Susan drizzled brown caramel sauce on the milk pudding.

As the intense scent of the thick syrupy sugar oozes away, and her sleepiness disappeared.

Ariel scooped up a spoonful of pudding.

'Ah, it's so soft.'

“We've finished decorating your room just now. Are you excited?”

“Yes, I'm looking forward to it.”

When Ariel spoke frankly while still holding a spoon full of the pudding, Susan smiled and stroked Ariel's face.

“You're so cute.”

Then another voice interrupted.

“Let me borrow that cute thing.”

“Young master!”

Susan called in panic when she saw Lucian put his arms around Ariel's waist and lifts her up.

“You can't treat her like that.”

But Ariel quickly chimed in and said,

“It's all right, Susan.”

'I should get used to this.'

Lucian took Ariel down to the first floor.

Ariel noticed that he was dressed quite neatly.

“Lord, where are we going?”

“Not we, just me.”

'Ah, so I have to be a wife seeing her husband off?'

Ariel hugged her head and face in case she looked shameful.

“You look like a cat, was.h.i.+ng its face.”

Lucian teased.

She was a little upset, but she had nothing to refute because it was true.

Ariel asked him.

“When will you come back after you go?”

“Next year.”

“What?”

She was now wondering if she had misheard what he said.

It's January. It's a year from now, isn't it?

Lucian put her down about three steps up from him on the stairs.

The difference in their line of sight has narrowed.

“I originally have to go to the academy in January.”

Ariel felt like she was suddenly splashed in cold water.

“You're going to the Academy?”

Come to think of it, when she still lived in the marquis's house, her brother, Jerome went to the Academy in January when he was 14.

Jerome seems like a completely different creature from Lucian that she completely forgot.

He folded his arms and leaned against the railing of the stairs.

“I was supposed to leave yesterday. I

delayed it for a day because we had the wedding.”

“I… “

Ariel wanted to say something, but there was nothing she could say.

Lucian didn't do anything against the contract.

He married her, and he kept his promise that he'll take her out of the Marquis' house and protected her here.

'It's just that….he's leaving.'

But that alone began to make her feel uneasy at one moment.

Although he is an unruly boy, Lucian was the only one who had ties with her in this house.

'Can't you….not go?'

But she couldn't say that.

She wanted to act childish, but Ariel knew well that she didn't deserve it.

She felt like tears would come out of her eyes.

Lucian felt a strange feeling when he saw the face of the girl in front of him turn into like a child getting separated apart from her mother.

'What the h.e.l.l did you see in me to believe in me like this.'

He didn't expect this reaction because she ate and slept just fine in this house.

He thought she'd just wave her hand to say goodbye.

“…You're weird.”

He felt strange seeing it, too.

'Isn't it normal to feel good because my desire to dominate is satisfied?'

He pinched Ariel's cheeks as he looked at her moistened eyes.

“P-pweash wet gwo. “

It was not until he found out that the tears were about to spill out from her round eyes that he let go.

“I have an order for you before I go.”

“Order?”

Ariel grabbed her throbbing cheek and looked up at him.

“That's right. “

Lucian stretched his white, long fingers one after the other.

“First. No magic until I come back.”

Ariel was puzzled.

'A master who tells his Mage not to use magic?'

“Second. When I'm not there, your guardian will be the Grand Duke Mathius. My father… just ignore him. “

'I-is that an order?'

“The third and the last.”

Lucian held Ariel's little cheek with one hand and pressed her lips with his thumb.

“Call me properly.”

'I thought I was calling him quite properly.'

Ariel looked at him with an expression that clearly says her thoughts and Lucian crumpled his forehead.

“Are you going to keep calling me Lord?”

“Then… Sir Lucian?”

His expression became a little scarier.

“Get rid of the Sir”

“….Lucian.”

“That's right. “

He smiled as if he was proud of her but what comes next after that sounded more like a threat.

“I'll punish you if you don't say it right the next time we meet.”

“Yes. “

When Ariel responded, Lucian glanced outside.

“Then I'm going.”

Ahh, wait…

Ariel hesitated, but quickly closed her mouth when she caught sight of people who had come to see him off.

Perhaps due to the departure of the only heir in the Grand Duke, all the servants, including Susan, and Dalton, were seeing him off as well, at the front door.

Lucian walked towards an old man with gray hair and took a coat from him.

He looks very natural being served.

Ariel stopped on the stairs and watched him go.

'He's really…..going away.'

But Lucian, who went out to the front door and was greeted, suddenly turned around.

He walked back as if he had forgotten something.

The eyes of the everyone present turned to Lucian at once.

