“Will you hand it over while I’m still asking nicely?”

Antione chewed her lips resentfully.

Eventually, with reddened eyes and a humiliated expression, she held out her hand with the ring to Hannah.

Just as Hannah sighed briefly and tried to take the ring from Antione’s hand.

Smack!

Caught off guard by the forceful hand, Hannah fell backward, landing on her bottom.

“You think I’d give it to you just because you asked? Why should I give you what’s mine!”

Antione, who refused to stop mocking Hannah until the end, ran away hastily.

“That girl!”

Hannah, feeling drained, tried to get up but slumped back down, watching Antione disappear into the distance.

“So that’s how it was. It was all because of that wicked girl’s lies.”

She remembered Claudel looking gloomy about not receiving a wedding night gift. She had even worried when Kaian asked if she didn’t like something she had never received.

‘Could it be a trap?’

‘A trap?’

‘You said it was something meaningful to the Duke. Could it be that they’re trying to find fault by claiming you lost something precious?’

Hannah’s rational suspicion must have made Claudel feel even more troubled.

It was all because of that stone-headed Antione!

“What kind of home education did she receive?”

Lying as easily as breathing, an unmarried lady sneaking into a man’s bedroom, and now theft.

“I need to see the Duke quickly.”

Cursing Antione’s parents, whom she neither knew by name nor face, Hannah headed for Kaian’s office.

“He’s not a harsh person to young ladies.”

She was certain that if she reported to Kaian, he would listen.

Claudel faced the night with extreme tension.

Kaian had the right to come to her bedroom at any time.

However, after just two times, he had never visited at night until now. She hadn’t expected to face the third time with such a ‘wait for me at night’ warning.

Claudel confided in Hannah, who had returned covered in dirt from who knows where, that Kaian had suddenly said such a thing before leaving.

‘Hmm. Is that so?’

Hannah, who always took her side, was expected to jump up and say something like ‘We can’t strain the young lady’s legs,’ but she didn’t.

When even Hannah, whom she trusted, seemed unconcerned, Claudel closed her mouth without adding anything more.

‘Right. Even Hannah must think there’s nothing wrong with it.’

Of course, Kaian can come.

The fact that it feels this burdensome and tense must be due to the instinct of not wanting to be more deeply connected with him.

Living a life with an expiration date, where even existing things were being sorted out, she felt that whenever she faced Kaian, something that wasn’t there before might emerge.

A sudden marriage.

A sudden husband.

A wedding night hastily completed as if pushed from behind.

Everything related to Kaian was overwhelming for Claudel, and ironically, the only thing she liked was the fact that there was a place for her to lie down in the basement of this castle when she died.

‘At least with a grave, those Vermonte enemies won’t throw my body to the beasts after I die.’

Not far off, Duke Vermonte often said, ‘That black-haired Temnes bastard. If I catch sight of him, I’ll tear him limb from limb and feed him to the beasts,’ so a standardized phrase was firmly planted in her mind as well.

Unaware of what Claudel was thinking, Hannah seemed to be in a good mood. She sat Claudel, who had just finished bathing, in front of the mirror, applied fragrant oil to her hair, and combed it while humming a tune.

“The Duke might be better than we thought.”

Before, when I said he wasn’t the kind of person you think he is, you got angry, didn’t you, Hannah?

“They say the jeweler he brought today is the most famous and popular shop in the south. Usually, you’d have to wait a year to place an order.”

“I must have looked too shabby. He must have thought I needed some jewels.”

At her words, Hannah’s expression turned serious.

“How can you say such things? It must be because our young lady is pretty, so he wanted to give her something that would suit her.”

“Hannah.”

“Yes?”

“Did you perhaps receive money from the Duke?”

“……”

Hannah’s reflection in the mirror frowned.

“You’re suddenly doing things you’ve never done before.”

“Do I look like someone who would take money to support someone?”

“No, if such a thing happens, take a lot of money. Don’t praise for small change.”

“Hmph.”

Hannah pouted her lips and busied her hands.

“That way, even if something happens to me, you can live well.”

“Don’t say such things. I’m going to live for a thousand years, raising your heir when you have one, and then raising your grandchild born to the new lady of the estate when that heir grows up and becomes a fine lord with a good match.”

Hannah, having finished combing her hair, stroked her chin while looking at Claudel’s reflection in the mirror.

“Hoo. Everything’s perfect, but…”

Claudel blinked, looking at Hannah.

“The nightgown is a bit off.”

“Why?”

“Young lady. Let’s change your nightgown.”

Hannah scurried to the wardrobe and brought back a different nightgown.

“This one.”

As soon as she saw it, Claudel felt her face stiffen.

Right now, she was wearing her usual nightgown made of thin cotton with buttons running vertically from below the neck.

What Hannah brought was the one she had worn only once on her wedding night, much thinner and seemingly see-through, with a ribbon-like tie at the front.

“Why wear something like that?”

“Do you know why such nightgowns were created in this world?”

Claudel shook her head.

