"I want to pick flowers myself."
The moment he showed his smiling face was more precious to me than the dress I'd received today.
*"I don't want to receive gifts anymore. No, I'd like you to stop. If this continues, there will be strange rumors in the territory."*
*"What rumors?"*
*"That a wicked Vermont woman has married and is squandering the Temnes family fortune through extravagance."*
*"Haha."*
Very occasionally, Kaian showed me his smiling face. It was like a ray of sunlight shining briefly between dark clouds, or like a shooting star falling across the summer night sky, briefly cutting through the darkness. Sometimes, like lightning that branches like a tree next to a delicate leaf trembling with raindrops.
It was short, sudden, and sometimes intense, leaving an afterimage in my eyes.
*Why on earth does he smile?*
The first time he laughed was when I was struggling and falling into the water. I'd thought it was funny to him at the time, seeing me fall. I was frustrated because I couldn't figure out what made Kaian laugh. I wondered to myself whether I could see that expression more often if I knew when and why he smiled.
"Phew."
"You want to pick flowers? Would you like to go to the garden?"
When Hannah asked, I shook my head.
"No. I'm just speaking idly."
"My Lady, are you worried about anything?"
"Hm?"
"Why are you eating less these days? Should I call a doctor?"
It had been several days since I'd lost my appetite, except during lunch with Kaian. There was no way Hannah—observant as a ghost—didn't notice while taking care of me.
"What's wrong? Why won't you tell me? Why can't you speak?"
"That's not it at all."
"If I'm still a close friend in your heart, what can't you say? My Lady, have you changed?"
At Hannah's words, I ended up surrendering. Actually, there was a different reason why I felt anxious every time I saw Kaian.
"Hannah..."
"Yes?"
"What if Kaian..."
As I tried to speak, my heart pounded nervously.
"My Lord? What about him?"
"If he sees Irena, will he fall in love with her?"
"What?"
Hannah's brown eyes widened.
"Irena is a beautiful and cultured young woman. She's dignified and confident."
"What kind of nonsense are you talking about?"
"Hannah, you said it yourself—that there's no man in the world who doesn't like beautiful women."
At my words, Hannah burst into laughter as if she'd heard something absurd.
"Ah! Ha ha ha! Oh my. Oh my goodness!"
"Why? Why are you laughing?"
Here was one more person whose laughter I couldn't understand.
"Could it be you've lost your appetite and had no energy because of such ridiculous worries? What nonsense are you fretting about?"
"I'm serious."
"Ahahaha."
Hannah's laughter grew louder as she saw the serious expression on my face.
"Whew, my Lady—do you really not understand the Lord's feelings?"
"What? How would you know?"
"Oh my, it's obvious. He takes such care of his wife. Really."
Hannah laughed heartily and looked at me with a bright face.
"The Lord is completely in love with you. He comes to his wife's bedroom every night."
"I asked him to."
"These dresses and jewels—men don't give gifts like this to women they don't care for."
"Hannah, you've never been in a relationship either."
Despite what I pointed out, Hannah remained confident.
"Do you have to experience it to know? There's wisdom I've grown up hearing from my sisters."
"When I lived at Castle Valmonde, not a single man was interested in me."
Everyone had been captivated by Irena's beauty. When Irena and I stood side by side, all the young men offered Irena flowers and praised her beauty, as if I were invisible to their eyes.
Kaian always wore a cold expression, as if slightly angry. He would gradually relax his face in front of me, and sometimes he would even smile.
When Irena arrived and stepped out of the carriage, what if Kaian saw her and fell in love at first sight?
The last time he'd come to Valmonde Castle for our wedding, he'd arrived just as the ceremony started, married me, and left without even taking time to greet the Vermont family, claiming he was busy. As a result, he hadn't seen Irena properly.
Even on my wedding day, I'd heard the whispers clearly.
*"Even if you decorate her like that, she won't shine."*
*"If Irena had worn it, she would have been dazzling."*
*"A gem only shines after being polished. What kind of gem is that little Lady? She's just a rock."*
That's what the people below in the castle had been whispering. If Hannah had heard that, fists would have flown, but fortunately Hannah had been too busy attending my wedding to hear it that day.
"Is it truly because of beauty?"
Hannah crossed her arms and squared her shoulders.
"We'll see what happens this time. What about the Lord?"
Originally, I'd had no secrets from Hannah. I'd thought it would be the same for her. We'd shared the most painful memories of our lives. On the same day, we'd suffered the same pain and endured the same aftermath.
The pain in my heart was like an incurable disease—it never got better. The sadness returned easily, triggered by the slightest stimulus. Though others didn't understand it, Hannah and I understood each other. We were the only two people who shared that story, those memories that even raging fire couldn't burn.
However, after contracting consumption and getting married, there were secrets I couldn't reveal to Hannah for the first time.
