I Just Needed Someone to Hate - Episode 2.4

Vivianne faltered, unable to finish her sentence. A ringing in her ears felt foreign. One side of her face burned.

Vivianne realized she was sitting on the cold floor. Her trembling hand touched her cheek, and her wavering gaze looked up. Was she dreaming?

The Marchioness, with a fierce expression, was looking down at Vivianne.

“You must have thought it was a great honor for me to meet you.”

Her fiancé’s words from that day, which she had forgotten, came to mind.

“But if that’s the case, you should have gone to your parents and gotten their permission first.”

“Did you know that the condition for me receiving the Mergoville title was for you to carry my child in your womb?”

No.

Vivianne shook her head, denying it. It couldn’t be. It must have been a nasty joke from her fiancé.

“Mother.”

Vivianne grabbed the hem of her mother’s evening gown and said,

“…Isn’t it? What Ludwig Rex said, all of it. That it was a condition of my engagement, all of it.”

There was no answer. A chilling voice she had never heard before made her hand lose its grip.

“If your fiancé is out and about, it’s your fault for not behaving appropriately. What kind of noble lady cries about that like it’s something to be proud of?”

“Is it because of Linus, brother?”

Olivia Mergoville was her mother, but she was also the mother of her brother, Linus. If that was the reason, she could understand. It wouldn’t be entirely the worst.

“The Chairman of the Aristocratic Council has connections with the staff of the Kellerhill Staff College, is that why?”

“If you thought that a candidate for a high-speed promotion in the Central Police Agency would be changed for such a trivial reason as you, then you couldn’t be more naive.”

“Then why?”

The Marchioness didn’t answer and moved towards the door. Vivianne asked again, with more force. She needed to know.

“Then why, Mother? Is it because of the parliamentary seat that the Speaker of the Senate promised? The Mergoville family was doing fine even after Father was stripped of his parliamentary seat.”

“……”

“Answer me, Mother. Everyone lived as usual in the mansion in the capital.”

Everything would be the same as it had always been, so what were they lacking…!

“What do you think it was for?”

With her back turned, the Marchioness’s calm words pierced Vivianne’s heart more sharply than any dagger.

“What do you think it was all for?”

This was the sound of her heart sinking. Vivianne’s heart, which had stopped for a moment, began to beat rapidly as if it were about to break down.

“I asked why our Mergoville family, with so much debt, could live in this palace like nobles from 200 years ago, even while being looked down upon by the Rex family.”

Debt? And looked down upon? Vivianne was speechless, then stammered,

“Mother, our Mergoville family’s estate…”

“How could mere hand-made wool fabrics compare to factory-made ones? And it’s not like this entire land has a climate suitable for growing grapes, so we can’t aim for luxury with the brewery business.”

“……”

“There was also talk of developing the land into a tourist attraction. But doing so would make us a laughingstock, not an equal in-law.”

Vivianne doubted what she was hearing. Fragments of words scattered in her mind and slowly reassembled.

“I thought of growing something on that land that was more competitive than grapes.”

“……”

“…Someone that anyone, even with great pride, would need and shake hands with.”

“……”

“A perfect noble lady.”

A perfect noble lady.

That’s what people called Vivianne. It was also what Vivianne comforted herself with when she found this stifling life difficult to bear.

Her existence evoked nostalgia for when the monarchy held absolute power, guaranteed her fiancé’s identity, and attracted attention wherever she went.

But all of that was a lie. The world she knew as a source of pride and comfort was just a means to raise her price tag.

She should have thought it was strange. So that she wouldn’t rebel against her husband, they didn’t teach her how wide the world was.

They instilled comfort and arrogance in her so that she would settle in aristocratic society and not dare to escape. They hid her hands in gloves so that they wouldn’t develop calluses from the world, and made her wait for a husband to hold those hands.

So that she wouldn’t run away from home herself, so that she could only bear and raise the child of a depraved husband.

She lived in such a world, thinking it was paradise.