Unlike Claudel, who grew up mostly buried in books in the back rooms of Valmond Castle and attended all the same home tutor lessons as Irena, Hannah knew many random things.

To think there was a specific reason why such nightgowns were made.

“It’s because many people like them.”

“… Th-”

Claudel started to speak but stopped.

She imagined Kaian glaring at that nightgown with a cold and frightening face, feeling like she should burn the nightgown immediately.

Even if she said that Kaian wouldn’t like it even if everyone else in the world did, Hannah would insist on making her wear that nightgown.

Claudel, lacking the strength to win against Hannah, obediently nodded.

“Alright.”

She could change back into her original nightgown after Hannah returned to her room later.

However, perhaps because she couldn’t nap during the day due to the jeweler and Kaian coming and going since the afternoon, she kept feeling drowsy even though it was nighttime.

Due to insomnia, she usually couldn’t sleep at night and slept during the day when Hannah was around.

Today, she couldn’t sleep during the day because of the commotion.

‘He told me to wait without sleeping.’

Claudel dozed off.

Click.

Her eyes opened again when she heard the sound of the room door closing.

“… You’re here.”

“Were you sleeping?”

Kaian, wherever he had been in the afternoon, was still not in comfortable attire despite the late hour.

He was wearing a black top with densely packed gold buttons and beautiful embroidered patterns, along with a vest and white shirt underneath.

‘Ah. The nightgown.’

She had planned to change after Hannah left. Claudel felt awkward because he was so formally dressed.

However, he seemed uninterested in her nightgown and wrapped her in the blanket that was on the bed, lifting her up.

“Let’s go.”

“Where are we going at this hour?”

In this nightgown?

“To see the stars.”

She wanted to say something more, but as Kaian started moving, Claudel anxiously gripped the blanket wrapped around her from the inside.

Surely he wouldn’t drop her, but being carried like a package made her uneasy.

After walking for a while through the dark and quiet castle corridors, he stopped.

It was a place with a large, majestically carved door.

He opened that door with familiarity and entered.

The quite spacious and large room had an antique atmosphere.

However, there was hardly any furniture visible, just one enormous bed standing alone, which was strange.

He carefully placed Claudel on that bed and examined her leg where the bandage was wrapped to see if it was alright.

“Where is this?”

When she asked in bewilderment, Kaian answered nonchalantly.

“My bedroom.”

Claudel’s eyes widened in surprise.

To think the place she had come to in a daze was his bedroom.

‘Where are we going at this hour?’

‘To see the stars.’

Was that what he meant?

There might have been some saying about plucking stars as a euphemism for intimacy between men and women.

However, welcoming him in her bedroom and being in Kaian’s bedroom felt different in meaning and atmosphere.

It was possible for Kaian to visit her, but it seemed impossible for her to enter his bedroom.

It was fine to do possible things in a familiar area that felt like ‘my room,’ but feeling the scratchy blanket cover embroidered with gold thread under her hand in an unfamiliar place made her want to run away in fear.

“Can’t we just go to my room?”

“Why?”

“This place is a bit……”

“You can’t see the stars from that room.”

Kaian moved around well even in the dim room.

As he busily touched here and there for a moment, there was a thud sound.

Then he started turning a handled disc attached to the wall next to the bed in one direction.

Screech.

It was then. A bizarre sound that scratched the ears came from the ceiling, and the round, high ceiling began to move.

“Wow.”

The paintings that had been decorated in triangular sections under the dome began to move as a whole, overlapping neatly as the ceiling started to move.

Through that gap, stars densely embedded in the black sky began to appear.

When about two-thirds of the ceiling had opened, Kaian came and sat beside her.

“How is it?”

Claudel was speechless at the overwhelming sight.

“I’ve never seen a night sky like this before.”

The life of a castle lady meant going to bed and turning off the lights at eight o’clock. Wandering around late at night was not allowed.

She liked looking at the night sky, but seeing the stars with the naked eye like this was completely different from looking through a glass-paned window.

“It was worth it then.”

Claudel unknowingly felt like crying and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Are you crying?”

“No. It’s just so amazing.”

Even though it was midsummer, she could feel the cool night air on her skin and hear the sound of the night wind blowing through the forest in the moonlight from afar.

And many stars.

“They say when people die, their souls rise to the sky and become stars.”

When she was young, she often found herself looking at the stars, wondering if her mom and dad were up there too.

Now she wonders if there might be a place for her star among them.

“You’re being sentimental even when shown something nice.”

Hearing his words of cold reproach, Claudel smiled faintly.

She thought that if he had tried to comfort her in a way that didn’t suit him, she might have really burst into tears.

“Cough. Cough.”

As she coughed lightly, Kaian lifted the bed’s blanket to wrap around her.

“Are you cold?”

“I’m not cold……”

Thud. Rustle.

As Kaian leaned down, the loosely tied string of her nightgown caught on his clothes button, causing the thin fabric to lose its hold and slide down, revealing her shoulder.

Claudel tried to fix it in panic, but Kaian caught her hand.

His voice, low as if suppressing something rising within him, resonated.

“…May I?”