The elderly gentleman with graying white hair placed a flower atop the velvet and slowly sank to his knees. With wrinkled hands, he gently stroked the velvet draped over the coffin. His deeply lined face looked utterly exhausted.
‘Count Piseon.’
The famed merchant lord was the Marchioness’s father—and my maternal grandfather. He said nothing. He, too, was one of the few people who knew the true cause of the Marchioness’s death.
For a long while, he merely caressed the velvet in silence. There were no farewell words, no prayers for the afterlife. At last, he slowly straightened from his kneeling position. For a brief moment, his frail body swayed dangerously, as though he might collapse.
“Oh my!”
“Ah!”
“Good heavens!”
Startled cries and anxious gasps erupted from the crowd. In that fleeting instant, someone moved swiftly and caught the Count before he could crash to the floor. The reflexes were astonishing.
‘Who is that? A boy? Or a young man?’
He looked too mature to be called a boy, yet too youthful to truly seem like a man. Supporting the nearly fallen Count, he carefully helped him back to his feet. A faint smile—small, but unmistakably real—appeared on the Count’s lips as he leaned on the young man.
‘Someone close to the Count?’
The young man turned his head, and our eyes met.
Dark blue-gray eyes pierced straight through me.
‘Does he know me?’
His gaze toward me was almost blatantly intense. Irritated by the unreadable look in his eyes, I glared right back as though refusing to lose.
‘What’s his problem? Is he picking a fight with me?’
Just as his unrelenting stare began to make me uncomfortable, he was the first to look away. Watching the back of his head as he escorted the Count away, I felt an inexplicable sense of emptiness.
‘Did I get worked up over nothing?’
Supported by the young man, the Count returned to his seat. Once there, he quietly murmured something to him. I was too far away to hear the words, but the young man nodded respectfully before hurriedly leaving the funeral hall.
“……”
Right before he disappeared, it felt as though our eyes met once again. But I no longer had the luxury of dwelling on him.
After the Marquis and then the Count bid their farewells to the Marchioness, the guests who had been whispering amongst themselves cautiously began stepping forward one by one.
No one spoke.
And so the silent final farewells continued.
The Marchioness’s funeral lasted for three full days.
At last, with the departure of some baron and his wife—people whose names I neither knew nor cared to remember—the official funeral ceremony finally came to an end. All that remained now were the private rites.
In accordance with tradition, her body was cremated before the Marquis and me.
Crimson flames swallowed her whole in an instant.
Watching her slowly turn into ashes left me with a strange feeling.
Once, there had been a time when I desperately craved her affection. I had pretended to be a good child for the sake of her praise. I had even acted like a boy in hopes of earning her attention. But not once had I ever truly caught her eye.
Her gaze had always been fixed solely on the Marquis.
Blindly. Obsessively.
‘If I had resembled the Marquis even a little, would she have looked at me differently?’
There was no way to ask someone already dead.
Even if she had still been alive, I probably would never have received an answer.
She and I were alike in many ways. From our appearances to the lives we had lived, everything about us felt painfully similar. There was a saying that daughters inherit their mothers’ fate.
Just as she had gone mad loving the Marquis, I, too, had once loved a man to the point of insanity. Unaware that the love itself was poison slowly consuming me, I loved him endlessly.
Perhaps women driven mad by love all end up the same. Or perhaps we resembled each other simply because we were mother and daughter.
From beginning to end, our love stories were identical.
We loved men who never looked at us.
We begged for affection.
And in the madness of love, we destroyed ourselves.
As the flames consumed her body, it felt as though they were burning me alive as well. A bitter taste filled my mouth.
I turned my head to look at the Marquis standing beside me.
As always, his face revealed nothing.
His dark navy hair reflected the firelight, turning faintly crimson. Shadows danced across his features with the movement of the flames, and for a moment, he almost seemed sorrowful.
Was that merely my imagination?
He was only forty-one years old.
His handsome face, now touched with the dignified charm of maturity, combined with the well-built physique of a seasoned knight, was more than enough to captivate women of every age. Even while the Marchioness had still been alive, countless women had thrown themselves at him.
Not only was he extraordinarily handsome, but he was also the master of one of the most powerful marquis houses in the empire. Moreover, the only officially acknowledged child he had was a daughter incapable of inheriting the family line.
Now that the Marchioness was dead, the seat beside him stood vacant.
And he still had no heir.
Anyone who could claim the position of Marchioness would gain immense wealth and power in one stroke.
From young noble ladies freshly debuted into society to widows who had lost their husbands, women flocked endlessly around him. Nobles with marriageable daughters eagerly pushed their children forward as well.
