The man who came to deliver the report was about to step back but abruptly said something strange.

“It seems like something good happened to you.”

The cold gray-green eyes that had been fixed on the document slowly rose. The captain asked back in his usual neat voice.

“Why do you say that?”

“Ah, I apologize. I didn’t mean anything else……”

The clerk, who had stiffened his body due to tension, rolled his eyes awkwardly.

He, too, seemed to have blurted it out on impulse, and his face was filled with embarrassment.

However, like most of the soldiers working in the military office, he was interested in Ansel Blaine.

The captain, who was staring at him expressionlessly, did not seem angry, so he mustered up the courage to continue.

“It’s just that your atmosphere is different from usual, which is intriguing.”

“Ah.”

At that moment, the captain smiled faintly. A thin smile graced the face that had always been cold and calm, as if carved out of ice.

The clerk doubted his own eyes, as the captain was not a statue carved out of plaster.

While thinking that this smile was the most surprising thing he had seen here in the past month.

Then Captain Blaine murmured in a low voice.

“Something good happened.”

“If it’s something good……”

The clerk made a blank expression at the ambiguous answer.

Even in the military office, which battles with work every day, Captain Blaine was truly an exceptional existence.

This did not simply mean that he was skilled. He was literally a person crazy about work.

For someone of his caliber, it wouldn’t be strange to pass the work from above directly to his subordinates, but he never did that.

He never carelessly looked over the miscellaneous reports submitted by his subordinates and flawlessly carried out even the heavy responsibilities that a captain should not handle.

However, he had been particularly strange in the past few days.

The reason was that he, a captain, voluntarily stepped up for field duties that would be sufficient for a non-commissioned officer or even a low-ranking clerk to handle.

Whenever there was a minor field verification task or a need to contact a military base or military court, Captain Blaine put on his jacket and walked out the door without hesitation.

It was as if he didn’t care as long as he could leave the office.

As a result, on some days, he spent most of his working hours outside.

The subordinates who would have normally taken on those miscellaneous tasks welcomed the unexpected free time but also discussed various hypotheses about the captain’s behavior.

The most popular opinion was that he was volunteering for outside work to enjoy secret meetings with the daughter of Viscount Talbot even during work hours.

However, when the viscount’s daughter visited the office one day while he was absent, it was revealed that Captain Blaine’s absence had nothing to do with a date with his lover.

The subordinates’ thoughts naturally leaned this way.

The captain’s crazed dedication to work was probably to quickly climb up the ranks, but he, too, was human and must be getting tired.

So whenever he had the chance, he was taking solace in getting some fresh air.

The subordinates, who were well aware of the workload he handled, all agreed with that inference.

Even though he was absent for longer periods, he still completed his assigned tasks with sick perfection, so there could be no complaints.

They just cheered for the captain to regain his composure as soon as possible.

In fact, for soldiers, there was nothing more thrilling than serving under a capable superior.

‘…Would it be rude to ask what the good thing is?’

The clerk, excited that the superior who had always seemed difficult readily engaged in conversation, carefully observed the captain’s expression.

Although it seemed like he would tell him to leave now, he appeared to be lost in thought for a moment. His eyes, which had always been cold, were unusually softened.

While thinking that he was a strikingly handsome man, enough to evoke admiration anew, the clerk saw the captain’s lips, which had shifted his gaze to the report, drawing a faint arc once again.

Strangely, it was a smile that seemed to recall something very small and poignant.

“Did you perhaps encounter a lost kitten at the scene?”

The clerk impulsively threw out another question. This time, too, it seemed to have slipped out unintentionally, and his face turned red.

“Well, when you returned, you weren’t wearing your outer coat, so I joked……”

“It’s similar.”

“…Pardon?”

Ansel, who gently responded to the question that was not at all soldier-like, was still smiling. Faintly but definitely.

“I’ve never looked forward to the evening like this before.”

The captain, who had murmured like that, glanced at his pocket watch and picked up his pen again.

A chilly calmness had already settled in his eyes as he looked at the document. Finally, it was a familiar sight.

So much so that the conversation he had just had with him felt like it was all in his imagination.

‘A kitten…?’

At that moment, Captain Blaine waved his hand that was not holding the pen while keeping his gaze down.

The clerk, who was rubbing his eyes with a dumbfounded face, bowed deeply and hurriedly left the place.

The bathroom had a large window overlooking the hill road, and the walls, pillars, statues, and bathtub were all elegant milky white.

