Front-Page Scandal

What on earth is happening right now?

I could only stare up at him, dumbfounded. Too stunned to do anything but blink, I found his clear eyes smiling down at me, crinkled with amusement.

They looked impossibly pure — a far cry from the way he'd been clinging to me so shamelessly just moments ago.

"Hold on a moment, Your Highness."

Having finally recovered my senses, I held out a hand toward him.

A faint crease appeared between his brows.

I wondered if it was because my gesture had sounded like I was about to blame him.

"Sunbae."

"Yes?"

"I told you we agreed I'd be your sunbae, didn't I?"

"Ah, right. Sunbae."

Only after I hastily nodded and corrected myself did his expression smooth over.

"I'm truly sorry, but I'm far too flustered right now to think…"

"You said you'd need time to think, didn't you?"

"Yes. Yes, I did."

"Then I'd think quickly, if I were you. Unfortunately for you, I used to be a remarkably patient man — but from this moment on, that's over."

With those words, the Grand Duke reached out and brushed his thumb slowly across my lips — the very lips he'd been tormenting just moments before.

That small, offhand gesture left my lips feeling like they were on fire.

"Though I suppose even without my urging, running away wouldn't do you much good."

"……"

"Until next time, then."

With an ineffably radiant smile, he brushed past me and walked away.

Even his retreating figure, slipping out of the drawing room with steps that were fluid yet perfectly measured, looked like something out of a painting.

Under normal circumstances, seeing a guest off would have been a hostess's duty —

but my legs had given out beneath me, and I sank to the floor where I stood.

My body sprawled across the sofa like a soaked rag, and my mind drifted further and further away.

…What just happened?

What in the world is going on here?

Why does everything keep spiraling out of control like this?!

"My lady? What's the matter? Why did the Grand Duke come all the way here? Yes?"

Laura came rushing in, her face full of alarm.

Why are you sitting on the floor like that? What did the Grand Duke say to you? And so on, and so on.

Barely keeping my head above the whirlpool of questions, I seized her by the shoulders.

"Laura."

"Yes, my lady."

Something in my grave voice must have reached her, because her eyes went wide with tension.

I stared at her in silence for a moment, then took a deep breath and spoke.

"Pack our bags. Now."

"Pardon?"

"We're heading down to the estate. As soon as possible. Hurry!"

"W-wait just a moment, my lady! Why would we suddenly go to the estate—"

Why? Because staying here is dangerous, that's why!

I've got no other choice.

I had a feeling I'd need to hole up at the estate for the foreseeable future.

The next morning.

I woke and stared blankly at the ceiling of my bedroom.

Blink. Blink. I kept opening and closing my eyes, half hoping something would be different — but everything remained exactly as it was.

Damn it all.

"So it wasn't a dream."

Pressing a hand to my aching forehead, I climbed out of bed. A headache was already creeping in — no doubt because I hadn't slept a wink.

The reason for my sleepless night was painfully simple.

"That crazy woman had nothing else to take, so she had to go after the Grand Duke — the Grand Duke's innocence, of all things? Are you out of your mind, Park Sumin?!"

Aaargh!

Since screaming out loud wasn't an option, I buried my face in the pillow and thrashed my legs like a madwoman.

Not that it solved anything.

"And the Grand Duke — what's his excuse? He called himself a faithful servant of god! He claimed he knew nothing outside of the divine!"

That liar!

My fury spread fast and wide, all the way to the Grand Duke himself.

The one who did the seducing was certainly at fault — but surely the one who succumbed to the seduction bears guilt of his own.

Especially a man with a long, documented history of being pursued by countless women.

He should have refused. He should have resisted. Broken heart or not, he should have smacked some sense into her — what is wrong with you — and knocked her back to her senses!

"And instead of any of those normal, reasonable reactions, he just… accepted it? So much for celibacy!"

By this point I was honestly dying to know how our Miss Park Sumin had managed to seduce him in the first place.

