11.
Judith had never once thought of Master as a man.
How could she feel romantic attraction toward someone whose face she didn’t know and whose voice she hadn’t heard? Whatever magical item he used, his voice would always evaporate from her memory like mist. He didn’t even carry the lingering scent of perfume.
In other words, she had absolutely no sensory data to grasp—no sight, touch, smell, taste, or sound. But…
‘He has a nice body, doesn’t he?’
Now that they were pressed close in the darkness, she could feel the heat radiating from him and the taut, well-defined muscles beneath his clothes.
Judith swallowed hard.
‘…He really does, doesn’t he?’
She had known he was tall, but she hadn’t realized his physique was this imposing. Usually, he was swaddled in a dark, baggy hood that obscured his frame.
‘He must work out a lot…’
It was a blessing that the room was pitch black. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to hide the flush creeping up her neck.
Alone in the dark with a man—truly alone—she became keenly aware of the physical reality of his presence. Judith, who had been far too busy scraping together coins to ever consider romance, felt her heart hammer against her ribs.
It seemed Master was struggling, too. A sharp, ragged tension seeped through the breaths he was fighting to suppress.
‘Wow, I’m hyper-aware of his breathing now. I should try not to breathe at all.’
She didn’t know how long she had been spiraling, but they remained locked in that silence, navigating the winding, erratic path for a long time.
For Judith, this was a labyrinth she could never retrace. She marveled at how Master could commit every twist and turn to memory.
“Here.”
Just as her legs began to ache, Master whispered, his voice raspy and low.
“We have arrived near the wardrobe in Karl Mayous’s room.”
Goodness, already inside the Ducal Mansion? Judith’s eyes widened. She hadn’t even realized when they had crossed the threshold, let alone that a hidden passage connected the grounds directly to the house.
As she trudged along, still clinging to his hand, Master abruptly asked, “But are you truly at peace with having a marriage record with Ekian Mayous?”
“Pardon?”
“Judith, you are a noble. You are not as free to remarry as commoners. If you have a record of divorce… it won’t be easy to tie the knot with a desirable suitor again.”
Though she had brushed this off several times, the situation clearly seemed so illogical to him that he had to ask once more.
Judith replied slowly, her voice hushed in the darkness.
“Well. Hmm… I don’t know if this will resonate with you, but…”
She had spoken with Master countless times, yet this felt like a first. It was the genuine, fragile exchange of two human beings.
“That nobles are different from commoners, that we must uphold our dignity… I was never taught those things. Most parents instill that into their children from birth, but my parents weren’t interested in me.”
“…”
“Especially my father, who should have at least shared the history of the Baron Aylan household… he was a stranger. I barely saw his face.”
Judith’s voice remained calm, stripped of bitterness.
“Perhaps that’s why. I don’t really know about the ‘good noble husband’ everyone romanticizes. My parents were both nobles, but their marriage wasn’t exactly worth emulating. In the end, my mother ran off with a servant.”
Judith drifted to the memory of her mother. In her mind’s eye, her mother was always flanked by a handsome, brown-haired servant.
Her mother looked vibrant and happy with him. Judith had watched from the periphery, feeling like a ghost observing someone else’s life. She had hovered nearby, desperate for her mother’s notice, but she instinctively understood she could never bridge the gap between those two. Even then, she had thought:
*If only Mother were a commoner, she could have been happy. If she wanted this, she should have gathered her courage and run off before she ever married Father…*
It wasn’t until her noble father died and left her drowning in his debts that her mother finally found that resolve.
Having witnessed the quiet misery of her mother’s life, Judith had decided long ago not to repeat those mistakes.
“I’m fine with a commoner. I just want a sincere, handsome man who can take good care of his family.”
“…You’re truly fine with a commoner?”
“Yes. Honestly, my father was a noble, but I wouldn’t want to meet another like him. All I inherited were loan shark debts and a hollow title. If I could rewrite my birth, I wouldn’t want to be his daughter at all.”
A wealthy, powerful family would have been nice, but the title of Baron Aylan was merely a rotting shell. It was of no use to her.
Most nobles would view her indifference as a betrayal of her lineage. But whenever she thought of her title, she felt like an outsider, a person who shouldn’t have existed in that world to begin with. The knowledge of the original story only deepened that sense of detachment.
For commoners, a divorce record wasn’t a social death sentence. That was why she didn’t care about the consequences of her legal standing.
Just as she wondered if he would respond, Master stopped and whispered, “This is it.”
In the suffocating dark, Master carefully guided her hand. He tapped on the wood and pulled, the door swinging open with a soft clatter.
A sliver of light bled into the space.
“We are inside the wardrobe.”
Sure enough, the boy’s clothes hung above them, swaying slightly.
“From here, you should be able to see the room.”
He pointed to a gap in the shuttered door. Without further comment, Judith and Master pressed their faces against the opening.
Inside, she saw him. A boy of eight, with blonde hair and blue eyes, clutching a teddy bear.
Judith’s eyes rounded in shock.
‘Oh my, how can he be this cute?’
The young villain was so endearing it was impossible to reconcile him with the man who would eventually obsess over and torment the female lead. With his chubby cheeks and eyes like clear glass, he looked like a prince from an illustrated book.
“He’s cute.”
Judith muttered it before she could stop herself. Master nodded beside her.
“Isn’t he?”
“Yes. Incredibly cute.”
He was so precious that it was easy to see why Ekian would have cherished him. Karl sat on the bed, reading a book while anchored by his teddy bear.
They watched the child together in silence. However, the narrow gap meant their bodies had to remain pressed against each other.
Judith cleared her throat and whispered, “Master, nothing much is happening yet. Why don’t you rest?”
“Rest? From what?”
“You can sit in the corner of the wardrobe. There’s no need to stand like this.”
“I don’t need to rest. You go ahead, Judith.”
“But even if it’s a bit cramped, if I move away, I won’t be able to see Young Master Karl…”
“…So, asking me to rest was just your way of saying you’re uncomfortable and want me to move?”
“You caught me.”
“…”
Master scoffed, sounding utterly dumbfounded. Judith fired back, “You’re just so massive, Master! It’s incredibly uncomfortable for the person pressed against you!”
“That goes for me, too. I am also quite uncomfortable.”
“What are you talking about? My build is much smaller than yours! Even if I shift, there is still space—”
“Ah, stop fidgeting. I told you, I’m uncomfortable too.”
“You’re just too big to fidget, Master.”
“There is a perfectly respectable word like ‘physique,’ so why use ‘big’? And please, stop moving.”
They whispered back and forth, bickering, yet neither retreated an inch. A strange, stubborn heat began to rise between them.
“I’m not moving that much!”
“Even so, we’re pressed together, and if you keep shifting…”
Master stopped mid-sentence. Along with his confusion, she could feel his breath hitch—ragged and unrefined.
The silence that followed was heavy and sharp. Judith felt her own composure fray.
‘It, it really is close, isn’t it…’
Before she knew it, tendons were standing out on Master’s arm, his muscles coiled as he braced himself against the wardrobe wall. As the atmosphere curdled into something dangerously intimate, she became painfully conscious of her own thundering heartbeat.
“Hah.”
Master let out a shallow, shaky sigh.