“I want to pick the flowers.”

More precious to Claude than the dress she received today was the brief glimpse of his smiling face.

‘I won’t accept gifts anymore. No, I’ll stop receiving them. Strange rumors might spread in the territory at this rate.’

‘What kind of rumors?’

‘That the villainess from Belmont came as a bride and is squandering Temnes’ wealth on luxuries.’

‘Ha. Haha.’

Very occasionally, Kaian would show her a smiling face.

Like a ray of sunlight briefly shining through dark clouds.

Like a shooting star momentarily splitting the darkness as it falls across the summer night sky.

Like thunder stretching down like a tree branch beside delicate leaves trembling with raindrops.

Brief, sudden, and sometimes intense, it left an afterimage in Claude’s eyes.

‘Why on earth is he smiling?’

The first time he smiled was when she was flailing about after falling into the water.

Claude thought it must have been because the sight of her falling in the water was comical, but.

Claude felt frustrated because she couldn’t understand what made Kaian smile.

She agonized over it alone, wondering if she could see that face more often if she knew when and why he smiled.

“Sigh.”

“You want to pick flowers? Shall we go to the garden?”

When Hannah asked, Claude shook her head.

“No. I just spoke without thinking.”

“My lady. Is something troubling you?”

“Huh?”

“You’ve been eating less lately. Why is that? Should I call for a doctor?”

Apart from lunch with Kaian, her appetite had been diminished for days, and she’d only been picking at her food.

Hannah, who was ghost-like in her care for her, couldn’t have missed it.

“Why? Why? Have you grown tired of me now? Why can’t you tell me?”

“That’s not possible.”

“If I’m still your closest friend in your heart, what could you not tell me? My lady. Have you changed?”

At Hannah’s words, Claude finally raised the white flag.

In truth, there was a separate reason why seeing Kaian made her anxious and heightened her unease.

“You know, Hannah.”

“Yes.”

“I wonder if Kaian…”

Her heart fluttered sensitively as she tried to speak.

“The lord? What about the lord?”

“I wonder if he might fall for Irena when he sees her?”

“What?”

Hannah’s brown eyes widened.

“Irena is a beautiful and refined young lady. Graceful and confident.”

“What nonsense are you talking?”

“You said it yourself, Hannah. That there’s no man in the world who dislikes a beautiful woman.”

At Claude’s words, Hannah burst out laughing as if she’d heard something unbelievable.

“Ah. Hahaha. Oh my. What to do.”

“Why? Why are you laughing?”

The number of people whose reasons for laughing Claude couldn’t understand increased by one.

“Don’t tell me you’ve lost your appetite and energy because of such an absurd worry?”

“What do you mean absurd? I’m serious.”

“Ahahaha.”

Hannah’s laughter grew louder at the sight of her frowning seriously, saying she was serious.

“Oh my. Miss. Don’t you know the lord’s heart?”

“What? You know? How?”

“Oh goodness, what am I thinking. I called you ‘miss’. Anyway.”

Hannah looked at Claude with a face flushed from laughing heartily.

“The lord has completely fallen for you, my lady. He comes to your bedroom every night, doesn’t he?”

“That’s because I asked him to.”

“These dresses and jewels. A man doesn’t give such gifts to a woman he doesn’t care for.”

“Hannah. You’ve never been in love either.”

Despite Claude’s pointed remark, Hannah was confident.

“Do I have to experience it to know? I have the stories I grew up hearing from my sisters.”

“When I was at Belmont Castle, not a single man showed interest in me.”

Everyone was captivated by Irena’s beauty.

When Claude and Irena stood side by side.

All the young men would offer flowers to Irena and praise her beauty as if Claude wasn’t even visible.

Kaian always had a cold expression, as if slightly angry.

Only in front of Claude did he gradually relax his face, and sometimes he would even smile.

What if Kaian fell for Irena at first sight when she arrived and stepped out of the carriage?

The last time he came to Belmont Castle for the wedding, he arrived just as the ceremony was starting, married her, and left right away without even taking time to greet the Belmont family separately, saying he was busy.

As a result, he hadn’t properly seen Irena.

Even on her wedding day, Claude had heard it clearly.

‘Even dressed up like that, she doesn’t shine.’

‘If Lady Irena had worn it, it would have been dazzling.’

‘It’s jewels that shine when polished. How could the young miss be a jewel? She’s a pebble.’

That’s what the castle staff were whispering.

If Hannah had heard it, fists would have flown immediately, but fortunately Hannah was also busy attending to her wedding that day, so she didn’t hear.

“Do you really think it’s because of beauty?”

Hannah crossed her arms and squared her shoulders.

“We’ll see this time. How the lord reacts.”

Originally, Claude had no secrets from Hannah.

She thought Hannah was the same.

They were people who shared the most painful memories of their lives.

They experienced the same pain on the same day and suffered the aftereffects together.

The painful places in their hearts did not heal easily, like an incurable disease.

Sadness was easily revived at even the slightest stimulation, as if it had been gouged out.

Others didn’t understand this, but Claude and Hannah understood each other, so they were the only two who could share that story, that memory, the memories that the raging flames couldn’t burn.

