I made a mistake. What should I do? I can’t have any flaws. I must be perfect.

Kaella quietly followed behind Peon with her hands clasped tightly together. The back of her neck felt cold and she broke out in a cold sweat.

To make such a mistake in Lucenford, where a small error, a trivial matter carelessly overlooked, could pile up and grab her by the hair, throwing her to the dirt. She had ruined things by being too careful.

What should I do? What should I do? What should I do? How can I avoid being suspected as the emperor’s spy?

You never do anything right. If you’re stupid, slow, and ugly, you should at least be quick-witted, but you’re not even that and you’ve ruined things by being so dull, this time too…

“Isn’t it better now that it’s been torn down?”

Kaella quickly lifted her head and looked ahead. The man who always walked briskly ahead of her was not there.

Huh? Then where is he? She turned her head as it was. Peon was standing beside her, looking down at her. When did he come to her side?

“Pardon?”

“I’m talking about that curtain from earlier.”

“Ah, yes.”

In fact, she hadn’t heard what he was saying. Kaella thought her own voice sounded foolish as she answered.

“It seems more open now that it’s been torn down… Was it a curtain you liked?”

That hideous deep pink? You like it?

“No!”

Kaella answered almost shouting before she knew it. Her so-called ‘foolish voice’ echoed in the large hallway.

When Peon looked slightly surprised, her face instantly turned red and she lowered her head again. How foolish. Really foolish. Not sophisticated, just rustic and clumsy.

“I did well to tear it all down then. Be sure to hang new ones in the color you want.”

Time spent face-to-face with Peon was always short and hard to come by. Conversations would end in seconds, and he would always just brush past her.

So it was strange and awkward that he was still standing beside her, listening and answering each of her questions. At times like this, she wished he would just leave, but he remained in his place.

“I’ll, I’ll take care of it today for sure.”

“Take your time. There’s plenty of time.”

But as long as Kaella was staying in Peon’s bedroom, she didn’t have much time. She needed to retreat to the bedroom across the hall as soon as possible.

It was clearly a problem that the Grand Duchess, who had recovered enough to attend events for noble ladies, was still in the Grand Duke’s bedroom. People would say a lot about how she had driven her husband out into the cold and taken over the most comfortable and safe room.

It’s too tiring a place. She decided to first look for a way to quietly send the maids back to Ostaine after retreating to the room where the hideous curtains had all fallen off.

For that, she first needed to hang new curtains. That was easy. She could do it quickly since she had just changed the dark blue curtains newly hung in Peon’s bedroom.

Kaella hurriedly placed an order for curtains. The butler, who had seen Peon tear down the curtains with one hand, took measures to process the order quickly without saying a word.

“Your Highness, I’ve ordered the curtains.”

“Well done. But my lady, in my opinion, this chair doesn’t seem to match the color of the new curtains.”

Peon looked intently at the old chair placed in the Grand Duke’s bedroom.

“Don’t you think this should be replaced as well, in your judgment?”

The butler would say that’s perfectly fine. After all, you can still sit on it.

Although it hurts your bottom if you sit for too long and the lining is all worn out and faded. But before Kaella could answer, there was a snap sound from Peon’s hand as he touched the chair.

“…Your Highness?”

The chair fell to the floor with a thud, strangely split in half. The remaining half that didn’t fall was in Peon’s hand.

“Oh my.”

He casually muttered and opened his hand to drop the other half as well. The chair, old but difficult for an average adult to break, was completely destroyed.

“We’ll have to use it as firewood. But what shall we do without a chair to sit on?”

Good heavens. The Grand Duchess couldn’t answer, and the butler’s mouth fell open. The Grand Duke smiled faintly.

“I would be grateful if you could choose this as well. I often damage furniture due to my carelessness, so I’ll be counting on you in the future too.”

From that day on, the Grand Duke began to diligently prove just how careless he was.

*

“Your Highness, the Grand Duke has again…!”

Ah. Kaella really didn’t like this butler, Rolf Anderson Viscount, who had just burst in looking terrified.

Like the head maid, he was an insolent person who treated Peon as if he were his own son, and to him, Kaella was either an unsatisfactory daughter-in-law or a poor spy sent by the emperor.

Moreover, he was such a terrible miser that he never thought of improving anything even when the furnishings of Lucenford Castle were worn out and even the Grand Duke’s bedroom was in that state. He must have also played a big part in the reason for Kaella’s confinement.

“Again, a perfectly good sofa, of all things, a sofa…!”

However, these days, whether the Grand Duke was showing off his strength or not, he was breaking the excessively old castle furnishings almost every other day, and the only person to share thoughts on this situation was this butler.