Just how devastating must her approach have been, to bring even that ascetic man tumbling down?

And how had the Grand Duke reacted to it?

As far as I know, a single kiss was the extent of it…

The thought struck me out of nowhere and jolted me wide awake. Come to think of it, there was another reason I hadn't been able to sleep last night.

Out of habit, I ran a hand gently over my lips, which had been worrying themselves all night.

The inside of my mouth still tingled and burned. It almost felt like the sensation lingered — the trembling I'd felt while pinned in his arms, being kissed!

But wait… what kind of priest kisses like that?

And so shamelessly, at that?

The moment his lips touched mine, my mind had gone white and my heart had pounded like it would burst out of my chest.

The kiss started soft, then deepened little by little — so achingly sweet I could barely breathe, and dizzying all at once.

It felt like he was pressing into me without leaving a single gap to escape through.

Warmth radiated from the fingertips gripping my shoulders, and the breath grazing my ear made my heart flutter helplessly.

And those deep, dark eyes, locked on mine the whole time.

For the briefest moment, I could actually understand why people clung to this man so blindly.

Hold on — what am I even thinking right now—?!

"Aaaaagh!"

Flail. Flail.

I flung myself back onto the bed and kicked my legs in a full-blown tantrum.

My face was burning, and I had a terrible feeling that if I let this go on, something would truly go very wrong.

"Haah. This is no time to be melting down."

Having exhausted my blanket-kicking spree, I finally dragged myself out of bed.

"It's not as if I can actually take responsibility for this, anyway."

Marriage to Leon Obsidian.

Even imagining it for a split second made my head shake itself in refusal.

Awkward mental images aside, he was simply a being far beyond anything I could handle.

"Hold the line for now. Stall long enough and some clever solution is bound to turn up."

The one saving grace was that he was a priest.

If this ever got out, it would amount to publicly broadcasting his disqualification from the priesthood to the entire world.

Even he wouldn't go around spreading that with his own two hands.

"Grand Duke of Bernstein or not, what could he possibly do? In the end, exposing me would just be spitting in his own face."

Which must be why he'd come to see me in secret.

That was why he'd demanded I take responsibility — and why he'd brought up marriage.

Come to think of it, maybe it was groundwork: implying that a matter of such gravity would require proper compensation.

Just thinking of it that way put my mind at ease.

Granted, that little parting warning — running away wouldn't do you much good — did nag at me slightly.

And the fact that he'd taken a kiss as his "advance payment" bothered me too.

But I was in full panic mode, incapable of rational thought, so I made the executive decision to interpret everything in the way most favorable to me.

"Either way, it'll all blow over eventually. So the plan is: drag this out as long as possible, then negotiate something we can both live with—"

That was the moment.

"MY LADY!!!"

BANG BANG BANG!

The door thundered under a violent knock and burst open, and Laura came flying in, pale as a ghost.

"What now? It's barely morning — why all the chaos?"

"B-BIG NEWS!"

"Big news?"

Fussing and flailing, Laura thrust out the newspaper she'd been clutching.

Of course. The most influential daily in the empire.

"My lady!"

I was still trying to grasp the situation when Valen, the marquisate's butler, came sprinting in, his mustache whipping in the wind.

"Y-you must see this at once! The entire capital is in an uproar and— oh? Laura?"

"Gasp. You too, Mr. Valen?"

The two froze at the sudden encounter, then spotted the newspapers in each other's hands and exchanged the strangest look.

The exact expression of 'You too?' 'Yeah. You too?'

Okay, what is with you two?

I hastily unfolded the daily paper.

The moment I saw the article splashed across the front page, I froze solid.

"Wh-what… what is THIS?!"

My hands shook around the crumpled paper. I genuinely felt like my sanity was about to leave my body.

The reason, of course, was this same deranged article.

Wow. I'm getting dizzy just from the headlines.