CH 17

“That’s ridiculous! If you’re going to say that, get out!”

Katya shoved a handful of money into Nikolai’s coat pocket and turned on her heel, heading for the parlor door.

Just then, the door burst open outside, and the Duke, who had been tipped off by the butler, stumbled in.

“I, Your Highness.”

As soon as he saw Nikolai, he propped himself up on one knee and bowed.

Katya blinked in bewilderment at this bizarre sight.

She had never seen her father, a duke, kneel down to someone before.

“Father, what’s wrong with you all of a sudden?”

“Forgive me, Your Highness, but my daughter has not learned to recognize your honor. Katarina Smirnov please be polite to the Grand Duke.”

Katya shook her head at being called by her father’s full name for no reason.

His words hadn’t quite registered in her brain.

The land in which she now lived was the Grand Duchy of Hersen.

Therefore, its monarch was also a Grand Duke.

So why was her father calling him the Grand Duke?

“This is His Highness, the Grand Duke Nikolai de Vasily.”

Suddenly, the fog cleared from her blank mind, and her stalled thought circuits began to run properly.

He introduced himself as ‘Nikki.’

And this ‘Nikki’ was Nikolai’s Nikki……?

‘No way!’

Covering her mouth with both hands, a stunned Katya was about to drop to the floor when Nikolai grabbed her hand and pulled her back up.

“Don’t strain your ankle.”

He whispered, barely audible to Katya.

Even then, her injured ankle bothered her.

“Get up, too. I apologize for barging in here without a word.”

“No, Your Highness, how could you say such a thing…….”

“I would like to speak with Miss Smirnov in private for a moment, if you will excuse me.”

“Has my lady done anything wrong to Your Highness?”

The Duke asked with a small shudder as he rose from the floor.

It was well known, even in the south, that Nikolai had killed those who opposed his will as soon as he became Grand Duke.

The southern nobles were lucky if they ever made it to the capital for a meeting of the nobility.

While the bloodshed raged in the north, the southern nobility had been content to mind their own business.

They hadn’t realized that the Grand Duke would actually travel to the south in person.

After all, a monarch so notoriously known as the ‘Grand Duke of Blood’ would have been terrified of his daughter.

He knew best that Katya was not a normal person.

Given that he didn’t even know she was the Grand Duke, there was a good chance she’d made a mistake.

“It’s nothing of the sort. I’m just here to settle a debt.”

“De, did you say debt?”

“It’s no big deal, so don’t worry about it. And the butler, bring me what I gave you earlier.”

He meant the butler should quickly leave.

It wasn’t a very nice thing to say, but he couldn’t disobey the Grand Duke’s orders, so he relented.

The butler brewed the tea he had brought, as Nikolai had ordered, and poured it into two cups, leaving them on the table with the refreshments.

The two sat down at the head of the table, facing each other.

Katya peered into the teacup in front of her with some trepidation.

It was black tea.

Ivan’s words from earlier flashed through her mind.

“Do you know how the Grand Duke kills people? Rumor has it, he calls them in and serves them tea.”

“The black tea the Grand Duke gives is a kind of poison, but strangely enough, the autopsy doesn’t reveal any poison, so it’s called the tea of death.”

So is this a death wish for her?

Katya thought back to everything she had said to Nikolai.

An indelible feast of black history flashed through her mind like a beacon of life.

“Don’t move! In case you haven’t noticed, this is a real knife.”

“Sir, you’re annoying the hell out of me. Will you go away?”

“Looks like you’ve got one hell of a hobby on your hands.”

“I told you, I’m not the kind of girl you can handle.”

“Do you want to marry me, do you like me that much? Don’t like me too much, no matter how attractive I am. You’ll only hurt yourself.”

Starting from her outrageously arrogant remarks that pierced through the sky and went beyond the bounds of rudeness—

“You look like Laika. My dog. She’s just like you in the way she gets distracted and is afraid of baths.”

“It doesn’t matter who you are, you’re still the precious child your mother laboured to give birth to.”

“What’s wrong with a flat bum?”

The list goes on and on and on.

Each one was a gem.

Every one of them deserved to be on her tombstone.

And, now that I think about it, there were several points where the Grand Duke had gotten annoyed.

“What kind of a penniless bastard do you think I am, that I should grovel for a pittance like this?”

“Are you saying I’m like a dog? That’s rude.”

I once groped the archduke’s jade body.