“Which sofa are you talking about?”

“The sofa in the study!”

“Calm down. Surely there must be parts that can be repaired and used.”

“No, Your Highness, His Highness just tore off the armrest with his bare hands!”

This stingy miser, in a situation where even the head maid was gone and the Grand Duke had ordered kitchen renovations, was on the verge of a nervous breakdown as he continued to commit the terrible act of smashing perfectly good furniture on top of that.

For Rolf Anderson, who considered saving, recycling, and repairing as virtues, every day was torture.

“Was the Grand Duke not injured?”

“Only the sofa was badly injured…”

Two days ago, while deciding on the decorations for the curtains to be hung in the Grand Duchess’s bedroom, the Grand Duke ‘slipped his hand’ and snapped off one of the posts of the four-poster bed in that bedroom.

With a cracking sound, the canopy fell over and crashed into a perfectly good cabinet, shattering it.

Kaella, who rushed in startled by the loud noise, was at a loss for words, and the butler staggered.

Of course, with the bed in that state, Kaella couldn’t return to her desired bedroom. And from that point on, the list of furniture that needed to be replaced due to the Grand Duke began to grow exponentially.

Kaella put her hand to her forehead as she looked at the butler who was now on the verge of fainting.

“Use it as firewood at least.”

“Yes.”

The reason the butler rushed to Kaella every time this happened was because the Grand Duke had instructed that Kaella personally choose and purchase all the new furniture and interior decorations that needed to be replaced.

Moreover, the butler quite liked that the young Grand Duchess took measures to repair and reuse the broken furnishings somehow.

He was quite pleased that the princess from Ostaine, where gold was said to be strewn about, didn’t just mindlessly spend money, but unexpectedly economized by having torn curtains made into blankets or used as fabric.

“I’ll meet with the furniture craftsman myself. There’s a lot to be done. You may go.”

Usually, the butler would have sought out a craftsman who could create a decent appearance at a cheap price by beating down the unit price.

But the list of furniture added by the Grand Duchess with a troubled face was already too long and varied for the butler who was about to suffocate under the workload.

“Thank you, Your Highness.”

So the gratitude came naturally. Since there was already a strict order for the Grand Duchess to handle the furniture purchase and arrangement anyway, the butler wanted to completely part ways with that ever-growing list due to the Grand Duke’s destruction.

Too many events harmful to mental health were constantly occurring in the castle. Kaella, seeing the butler flee with such a pale face for the first time, turned her gaze to look at the furniture list.

He really broke things in a variety of ways. Is it that the Grand Duke can’t handle his overflowing strength, or are the castle furnishings so old that they break easily at the slightest touch? Probably both.

‘Should I say this is actually for the best?’

Lucenford Castle, which was too embarrassing to show off, did need to be completely overhauled.

But while it might be good for the castle people, it wasn’t good for Kaella at all. Although she had sufficient eye for recognizing good furniture and good carpenters, honestly, she didn’t want to get involved in any work here.

‘…I just don’t want to do anything.’

She wanted to lie helplessly and just wait for death day by day, but even the sofa she could have sprawled on was broken by the Grand Duke, and the bed was neatly smashed by him too.

The chair he first broke today had been hurriedly made and arrived, but now he had torn apart the study sofa as well.

Although she hadn’t been to his study yet, Kaella knew well what the boring sofa in that study looked like and how it felt.

‘It was old, though.’

Old, rustic, aged, and yet without even a hint of elegant antiquity, just crude – it was a thoroughly Lucenford-like sofa.

In every room of this castle, there was always at least one piece of furniture that was offensively ugly, and the sofa in Peon’s study was exactly like that. It’s satisfying that it will be used as firewood, but what to do now.

Kaella pondered for a while and finally got up. In any case, she had to go back to the study once more to place a new order.

As she was about to carefully descend the stairs, wrapped tightly in fur to pass through the cold corridor, unexpectedly, Peon was standing in front of the stairs leading to the study.

“Your Highness.”

“Where are you headed?”

He asked naturally while extending his arm to Kaella.

“I heard that the sofa in the study was dam…aged.”

Whether it was really damaged or forcibly torn apart by rough hands, that’s uncertain.

Kaella held onto his arm and carefully descended the stairs. She couldn’t understand how checking the place where damaged furniture had been removed had become a daily routine.

“Shamefully, the furniture throughout the castle is quite old and lacks durability.”

Kaella gaped at Peon with her mouth wide open.

Had this man always been so shameless? The expression on his smooth face remained unchanged. Kaella’s body swayed, too dumbfounded to speak.

