BTM Chapter 1

On a dark, rainy night, Beatrice swallowed hard, gazing up at the imposing mansion looming before her.

“Is this really…?”

Her face was pale, as if crushed by the oppressive presence of the mansion. Seemingly indifferent to her apprehension, a young, stiff-looking butler approached her side and spoke curtly.

“Please come in. Everyone has been awaiting your arrival, Grand Duchess.”

“Oh… Yes, yes… I’m, I’m sorry.”

“Refrain from using honorifics henceforth. Apologies as well. Unlike before, from today onwards, you are not merely a Baron’s daughter, but the Grand Duchess.”

Although his words were rather arrogant, especially towards someone he served, Beatrice lacked the spirit to retort. If anything, his words only made her shrink further.

“Ah, r-right. I’ll try… Sorry… I mean, um… th, that’s not…”

Her response was as pathetic as could be.

Seeing Beatrice stammer and tear up, the butler sighed softly and walked ahead.

“This way. The mansion is quite large, so I will give you a brief tour of the essential areas.”

Beatrice fought back her tears, sensing the butler’s immediate displeasure with her.

Already like this, so soon after arriving.

She had promised herself hundreds, thousands of times that she wouldn’t cry once she reached the Grand Duke’s residence, but her resolve had crumbled.

“To the left of the main hall on the first floor is the annex for the servants, and to the right is the annex for the knights. Naturally, His Grace and you will reside in the main building. You will dine in this dining room, and the larger dining room over there is used for banquets and receiving guests.”

Beatrice was overwhelmed by the constant stream of information.

Compared to the humble baronial manor, which was too modest to even be called a mansion, the Grand Duke’s residence was so vast it felt like a castle.

Unfazed by Beatrice’s struggle to keep up, the butler continued his relentless explanation of the mansion’s layout and history.

“You are free to use the study and drawing-room on the second floor. When using the bathroom or dressing room, be sure to summon a maid to attend to you. Your primary living quarters, including the bedroom and sitting room, are on the third floor. The bedroom, in particular, is connected to both a shared bedroom and a separate bedroom, so please bear that in mind.”

“The, the rooms are connected?”

The butler frowned slightly at her use of honorifics again, expressing his displeasure. However, Beatrice was too preoccupied to notice.

“It is common for noble families to have bedrooms structured in this way. The Grand Ducal family has always had few heirs, so the mansion was designed with this in mind.”

“Heirs…”

Beatrice felt a tightness in her chest at the weight of the word.

Even before boarding the carriage, she had been repeatedly reminded of the duties she was expected to fulfill and had steeled herself for it. However, that didn’t make the fear disappear.

“The fourth floor is strictly off-limits to everyone except His Grace. Even as the Grand Duchess, you are not permitted to enter without permission. Please keep this in mind. Likewise, the west garden is also restricted, so please remember that as well.”

“I… I understand.”

“Lastly, venturing outside the mansion at night is extremely dangerous, so please absolutely refrain from doing so. As you may have noticed on your way here, the mansion is located on a mountainside, thus nocturnal predators sometimes appear.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Finally succeeding in dropping the honorifics after repeated attempts, Beatrice saw the butler’s worried expression relax slightly.

“Now, you must be hungry after your long journey. Let me have a meal prepared for you. Please follow me to the dining room.”

“Actually, I don’t have much of an appetite…”

“Littman will feel cold and unfamiliar compared to the place you are used to. A hearty meal will ease your discomfort, so please have at least a little.”

In fact, Beatrice was so exhausted and distraught, wanting nothing more than to collapse into bed and didn’t want to eat anything. However, the butler’s persistent urging continued, and she had no choice but to reluctantly sit down at the dining table.

As soon as she was seated, a dazzling array of dishes she had never seen before filled the table one after another.

All this food, prepared just for me?

The thought made her feel strange, as if she were a precious princess in a fairy tale.

“It’s delicious…”

Beatrice took a spoonful of the closest dish, a clam chowder.

The fresh aroma of clams and the warmth spread through her mouth, soothing every nook and cranny of her body, weary from a week-long journey in a carriage.

Tears welled up in Beatrice’s eyes as she savored the luxurious and abundant meal, unlike anything she had ever experienced in her life.

How did she end up here, in this unfamiliar place overnight, being called “Grand Duchess” and eating such a rare delicacy as clam chowder?

Beatrice’s memories flashed back to a week ago.

“Oh, my daughter! Congratulations!”

When she first received her parents’ congratulations, Beatrice assumed it was for her coming-of-age ceremony, which she hadn’t expected them to remember.

“It was worth taking you to that party. His Grace, the Grand Duke of Edelstein, the lord of the North, has sent a proposal! He even sent three chests of gold as a betrothal gift!”

The New Year’s Eve party, open to all those listed in the Empire’s noble lineage.

That day, Beatrice Loverick was thrown into the party like a commodity to be traded in marriage, dressed in a revealing scarlet dress, the kind a high-class courtesan might wear.

For her parents, the party was a prime opportunity to showcase their daughter one last time before sending her off to marry an old marquis who had declared his intention to take her as his wife upon her coming of age. Beatrice’s reputation as a noble lady wasn’t a significant concern for them.

Her blatantly provocative attire had earned her mockery, ridicule, and unwanted advances. But her parents, deaf to all of it, focused solely on selling their daughter at the highest possible price.

And finally, their efforts seemed to have paid off with the proposal from the Grand Duke of Edelstein.

Along with three chests of gold in exchange for her.

“I assure you, there will be no better match for you than this. You’ll be a Grand Duchess!”

The Loverick barony was a minor noble family barely clinging to its title, without any significant landholdings.

Of course, the family hadn’t always been this impoverished.

Once, the Loverick family had been renowned for producing generations of the Empire’s finest herbalists. However, their prestige had faded over time, culminating in complete ruin by the time Beatrice’s parents took over.

The couple’s vanity and extravagance played a significant role in their downfall. They had even sold the rights to the herbal medicine books written by their ancestors, their family’s only remaining source of income, simply to satisfy their vanity.

That marked the beginning of the Loverick family’s rapid decline.

They sold their land, heirlooms, valuables, and eventually even their grand mansion, forcing them to move into a dilapidated house.

Meanwhile, they continued to have children, leaving Beatrice with four younger siblings.

A family with no honor, no assets, only a tarnished title, mounting debts, and too many children.

Perhaps that was why the Grand Duke of Edelstein, whose family was notorious for its difficulty in producing heirs, had proposed to a daughter of such a fallen noble family.

“Please fulfill your duties and obligations without displeasing His Grace. And by all means, don’t forget us and your siblings there.”

Beatrice’s mother, well aware of this, repeatedly emphasized and urged her daughter to bear children.

The Grand Duke of Edelstein was surrounded by ominous rumors.

The relatively harmless ones spoke of a devastating fire that had ravaged his lands. Far more sinister were the rumors that the current Grand Duke, upon inheriting his title and coming of age, had massacred his relatives, including his grandfather, along with several northern nobles.

It was even rumored that the massacre was a result of the Grand Duke’s madness, and that he still suffered from it to this day, driving him to roam his lands at night, indulging in slaughter.

Why else would no one have dared to marry him, despite the opportunity to become a Grand Duchess?

But to Baron Loverick and his wife, blinded by the potential gains from this marriage, such rumors were insignificant. Their daughter’s well-being was secondary to their own greed.