‘Why didn’t you just kill me then and there, so I could have gone on my merry way without having to experience the horrors of this prison.’

Katya swallowed hard, her throat burning.

‘Get your head out of your ass. Think about it. If he was going to kill me, he would have done it before, but seeing as how he’s kept me alive all this time…….’

She concluded after a short, quick mental roll.

Maybe Nikolai had come to see her beg for forgiveness.

He’d said he’d come to settle a debt, so if what he really wanted was a grovelling and an apology, couldn’t she at least do that?

“I apologize. I didn’t realize I didn’t know you and I didn’t mean to be rude…….”

“Disrespect? What kind of disrespect are you talking about?”

“What?”

“That I told you you resembled a dog and washed your hair as if you were washing a dog. Or that I was concerned about your expenses as the monarch of this country. Or that—”

“Everything! There are too many to count. I should prostrate myself on the floor and apologize right here—”

Nikolai’s eyes sharpened at those words.

A harsh tone came out of his mouth at Katya’s unsparing attitude.

“Why do you keep trying to do things I didn’t ask you to do? I’m sure I told you that your ankle is not capable of such a position.”

“You don’t have to worry about that. It’s all healed up thanks to your poultice!”

“I have never asked you to bend your head or kneel, and I never will.”

“If I were to show proper respect to Your Highness…”

“Enough about manners. Let’s get back to business, I’m here to collect a debt from you.”

Katya swallowed again at the thought of what was to come.

He couldn’t really be asking her to pay with her life, could he?

“How should I repay you then? If you don’t want money…”

“You don’t owe me money, so I can’t take it either. It’s a completely different realm than last night’s lodging.”

“What kind of realm is it…”

“Last night was quite embarrassing, I must admit.”

Nikolai said offhandedly.

“What?”

“You wrapped your legs around me and pinned me down, and I couldn’t resist.”

“What do you mean, pinned……?”

“You buried your face in my bare chest and wouldn’t let me go all night, but I couldn’t bear to have your saliva on me.”

“Saliva? Where?”

At that, her gaze dropped and she glanced at his bare chest.

Katya’s jaw dropped as she realized what he meant.

She’d known she was a bad sleeper, but she’d never thought she’d go as far as that.

“You have a very good way with mocking men.”

“Mo, mocking!”

“I have come to hold you accountable. How can I marry another with an unchaste body that has once been touched by a woman?”

Katya doubted her ears.

What, what, chaste?

Moreover, I said it only once.

Could she be the first woman to spend the night with the Archduke?

‘Oh, no.’

The man sitting in front of her now wasn’t Nikki, a commoner who looked a little foolish.

With a handsome face like that and being an archduke, the nickname ‘Grand Duke of Blood’ must have had no shortage of women around him.

There are many strange people in the world.

Like moths diving into the fire, knowing it’s a flame.

But it didn’t take long to realize she was wrong.

“You took my chastity, and I’m going to hold you accountable for it.”

“……What did you just say, me, your chastity?”

“I have never given my breasts to anyone. I’ve never even bathed with someone or fallen asleep rubbing against their bare skin.”

“No, that’s very strange, isn’t it? You make it sound as if I’m really an unscrupulous person who took the Grand Duke’s chastity and ran with it.”

“Not unscrupulous if you’ll take responsible of me.”

Nikolai replied, crossing his arms.

“And how do you mean to be responsible…….”

“Marriage.”

“What?”

Katya narrowed her eyes at the word.

Yes. With a plot twist like this, she must still be dreaming.

If she forced herself to open her eyes again, she might be able to wake up.

She always did that when she had scary dreams.

‘Okay, stay calm and focused. One, two, three!’

She flinched again and opened her eyes.

But despite her efforts, Katya was still in the parlor, not her bedroom, and Nikolai was with her.

“Would you rather believe it was a dream?”

“Haha……. What the Grand Duke said didn’t make any much sense, so I’m pretty sure it’s a dream.”

“If you’re not convinced, don’t mind me and keep trying. I’ll be waiting.”

Nikolai leaned back in his chair, intrigued.

Katya, feeling rather embarrassed by setting down a stumbling block, gave up on escapism.

“Grand Duke, if you’re just going to tease me, just tell me when it’s over.”

“I have not said a word since I entered this room that I did not mean.”

“Then…….”

“Take me to be your husband for the rest of your life, and that’s how you pay your debt.”

Katya laughed in disbelief at this unheard-of method of debt collection.