I Just Needed Someone to Hate - Episode 4.1

Lady Mergoville

Edmund, who had left the villa at dawn, returned to the house near the afternoon.

Would Vivianne be awake? If so, how would she have reacted to his absence? Would the faint smell of blood on his clothes irritate her sensitive senses?

The thought made his hand, as he reached for the doorknob, tense with apprehension. Though the chill of the outside air must have seeped in by now, the woman didn’t turn around.

“Hello, Mom?”

Vivianne Mergoville stood beside the curtain that covered the balcony. From the doorway, only her back was visible.

“I know, you were worried.”

Madam Mergoville’s voice boomed from the receiver in response, so loud that he could hear the garbled sounds of the conversation.

Edmund stood there, waiting to hear what she would say. Would she say he had abandoned her, that she would now be a dutiful daughter and return home, apologize and beg?

That she was young and didn’t know any better. That she shouldn’t have tried to run away.

If the ‘real’ owner of this house he had imprisoned hadn’t dared to attempt an escape in the early hours, he wouldn’t have left Vivianne alone to tremble in anxiety.

Of all times.

“Mom.”

Vivianne opened her mouth after a long silence.

“I’m with a man.”

Her voice flowed out almost simultaneously with the question that arose on Edmund’s twisted face.

“I trust your colleagues conveyed that much by early yesterday morning. You’ve also concluded that involving the police and escalating the situation isn’t wise.”

Vivianne’s voice, chillingly calm unlike the person on the other end, created a strange sense of incongruity.

“The media doesn’t need to know, does it?”

Vivianne opened her mouth after a long silence.

“…As you said, Mother, aren’t I the Mergoville family’s most valuable asset?”

A self-deprecating laugh mixed with tears, which the other party couldn’t see. At the same time as that remark, a deathly silence descended.

“If you don’t believe me, check. See what’s in the first drawer on the left under the vanity mirror.”

Edmund, who had already begun to move, stood beside Vivianne and snatched the phone. Vivianne, seemingly unaware of his presence until now, looked up at Edmund with a startled expression.

At the same time, a voice flowed from the receiver.

-Birth control pills, of all things. Where did she even get these?

Birth control pills.

“Hello.”

His voice, lower than usual, flowed out. Vivianne reached out to grab the phone with a surprised look, but Edmund deliberately turned his shoulder, denying her the space.

-You know what you’re doing, approaching her with those intentions. I’ve confirmed that the Minister’s son is at his uncle’s estate, so someone must be behind you. But our girl is innocent…

The moment Edmund raised the receiver high in the air, Vivianne leaped into his arms as if embracing him. Nothing could be heard. Even though the words that followed must have been very important, he only saw the two eyes looking up at him.

He had thought her eyes were only red, but upon closer inspection, they were a reddish-brown with a lot of red mixed in.

Pink with a hint of orange depending on the light. A pink that could be described as a light rose. The thought that she had asked for help from another man with that noble face was somehow irritating.

The thought of birth control pills seemed to coolly organize his complicated thoughts. By then, Vivianne had taken two steps back with a troubled expression.

Click, the sound of the receiver settled in the quiet space. Edmund released his hand from the receiver, which had returned to its place, and looked at Vivianne.

“It was about a child?”

With such an innocent face, had she spread her legs for some male dog? Counting himself, the son of the Noble Assembly’s chairman, and some unknown guy, there were already three men involved with this woman.

“……”

“Whose child is it? Your fiancé? …If the father is someone else…”

“My fiancé’s mistress gave them to me.”

Vivianne walked past him and sat at the dining table. Edmund, turning around, obediently followed and sat across from her.

She took a piece of bread from a basket she had gotten from somewhere and began to cut it with a knife.

Edmund scanned the teacup and bread pieces placed in front of him, the butter and jam on top, and then looked back at Vivianne’s eyes.

“Mistress?”

“The woman who was mentioned alongside my fiancé on the radio yesterday. What was her name, Janet Bell Watkins, wasn’t it?”

“……”

“She said they might come in handy someday and gave them to me. While moving rooms with my man.”

She bit into the bread as if it were nothing. While eating like that, she looked at him intently and said.

“Why?”

Then, ‘Is there something on my face?’ she asked, looking at him. Just as he was about to open his mouth, Vivianne happened to turn her head, and the knife rolled onto the floor.

Vivianne, who had habitually waited for a footman to pick it up, seemed to be aware of what had happened in front of the saloon yesterday, pushed her chair back, and got up herself, bending down under the table.

Edmund’s hand on the tablecloth unconsciously clenched tightly. Veins bulged on the back of his wide hand.

It must have been because he remembered the innocent eyes looking up at him. He thought of the sensation of grabbing her delicate chin beneath them. His thoughts continued to the moment when he wiped her lips, which would soon be moist, with his thumb.