Did her fiancé know this? Was that why he easily took other women into his arms?

So, so that was why her life was like that…

“Send a letter to the Rex family as soon as it dawns tomorrow, and go to that mansion before afternoon tea to beg for forgiveness.”

She thought her family was wealthy, but it was her father’s bluff. The estate was unprofitable, her father had been stripped of his seat in the Senate long ago, and she was about to hand over the title to her fiancé in exchange for carrying his child.

Her fiancé, who had told her all of this, had many women and had despised her.

“I’ll… marry someone else, Mother. Not him.”

Everything was a lie.

The Marchioness ruthlessly tore off Vivianne’s hand, which was grabbing the hem of her evening gown.

“If you are Ludwig Rex’s fiancée, it becomes a point of pride that you frequent the hotel run by the Guchi family. Your sparkling tiara, that is.”

Vivianne bit her lower lip until it was about to burst, trying not to cry.

“From the moment that’s not the case, it becomes clear why your new marriage will be terrible. That is the value of the noble lady I created.”

“……”

“Now that you’re old enough to know, listen carefully and don’t act rashly.”

The door closed. At the same time, the clock tower’s chimes, signaling the hour, could be heard faintly.

It was her twenty-second birthday.

❖ ❖ ❖

Vivianne didn’t want to go begging for mercy from Ludwig Rex, and she certainly didn’t want to become his wife.

Vivianne had never been so afraid of tomorrow coming. That might be why she was walking aimlessly through the night streets.

The family jewels in her pochette jingled with her heavy breathing, seeming to seep into the footprints on the frozen ground. The sound was only audible to her, but it was as loud as her heartbeat, as if it would shake the world.

As she walked and walked, Vivianne kept looking back. Even though she could no longer see the Mergoville mansion’s brilliant lights, the perfect daughter in her heart found her way home as naturally as breathing.

‘It’s fortunate that the owner’s lounge is on the first floor.’

She escaped the mansion building through the balcony there, choosing secluded paths in the garden to get out of the Marquis’s residence. It was fortunate that the Marquis family’s stone building, which she had once been proud of, was unrealistically grand.

Until the Marquis and Marchioness broke into the locked owner’s lounge and discovered the swaying curtains and open window, she was free.

‘Where should I go, how should I go?’

She didn’t know where to go, and she was even more unsure of what she could do to live as someone other than the Marquis family’s daughter. Besides, she knew very little about living outside the house. Her only friend, Madison, was not in the Empire right now.

‘Is it safe at night?’

She was a little far from home now, but it was a wealthy neighborhood, so there was little risk of becoming a target for crime. But if she strayed even a little from the places she knew, there could be threatening people, from vagrants to robbers.

As soon as she thought that, a police car patrolling the capital stopped beside Vivianne. As the window opened, Vivianne pulled her wide-brimmed hat down and turned her gaze elsewhere.

Would they recognize her? Her heart beat fast.

“We’re asking because you’re walking the night streets without company. If you’d like us to escort you to your residence…”

I’m fine. She just had to say those words, but her lips only moved, and no words came out. If there was someone among those people who knew her, someone who would recognize her voice, then…

“Would it be okay if she had company?”

It wasn’t her who answered, but someone else. A dialect that sounded quite familiar to Vivianne.

“Ah, isn’t that Count Edmund Colt?”

Vivianne learned the name of the Prime Minister’s only son for the first time.

“Miss. Is the person next to you your companion?”

She hadn’t noticed his presence; where had he been following her from, and how? Was it a deliberate approach, as her fiancé had said, or a trick of fate?

It didn’t matter. Whatever his purpose, she needed company. As their eyes met, he nodded slightly. Vivianne answered.

“Yes.”

Vivianne didn’t care if this man was someone who might shoot her with a pistol, like he had on the terrace back then.

No more, no matter what.

The patrolling police car slowly drove away. Vivianne realized anew that this man, who was facing her, was much taller than her.

In the darkness, he looked like a savior.

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