After that, with the help of the priest, Natasha set out for the village, accompanied by the knights Sieghart had assigned to her.

Upon reaching her destination, she glanced back. It wasn’t easy to carry out her plan with the knights gradually following her. She had to shake off those who were monitoring her under the guise of protection.

While pondering and walking aimlessly, a store caught her eye. She immediately stopped in front of the target that seemed good for an excuse.

“I’d like to go alone for a moment, would you step back?”

“We are forbidden from allowing you to act without our accompaniment. It’s the Duke’s order.”

“I think it would be unreasonable to bring you gentlemen into that store.”

Natasha gestured with her chin towards the front. The knights solemnly turned their heads and soon became flustered one by one.

“……Understood. We’ll wait out here. Please go at your ease.”

The knights who had been watching carefully finally stepped back.

Entering the store, she was momentarily taken aback by the ominous-looking items. The Empire certainly seemed more open than the Kingdom. The customers casually browsing the items and the staff kindly explaining how to use them were quite unfamiliar to her.

After a while, Natasha took out the robe she had put in her bag and wrapped it around herself. Then, taking advantage of when a group of customers was leaving, she left the store with them.

The next place she headed was a nearby jewelry shop.

“I’d like to sell some items.”

“Yes, yes. What will you be selling?”

Natasha handed over the items to the indifferent jeweler. They were two pieces of jewelry from her jewelry box.

“How much would be possible?”

The jeweler, examining the items, showed a surprised expression. No wonder, as the items the customer had brought were too rare to be handled in a small shop.

The jeweler fell into contemplation, trying to calculate a price that would recover the cost. There was a limit to how much he could undercut the price, as the owner of such high-quality items would surely be knowledgeable about market prices.

In the end, the jeweler quoted a price about 10% higher than usual.

“Would 120 gold be alright?”

“Let’s make it 100 gold. Clean and simple.”

“……100 gold?”

“Shall I raise it back to 120 gold?”

“Ah, no. Let’s go with 100 gold.”

Natasha kept lowering the price, though it wasn’t clear for whose benefit.

No matter how he looked at it, it didn’t seem fake… The jeweler fingered the jewelry with suspicious eyes, but quickly prepared the money, afraid of the customer who might cancel the deal.

“Here’s 100 gold.”

Natasha didn’t even bother to check the amount in the package.

“Let’s make a deal. I’ll sell jewelry at cheap prices every week like today, and you, who will pay the price, will keep your mouth shut. You won’t reveal to anyone who you bought the jewelry from or when.”

“……Ch-cheap every week, you say?”

Instead of answering, she emphasized again that the contract should be carried out in secret.

After that day, Natasha went to the village to sell jewelry whenever she had time.

The day before leaving for an outing, Natasha opened her jewelry box as usual and noticed something strange.

‘This is……’

Unfamiliar ornaments occasionally appeared. They were certainly things that hadn’t been there until last week.

Just in case, she counted the number of pieces in the jewelry box and found that the number had increased since the previous day.

‘Why is the number increasing?’

There was no way someone else had ‘mistakenly’ entered the Duke and Duchess’s bedroom and ‘mistakenly’ put their own items in.

If it were a gift for her, it wouldn’t be sneaked into the jewelry box like this, but would have been presented wrapped in luxurious packaging.

It could only be explained as someone secretly putting items in.

‘……Sieghart. It must be that man’s doing.’

For a moment, a likely suspect came to mind.

‘How much does he know?’

Her hand gripping the pendant tightened with tension. She felt anxious, as if her plan had been discovered by the man once again.

“My lady, what are you doing there?”

As Natasha was fidgeting, Cayena approached with tea.

“Oh my, you look so pale! Would you like to calm down with some freshly brewed tea?”

“……Yes, I’d like a cup, please.”

She soothed her startled heart while drinking the tea. Even after swallowing all the liquid, the sweet aroma lingered pleasantly in her mouth.

“Do you like it? It’s the most famous tea from my hometown. You’ve had it quite often before. You really liked it then too.”

“Really? It feels like the aroma is a bit stronger than what I had then.”

“I mixed in some other herbs as well. Shall I prepare it like this next time too?”

“Not too often, but occasionally?”

“Hehe, leave it to me.”

Cayena’s kindness seemed to calm her anxious heart. But the tension increased again as her gaze unconsciously fell on the jewelry box. Her heart, pickled in anxiety, beat faster than before.

She buried her nose in the teacup for mental stability. As Cayena had said it would be alright, her unstable mind seemed to calm down.

After asking for the tea to be brewed once more, she waited for Sieghart with a newly filled teapot. She remained tense throughout, like a death row inmate waiting for the executioner.

And after a while, Sieghart, having finished his work, entered the bedroom.

Upon his return, Sieghart’s gaze fell on the same spot as hers. Coincidentally, it was the pendant placed next to the jewelry box.

