“Should I sleep more?”

A very low and soft voice asked. All the gentle acts of stroking her hair and slowly kissing her forehead made drowsiness wash over her again.

Peiron was lying next to her with his upper body bare. His body, visible at a glance, was smooth without a single scar. He definitely had many scars from when he came to Lucenford as a child, but now there were none.

“Can’t sleep?”

Anyway, since her husband, whom the people of Lucenford said should be worshipped as if he were the sky, was speaking, the Grand Duchess, who was less useful than a pet dog, had to answer. Kaella called him. Your Highness.

“Did elder brother wake you?”

Did her voice come out? She wasn’t sure. It seemed so. Peiron spoke as if correcting the title she had called him. No, he definitely corrected it.

“Shall I put you to sleep?”

What? Kaella suddenly became wide awake. A chill ran down her spine. Something, a strange sense of discomfort, pressed down on her spine. Her survival instinct was sending signals to run away.

The one before her eyes is not human. It’s something very frightening. An existence that could easily crush someone like her if even slightly annoyed. She should run away quickly, she should…

“Don’t you want to?”

But, can she run away?

The lips in front of her curled up, and the cool gaze swept over her as if finding her cute. As if he knew exactly what she was thinking.

“Then, shall we do something fun?”

If she doesn’t run away, will he kill her? Will she die if she stays near this dangerous fear?

The purple eyes narrowed. The smile completely disappeared. The danger signal grew stronger. But for the woman who had been ignoring that signal for 4 years straight, it was easier to ignore it this time too.

She should just let it be. Unable to run away, she had to get closer because it was dangerous. Kaella, lying helplessly, easily reached a conclusion.

“Should I like this, or should I get angry.”

It didn’t matter either way. She had no choice anyway. It had always been that way.

“Well, fine. I like it. It’s not bad.”

The voice saying she liked it sounded fierce. Kaella was afraid of him. Because she was afraid, she liked it too. It wasn’t bad.

“Sleep.”

An annoyed voice commanded. Unable to resist the touch that stroked her drowsy eyes, she fell helplessly into sleep. Chu, chu, there were also lips touching her forehead and cheeks.

“Just try to run away next time after this.”

There was more being said, but Kaella couldn’t hear. Or rather, it was words that didn’t matter even if she heard them.

*

Publicly, it was known that Her Grace the Grand Duchess had collapsed from the shock of being falsely accused of the unthinkable crime of attempting to poison the Grand Duke by a slanderous steward.

But those who served her closely knew that wasn’t the case. Knowing this, they watched her every move even more closely.

“Your Grace.”

Peiron had left expansion plans and blueprints in the morning. It was meant for her to look at if she got bored, but Kaella just threw them far away and stared blankly before turning her head. Mary had come and was hesitating.

“Um, are you busy?”

Her Grace was especially affectionate towards the maids she had brought with her.

Everyone knew that even though she had become much less talkative, her care for the maids was sincere. Knowing this, Mary had been watching carefully all day and now approached Her Grace when she was briefly alone.

“How could I be? What’s the matter?”

Even her question was so kind that Mary had to hold back the tears that were about to burst out. Her Grace had been deeply hurt.

“What’s wrong?”

At Kaella’s question, Mary hesitated before quickly presenting the package she had been fidgeting with when Her Grace gave a slight smile.

“I want to return this to you.”

It was the money pouch Kaella had given to Mary before drinking the poison. She had given the same to Cecile and Denise separately as well.

“I don’t want to accept it.”

Mary mumbled, lowering her head.

“I know why you gave this to me.”

Her Grace had already decided to take her own life then. Mary, who was clever enough to be chosen as Her Grace’s errand girl, realized it right away.

“I don’t want to accept it. Please don’t give it to me next time either. I don’t like it.”

Her voice trembled, and Mary began to sob. The young girl soon shed tears in big drops.

“I gave it to you because you did well and worked hard, Mary.”

“I didn’t do anything well. Nothing at all.”

Kaella knew why Mary was acting like this, shaking her head and refusing to accept it.

Cecile had held onto Kaella and kept saying she had done well, endured well, and thanked her repeatedly, while Denise had clung to Kaella, crying loudly and following her everywhere. Mary was expressing herself in her own way.

“The monthly wages you give me are enough. I want to receive those for the rest of my life.”

“It’s too cold here, Mary. Don’t you want to go back to Osteine? You should go back, get married, and live happily.”

Even though she knew from having been married twice that marriage doesn’t necessarily bring happiness, Kaella said the same things others say. With the wish for Mary to be happy, full of hope.

“I don’t want to. I want to stay by your side, Your Grace. I’ll stick right by you until I become a grandmother.”

Mary whined, sniffling.

“I don’t want the money. I won’t accept it.”

It was words she hadn’t dared to say until now, under strict orders not to bother Her Grace at all as she needed absolute rest, but to just be careful, very careful.

Kaella, who had been sitting, reached out her hand. Mary quickly came closer so that hand could reach her and lowered her head.

“You were worried. Thank you.”

There weren’t many people who worried about her. She had to properly express gratitude for the worry and fear deeply embedded in the sob that burst out in her hand.

While it may be proper for a maid to worry about Her Grace the Grand Duchess, Kaella knew it wasn’t a given. People can change their attitudes as easily as flipping their palms, and are frightening beings capable of abandoning the masters they had been loyal to.

Everyone had abandoned her. Her father couldn’t endure, the social circles of Craine pretended not to see her, and Lucenford naturally did so as well.

Lucenford included her husband. Having been abandoned once, those who didn’t abandon her to the end became very precious to her.

“Still, keep the money, Mary. I gave it to Cecile and Denise too, not just you.”

“The elder sisters said they don’t want to accept it either and haven’t spent a penny.”

