‘It’s your honeymoon, so don’t bother us and get lost.’

As soon as Irena said she was leaving, the air became warm as if they couldn’t hide their gladness, and she was dumbfounded.

‘Did I come all the way from Belmont to Rowen just to see this?’

She was speechless, but not wanting to stoop to Temnes’ level, she politely endured it.

“I didn’t expect you to leave so soon though. There’s still a lot I wanted to do together. Reconsider, elder sister.”

As soon as Claude spoke, Kaian stepped in.

“It’s right to emulate participating in festivals that the people find meaningful.”

Irena was stunned.

‘Don’t even dream of taking back your words and considering others, young lady.’

A meaning different from what she heard with her ears spontaneously came to Irena’s mind from Kaian’s words.

When Irena returned to her room, she saw the brightly and elegantly decorated interior.

The room she was staying in had a spacious reception room and a moderately sized bathroom attached.

The furniture filling the room was very luxurious and looked newly refurbished.

Originally, Rowen Castle was built as a royal palace during the founding of the Oberon Kingdom.

If the current lord and lady’s space was equivalent to where the king and queen stayed back then, it made sense that this best guest room included such spaces.

A room of such class that would normally be given to a ducal couple staying at the royal palace was provided to Irena, who came alone.

“Even if the lord ordered it, the butler would be the one to directly handle it.”

However, the Kaian she met didn’t seem likely to have arranged for her to be welcomed like this, and if the butler treated her this way because she was a guest from the lady’s family, Claude’s standing in the castle couldn’t be bad.

Those who work in the castle are sensitive to power dynamics.

Their jobs could disappear overnight depending on the mood of the masters they serve.

Even Kaian, who she thought rude on the first day, turned out to be different from how he appeared.

Noble men were often not very faithful to their wives.

They often treated their wives and daughters like possessions to oppress, while only considering their heir sons as children.

Many would act like respected nobles and kind people to others outside, but at home they would lord over their wives and children like gods, demanding absolute obedience.

Men as generous and affectionate to their wives and children as her father, the Duke of Belmont, were rare.

Of course, that was a thought she could have because she didn’t know he treated his biological daughter and adopted niece Claude differently.

Irena sincerely respected and loved her father, and couldn’t imagine he would have driven Claude to her death.

She simply accepted that since the marriage was ordered by royal decree and she, as a widow, couldn’t be Temnes’ marriage partner, it was naturally Claude who had to marry into the enemy family.

In a relationship between two families where even on the wedding night, a knife fight in bed wouldn’t be strange, Irena couldn’t even guess that Claude’s generous treatment of Temnes, even if he was her husband, was because she had no one to rely on after her father drove his sister to her death, and clung to this as a way to survive.

“I’m glad she’s doing well though.”

To Irena’s eyes, she simply saw a man who was cold and stern to others – even to Irena herself – being kind only to his wife.

Of course, it would be much better to live with someone who was the opposite – generous to others but strict with his wife.

However, despite not being able to sleep well the night before, Irena couldn’t fall asleep that night either.

“Haa.”

Unresolved fatigue from lack of sleep made her body feel limp.

Even after lying there for a while, unable to fall asleep, Irena tossed and turned.

“A husband…”

The man who had been her husband was the second son of a marquis family without a title, a distant relative of the Belmont ducal family.

With few sons, when a daughter was born, Belmont would marry her off to a foreign country or a powerful family, so the man was distantly related enough to meet at the fringes of their complicated family tree.

He was a tall man with bright red hair and gray eyes.

Choosing a husband wasn’t Irena’s own will, but the Duke of Belmont’s.

At that time, Irena thought her father, who adored her terribly, wouldn’t choose a bad groom for her, and also believed that a man would know another man best.

True to her belief, the Duke of Belmont worked hard to choose the best groom.

He had to have either the red hair or golden eyes of the Belmont bloodline, be healthy and free of disease.

Since he was coming as a son-in-law, his status inevitably lowered, but he had to be properly educated comparable to heir training and be dignified.

Originally, like Duke Temnes who departed immediately when the Five Year War broke out.

Duke Belmont said ‘I will soon hold the wedding and have my son-in-law depart,’ and took his time choosing a son-in-law.

Then Irena got married three years ago, when she had just turned nineteen.

‘That’s about the same age as Claude is now.’

By the custom of getting engaged or betrothed soon after one’s debutante, both Irena and Claude were late in marrying.

Not that anyone would dare to gossip about the daughter of Belmont, of course.

Irena’s remaining memories of her husband were very brief and fragmentary.

She had spent only a week with her husband, and that week included various wedding ceremonies, so they hadn’t even spent it all alone together.

Her husband who went to the battlefield died after a month.

‘Weak bastard! After I delayed so long not sending you to my battlefield for four years! You die as soon as you go?’

