Extra 1. How to live as the daughter of Count Petrika.
“Well, he is.”
As she saw Merilyn’s rather plaintive response, Amanda raised one of her eyebrows. Merilyn saw that she was currently asking a question with her expression that meant, ‘is that all you have to say?’—before Merilyn eventually confided in her, albeit reluctantly.
“I’m not really interested in getting married anyway. Since my father will try to marry me off even if the Duke is just ugly and has a hunchback. Simply like my parents, I will just have to live like that.”
Unlike Agatha, who had been kicked out for fighting with Amanda in the past, as well as most of the girls who dreamed of a handsome groom, a gorgeous wedding plus a sweet honeymoon, Merilyn had never been interested in any of that at all.
She wondered if it was because of the fact that her groom had been decided on too early or if she merely didn’t feel anything as she watched her own parents’ dry marriage. One couldn’t really figure out what the reason truly was. Perhaps she, Merilyn herself, was simply not that very excited about her own marriage.
Nevertheless, what was clear had been the fact that the picture which Count Petrika had painted all along happened to be crystal clear. As long as the next Duke of DeMancier was a boy, Merilyn would definitely become the bride in that picture.
“Oh, he is. It’s actually important because it’s a marriage that needs to be done anyway. You like handsome guys, right? Just like you said, the Count will still marry you off even if the Duke of DeMancier is ugly! But have you ever heard of a guy named Choonam? That one—he’s really ugly.”
After lightly brushing past the topic with Merilyn, Amanda told the tale of an older sister whom she once knew. She had been introduced to a very ugly man and she told her about the experience of someone who suffered those kinds of hardships.
“I was walking from far away and I didn’t really think that it was him. But when I tried to approach him, he was like… I was trying to talk to him, but he seemed like he wanted to run away? What kind of running away—I just wanted to grab him by the collar first and shake him then.”
Jik jik—Amanda vividly took the stance of a grabbing pose and started waving her hands rhythmically. Merilyn burst into laughter at those words of hers.
“And if it was a hunchback, I wouldn’t have married him at all. Since the Duke of DeMancier has to go to war anyway. In any case, do you think that marriage will end with just a wedding? What—do you think a bird bit you and your brother fell from the sky?”
Merilyn, who had very minimal knowledge of sexual activity, replied bluntly with, ‘I know about that too’. Amanda eventually leaned more towards her. Her playful hazel eyes drew closer and her lips began to whisper softly into Merilyn’s ear.
“You’re lying!”
“No, really!”
The playful look on Amanda’s face as she laughed, made her doubt the authenticity of those words. Merilyn squinted her green eyes and gave her a suspicious look, but Amanda said that she was being real.
“I’m also curious, so let’s make sure to check it out at the stable later.”
“Amanda!”
It was said that the Duke of DeMancier’s manhood had been as big as a horse’s. When they went out in a carriage during their outing, which was a secret since the noble lady of the Count’s family did not even ride a horse, she had stealthily gone to the stable while leaving with her childhood friend whom she always went along with.
*
Merilyn eventually grew to live up to her father’s expectations and in the end, she married the Duke of DeMancier, just as Count Petrika had wished. Perhaps since Gellerhard had become the Duke right after the previous Duke of DeMancier was killed in action, even as the Duchess of DeMancier prepared for the wedding of the current Lord, a gloomy atmosphere of mourning lingered throughout everywhere.
The Duchess Dowager of DeMancier prepared a lavish wedding in order to change the mood and while Merilyn grew very nervous, Amanda had been very sorry that she was unable to attend the wedding herself. And Merilyn’s husband, Gellerhard, whom she had only met for the first time at the wedding hall, was a man of great size—just as she had heard before.
And as rumored, he was really handsome, but Merilyn’s eyes didn’t reflect him at all. Instead, the purple eyes between his dark hair lay down melancholily and shone sharply in return as he looked up at her. Merilyn’s body shuddered with fear in the groom’s eyes as he raised his head and looked at his bride in turn.
A man who had gone to war for the first time right after losing his own father and a woman who had only been educated as a bride while not being familiar with such a man. Both of them were pushed by circumstances at an early age in order to start a family and the announcement of their marriage had rung all too easily soon after.
Merilyn was speechless as well as scared of her huge husband and Gellerhard simply didn’t know what to do with her sudden appearance. Their first night passed without any incident as there was no one who would inform the Duke of DeMancier about the union between a particular couple, nor was there anyone who could actually tell them.
It was only after they had been married for less than a week that Merilyn ever heard her father’s harsh reprimand, something which she had never experienced before. Merilyn, who had been living in utter submission, could only obey her father this time as well.
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