It was amazing how he didn’t change his expression at all in this awkward situation. Sieghart, who calmly approached where Natasha was, then settled comfortably as if nothing had happened.

She sipped the tea placed on the tea table.

Whether it was because she had been discovered and nothing else mattered, or because the tea Cayena had brewed had some special ability. She used the suddenly welling determination and drive to break the ice.

“I’m not planning to go out this week. I think I’ll refrain from going out for a while. Could you please inform the priest who visits every week?”

“Your escapade ended sooner than expected.”

He didn’t ask this time either. He just quietly shifted his gaze.

The target was reflected in the man’s transparent pupils. Like Sieghart’s beautiful red eyes, it too was red.

It was just before Natasha, who was certain, opened her mouth again. He, who had intercepted the order, drawled languidly.

“It seems this place is still hell for the princess.”

“……”

“Do you want to leave that badly?”

With a face that looked as if he had been hurt.

Natasha was certain that this too was a device to shake her heart. But even though she kept telling herself it was just a well-made mask, his sorrowful face kept haunting her.

That’s why she hated it. She was pathetic for ruminating on the man’s false grief, and she resented the man for trying to hold onto her like this.

“You dislike me. Isn’t that why you abandoned me?”

Natasha retorted in an anguished voice.

“Did you think I would foolishly fall for it if you pretended to love me now? What do you want from me that you keep deceiving our relationship?”

After venting all her frustrations, when she finally opened her eyes, black hair swayed right in front of her.

As Sieghart bent slightly, an equally straight shadow fell across his face. His face, shrouded in darkness, slowly descended onto hers.

Friction was an expected sequence.

Soon after, sweet breaths intermingled. Stimulated by the fusion of hot flesh, Natasha wrapped her arms around his neck. At some point, Sieghart too had enveloped the woman’s nape and back.

The kiss, taking place in silence, cut the thread of reason. The fierce and lingering contact heated up their bodies. Perhaps because of this, Natasha longed for a sudden, unwilled extension of the intimacy.

The occasional sound of water stopped. Only after exhaling heated breaths did the two separate. Beyond the ended kiss, insatiable greed entered. They discovered instincts steeped in a red abyss within each other.

“Don’t leave, Tisha.”

“……”

“Stay here, with me, forever. For it is the princess’s presence that I desire.”

She should have rejected the black hand. She shouldn’t have been seduced by the sinister smile and gestures. But contrary to her mind, her body wouldn’t move as she wished. The wariness and suspicion she had carefully nurtured were scattered.

The man’s kiss, like an aphrodisiac, made her mind hazy. As soon as her inhibitions were released, her instincts crawled out and led her.

She once again wrapped her arms around the man’s neck. A long kiss quickly followed, and the moment the greedy contact ended, Natasha’s body tilted and fell onto the bed.

She couldn’t remember what happened next.

The last moment she remembered was Sieghart, with a reddened face, whispering something sweetly, approaching closely with an unfamiliar appearance.

Her memory was cut off abruptly, as if fragmented. Only the touch exploring her body remained sporadically in her memory. The strong touch, as if trying to tear her delicate flesh, felt painful even in her unconsciousness.

And after a while, she felt another touch probing around. It was Cayena, tidying up the bedding beside her.

The eyes and gestures, devoid of any vitality, seemed unfamiliar, as if belonging to someone she was seeing for the first time. In that moment, even a hint of fatigue fled in surprise.

“……Cayena?”

“Ah, my lady. Are you awake?”

A beautiful smile bloomed on the face of the one responding. Thinking she must have seen wrong due to her grogginess, Natasha erased the frightening face of the other from her mind.

“Oh, did I wake you? I’m sorry. I was trying to change the sheets quickly……”

“The sheets?”

“Yes, we need to wash them quickly so the bloodstains don’t set. So I was trying to sneak them out while you were sleeping to hand over to the maids.”

Looking down suddenly, there were indeed bloodstains as Cayena had said. Soon Natasha blushed, wondering what to do about this.

“Oh my, I haven’t had my monthly cycle for so long, I didn’t know when it would come and couldn’t prepare in advance. It seems it came out in the middle of the night.”

“Monthly cycle?”

Eventually, Cayena looked at her curiously, as if seeing an innocent child, and then chuckled.

“Monthly cycle indeed. It’s a sign of love. Isn’t it evidence that you two shared passionate love last night?”

Though ignorant, she wasn’t stupid, so she could guess what Cayena’s euphemism meant. However, she couldn’t understand why it was referring to Natasha and Sieghart.

“How many lewd sounds were coming from the room last night. I was so embarrassed I could barely take a step. At first, I thought the sounds were coming from another room!”

“……What sounds?”

“Oh my, you know best as the person involved, why do you keep asking? Of course, the sounds of making love.”

Cayena chided Natasha as if to say ‘why are you being so shy’, but then kindly reiterated.

To put it bluntly, it meant that the Duke and Duchess had spent the night together last night.