Chapter 0
An old mansion with a faint scent of grapes wafting through it.
The study inside the mansion was filled with old furniture—a desk, bookcase, chairs, and the like—that looked as though it had been used for decades, with worn corners and faded patterns.
In such an old-fashioned study, a young man and woman who seemed wholly out of place sat at the desk.
When the woman swept back her long, silky hair, perhaps because it was tickling her eyes, it revealed snow-white skin and eyes that seemed to have sunset etched into them.
The woman exuded the sort of air one might imagine Snow White from a fairy tale would have if she truly existed.
Scratch, scratch.
While she busily wrote something on a blank sheet of paper, she waged a fierce battle with the paperwork.
Peck, peck.
The man seated beside her was kissing the back of her hand with utmost care, as though handling a precious treasure.
His features looked as though a master artisan had carved them, complemented by brilliant golden hair and jade-colored eyes that never left the woman.
They were, quite literally, a picture-perfect pair.
“Haa….”
This bizarre scene—a man indulging in displays of affection beside a woman doing paperwork—ended when she let out a sigh.
“Hey.”
The woman set down her pen, raised her head, and glared at the man.
“I told you not to bother me while I’m working, didn’t I?”
She growled in a low, threatening voice utterly at odds with her appearance.
“Hmm.”
After staring intently at the woman, the man considered this for a moment.
Pointing to the left hand he was holding, he said nonchalantly,
“That’s why I didn’t touch your right hand.”
“I told you not to touch me at all, regardless of which hand it is!”
The woman flew into a rage and tried to wrench her left hand free, but the man would not readily let go.
“Ugh!”
“You can’t just try to pull away whenever you please. You know that too.”
The man lowered his head to kiss the back of her hand again, then looked up at her.
“This belongs to me.”
Her hand belonged to the man.
That made no sense, especially now that slavery had been abolished, but…
“….”
She could not refute his words.
Because.
“You were the one who signed the contract.”
Her hand truly belonged to him, not to her.
‘How did things ever come to this?’
With her eyes closed, the woman recalled what had happened a month earlier.
The day she had hired him using herself as collateral.
***
“Fuck.”
A month earlier.
At the time, I was agonizing over a letter I had received.
『Greetings, Lady Fortune.
Today, too, I write a few words on a sheet of paper as white as your skin while thinking of you.
The North’s pale hues bring your image to mind….
<Omitted>
Now, to get to the point, I am writing because I fear you may have forgotten your promise to become my concubine if you fail to repay the 1,000 gold coins borrowed from my family and the 2,000 gold coins in interest by the end of this winter.
As a precaution, I recommend that you save your money and prepare your dowry even now.
That would be far better than coming empty-handed.
Then, I hope you make the wise choice.』
“You money-hungry pig bastard. How can the interest possibly be 2,000 gold coins?”
If this had been Korea, I would have reported him to the police for violating the Interest Limitation Act.
But I could not do that here.
This was not Korea.
“If I was going to be born at all, couldn’t I at least have been born into a better family….”
After all, this was the world of the romance-fantasy novel I had read in my previous life.
My name is Alice Fortune.
I am the Fortune family’s only noble—and its current head.
I was also reincarnated, carrying memories of my previous life, into a minor family that was never even mentioned in the novel.