Aidan bit his lip hard and shoved his toes into the narrow stocking.
Stronger and more elastic than expected, the stocking smoothly accepted Aidan’s foot and soon squeezed tightly.
Beneath the pale gray fabric, Aidan’s sturdy calves and his thighs—which were thicker than an average woman’s waist—wrenched at the deeply unpleasant sensation of being tightly wrapped.
‘Son of a…’
Looking down, he saw a muscular body clad only in underwear and stockings.
It was a style that looked like it belonged to a pervert lurking around a convent in the dead of night, causing Aidan to make a miserable face.
But what could he do?
The milk was already spilled.
Thinking of the promissory note and the house filled with memories of his parents, Aidan barely swallowed his shame and finally lifted the red dress.
Perhaps because it was custom-made to fit Aidan’s build, the dress was much larger and heavier than what an ordinary woman would wear, even though it lacked any extravagant decorations.
Still, putting on the dress felt less repulsive than putting on the stockings.
Was it because it finally covered his semi-naked body?
“Aidan? Are you done dressing?”
The Viscount’s urging came again.
After wrestling with a mountain of skirt fabric for a good while, Aidan finally found and fastened every single hidden button on the bodice of the dress, panting heavily as he shouted back.
“Almost!”
Once his body was covered by the dress, he would at least look somewhat human.
At the very least, he wouldn’t look like a total pervert…
That vague expectation was utterly shattered.
The red dress was made with simple lines to emphasize modesty, but due to Aidan’s well-developed shoulder muscles, the sleeves looked as if they had massive puffs attached.
On top of that, the bodice—designed to cling tightly to the body according to high society’s current fashion—provocatively highlighted Aidan’s bursting, swollen chest muscles.
He had gone from looking like a pervert haunting a convent to looking like a pervert heading to a shady underground club.
“Dammit.”
Just as Aidan muttered a quiet curse and was about to step out from behind the partition, the Viscount tossed something inside.
With a thud, it hit the floor and rolled to a stop.
It was a pair of shoes.
They were red high heels with pointed toes and heels as long and sharp as a rapier blade.
“What is this?”
Even though his brain knew exactly what it was, Aidan forced himself to ask.
Accepting it quietly without a fight was something his last remaining shred of pride wouldn’t allow.
The choker, the stockings, and now the dress—Aidan’s ego had already been hacked to pieces and left in tatters while changing clothes. He had to protect what little pride he had left, even if it was only the size of a bean.
“It is ungraceful for low-heeled shoes to be seen beneath a dress. If you’re going to do this, shouldn’t you be perfect?”
Perfect, my foot. Forcing someone of his height to wear high heels—did the Viscount genuinely want him to look like a woman?
The heels looked to be well over 10cm at a glance.
Aidan’s height was just over 190cm.
A towering woman standing over two meters tall?
He had suspected it ever since he was asked to be a body double, but the Viscount truly seemed out of his mind.
‘If it weren’t for the money.’
Aidan squeezed his eyes shut and jammed his feet into the high heels.
For Aidan, who had only ever worn men’s dress shoes or combat boots, the high heels felt incredibly light and awkward.
“Ugh.”
And they were uncomfortable.
To the point where he questioned the sanity of the shoemaker.
It felt less like an item made to protect the feet and more like a device designed to restrict the wearer’s movement.
When he put weight on his heels out of habit, the thin spikes wobbled as if they were going to snap, naturally forcing all of Aidan’s weight onto his toes.
It was painful enough having his toes squeezed by the sharply pointed fronts, but trusting his entire body’s balance to the tips of his toes was absolute torture.
Moreover, every time he lifted a foot and stepped back down, the back of the high heels scraped against the skin of his ankles.
The thin stockings might have shaped the lines of his legs, but they did absolutely nothing to protect his skin.
“Aidan, if you’re ready, will you show me now?”
‘Always rushing me. Pushing people like that is exactly why Olivia ran away from home.’
Swallowing down curses aimed at the Viscount, Aidan walked as slowly as humanly possible.
The faster he walked, the more agonizing the pain in his feet became.
He had heard people say that wearing heels for a long time felt like having your flesh sliced by blades, and it didn’t feel like an exaggeration at all.
“Aidan?”
“Ah, stop nagging me. I’ll come out when I’m ready!”
“I just thought you didn’t know how to put them on…”
Viscount Orte, seeing Aidan step out from behind the partition in the red dress, instantly caught his breath.
His eyes went round, and he froze on the spot as if nailed to the floor.
“Well? Does it suit me?”
“That, uh…”
“Don’t tell me I’m so beautiful you’re speechless? I always knew I was handsome, but wow, I didn’t know I could pull off a dress too.”
“…Let us pray that the Count’s eyesight has significantly deteriorated.”
The Viscount turned his head away with a face that looked like he had witnessed something he shouldn’t have.
‘That’s exactly what I told you!’
Aidan had prepared himself mentally before coming to the mansion, but the difference between imagining it in his head and seeing it with his own eyes was quite vast.
The Viscount’s shuddering, horrified gaze cut deeper than expected.
Once he arrived at the Count’s estate, even more people would react that way.
Could he really endure that?
The sheer bleakness of the future made his vision grow dark.
If it really weren’t for the promissory note and his house, he wouldn’t do something like this even if it killed him.
But he couldn’t just hand over all the hard-earned money he had slaved away for to the Viscount and go back to mercenary work either.
Perhaps feeling bad as Aidan sat there heavily sighing in dejection, the Viscount crept closer and offered what was meant to be comfort.
“Aidan, just because your cross-dressing is lacking doesn’t mean I doubt your abilities. You are more than capable of enduring three weeks. This uncle trusts you, my nephew.”
“Ah, right. Sure.”
Yeah, right.
Seeing his indifferent response, the Viscount began to spout absurd advice, claiming it would look better once he wore a wig and makeup.
Aidan had to try incredibly hard not to beat the man up.
Every time Viscount Orte’s plump cheeks and chubby lips moved, Aidan felt a surge of disgust mixed with rising anger, so he deliberately turned his gaze out the window.
Right then, a navy carriage caught Aidan’s eye as it entered the mansion’s grounds.
“Hmm?”
“What’s wrong?”
“It looks like the carriage sent by the Count’s estate has arrived.”
“That’s far too early. A cargo carriage delivering food supplies usually comes around this time. Haven’t you mistaken it for that?”
“Do they hitch six horses to a cargo carriage?”
When Aidan tapped the window pane with his fist, the skeptical Viscount poked his head out.
“Oh, you’re right. Well then, Aidan, I shall head down for a moment. You wait here.”
Aidan gave a brief nod, and the Viscount rushed out of the room.
The moment he heard the door slam shut, Aidan kicked off the high heels.
He felt like he could breathe again now that the pain in his feet was gone.
He looked back out the window, feeling much more at ease.
It seemed the rumor that the Count had funded Olivia’s entire education since childhood wasn’t empty talk.