Soon, he seemed to feel the warmth that would be on his finger. The contact would feel like being burned.

“Anyway, it’s not about a child.”

The knife was placed on the table first, and then Vivianne’s cute head suddenly appeared above the table.

Two pink eyes cautiously scanned his face.

“Did you get angry because you thought it was a fraudulent contract?”

He silently scooped out butter, smeared it on the corner of the plate, and began to eat the triangular piece of bread diligently.

Vivianne continued to chatter.

“It doesn’t matter, does it, anyway? Whether I have a child or not, the information you want to know won’t change. You won’t have to take me to the hospital, and I won’t cause you any trouble.”

“…Are you alright? That your fiancé’s mistress presumptuously provoked you.”

Vivianne’s shoulders twitched for a moment as she got up to get a new knife. Edmund, with his head turned, continued to speak to Vivianne’s back.

“That you’re so far away from your family.”

“I don’t have a child.”

Vivianne quickly returned and sat demurely in her seat, saying. She spread jam on a piece of bread as if nothing had happened and continued.

“Wasn’t this supposed to be a time to exchange the words we wanted to hear?”

“Ah, is this what you wanted to hear? …It wasn’t what I just heard.”

Was it his imagination that the composed expression on her face seemed to crack at his words? It wasn’t as if they were going to continue this make-believe forever, so it wasn’t something to worry about. He was strangely overreacting.

“I’m not as pathetic as you think I am.”

Vivianne opened her mouth after a long silence. The small piece of bread on the plate remained untouched.

“The ones who really deserve pity are my family.”

“May I ask why?”

“Because they lost me.”

Her unwavering pride was unparalleled.

Vivianne left her meal and moved to the armchair. When Edmund cleared the plates and turned around, Vivianne was again fiddling with the channel selector knob on the radio.

“When do you plan to start what you said you wanted to do?”

“I already did.”

Edmund, recalling the bread and tea that had been on the table, scanned the trademarks drawn on their packaging. Come to think of it, they were all from stores in the nearby streets that working-class people often used. His gaze turned to Vivianne once more.

“Ah, you mean mixing with the commoners and buying breakfast?”

He couldn’t completely hide the mocking tone, and his emotions were faintly revealed.

“Um, no.”

Edmund’s gaze moved to something sparkling next to the basket. It was change placed on top of bills.

“I was curious about what coins looked like.”

“……”

“Right now, I want to mingle with people and listen to the Emperor’s New Year’s address. This is the first time it’s being broadcast on the radio, isn’t it?”

It was a pity for her, but his time was too precious to waste on such things. Just as he was thinking that, Vivianne approached, grabbed the tip of his hand, and gently pulled him.

“Let’s go. We need to go outside now to find a place with a radio to listen.”

Edmund thought it wouldn’t be bad to indulge Vivianne for a while. She wanted to do everything she wanted to do, even if it was short. If that was the ‘fun’ thing she was thinking of, he would have happily joined in.

He had been reported that she was starved for love, her family treated her like a living resource, and she was being neglected by her fiancé.

“The ones who really deserve pity are my family.”

“Why?”

“Because they lost me.”

Was that really the case?

His gaze moved from Vivianne’s seemingly weak shoulders to the same evening gown she had worn yesterday.

She looked cold.

❖ ❖ ❖

“She was the decoy.”

The Marchioness Mergoville said, looking at the receiver. As Vivianne had expected, there were no police or recording devices around her.

“It’s just as Ludwig Rex said. The Minister’s side seems to have used someone, and some rogue, whose origin and background are unknown, is seducing her.”

The Marquis blankly stared at his wife’s back as she sat in front of her daughter’s vanity, her back turned to him.

“What did Chairman Rex say?”

The end of her cold voice trembled slightly. The Marquis replied in a calm voice.

“…I spoke with officials at the Kellerhill Staff College, and they said that it definitely didn’t seem to be the Minister’s son. Opinions were divided, but most of those present said it couldn’t be the same person.”

“……”

“They also said that the Minister’s only son’s residence was empty.”

“Mother.”

Linus Mergoville placed his hand on her shoulder as the Marchioness Mergoville rested her forehead on the vanity.

Knock, knock. Linus’s gaze turned to the door at the sound of knocking. The Marchioness’s maid, dressed neatly, said to the Marchioness.

“Madam, a person sent by the Rex family has arrived.”

When the Marchioness nodded, a woman with flamboyant blonde hair entered the room. Is she another woman sleeping with that Ludwig Rex guy? Linus gritted his teeth.

It was then that the woman and Linus’s eyes met. The woman gave a sophisticated smile. It was a smile that exuded confidence that she could make any man’s heart flutter, but Linus found everyone related to the Rex family loathsome.

“Hello, Marchioness Mergoville. I am Hanna Seiss, Secretary to Ludwig Rex.”

