The Fallen Noble Lady, Rion
Rion Primrose served as my personal maid in the manor. Her name alone made her origins plain: she had been born a noble.
Years ago the Empire had stripped House Primrose of its title, on the charge that her parents had committed a crime. Rumors spoke of ties to demonkind, yet the full truth of the affair had never come to light. Their lands had lain close to Winterfeldt, and with those whispers of demon involvement still in the air, I went to the house at once.
That was where I found Rion. She was a little older than I — a lady who had never once dirtied her hands with labor in all her life — and she was waiting to be sold as a slave. Tears stood in her eyes. I could not turn away from her.
In the end, I stepped forward.
"I will take this young lady into my care."
"Your Grace! House Primrose is—"
"I will hear no more of it. That was her parents' affair, and theirs alone."
Only after the words had left me did I understand them, if only a little. I, too, had never been free of my father.
He had been head of House Bernheim, the line that had ruled Winterfeldt for generations, and he had held the people's trust exactly as his fame promised — all of it, save for a single disastrous decision.
My father had...
He had ceded a stretch of Winterfeldt's outer territory to the demons, and the demons had made of it the Pleasure District.
It was a thing no one could have imagined in Winterfeldt, the march that had held the line against the remnant hardline factions of demonkind and every manner of magical beast. After he made that choice, every power in the Empire bore down upon us. The North under Winterfeldt's charge had once been the dwelling of the Demon King, and that only sharpened the pressure.
Neither then, nor now that he is gone, have I been able to grasp what he intended. What I feel instead is the weight of responsibility. Winterfeldt does not govern the Pleasure District, and yet the place exists because Winterfeldt willed it into being.
The only burden my father ever passed into my hands.
Perhaps that was why my heart went out all the more to Rion, tangled as she was in the deeds of her parents. I pulled her from the slave trader's grasp and brought her into Bernheim Manor. Only afterward did she insist on earning her keep, and ask to serve as a maid.
And yet...
Rion, with whom I had built that trust, walked in on me masturbating.
It was something any man might do. Even so, I was ashamed. I stopped the hand that had been moving, and I had no choice but to look at her.
"R-Rion..."
"Lord Hardy... I'm sorry for coming in so suddenly..."
"I'm the one who should apologize, Rion. You saw something you never should have."
"No, Your Grace. The truth is, I..."
Her lips parted.
"I came because I wanted to help you, Lord Hardy."
"What do you mean?"
"I had some sense that you've been suffering every night. As someone who owes you a great debt, I want to be of help."
"Rion... what are you..."
"Lord Hardy, this is a natural thing for a man to do. And more than anything, I..."
She met my eyes, her face flushed deep. Then she swallowed whatever she had been about to say, and came closer.
"R-Rion!"
"Please don't be ashamed..."
She sank to her knees before me and settled into place.
And then she took my cock carefully in her hand.
However much she owed me, there was no need for her to go so far. An act like this belonged between a man and a woman who loved each other. Of course I cared for Rion — not merely as a master cares for his maid, but as a man cares for a woman. I had never told her so outright. Neither had she told me.
Which meant this could just as easily be the Grand Duke bringing his power to bear on her.
I tried once more to stop her.
"Rion. Truly, it's all right. I mean it."
I drew my hips back as I spoke. She looked up at me, her face burning.
"Lord Hardy, I want to do this for you. I... I like you. As a woman likes a man..."
"Rion..."
"Even if you cannot accept my feelings, I know better than anyone that your body is not in a normal state right now."
She said it with eyes bright and wet. In truth, if Rion cared for me that way, I wanted to meet her as a woman in return. Only I still had far too much left to do as Grand Duke, and so I hesitated.
Then she spoke, as if she had read the thought.
"You carry far too much as Grand Duke. For now, empty your head. Leave it to me, and let yourself go."
"R-Rion..."
There was something almost maternal in the voice that soothed me.
Her hand began to move. I ought to have pulled away in earnest and stopped her, but I was a man, and the pleasure running the length of my cock was difficult to refuse. Precum had already spilled, slicking her fingers. The sensation grew sharper for it, and my guilt only swelled with it — I was dirtying her hand.
Rion's hand quickened, and her breathing seemed to deepen little by little. She had been staring at my cock with an embarrassment almost painful to watch. Then she drew a long, deep breath, and her lips parted.
Surely she isn't—
A shudder—!
A harder shudder still—!!