*Hannah, I'm sorry for not being honest.*
I'd had a premonition from the beginning about who would become the new Duchess after my death. Irena All Vermont. My beautiful adopted sister would take my place.
Originally, the King's order had been to send Vermont's daughter to be the Duchess of Temnes. He hadn't specifically named Claudel.
The Duke of Vermont, enraged that Kaian was preparing for territorial war, had attempted to use me—who would soon die—as a pawn. However, there were circumstances that were quite inconsistent.
Valmonde's territory wasn't in a position to wage war due to the prolonged drought. Indeed, if I died as the Duke of Vermont claimed, he wouldn't be able to attack Temnes based on my death. After all, could troops and war preparations that never existed suddenly spring forth like water from a fountain?
So I'd understood that the reason I had to go to Temnes was to gauge how cruelly I would be treated. If the Lord proved truly terrible, Vermont would hire mercenaries from the Sol Continent to attack Temnes without any possibility of compromise.
However, if he didn't treat me particularly harshly simply because I was from Vermont—until I died of consumption—then he could simply send Irena to be the next Duchess afterward. That would still uphold the royal command.
He'd sent Vermont's daughter to Temnes. The daughter he'd sent previously had died an unfortunate death, and he'd been unable to fulfill the King's will as a subject. So he'd send another daughter to complete the King's orders.
Moreover, Irena's situation was very ambiguous at present. Vermont's daughters didn't make their debut on the Kingdom's social scene. When they came of age, they celebrated with a grand ball called the Northern Debutante.
Though there had been no separate Northern Debutante for me—because the Duke of Vermont had simply invited me, only eleven years old at the time, to Irena's ball when she was fourteen.
At that ball, the Duke of Vermont had led a beautifully adorned Irena down the stairs, holding her hand. The men looking up from below had cheered, enthralled by the girl blossoming into womanhood.
Afterward, the Duchess of Vermont had followed with me, but no one had paid attention to the skinny little girl still too young to have begun growing into a woman.
Setting that aside, Irena hadn't even debuted in the Kingdom's social scene, and at present, she was a young widow after losing her untitled husband.
Nevertheless, no one in Valmonde objected to still calling Irena "Princess" as before, though finding her a new husband would be different.
However, after my death, Kaian would also become a widower. Irena, who'd lost her husband, and Kaian, who'd lost his wife, both came from equally powerful dukedoms. Moreover, it would be an advantageous marriage in many ways, fulfilling King Oberon's royal orders.
The things I'd mentally prepared myself for, the things I'd felt I could endure before my death in order to save the people of the territory—all of it had stopped mattering.
Because I'd never expected to live, I'd had to think extensively about my future and my life. However, the conclusion of that thought was this: if the person he'd been marrying had been Irena, Kaian wouldn't have ignored her on the wedding day or failed to pay attention to her.
Irena would have been a truly beautiful bride. Moreover, her father was the Duke of Vermont himself.
The Duke might have been vain, but he couldn't have been more pleased by the news from Irena that she was visiting Rowan—coming as soon as I'd sent word that my consumption was cured and that things were well with my husband.
No, this was entirely my problem.
*Because I didn't know I would come to like Kaian.*
I had no one to blame but myself.
Hannah, unaware of my thoughts, still had a smile on her face.
"Hmm, then do you want to make a bet with me?"
"What bet?"
"Whether the Lord falls in love with Lady Irena or not. You think if the Lord sees Lady Irena, he'll fall for her. I say he won't."
"Yes."
This was a bet where losing would be better. I nodded.
"Good. So what should we wager?"
"I want my wish to be granted."
"Agreed."
Every day from that night onward, I prayed that Hannah's wish would be granted.
---
A telegram arrived suddenly.
Telegrams from Oberon's kingdom were delivered in the darkness of night by sending sequences of light through blinking signals. At communication posts that connected major cities like a spider's web in all directions, messages from one person to another traveled busily through the kingdom via light signals all night long.
Among them, the large golden seal on the outside of the telegram envelope marked it as sent by royal order from the royal family.
In Rowan, where the autumn festival was approaching but there was no winter, it was a busy time with the sowing of the second crop of autumn barley.
Kaian, who'd returned to his office after riding across large farmlands and encouraging the workers, picked up the letter from the capital that had been left on his desk before even sitting down.
Kaian unconsciously frowned as he opened the envelope. This was because the last telegram he'd received had been the royal order to marry Vermont.
*There was so much nonsense written at such length.*
Though he might now say the marriage had turned out well, it had been enough to leave Kaian with telegram-related trauma. Normally, telegrams were priced per character, so it was customary to send them briefly. But Valquiterre had said everything he wanted to say in gold-stamped letters, both when he'd been Crown Prince and now as King.
However, today the text written in the telegram was uncharacteristically short and concise.
Suddenly, Kaian's brow furrowed deeply.
"...Has he lost his mind?"
---