However, after contracting Herzol and making this marriage, secrets that she couldn’t tell Hannah arose for the first time.

‘Hannah. I’m sorry I can’t be honest with you.’

Claude had sensed from the beginning who would become the new duchess after she died.

Irena Aul Belmont.

Her beautiful elder sister would take that place.

Originally, the royal command was to send a daughter of Belmont as the Duchess of Temnes.

It wasn’t specifically naming Claude.

The Duke of Belmont, enraged by the fact that Kaian was preparing for a territorial war, tried to use Claude, who was about to die, as a trap.

However, there were quite a few inconsistent circumstances there.

Belmont was not in a situation where the people of the territory could wage war due to a long drought.

If Claude were to die as the Duke of Belmont said, considering whether Belmont could attack Temnes based on her death, in reality, it wasn’t possible.

It’s not as if non-existent troops and war preparations would suddenly spring up like a fountain, right?

So Claude understood that the reason she had to go to Temnes was to measure how cruel of a thing would happen to her.

If the lord was too terrible a person, they would hire mercenaries from the Sol continent to attack Temnes without room for compromise.

However, if he didn’t treat her particularly harshly for being a Belmont until Claude died of Herzol, they could send Irena as the next duchess.

That would fulfill the royal command.

The king had ordered to send a daughter of Belmont to Temnes, but since the first daughter sent met an unfortunate death, they would send another daughter to serve the king’s will as a subject.

Moreover, Irena’s situation was very ambiguous right now.

The daughters of Belmont do not debut in the kingdom’s social circles.

When they come of age, they hold a grand ball called the Northern Debutante to celebrate becoming an adult.

A Northern Debutante wasn’t held separately for Claude, though.

That’s because the Duke of Belmont had included Claude, who was only eleven years old, in Irena’s ball when she turned fourteen.

On that day, the Duke of Belmont descended the stairs holding the beautifully adorned Irena’s hand as they entered the ballroom.

The men looking up from below were completely captivated by the beauty of the girl just about to bloom into a woman, and cheered.

Behind them, the Duchess of Belmont followed with Claude, but no one paid attention to the skinny little girl who was too young for her growth as a woman to have even begun.

Setting that aside, Irena, who hadn’t even debuted in the kingdom’s social circles, was now in the position of a second daughter-in-law of a marquis family who had lost her husband without a title.

Nevertheless, no one objected to calling Irena a “princess” within Belmont as before, but finding a new groom would be different.

But once Claude died, Kaian would also become a widower.

Irena of equal ducal birth who lost her husband, and Kaian who lost his wife.

Add to that cleaning up King Oberon’s royal command, and it would become a good marriage in many ways.

The things she had prepared her heart for, the things she thought she could endure before dying to save the people of the territory.

They didn’t happen.

Because she never expected to live, Claude had to think a lot about her future life and lifestyle.

However, the end of that thought was that if the marriage partner had been Irena, Kaian probably wouldn’t have ignored her on the wedding day like he did with Claude.

Because Irena would have been a truly beautiful bride.

And her father is the Duke of Belmont.

It might be a needless thought, but she couldn’t be happy about the news that Irena wanted to visit Rowen as soon as she sent word that her Herzol had healed and things were fine with her husband.

No, this was entirely Claude’s problem.

‘I didn’t know I would come to like Kaian.’

It wasn’t something to blame anyone for.

Not knowing Claude’s feelings, Hannah’s face still held traces of laughter.

“Hmm. Then would you like to make a bet with me?”

“What kind of bet?”

“Whether or not the lord falls for Lady Irena when he sees her. You think the lord will fall for Lady Irena when he sees her, right? I don’t think so.”

“Mmm.”

This was a bet where losing would be good. Claude nodded.

“Alright. Then what should we wager?”

“Let’s do a wish-granting.”

“Okay.”

From that night on, Claude prayed every day to be able to grant Hannah’s wish.

A telegram that arrived suddenly.

Telegrams from the Kingdom of Oberon were transmitted by flashing lights conveying strings of letters through the darkness of night.

All night long, words from someone to someone else busily traveled across the kingdom on light from communication offices connecting major cities like a spider’s web.

Among them, those with a large golden mark attached to the outside of the telegram envelope were the mark of royal decrees sent down from the royal family.

Although the autumn festival was approaching, it was a busy time in Rowen, where there is no winter, with the sowing of autumn barley planted as a second crop.

Kaian, who had returned to his office after riding on horseback through the vast farmland to encourage the workers, picked up the message from the royal palace placed on his desk before even sitting down.

As he opened the envelope, Kaian unknowingly frowned.

It was because the telegram he had received just recently was a royal command to marry Belmont.

‘The nonsense was written so long and in detail.’

Though he thinks the marriage turned out well now, it was an event sufficient to leave Kaian with telegram trauma.

Usually telegrams were priced by the number of characters, so it was customary to send them briefly, but Valqueter said all he wanted to say in gilded letters, whether as crown prince or now as king.

However, the words written in today’s telegram were uncharacteristically short and concise for Valqueter.

Kaian’s brow furrowed immediately.

“…Is he in his right mind?”