Had my thoughts simply raced ahead of me? I came. The stimulation was nothing like touching myself alone, and I could not hold it back. My semen struck even Rion's face.
She, too, seemed thrown by the sudden spill; her eyes went perfectly round.
Then, true to herself, she recovered her composure in an instant. The one still flustered was me.
"Rion... I-I'm sorry. I didn't think it would..."
"It's all right, Your Grace. Do you feel any better now?"
She worried for me instead. At her concern, I took stock of my body.
It was true. The heat running through me was subsiding.
"I think I'm much better. Rion... thank you."
"I'm glad, Your Grace. If it wasn't enough..."
"I-I'm fine! Rion!"
Only when I refused her in a raised voice did she rise.
"Your Grace, if you need my hands again... I will help you whenever you wish."
"R... Rion..."
"Then please rest easy tonight."
She inclined her head and left the bedchamber.
It was a night whose meaning I could not quite grasp.
Perhaps Rion's touch had done its work. Set beside the nights I had managed with my own hand, my body felt far clearer. So a morning could be this bright. It was as if muscles knotted for a long time had finally been loosened.
After a simple breakfast I left the manor and called for Theo, who had charge of its security. The moment our eyes met, he broke into a bright grin.
"Hardy! Busy again today?"
He was an old friend, the same age as I. His skill had been exceptional since we were boys; the only thing standing in his way was that he had been born a commoner. That had never sat right with me, so in the end I set him over Bernheim Manor as chief of security.
Captain of the guard for a grand duke's house was no ordinary post, even under the name of security. Theo's shoulders had swollen with the pride of it, and the sight was a little hard to look at — but it was a good outcome all the same.
"Theo. I might be late today."
"Heading outside Winterfeldt?"
"Probably."
"Then stay out a few days and enjoy yourself! This Theo will keep the place safe!"
"Are you telling me to work more?"
"Well, you are the Grand Duke of the North."
"You bastard!"
I drove a fist into his stomach, half in play. He was never the sort to simply take it. Theo seized my arm in both hands and tried to counter — but he could not beat me in strength. No one in Winterfeldt could, so perhaps that went without saying.
I lifted one arm, and Theo came up with it, dangling like a baby from a grown man's sleeve. An ugly sight. That was far enough.
"Theo. I'm counting on you. If anything happens, be sure to send a carrier pigeon."
"Okay!!"
He hopped lightly off my arm and answered with breezy lack of dignity. He might act like that, but his skill was better than anyone's.
Beneath the citadel of Winterfeldt lay a hidden chamber, the place I used for important councils with the Special Task Force.
I had gathered them for a single reason: to investigate the Pleasure District under the demons' management. I stepped before Captain Jeanne Eichen, the operative Sora, and several of the others, and spoke.
"The matter of Sora's kidnapping was plainly aimed at one of our own. We may as well treat it as fact that our plans and movements leaked through some channel."
At words that could cast suspicion even on an insider, Jeanne and the rest of the Task Force swallowed hard.
"But when we interrogated the two criminals we caught, they insisted there was truly no one behind them. Even with my axe at their throats."
I raised the axe in my hand — White Night. In the chamber's light, its finely honed edge flashed.
White Night was a weapon only the master of Winterfeldt could lift, the symbol passed down through House Bernheim for generations: only by raising it could one stand for Winterfeldt itself. I had lifted it, though even the haft was beyond ordinary strength, to draw the tension in the room taut — and, at the same time, to send a warning to any insider who might be among us.
When I saw even Captain Jeanne's face go tight, I was reasonably sure my intent had landed.
"I believe they may be operating in cells. If so, picking up their trail will be a troublesome business."
"Your Grace! Let me serve as bait!"
Sora shot her hand up and cried out. After what she had just been through, she surely thought she had become a burden on the Task Force. But the more she carried that mindset, the more the work would tangle. For the time being, it was better to keep her off duty.
"Sora. You're on rest for now."
"B-but..."
"Tonight I will go to Goro myself."
"G-Goro, you say?!"
"Yes."
For that decadent Pleasure District to keep turning, it would need rules and unspoken laws of its own. The demon Goro was its de facto ruler. To draw eyes elsewhere, I openly ordered several operatives toward the outskirts of the district. I meant to use them as bait, and slip in unseen.
In truth, meeting Goro was something I had done regularly. He was a demon who could be trusted — the only one who had worked with my father since the Pleasure District first came into being.
