know your ‘secret.'”
Having said her piece, Joanna lightly left the house. Left alone in the room, Bell trembled like an abandoned child.
Her gaze searched the empty space in shock, and her red lips exhaled rough breaths from crying. Bell had to comfort herself with an injured face for a long time.
That was last week.
She had told Randolph and others that she had to shoulder the 18 million berks alone, but didn’t share unnecessary information about being blackmailed into entering the ducal household.
“There are plenty of rich men proposing to you. For them, 18 million berks would be nothing, so why are you hesitating?”
“As I’ve told you many times, I’m already married.”
Bell rejected all date proposals from handsome men, wealthy men, and high-status men, not because they wouldn’t benefit her, but because she thoroughly avoided men.
What Bell loved wasn’t men, but money.
“Right, I forgot you’re already married. Your husband was crisp banknotes.”
“You just realized that? I thought my last investment was going well, but who knew the heavens would backstab me like this. By the way, that 100,000 berks you borrowed from me is now 103,480 berks with interest. The longer you take to pay it back, the worse it’ll be for you.”
“Miser.”
Randolph shuddered in disgust, and Bell shrugged.
“Do you know anything about the House of Balzac? You travel to the capital often.”
“The Grand Ducal family? They’re famous. Bad rumors.”
“Why?”
“People go in, but no one comes out.”
Her face instantly contorted at the chilling news delivered in such a casual tone.
Randolph continued seriously:
“Mercenaries regularly enter that estate, but while people go in, hardly anyone comes out alive. They can’t even recover the bodies, so mercenaries who go there are essentially going to their deaths. They compensate well with money, but I don’t understand why they need mercenaries so badly when they have knights on the estate. I hear they don’t even freely admit maids into the castle. Anyway, the family is quite strange.”
“Is there anything else about the castle?”
“They say you can only leave by dying or going insane. Apparently, the rumors are rampant in the capital.”
It was the same thing Joanna had said. Bell maintained a serious face, silently tapping the table. When Randolph started to look concerned, she spoke:
“Do you know anyone in the underground economy?”
“Underground economy? What for?”
“To hire someone to sell off that bitch Joanna. If we sell her to that perverted fat old man who proposed last time and marry her off, couldn’t we get 18 million berks?”
“Bell! Even as a joke, how can you say that about your own sibling!”
Randolph, who knew nothing, scolded her. Bell snapped irritably:
“I wish it was a joke! I even submitted my resignation today, it’s driving me crazy!”
Perhaps she would use her severance pay for a funeral.
Three days later at nine o’clock, Bell Sevigne departed for the House of Balzac, known as the Beast’s Castle.
***
Clatter. Clatter.
Bell woke to the rhythmic sound of hooves and rubbed her dry face. The handbag clutched to her chest felt as reassuring as a childhood doll. More precisely, it was the stack of checks and cash inside the bag that was reassuring. “Money is the best.”
You can do anything with it, can’t you?
Bell swallowed a sigh and stared blankly out the window. Like fate, the carriage began climbing an uphill road.
Opening the window, the cold, dry air of the north rushed in. Through the window, she could see vast plains and high mountains.
“Countryside. It’s the countryside.”
After some time passed, she could see a grayish-white castle at the end of the uphill road.
It was breathtakingly beautiful, truly like something from a fairy tale. The pointed roof was a low-saturation blue, and the tall towers scattered across the roof and its romantic appearance exuded a mesmerizing presence.
“Beautiful.”
Judging by the castle alone, the rumors should have been about romantic fairy tales, not brutal crimes. A tale of a handsome prince and a maiden dreaming of love.
But Bell neither dreamed of love nor was she a maiden. She was a mature modern woman.
The carriage stopped, and soon the door opened.
“Welcome.”
A man with neatly trimmed red mustache greeted her.
With an excessively well-tailored suit and gray eyes, his white skin with visible veins reminded her of a snake.
“I am Bell Sevigne.”
Bell gracefully curtsied. Her flawless greeting was something she had learned in her affluent childhood, before her father sold his title.
“We’ve been expecting you. I am Samuel Dolchen, the butler of this place. Please feel free to call me Samuel.”
“Yes, I will.”
Samuel pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses with his white hand. His rigid impression, combined with the glasses, made her think the castle must be maintained without a speck of dust.
“Then let me first show you where you’ll be staying. We can discuss other matters after you unpack. Ah, please give me your bag. I’ll carry it for you.”
Bell handed over only her luggage bag while keeping her handbag with her assets close to her chest, smiling casually.
“It would be cumbersome. I’ll carry this myself.”
How could she possibly entrust her precious assets to someone else’s hands? She was determined to find a hiding place for her bag as soon as she reached the guest room.
She followed Samuel with clicking heels. Unlike the neat exterior, the interior was impressive with elaborate decorations.
The chandeliers with long candles and wall paintings of angels playing trumpets were almost old-fashioned.
After climbing the stairs to the third floor, Samuel opened a white-painted door in the hallway and said:
“This is Miss Sevigne’s room. If you need anything, please tell the maids. A maid named Meira will come to attend to you soon, so please wait a moment.”
“Yes, I will.”
It was a large, clean room. It had a balcony, and the high-quality carpet embroidered with a shepherd tending sheep was impressive.
‘You’ll only be able to leave by dying or going insane.’
Annoyingly, Joanna’s words came to mind at this moment. Kindness without reason always comes with a price. So forgiving the debt and providing such a room must indicate an intention to cause great suffering.
But Bell didn’t cower and stood with her back straight.
“Samuel.”
“Yes.”
“What exactly am I supposed to do here now?”
Samuel’s gray eyes seemed to scrutinize the depths of Bell. She thought his gaze was quite presumptuous for a mere butler.
“You…”
The pale-skinned butler slowly opened his mouth. Samuel paused and smiled faintly. It was a sneer or mockery, far from goodwill.
“You need to survive here.”
“Pardon?”
Bell prided herself on being quite clever, but at this unexpected answer, she stupidly asked again. Samuel repeated himself, maintaining his earlier smile.
“It’s exactly as I said. You will live here, and you need to survive.”
It was a chilling answer. Bell slightly raised her chin and deliberately asked in a stiffer tone to maintain her dignity:
“And what do I gain from that?”
“That is not for you to concern yourself with. It would be best not to ask presumptuous questions. Unless you want the winter wind from the north to freeze you.”
“Then what can I do here?”
“Figuring that out would be what you can do.”
It sounded like an ambiguous answer or a threatening warning. She felt like she had entered a witch’s house deep in the forest.
A completely different world unfolds before her, and like a hero’s adventure, unpredictable threats and tensions ripple beneath her feet. Did the hero know what enemy they were fighting?
“I’d like to meet the master of this place who paid off my debt.”
“That will be much later. You’ve come a long way, so please rest well today without any other thoughts.”
Having finished speaking, Samuel bowed politely and passed by Bell. She stared at the excessively stiff butler’s back. Then he turned around and advised:
“I forgot something, Miss Sevigne. The moment you leave the castle on your own, divine mercy will be withdrawn, and a cold blade will fall upon you. Remember that.”
Bell narrowed her eyes and twisted her lips. The butler’s cold gaze and the inexplicable smile beneath it irritated her.
“What the hell.”
Was the romantic castle actually a gingerbread house built by a witch to eat children?
Bell closed the door and after thoroughly searching the room, hid her handbag inside a pillow before unpacking. While she was half-way through organizing her clothes, there was a knock.