That was true. Cecile and Denise had also brought back the money pouches as if they had made a promise. Everyone knew what it meant. Consolation money. Or severance pay.

“Still, keep it. Eat what you want to eat, do what you want to do.”

Kaella had learned painfully and bitterly through the deceased head maid how powerful money could be during her time as the poor Grand Duchess.

“If you insist, think of it as compensation for the emotional distress this time. I felt very sorry for only giving you wages in this cold place.”

“I can’t do that, Your Grace.”

“It’s not like I’m saving up money I don’t have to give you.”

Mary sniffled and wiped her tears.

“But, Mary, don’t show off that you have a lot of money. You have to be careful. There are bad people who do bad things for money everywhere, you know.”

“I know. I’ve kept it well hidden where no one knows until now.”

“Good. You did well.”

“I hope this is the only time you give this to me.”

Kaella smiled faintly instead of answering. Mary reluctantly took the money pouch back. This might be the only time, or it might not be. But she couldn’t die right away.

She was with someone 24 hours a day. The maids always stayed by her side, and a guard knight accompanied her. And Peiron visited her at every meal, and he always shared the same bed with her at night.

Her husband, who couldn’t even raise his head in front of her when she woke up after drinking the poison, seems to have chosen to become rather brazen now.

The poison secretly made and imported from Osteine had fallen into his hands. Though she wanted to retrieve it, having confirmed that it was painless when drunk, Darinka clearly told Kaella:

“It’s a stroke of luck. If you drink it again, His Grace the Grand Duke will certainly try everything to save you. But in the process, Your Grace may survive losing your eyesight, hearing, voice, or becoming paralyzed from the waist down, or even your entire body.”

The implication was whether she would want to live like that.

“As a doctor, I think of the possibility of survival first, Your Grace. And if the same thing happens again, there’s a high chance you will survive. Because His Grace the Grand Duke has a strong will to save you.”

I don’t know why he’s so desperate to save me now.

At times like this, her politically sharp mind that spins quickly was already laying out the ‘benefits Peiron gains if Kaella is alive’ before she even tried to think about it herself.

In the end, it’s because of Osteine. Within this complex whirlpool, the Grand Duke of Lucenford who has gained a reliable father-in-law and a wife who is the future Grand Duchess of Osteine can solidify his unstable position. That was the political reason.

A living father-in-law and a dead father-in-law are as different as heaven and earth. It was also one of the reasons Kaella felt miserable.

It was greedy to hope that Peiron, who had been called a bastard without a father, would show her a little consideration in that regard. He might not have wanted to share a pain he didn’t want to share, which Kaella had arbitrarily tried to share on her own.

Before the regression, did he know he was the son of a dragon? Maybe he knew and didn’t care at all about Kaella’s pain. It was all just her meaningless speculation.

At that moment, the door opened and Peiron entered. At his nod, Mary, who had been sitting, quickly left her seat.

“Did you see it? How is it?”

He came to see her in between his work. The expansion plans and blueprints he had personally left two hours ago were still in the same place.

“You didn’t look at it?”

Peiron, who flipped through the plans placed at the end of the bed, sat down next to Kaella.

If she were just a political marriage partner who needed to be kept alive for political reasons, there was no need to check on her this often.

This was the point that Kaella could only think was strange. Peiron often stayed by her side, doing things that the maids or guard knights should do.

‘It’s a waste of time.’

He is a busy person. In addition to the kitchen construction, he had completed the large projects of water supply and sewage construction, but next there was military reorganization and expansion construction.

There was no time to leisurely come to the bedroom and dally with the Grand Duchess. Moreover, Kaella was a boring person to be with. Especially recently.

Before the regression, she had desperately tried to converse with him, coming up with conversation topics and chattering, but now she didn’t even make such efforts and didn’t respond properly. Yet Peiron kept coming to see her. He came and talked to her.

“You don’t like it?”

“Why did you come?”

“Because I wanted to see you.”

It was an answer that made her think again that this wasn’t necessary. He always gave the same answer.

Even if he said he came because he wanted to see her, Kaella had nothing to offer. She wasn’t eloquent enough to engage in witty conversation, and she actually had nothing she wanted to say.

Still, he always came to her side as she sat there quietly and spent quite a long time. He would ask various things and also tell her what had changed recently.

Comfortable topics, that is, he chose only non-burdensome subjects like the weather, the food eaten today, or her health condition.

It must be difficult for a brusque person to lead such one-sided conversations choosing such topics, but he spoke quite smoothly.

As if he were a different person.

“What were you doing?”

Kaella shook her head slightly. There wasn’t much to answer. There were many little things that happened while he was away, but they were too trivial to tell the Grand Duke one by one, and she actually found it bothersome to speak.

“I see.”

But Peiron smiled and nodded as if he had heard a long and detailed answer. Then he just sat there quietly without asking anything more.

At first, she had thought it would be nice if he left. She had even told him to leave. But there was no way he would listen to her words, and Kaella, who gave up right away, didn’t care whether he was there or not.

Unlike his impressively handsome face, which was quite burdensome, having Peiron by her side wasn’t that burdensome. He sat quietly and did his work. Seeing that, it didn’t seem like he had changed that much. Come to think of it, she remembered she had something to ask him.

“Where did you put that?”

Peiron turned to look at her with a “Hm?” His gaze held a question of what she was talking about.

“My medicine bottle. You took it, didn’t you? Give it to me.”

“What medicine?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know and give it to me. You know.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You take so many medicines every day.”

And Peiron was personally taking care of those medicines one by one.

“The one the steward stole through the maid.”

Kaella had to speak emphatically and clearly. The face of the man who pretended not to know even though he knew turned cold.

“Kaella. Is that medicine?”

There was resentment in the voice that asked gently.