With a long legs that looks different from other boys his age, he quickly strode and approached Ariel and pulled her back towards himself.

And his lips touched Ariel's forehead.

*chu*

As Ariel looked at him in astonishment, Lucian grinned.

“You have to gain some weight before we meet again. You look like a hairless chick than a human right now. “

With a kiss on her forehead, he disappeared from her sight with faster steps than when he walked back towards her.

Ariel frowned and mumbled.

“Uh…really rude.”

'But… '

Ariel rubbed her forehead where his lips touched.

'Somehow, my heart is fluttering.'

“You have to go see the Grand Duke now, my lady.”

Dalton, who returned after seeing Lucian off, led Ariel.

'The Grand Duke….'

Ariel felt her lips dry from tension.

Although he married the Grand Duke's heir, she still never met the Grand Duke himself.

'He didn't come to the wedding either.'

Although Lucian had agree with the marriage, it was highly likely that the Grand Duke did not like the marriage.

A shabby girl who suddenly fell in front of the gate married his son in a day.

Besides, Ariel doesn't have anything worthy to become the bride of Lucian, the next Grand Duke.

She's ten years old but looks too young for her age and she's ugly, and has a hideous appearance as well.

'The only thing I can do is magic, but now it's useless because Lucian banned it.'

Wherever you look, there isn't anything in herself that's likable for an adult.

When she still lived in the Marquis' house, the maids said that all children that adults favor are liked for a reason.

“Look at Young Master Jerome. How pure! How can you even compare that attic child to him? That child is so weird, she doesn't make a single sound even when she gets beaten.”

“It's cute when kids are little chubby like Young Master Jerome. Isn't it obvious that you'll like to give more delicious things to a chubby kid and a stick-like one?“

“Like Young Master Jerome, you have to speak informally to an adult and act spoil sometimes to be like a child. You're not even asking for anything. You're just being sullen.”

Ariel, who has her existence always been denied since she was young, could not have glowed as a child.

In addition, the body of a child who's always abused could not have been chubby without proper eating.

But the servants didn't care a bit about it.

They were all on Jerome's side.

No matter how violent Jerome was towards her, they still loved him, and Ariel, who had no one at all, was hated by him breathlessly.

Even the butler and the head maid talked about how upsetting and creepy Ariel was in every situation.

They used to compare the weak Ariel to the next Marquis, Jerome.

Ariel, who had never been treated so warmly by an adult until she was seventeen years old, thought that the reason was herself.

'But this time… I don't want to be hated by Lucian's father.'

She didn't want to hurt someone's feelings just because she wanted to change her life.

Ariel froze up and entered the Oval Office of the Grand Duke.

Dalton carefully knocked inside to get the attention of the Grand Duke, who was busy, focusing on his work.

When the Grand Duke raised his head, Ariel forgot her fear and admired him instead.

'Wah! He looks like Lucian…'

'And he's so handsome.'

Unlike Lucian, who had short black hair, the Grand Duke had long black hair.

'He looks so young.'

It was an unbelievable that he already has a grown son like Lucian.

Still, there was no denying that black hair and deep blue eyes were the same as Lucian's.

However, if Lucian looks like an arrogant and spoiled little boy….

The Grand Duke was a proud handsome man with a solemn and cool impression.

Both were as sure as having a very beautiful appearance.

Dalton said in a small voice.

“I… Grand Duke. The pressure.”

The Grand Duke nodded half-heartedly at his words.

The pressure filling the room slowly disappeared.

Ariel greeted him with courtesy.

“h.e.l.lo, Grand Duke Mathius. My name is Ariel.”

The Grand Duke responded to her with an indifferent look.

After a while, he opened his mouth.

“….So you're the girl Lucian took in.”

After hearing the Grand Duke's words, Ariel lowered her head a little,

'As expected.'

As expected, the Grand Duke won't welcome this marriage.

'If he look at me, he will feel more betrayed…'

The first thing I said when I saw her was that she was “The girl Lucian took in”.

Ariel couldn't even tell the Grand Duke that she'll divorce him once she became an adult because Lucian told her to keep everything about the contract marriage a secret.

'He'll probably feel better if I told him that.'

Ariel was wallowing in her negative thought, when the Grand Duke suddenly talked in a blunt tone.

“I can't believe he left this girl to me. What a crazy boy.”

Ariel blinked her long eyelashes and opened her eyes round.

'Why does it sounded like….Lucian is the problem, not me.'

◈◆◈◆◈◆

Everyone in that house really treated her like trash… even those maids. What's with their logic? Daang. That's why her confidence is 0…