Chapter 7

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Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 7
Chapter Title: Engaged to the Blind Duke
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The study was as quiet as ever.

Gerald was locked in a fierce battle against excruciating pain in that silent space.

Black curtains had been hung along the corridor as a boundary line, a warning not to come any closer. But they couldn’t extend that barrier all the way outside the castle.

The sound of servants’ footsteps kicking up dirt as they hurried by. The crash of a dish shattering. Boisterous conversations. Cicadas chirping. Horses neighing. The wind whistling. Kay’s low breathing.

Every noise sharpened into needle-like points, burrowing into his ears and churning his brain.

A terrible headache surged over him.

“…….”

Gerald picked up the thin, elongated silver letter opener from the desk and, without hesitation, jabbed it into his ear.

“My lord!”

Even Kay—who kept his mouth shut as much as possible because of his lord’s condition—seemed to call out to him urgently in a low voice.

“I hit the eardrum precisely.”

“…….”

Only after forcibly wounding the inside of his ear did the headache ease a little.

But with his hearing numbed, now his sense of smell went berserk.

Kay’s sweat made his temples throb.

“Kay. Step back for a moment.”

He sensed Kay shaking his head through the movement of the air.

Gerald barked firmly.

“Right now.”

Kay bowed silently and vanished.

The musty air drifting through the study stabbed at his nose. Nausea welled up, and he held his breath.

“Damn it.”

Gerald closed his eyes and struggled to suppress his other rampaging senses.

* * *

“What? You’re telling me to go home?”

Making her resolution from the day before seem pointless, Marin immediately faced a crisis with her new job.

Her pale green eyes quivered at the bolt-from-the-blue words.

She had arrived right on time for work, in front of the study—and now she was being told to go back.

“I’m sorry.”

“You really mean go?”

“Yes. Please head back home for today.”

Olive awkwardly avoided her gaze.

“Is it just for today?”

Marin pressed him to confirm.

“Well…….”

Olive glanced troubled at the study door and trailed off.

“I can’t go! How did I even get in here in the first place? You can’t just kick me out after one day! I’ll die here before I die anywhere else!”

Marin flopped down onto the red carpet in the corridor. Clutching the carpet, she set her face in grim determination and dug in her heels.

“Uh, Miss Marin. It seems like there’s a misunderstanding. It’s not that we’re firing you…….”

The flustered Olive extended a hand, urging her to get up.

***

“You told me to go home?”

Marin looked up at Olive with eyes brimming with resentment.

She had worked so hard to land this job. She couldn’t lose it after just one day.

“No, that’s not it……. Let’s talk somewhere else first, not right here.”

It was then, as Olive kept stealing glances at the study.

“Come in.”

A heavy voice, chilling with frost, flowed out from inside.

At the unexpected sound of the duke’s voice cutting in, Marin’s eyes went wide like a startled rabbit’s.

“His Grace the Duke is in there? Was my voice too loud, by any chance?”

Olive frowned in distress and let out a deep sigh.

“Sigh. Let’s go in first.”

Marin rose from her spot, deflated like a frightened puppy.

Olive lit a candle and stepped into the study. Marin stuck close behind him, trying to hide her body as much as possible while she moved.

Then her footsteps halted abruptly in place. Her one shield—Olive’s back—was pulling farther away, but she couldn’t budge.

Her instincts were screaming a warning. Danger.

Marin slowly scanned the study interior with a tense expression.

Thick black curtains over every window. A mahogany desk. A plush red carpet. The duke, radiating presence even from within the shadows.

The study was just as dark and austere as it had been the day before.

Yet something felt subtly off, nagging at her nerves.

She flinched. Realizing the one thing different from yesterday, her shoulders went rigid.

The faint smell of blood drifting through the stuffy, unventilated air.

Marin’s head spun for a moment, dry heaves surging up.

A horse’s neigh. The scent of dusty earth. Drops of blood splattering before her eyes.

No. I can’t collapse here.

Marin took rough, deep breaths to chase away the lingering ghosts of the past swirling in her mind.

She clenched her cold hands into fists, then opened them repeatedly, forcing warmth back into them. Her efforts paid off—the dizziness soon faded.

Marin steeled her trembling legs and hurried to stick close behind Olive once more.

Why is there a smell of blood?

Her past trauma made her detect it like a ghost. Faint, but unmistakable blood.

Her pale green eyes darted around busily, searching.

‘Did someone die in here?’

Her imagination spun out wild scenarios endlessly.

She had thought it would just be reading reports to the duke like reading a book.

Did she have to risk her life for this? Should she run now?

She desperately wanted to turn tail and flee, but her body, frozen in terror, wouldn’t move an inch.

“Resolute, I see.”

A low, predatory voice emerged from the darkness.

“S-sorry.”

Marin apologized through chattering lips.

“You’ll die here even if it kills you?”

“N-no.”

She frantically denied her own earlier words. She didn’t want to die.

With its faint blood scent, the study felt less like an office and more like an execution chamber.

The swords adorning one wall flickered in the candlelight, gleaming larger and sharper.

Marin tore her gaze forcibly from the swords and stared at the duke, shrouded in shadow.

“Still…… a spy, then?”

“Y-yes? Oh, hic. No.”

A chill ran down her neck.

Clutching the hand that wanted to creep toward her throat, Marin answered in pure terror.

“Then why are you so eager to die right here?”

***

The duke’s flat tone sounded even more frightening.

“Th-that’s not what I meant! It’s a misunderstanding! I just really want this job! Hic. I really don’t want to die. Hic.”

Her hiccups from the tension garbled her words. If she got pegged as a spy and died like this, she’d die twice over from the injustice.

“Olive.”

The target shifted.

Olive bowed his head with a gloomy expression.

“I’m sorry. It’s hard to mention Your Grace’s condition out loud, so I told her to go home without explaining—and she seems to have taken it as getting fired.”

At those words, Marin’s pale green eyes shook like they’d been hit by an earthquake.

If that was the case, he should’ve explained it more tactfully. Telling her to leave the second she arrived?

“Miss Marin, I’m sorry. Only a handful of people know about His Grace’s condition. I couldn’t decide quickly whether to tell you, since you just started.”

“Ah……. I see.”

It made sense once she heard the explanation.

Who was the duke?

He was like a king ruling the western region. And for someone in such a high position, their condition was top secret.

“So that’s why you were making all that racket?”

The duke’s voice rang out coldly.

“I’m sorry.”

Olive bowed deeply.

“I’m sorry.”

Marin echoed the apology in a voice that barely rose above a whisper.

“The report.”

“Are you sure that’s alright? You haven’t had treatment yet…….”

Worry laced Olive’s voice.

Treatment?

Marin’s eyes went wide as she looked back and forth between Olive and the duke.

The blood smell wasn’t from someone being killed—it was because the duke was hurt?

“Olive, are you a doctor?”

The duke asked languidly.

“I’m an aide.”

Olive corrected him calmly.

“Then aid me. The report.”

“I’ll fetch it.”

Olive gave a slight, depressed bow and left the study.

Now, only she and the duke remained.

Knowing no one had died there eased the tension from her body a little.

She sneaked peeks at the duke, but his face in the shadows was invisible.

Marin worked her lips, then cautiously called out to him.

“Your Grace…….”

“…….”

There was no response from the duke.

“I’m really not a spy.”

Marin squeezed her eyes shut tight and mustered the last speck of courage inside her.

“Have you ever seen a spy say, ‘I’m a spy’?”

A hint of mockery tinged the duke’s low voice.