“The stairs are old too.”

In an instant, an arm wrapped around her waist, lightly lifting her before she could fall forward. It would have been a big problem if she had fallen like this.

Peon, who had been waiting after calculating when Kaella would come out after Rolf had reported to the Grand Duchess with a pale face, shuddered at the weight he felt on one arm. Since remarrying Kaella, he had become afraid of too many things.

“My lady, are you eating well?”

Food. Kaella’s eyelashes trembled slightly. She was tormented by a hunger that would haunt her if she starved to death, but due to the mistaken ingestion of Turberi, her digestion was terrible.

“I’m eating as prescribed by the doctor.”

Soft liquid diet, or easily digestible soft egg dishes, progressing slightly to well-boiled vegetable dishes.

She wanted to eat more, but even slightly exceeding the amount would often result in vomiting, so Darinka strictly limited the quantity. Eating a lot wasn’t always good. Thus, eating was painful in Lucenford.

“…Eat well.”

The hand resting on his shoulder out of necessity, the waist that fit entirely in one arm, the weight that lifted easily – all of it choked Peon’s breath and tightened his throat.

“You need to eat well and become healthy.”

He quickly and lightly descended the stairs and set Kaella down. There was no time to tell him to put her down or not.

“Thank you.”

Not knowing Peon would move her so easily, she thanked him with wide eyes.

“Aren’t you busy?”

“I’m always fine. Please come in.”

Just then, the study door was wide open as the tattered sofa was being carried out.

The torn-off right armrest dangled pitifully, barely hanging on. So, the sturdy sofa with thickly padded and stitched fabric had withstood the long years well, but its owner apparently couldn’t withstand it.

“How do you manage to make a sofa end up like that…?”

“I just pushed it lightly with my hand, and it ended up like that. I’m quite embarrassed that the furniture durability is so poor.”

The sofa, so faded that its original color was long forgotten, had been covered with a throw to hide the worn parts.

Thanks to the Grand Duke, all the worn parts, faded and stained areas were fully exposed. It was like the true state of Lucenford Castle, which had been barely pretending to be a Grand Duchy by covering up just enough.

Of course they were poor, relying on the emperor’s supportive funds that fell like pity on their non-existent household, with everything diverted to military expenses. On top of that, with the penniless Grand Duchess added, how much they must have hated her for just consuming food.

The air stung. Somewhere in this castle, hostility towards her lingered. Kaella concealed her emotions with a composed expression.

“I will make sure to pay attention to durability when ordering new furniture.”

There was nothing to fault in her calm and respectful attitude, her efficiency in checking the place where the sofa had been removed and considering a sofa that would suit the study’s atmosphere while answering, and above all, her voice more befitting of a secretary than the actual secretary.

Even Regen, who had dropped by the study, was surprised enough to stare at the Grand Duchess.

“It would be best to change everything. In the meantime, the sofa in my bedroom is still in good condition, so I’ll have that sent down temporarily. Please use it until the new sofa is ready.”

You mean the sofa that matches the color of those hideous curtains? By the time all the study sofas are replaced, that deep pink sofa will not return to the Grand Duchess’s bedroom but will be carried out in the same state as the sofa that just left. The owner of this study had decided so.

“I will do that.”

Peon, who had answered, turned his head towards Regen, who had been aiming to greet the Grand Duchess only when she arrived. His slightly anxious attitude as he waited, watching the two people, was not normal.

“Um, greetings, Your Highness. I am Regen Nerkel, the secretary serving the Grand Duke. It’s a pleasure to meet you for the first time.”

Kaella once again received greetings from someone she already knew.

“Nice to meet you.”

“I look forward to working with you. The reason I’m here is that a notification has arrived from Kraine.”

These days, as if he had become a bear, even in Regen’s eyes, the Grand Duke who was ruthlessly tearing apart the Lucenford furniture that was just crudely sturdy and long-lasting without any aesthetic aspect, was glaring from behind the petite Grand Duchess, so he had to hurry to state his business.

Because Regen is more fragile than furniture.

Peon received an envelope mixed with gold and red colors from Regen and opened it. The contents weren’t much.

“…His Majesty the Emperor is sending an investigator.”

Purple eyes and piercingly clear blue eyes met.

“It seems the incident where you were injured during the banquet has been reported.”

Kaella lowered her gaze. Now it wasn’t just that the air was stinging, but its density had become so thick that it was painfully pressing down on her.

She was always the first to notice how others saw her. This time, a troublesome woman who called for the emperor’s investigator. That’s about what it would be.