The Marchioness looked at Hanna’s outstretched hand with a reluctant expression and then turned her gaze to her husband. After clearing his throat, the Marquis said to Hanna.

“Forgive her. My wife is not accustomed to such greetings.”

“It’s alright. I imagine you must be greatly distressed. Ludwig Rex said that as soon as the young lady disposes of the jewels, he would ask the person he has watching her to help track down her whereabouts…”

“She called me today.”

“……”

“We could have known her location then if we wanted to. Please convey my thanks for the sentiment. Then we can certainly get some of the jewels back.”

The Marchioness Mergoville said, getting up from her seat. Her eyes were moist.

“But even then, we won’t be able to get back what she took, the most precious thing that can’t even be compared to those stones.”

It was said that if you combined all the jewels that Vivianne Mergoville had taken, you could easily buy several decent townhouses within the capital. They were items of such value that they belonged in a museum, not in a home.

The most precious thing. Hanna had no idea what it could be.

“As a final courtesy to our family, I would like everything that happened early yesterday morning to be kept secret.”

“Excuse me?”

Hanna, who had been lost in thought, asked. The Marchioness raised one corner of her mouth and gave a cynical smile.

“Is Miss Hanna going to pretend she doesn’t know anything? No prestigious family would want to take a woman with a scandal involving a man as their daughter-in-law.”

“……”

“In exchange for freeing you from the long-standing agreement between our families, I mean that I want there to be only one prestigious family in the Empire that knows about what happened early yesterday morning.”

“The formal annulment papers will be sent soon through the family’s lawyer.”

With those words, Hanna Seiss finished briefly explaining what had happened at the Mergoville residence.

It couldn’t have been better news for the Rex family.

It was said that the marriage agreement had been made 22 years ago. At first, it was a sign of strong friendship between the families, then it was something the head of the family had to pass on to his illegitimate son. Finally, it had become a kind of ‘option’.

The right to buy or not buy a man whose asset value had skyrocketed at the price of 22 years ago. There was no deal in the marriage market that was more profitable than this.

Only 20 years ago, when the chandeliers in the capital’s government offices were being replaced with electric lights instead of candles, Mergoville was a prestigious Marquis family that no one could easily aspire to marry into.

But in the nearly 20 years since then, the order of the Empire had changed. With the sound of gunfire from a continental war as a signal, people who only trusted their territories and lived within their walls had become foolish and eccentric.

A precarious economy and machines replacing manpower in homes.

The era in which land betrayed people had arrived. And just as the value of land had changed as the times changed, so had the value of this man.

In the marriage market, and as a boss with a fairly decent appearance. Hanna’s eyes became strange as she mulled over the stories people told behind the man’s back.

The flames of transformation had already burned out and disappeared long ago. In this world where even the remnants of custom were being overwhelmed by reform, could there be another opponent like him?

In this situation, the Mergoville family had given up the right to exercise the ‘option’. It was a last-ditch effort to save face in an overwhelmingly inferior position.

“I think Chairman Rex should know, so should I inform his secretary to schedule a meal?”

“No.”

“Then the news…”

“Yes. Let’s not tell my father.”

“……”

“What about the telegram you sent to that foreign lawyer?”

“The man caught with Miss Mergoville is indeed an agent of the Criminal Intelligence Bureau, and his identity is still being investigated. Even if they find him, it will be difficult to intervene because she is a woman who receives so much spotlight from the media, and the Rex family also wants to quietly stay in place.”

Ludwig Rex realized once again that he was just a low-level member of an underworld organization at times like this.

They were the ones who could get rid of that agent or whatever without anyone knowing overnight. They must be plotting something among themselves.

And my role is to stay out of this and do my job.

Bastards.

They acted like partners when they demanded that the fake boss’s sentence be reduced, but they left me out of such important matters.

“I want to have a meal with someone other than my father.”

As Ludwig Rex got up from his seat, Hanna brought him his coat. She erased the names of Vivianne Mergoville and Janet Watkins from her mind.

Now, the only name left on the list was…

The man who was nervously turning his head came into Hanna’s eyes as she straightened his coat very closely. The handsome man’s gaze, seen up close, contained a cold rejection.

“Is Cynthia Eastwell a woman who knows my fiancé very well?”

The voice that spoke while looking down at her contained even some mockery, as if he had seen through her innermost thoughts. He clearly looked down on her.

“To be precise, she is Miss Mergoville’s rival in social gatherings. Unilaterally.”

Hanna took a step back and replied in a friendly tone as if nothing had happened.

“Tell Miss Mergoville’s heartbroken fiancé that he has requested a meeting.”

“……”

“Tell him that the earliest time is from the upcoming luncheon.”

“The Mergoville side has demanded silence about what happened early yesterday morning as a condition for the annulment. They didn’t seem to have reported her disappearance to the police, and they were even more eager to prevent the media from finding out.”

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