"Were you waiting for me?"
I had already extinguished the candles before retiring, so his low-pitched voice sounded heavy in the darkness.
*I waited?*
No. I hadn't been. But I nodded without thinking.
"If I had known you were so eager for my company tonight, I would have come sooner."
That wasn't true either.
---
My insomnia had begun the night my father died. Every evening, he would sing me a lullaby—the same one my mother once sang to soothe me to sleep. But since his passing, sleep had eluded me entirely.
Each night, I lay awake. Only when dawn broke and Hannah emerged from the servants' quarters, patting my head and embracing me, could I finally drift off through the comfort of her warmth and touch.
Word spread through Valmonde Castle that the late master's daughter was suffering from mental illness brought on by shock. The Duke of Vermont, desperate to preserve his family's honor and add Vermont blood to the official register, had become enraged at such gossip. Those who spoke openly had fallen silent, though the rumors never truly disappeared.
The Duke eventually pretended ignorance of the fact that my commoner maid slept in my chambers—the Princess's room. Yet so obsessed was he with family honor that he'd paid the Pebble family handsomely to have Hannah formally registered as a member of their household.
Now things were different. A wife was expected to be perpetually ready to receive her husband.
As the household's head, Kaian had absolute authority to enter my room whenever he wished. He gave no advance notice, asked no permission. It happened unpredictably, so Hannah and I could never rest together in a space meant for him.
*Yet I slept well yesterday.*
Hannah had worried about this arrangement, but I realized the truth: last night, I had fallen asleep against his body heat. Even an enemy's warmth was preferable to the cold isolation of sleeplessness. At least for me.
---
Kaian led me to the bed and sat me down.
"There's no need to wait by the door. You may lie down first, or sit on the bed—either way, wait for me."
"Yes," I answered.
He reached out, his fingers tracing from my cheek, across my ear, beneath my chin, down the delicate skin of my neck. I tensed instinctively, my lips pursing, my shoulders drawing up.
"Now that I think about it, you didn't answer my question properly."
*Does he always speak so unexpectedly? So coldly?* I wondered. *Or is this simply how a man appears in intimate moments—distant and stern—even when he harbors affection elsewhere?*
"I asked if I was good," he continued, his voice direct.
I widened my eyes. "Meaning... the gift?"
"Precisely. If you disliked the gift, then tell me plainly—did you like it?"
"How could I presume to judge Your Grace in such a manner..." I began hesitantly.
Kaian's eyebrows rose sharply. "Stop speaking like that."
I was startled by his indifference to formality.
*What am I supposed to say?*
Earlier, the subject of gifts had arisen naturally and passed without notice. But now, seeing him deliberately raise the matter again, I wondered if he expected a specific answer.
My mind, already taut with nervousness, went blank.
"It was... wonderful," I said finally.
I added quickly, "I don't know much about such things."
*Should I praise him? Is that what he wants?* I remained confused, but managed to continue.
"Hmm."
As if I'd nearly found the right answer, Kaian lay back on the bed and extended his hand.
"Come here."
When I didn't move immediately, he rose, embraced me, and drew me down beside him.
"I suppose I'll see if tonight is an improvement over last night."
*I see. My answer wasn't correct.*
It seemed I would have to prove my worth through actions rather than words.
---
## Kaian's Perspective
Claudel's body was honest in ways her words could not be. As he held her, Kaian instinctively understood that she had come to him that first night untouched. He recognized this as a fortune few men possessed—a wife whose innocence was genuine, not feigned.
If it were otherwise, if she had been some flirting courtier or ambitious noblewoman, it might have been otherwise. But her naïveté was genuine.
Despite his contempt for Vermont, Kaian had tested her with his earlier question about special talents. Claudel seemed largely ignorant of the intimacies between men and women. Since sunset, when he'd first contemplated joining her, she had kept him on edge—it was fascinating to observe such an innocent woman responding to his touch with genuine bewilderment rather than practiced coquetry.
*Shall I go to her now? No. I cannot appear too eager. My every movement will surely be reported to that vile Duke of Vermont.*
He had endured the evening with his drunken retainers, waiting only until true darkness fell before making his way to her bedchamber. He'd been disappointed to find the lights extinguished—was it proper to wake a sleeping woman?
No one would have dared ask such a question of him.
Claudel was a quiet wife. Had she been the flitting, attention-seeking type, he might have asked that "vulgar redhead" whether she intended to show off at Rowen Castle. But she merely offered yes and no in that calm, indifferent manner—there was nothing to criticize or condemn.
The stories about her fierce, fighting-cock-like maid were a hot topic throughout the castle. At first, her quietness had seemed advantageous. But now it was... annoying.
*Annoying?*
He questioned himself at this unexpected emotion. There were no fixed times for when she retired or when he should arrive. If a woman who had arrived exhausted from rain slept early, there was nothing wrong with that. So why did he feel this way toward a Vermont girl?