Like swarms of ants gathering around sugar, people circled him, all coveting the place once occupied by the Marchioness.
Yet just as he had while she was alive, the Marquis ignored every woman who approached him. He treated the ambitious nobles no differently. He even forbade members of his household from so much as mentioning the subject.
‘Even until the day I died, the Marquis never remarried.’
Perhaps he had not hated her as much as I thought.
No… perhaps I simply wanted to believe that.
If a woman so much like me had not been hated by the man she loved enough to sacrifice everything for, then maybe I could comfort myself with the thought that the man I once loved had not hated me either.
The flames that had seemed eternal gradually died down, until only her bones remained amidst the ashes.
Her remains were gathered into a small wooden box and handed to the Marquis.
He extended the box toward me.
Following his silent intent, I accepted it with both hands. The box, no larger than two palms, was far lighter than I expected.
The Marquis drew a small knife.
Though barely the length of a handspan, the blade looked frighteningly sharp. He gathered a lock of his hair and sliced it cleanly away. The gleaming silver blade flashed, and strands of dark navy hair drifted downward.
He placed the cut hair into the box containing her ashes.
It was the final rite before the remains were enshrined in the mausoleum.
By placing the hair of direct blood relatives alongside the deceased’s ashes, it symbolized that their bond would continue even after death.
The Marquis cut a lock of my hair as well.
My golden-brown strands mingled with his dark navy hair inside the box. After closing the lid, he took the box back from me.
Now all that remained was to place it within the mausoleum.
Besides the Marquis and me, the Marchioness still had another direct relative: her father, Count Piseon.
But he had been unable to remain until the very end of her funeral.
The elderly Count, who had stood beside the Marquis throughout all three exhausting days, finally collapsed before the last rites could begin. No matter how vigorous he had seemed for his age, even he could not withstand the death of his child.
He had lost his wife early in life and raised the Marchioness alone, cherishing her above all else. His devotion to his daughter was so extraordinary that it had become famous even within noble society.
To a man like him, the Marchioness’s suicide must have been an unbearable blow.
Even after collapsing, he had yet to regain consciousness. The physician diagnosed him with severe stress and exhaustion brought on by shock.
Since the funeral could not be delayed until he recovered, the final rites proceeded with only the Marquis and me present.
Carrying the box, the Marquis headed toward the mausoleum.
I followed silently behind him.
“It seems I’m not too late after all.”
A woman was waiting in front of the mausoleum.
She bowed gracefully toward the Marquis.
“Only direct relatives are permitted inside the crematory, so I had no choice but to wait here.”
Covering her lips delicately with one hand, she smiled softly as though she could do nothing about the situation. Her eyes curved into slender crescents.
It was the kind of smile that could enchant men.
“I was terribly anxious that I might arrive too late.”
The smile faded from her face as she approached us.
Without the playful eye-smile, she suddenly looked heartbreakingly fragile. Her slightly drooping eyes gave her an especially sorrowful appearance. The beauty mark beneath one eye resembled a single black tear.
In contrast to the mournful aura surrounding her, the figure wrapped beneath her black dress was voluptuous and strikingly sensual. Even to another woman, the pale fullness of her chest visible through the dress was impossible to ignore.
Reaching into her bosom, she withdrew a small black silk pouch.
Every movement she made was graceful and seductive, almost like a dance.
When she opened the pouch, a lock of cut hair slipped out. Most of it was white, though streaks of red remained here and there.
“When he wakes, I know he will grieve terribly. That is why I’ve committed such an impertinence.”
Her eyes shimmered with tears.
Combined with her naturally delicate aura, those tears awakened an instinctive desire to protect her.
She was Count Piseon’s second wife.
By relation, she was my grandmother.
Of course, not a single drop of blood connected us.
She was five years younger than the Marchioness herself—and thirty-two years younger than the Count.
I had heard that the former Countess Piseon—my real grandmother—had died giving birth to the Marchioness. Unable to forget his late wife, the Count had remained alone his entire life.
And yet, three years ago, he suddenly remarried.
To a woman thirty-two years his junior.
In truth, such an age gap was not particularly shocking among nobles. Powerful aristocrats often married girls young enough to be their granddaughters.
What made the Count’s remarriage such a scandal was not the thirty-two-year age difference, but the fact that he remarried at all.
The unexpected marriage of a man everyone believed would remain alone forever stirred endless speculation.
Some claimed he had been bewitched by a young beauty. Others whispered that old age had finally driven him senile.
‘Seeing her in person… the rumors do seem believable.’
Looking at the Countess now, I could understand why people talked. Her unusual, captivating aura alone was enough to spark such gossip.