The floor was captivating with large checkered patterns of white and black marble, so shiny that one’s face would be reflected when looking into it.

Eloise, who had laid her body in the bathtub with warm steam rising, unknowingly let out a groan.

It felt as if the accumulated fatigue and sorrow were melting away into the warm water. If only the water wouldn’t cool down, she wanted to stay submerged like this all day long.

After calming her mind and body in the warm bubbles for a while, her head became a little clearer.

She could finally objectively contemplate the situation she was in.

A weary voice echoed in the bathroom where faint steam was floating.

“Be honest, Eloise, what do you want to do?”

First of all, she didn’t want to go back to Maybery right now. She still loved her family, but she couldn’t shake off the guilt of hurting them.

Even though she had mustered up the courage to pour out her honest feelings, it was still burdensome to face her family.

Her parents and elder sister had only comforted her, not rebuking her for her naivety.

They did not inflict any wounds on her. So in the end, it was her own problem. She knew well that she couldn’t return until she overcame this feeling on her own.

That was why she had come to the capital. But the point to note now was that she was currently in the house of Ansel Blaine, the very source of all this anguish.

To be precise, in his bathtub, with a face that said this moment was simply blissful.

‘…Blissful? Get a grip.’

Eloise, who tightly cupped her cheeks as if to punish herself, continued her thoughts.

That man had done the crazy thing of proposing to Sarah Bailey while loving Eloise Bailey.

As a result of that marriage falling apart, the hopes of the Bailey couple were shattered, and the marriage of their eldest daughter Sarah also became uncertain.

Of course, it wasn’t as if her elder sister would be unable to marry anyone in the future.

She was too fine a lady to remain unmarried.

However, due to this broken engagement history, she would have to settle for a marriage a few steps away from her ideal. Whenever Eloise was reminded of that fact, her heart felt as if it was being painfully sliced.

That was why, even when she received a love confession from Ansel, guilt outweighed joy, and she felt sinful just for still harboring feelings for him.

“Yes. It’s true that it’s hard for me to justify being here.”

However, Eloise was not reckless enough to reject his kindness in this situation.

She didn’t have enough money to find a place to stay right away, and she had just lost her job at the right time.

It was also true that there was no one as reliable as Ansel in the capital, which was overflowing with suspicious people. Sadly, this was the reality.

Even so, the fact remained that staying here with him was something that should never happen.

Of course, he had goodwill towards her, and she hadn’t sorted out her feelings for him yet, and her family hadn’t criticized her even after she had laid everything bare, but……

“Don’t have crazy thoughts, please.”

So maybe it would be okay like this. As such a weak thought tried to raise its head, Eloise pinched her thigh, submerged in the water, hard.

“You’ve done enough shameful things.”

Let’s stay only until I find a proper place to live. Get a job as soon as possible. That was the conclusion after all.

Eloise, who had imagined the shocking sight of the noble Mrs. Bailey collapsing from the appalling fact that she had come to stay in the house of a man who was not her husband, and Ansel Blaine at that, swallowed a quiet sigh.

‘…I’m sorry. I’ll do my best to leave this place as quickly as possible.’

She wasn’t immature enough to tell this dishonorable situation as it was, but in the first place, Eloise had no talent for creating secrets she couldn’t tell her family.

So the time she deceived her family had to be as short as possible. Before the tight guilt strangled her neck.

After sorting out her thoughts to some extent, she felt a little lighter.

Now, she felt like she could face Ansel rationally without stuttering like a fool.

The futile desire to gauge whether his feelings for her were still love or light goodwill also slowly dissipated along with the bubbles in the bathtub.

Yes. It’s a futile thing anyway. Admitting that obvious fact was rather refreshing.

Eloise, who let out a lazy yawn, thought as she slid into the water.

‘I can stay a little longer before going out, right? When I go out, I’ll dry my hair and ask him to prepare a little food, even though it’s embarrassing. I’ll wear the cleanest clothes……’

However, Eloise had never expected that she would fall asleep like that.

How long had she been sleeping like that? The sound of someone urgently knocking on the door echoed inside the bathroom.

Eloise sluggishly raised her head from the cold bathtub where the bubbles had all disappeared.

“Please come out quickly.”

It was right after that moment when Eloise, who had been blinking slowly with a dazed face, not knowing where she was, froze with the face of a startled rabbit.

“The master has returned.”