As his darker thoughts turned to waking her and tormenting her, Kaian opened the bedroom door and found her standing there.
Her golden eyes were luminous in the darkness—bright as moonlight rising in a starless sky. Though her back was turned to where moonlight streamed through the window, her pale skin seemed to glow with soft luminescence.
He was pleased to see her standing in her nightgown, barefoot, waiting to greet him.
The woman who had suffered through yesterday's rain appeared more beautiful today, perhaps simply from having rested. He couldn't say with certainty, but that was how he perceived it.
As he entered the second night, Kaian began to understand why past family heads had lived with such austerity.
The accomplishment and catharsis of the battlefield—the clash of shields and spears, the splitting of bodies, the harsh pounding of his horse, the sword driving through an enemy's heart amidst the shouts of knights—he could feel those sensations multiplied several times over from the depths of Claudel's being.
That singular moment when lightning coursed through him from crown to sole, when he felt utterly separated from this world.
---
Claudel's body, intoxicated by his heat, cooled slowly. Kaian held her comfortably as their breathing steadied. Yesterday she had fallen asleep immediately, so there had been no moment like this. Now, after mere days, she seemed accustomed to receiving him, her body adjusting naturally. She looked drowsy yet aware.
Unable to bear the silence, Claudel quietly rose from the bed. She retrieved her thin undergarments and put them on, then gathered his formal clothes to put them in order.
Kaian thought she looked like a fairy—a woman in white undergarments, shoulders bare, moving lightly through the darkened chamber. He watched her movements lazily.
*Ting. Ting. Clink.*
A small metallic sound rang against the floor. Claudel looked puzzled.
She hurried to pick up the object and opened her palm to him like a child who had made a terrible mistake.
"This fell from your clothes."
It was a bezel—the small metal frame that encased the gold button decorating his formal coat.
Kaian, possessing a generous nature like a well-fed lion, answered indifferently. "It fell from the decoration. It happens occasionally. Don't worry—the seamstress will repair it."
But Claudel continued to examine it closely.
"Why?" she asked, as though lost in thought—the same expression she'd worn when examining the burial catacombs.
How could a small piece of gold command such earnest attention?
Claudel suddenly pressed her finger inside the ring-shaped bezel.
"May I have this?"
"What?"
"It fits perfectly."
And indeed, the bezel fit precisely around the fourth finger of her left hand. Despite having just watched it fall from his clothes, it now looked exactly like a delicate ring.
*Well, so she wants something like that,* Kaian thought.
He answered while settling back comfortably. "Of course."
Claudel's face brightened.
---
Kaian's mind turned to other matters. *The rumors about Rowen's wealth in Valmonde...*
Valmonde had endured a decade-long drought. Five years ago, as residents grew desperate from prolonged hardship and lack of resources, they had begun fleeing the territory. Meanwhile, Kaian had blocked food exports northward, reducing Vermont's diamond reserves to the equivalent of a sack of beans.
Yet a single shipment of diamonds sent through Oberon's kingdom could purchase an entire ship's worth of beans from abroad. Temnes had long surpassed Vermont in actual wealth.
Kaian had accumulated sufficient funds to wage war on an entire territory. The sum was vast—equivalent to several years of Oberon's royal budget—but it meant nothing if not spent on punishing his family's enemy.
The thought of his tombstone being engraved with "The Lord Who Ended Vermont" made his blood burn.
Yet Claudel was a singular woman. She had not even attempted to wear the blue diamond he'd given her, instead coveting only the thin gold bezel that had fallen from his clothes.
*So that's why...* Kaian reasoned silently. *The blue diamond simply doesn't suit her well.*
With red hair, golden eyes, and an enormous blue diamond, the effect would have been entirely mismatched. Each color would compete for dominance rather than complement.
*Perhaps there's merit in her perspective.*
Originally, Valmonde had been a major producer of precious metals and gems. Just as Rowen controlled food production in its territory, Valmonde controlled the value of all minerals extracted from its mines.
Her eyes must have been quite discerning, honed from growing up in the Vermont duchy.
*Well,* Kaian thought, arriving at a conclusion that satisfied him, *perhaps she feels a sense of accomplishment at receiving something from Temnes.*
With that settled, he closed his eyes.
He could never have foreseen what would come next.
---
"Oh! Did the Duke truly give you this?" Hannah exclaimed the next morning.
"Isn't it lovely?" Claudel replied happily, proudly displaying her trivial prize to her maid.
What neither of them knew was that a rumor was already spreading through the castle—a story that would paint Claudel in an entirely different light.
The tale being whispered was that the Vermont woman, treated so coldly by the Duke, was a shameless liar. She had, according to the castle gossip, secretly removed the decoration from the Duke's own clothing and brazenly claimed he had given it to her as a gift.
In short: she was a thief, caught red-handed.
---