The Duke of Belmont raged furiously upon hearing the news of his son-in-law’s death.

Irena didn’t cry then.

She didn’t know him well enough or form a deep enough bond with him to mourn his death.

Just because she got married, did she move residences or even visit the marquis’ house once as a daughter-in-law?

Her husband was practically bought by Duke Belmont with money as an heir, so nothing in Irena’s life changed before and after the marriage.

Her husband simply existed briefly and then disappeared.

But after seeing Claude and Kaian together, she felt empty and strange.

‘If my husband were alive.’

Would he have looked at Irena, his wife, with such affection?

‘If they were a couple who visibly cared for each other like that.’

…If one of them died like Irena had experienced, would they shed the tears she couldn’t?

Her marriage was politically necessary.

Irena knew well that there was still no heir in the Belmont domain and that her father was choosing her husband again.

“Ah. Tears…”

Ridiculously, tears that didn’t come when her husband died now flowed down her cheek as she lay on her side.

“Why am I crying now?”

Irena couldn’t even attend her husband’s funeral.

Duke Belmont prevented her from going with the reason that ‘his shocked daughter was unable to move.’

The man who became Irena’s husband as a son-in-law was buried in the marquis family cemetery, not in the underground crypt of Belmont Castle.

The marquis later protested in writing several times, but Duke Belmont ignored it.

If Irena attended the funeral, it would officially recognize her as the marquis’ daughter-in-law to those around them, which would be disadvantageous when marrying her off again.

Her father was the great lord of Belmont, Duke of Balmont.

Irena was also not in a position to go against what her father opposed.

She became a woman who was powerlessly married off as ordered, then not allowed to even attend her husband’s funeral.

Because it was a heavy and sad thing, Irena had tried not to think about it, as if escaping.

Lady Irena.

Strictly speaking, she couldn’t be a lady, but no one hesitates to call her that.

The rapport Kaian and Claude shared appeared even more vivid to Irena’s eyes.

They looked very beautiful, and seemed to match so well it was hard to believe they were Belmont and Temnes.

“…Hic. Sob.”

Irena cried all night, wetting her pillowcase with inexplicable emotions.

Irena departed leisurely after having lunch.

Several rose seedlings with branches trimmed and roots amply wrapped in soil were loaded onto the luggage rack of the carriage she came in.

“Thank you.”

As Irena placed her hand on her chest and bent her knee in gratitude, Kaian said coldly.

“Claude said the young lady likes flowers.”

Even in that brief moment of speaking, Kaian glanced at Claude who stood with her arm linked in his.

“Yes, that’s right. I’m honored you were so thoughtful.”

“Elder sister. You can’t come often because it’s far, but please come again next time.”

“Yes. I should come every year. The wildflowers blooming in the back garden were so pretty.”

“The back garden. A place with many memories for us.”

Kaian seemed desperate to show off his close affection with Claude.

They’ve only been married for four months, what great memories could they have.

Irena boarded the carriage, seeing off the two of them.

The sound of horse hooves and carriage wheels turning in sync could be heard as Rowen Castle gradually receded.

As Claude kept waving until the carriage was quite far, Kaian said something, and she shook her head as if disliking it.

After bickering like that over nothing again, Kaian picked up Claude and disappeared into the castle.

“He can’t even bear to see his wife standing to see someone off?”

It was ridiculous, but thinking it was just the younger couple’s affection rather than an argument, she could only laugh.

However, after a few days, Irena could tell that her condition had become strange.

When night came and she lay alone in the inn she was staying at, tears kept coming.

Sometimes while blankly looking at the scenery outside the carriage, the kiss her sister and brother-in-law shared came to mind.

Passion.

Yes. That was passion.

Irena had never directly experienced that herself.

The husband who entered the bridal chamber on their wedding night after the ceremony at Belmont Castle was very polite to Irena.

The kiss she experienced was as careful as if a chick’s down had touched her lips and flown away, and the touch on her body was not much different.

‘The breathtaking pleasure is only written about in books. Reality is different.’

At the time, Irena dismissed her impression of the wedding night like that.

The truth that her husband, who became a son-in-law, acted passively even with his beautiful wife because he was intimidated by Duke Belmont watching them with keen eyes in the imposing Belmont Castle, was a story buried with his death.

There was no way for Irena to know that.

The gestures of embracing each other as if yearning, Claude’s waist bending in Duke Temnes’ arms, the small nasal sounds heard while their lips were pressed together nakedly.

She couldn’t understand why she kept recalling such things.

So absorbed in it that when Duke Belmont appeared at the inn where she was staying in the capital of Oberon, midway on the long journey back to Belmont, Irena couldn’t welcome him as usual.

“…Father? What brings you here?”

As she barely managed to stammer out, Duke Belmont replied without hiding his beaming smile.

“If things go well, you might become queen, Irena.”