42.
His beloved wife was a kind soul, but she was ill-suited for the cutthroat climate of high society. Asil steered the conversation toward neutral ground to shield her, sensing she was on the verge of carelessly uttering a taboo name with a look of pure, dangerous innocence.
“Freya Russell is… well, she’s a woman possessed by her love for her husband.”
So possessed, in fact, that she would dance and laugh with the father who had shunned her for half a year, all while clasping hands with the revolutionary army behind his back.
The moment she was mentioned, the vivid memory of the racetrack surged back. He could almost smell the horse manure he had stepped in while waiting for her carriage that day.
“The spark of the third revolution. I can create it for you.”
When those words—‘spark of the revolution’—fell from the lips of a woman whose veins carried the blood of royalty executed by that very movement, Asil was left with two choices: risk exterminating the most powerful bloodline in the Empire, or become its instrument.
The moment he stepped into her carriage, he had walked into an inescapable trap.
“If you help me, I can protect my husband’s company, and you can uphold your convictions.”
Convictions, my foot. The moment he aligned himself with a grand aristocrat, his integrity had crumbled to dust. He might as well have sold his soul to the devil.
No, the woman was the devil herself.
Demanding he obstruct legislation, forcing him to plant advertisements in the papers… What kind of insane aristocrat uses a revolutionary commander as her personal errand boy?
After he provided the means for their secret communication, she began treating him like a subordinate, even dragooning him into the Imperial Ball. She had ordered him to watch as she snatched the Empress’s seat for herself.
And she had actually done it.
Standing there in a black dress that no one else would dare wear, she looked more gorgeous and overwhelming than anyone in the room.
If she were an ordinary woman, the weight of a thousand judging gazes—and the Empress’s icy, lethal glare—would have sent her into a hyperventilating collapse.
But as it stood, the Lady was calmly dancing with the grandson of a revolution hero under the royal gaze, now moving through the ballroom with the Duke himself.
A woman from a grand aristocratic family, barely twenty, was threatening a revolutionary commander and engaging in a war of nerves with the Empress at an Imperial Ball.
‘She is no ordinary human.’
That was why he had taken her hand in the end. Asil shook his head and murmured to his wife.
“Do not even greet such a madwoman.”
“Oh my, look. The famous Day and Night of Luthes are together.”
Noémie, letting her husband’s advice go in one ear and out the other, smiled contentedly at the far side of the room. Asil’s expression tightened as he followed her gaze.
Erle Tristan was walking toward Max Russell.
The Day and Night of Luthes. That was the nickname the infatuated noblewomen of the city had given the two businessmen of the Luthes Railway Company.
He could see several young ladies of marriageable age—including Imperial Princess Isabelle de Grandcen—inching toward them, feigning indifference.
‘And to think the Princess was supposedly head over heels for the Erle…’
Unfortunately, the Erle treated the women surrounding him like air, his path set squarely on Max Russell. As the two men stood together, even with the distance between them, they seemed to command the entire sky, drawing every eye in the ballroom.
To Asil, they were merely the agents of chaos who had cast Freya Blanc into his path.
While the President of Luthes Bank cast a cold glare at them, Erle Tristan arrived before his prey.
“I didn’t expect you to come.”
Max, offering a light bow, replied nonchalantly.
“My wife wished to attend.”
“I hear the reason the Lady hasn’t shown her face in social circles was because of you… She must have been lonely.”
“You need not worry; she plans to attend often from now on.”
Ever since the rumors of the marriage proposal surfaced, a strange tension had simmered between them. But today, both men were sharper, more volatile than usual.
There was no need to ask why.
“I knew the Lady was beautiful, but to be honest, I’m jealous of you tonight.”
At the comment, which hovered somewhere between a joke and a challenge, Max stared at the Erle, his face an impenetrable mask. Even as he spoke, Erle Tristan’s gaze remained fixed on the Blanc father and daughter dancing in the center of the floor.
It wasn’t just the Erle. Every man’s gaze in the ballroom followed Freya Blanc. Even the women’s.
She looked like a black swan shimmering in the light, standing alone amidst a flock of peacocks flaunting their gaudy colors.
“Do you remember that time? The day of Blanc’s eighth birthday.”
Beneath hair as black as Freya’s dress, purple eyes flickered toward Max a beat late. A sharp, secret hostility cut through the air.
“I think about that day often. God sometimes bestows unmerited fortune. Even upon those who don’t deserve it.”
“Whether that fortune is unmerited is something only God can judge.”
“Well, God isn’t the only one who can judge… Max Russell, what is Freya Blanc to you?”
The Lady, Blanc, Freya Blanc… Every title for her that slipped from the Erle’s tongue grated on his nerves.
Suddenly, he felt a frantic urge to seize her hand and vanish—to return to that distant, buried time when they were too young to care for anything. To some remote, forgotten chapel where no one could ever find them.
But he was no longer an eleven-year-old boy. Max suppressed the impulse, intent on ending this unpleasant conversation.
It wasn’t a difficult question, after all. Since the day he found her in the library of Blanc Castle, Freya Russell had been his only constant.
Fifteen years ago, and even now.
Max turned his gaze away from the man whose presence felt increasingly intolerable and replied.
“Freya is to me… a woman like sour grapes.”
“Sour grapes. Then does that make you the fox?”
Erle Tristan gave a small, dry scoff. He didn’t wait for an answer. The music reached its conclusion, and the Erle walked straight toward Freya. The Duke handed his daughter’s hand over to him.
Max’s jaw tightened as he watched. He downed his wine, hoping to wash away the bitterness rising in his throat.
Just then, another unwelcome voice intruded.
“Russell.”
“Your Excellency.”
The Duke, having passed his daughter to the Erle, moved past Max, whispering a quiet warning.
“Do not forget your promise not to tarnish the Blanc name.”
He moved on as if he had said nothing at all. Max stood motionless, watching his wife and the Erle begin to dance to the third song.
✦ ✦ ✦
“You said you had something to ask me. When do you intend to ask it?”
She looked up to find clear purple eyes looking down at her.
She hadn’t expected to dance the third song of her debut with this man. The hand wrapped around her waist felt as cold as a snake’s skin. Her skin crawled with the urge to break free.
Looking at the Erle—the man who had nearly become her second husband—Freya swallowed her hatred and murderous intent.
Not yet. Her enemies were powerful, and she stood before them empty-handed. She needed time to forge the weapons she would use to dismantle them.
Freya lifted the corners of her mouth in a practiced smile.
“There was a question I wanted to ask. But I found the answer on my own.”
A seductive smile returned to her in response. Nearby, someone dancing happened to catch her gaze and let out an involuntary sigh.
If Max Russell resembled an ancient statue of a hero, still whispered about as a masterpiece, Erle Tristan resembled the ‘Fallen Angel’ sculpture by a genius artist that had sparked controversy the moment it was unveiled to the world.
“May I ask what the answer was?”
The Erle leaned in close, his voice a low, calculated lure. Freya’s pulse quickened.
It wasn’t just the question. It was the naked interest in his eyes—a variable she had not accounted for.
‘According to the original timeline, the Erle was supposed to keep his identity hidden until the railway competition…’
The amendment bill, the stock manipulation, the competition that would see Max’s company ruined—these were all atrocities committed by the Erle and her father under the protection of the Imperial family. And yet, the Erle had stayed by Max’s side as a trusted partner until the very last moment, eventually seizing the railway company for a pittance.
The alliance between the Blanc and Tristan families wasn’t scheduled for another year.
‘If even the marriage rumors leaked because of me, why is he acting so boldly?’
The provocation at the department store, the coincidental meeting at the office, his appearance at the ball… As she cataloged the events that could have altered his trajectory, a chilling realization dawned on her.
‘Don’t tell me, already…’
Freya narrowed her eyes for a fleeting second, then immediately flashed a bright, oblivious smile at the Erle.