“Just come out. I won’t let this slide.”

Hannah waited impatiently for the bedroom door to open.

She always slept with Claudel at Vermonte Castle.

When she suddenly lost her parents and younger sibling to a fire, Hannah thought she was fortunate to at least have Claudel left.

However, Claudel lost her mother and father, whom she could rely on, one after the other.

When she came to Vermonte Castle in a state of confusion after the fire in the village, she was fine, but after her father passed away, her insomnia became so severe that she couldn’t sleep at all by herself.

An accident is just an accident.

While Hannah’s pain was covered and bound by a single reason, for Claudel, it seemed to be a double burden – her mother’s death was an accident, but her father chose to end his own life. Moreover, Evan had left Claudel behind as well.

At Rowen Castle, they couldn’t stay together like before.

Hannah’s room was on the third floor where the maids stayed, quite separate, and Claudel’s room was no longer her private space.

Hannah didn’t have the courage to lie in the bed of the lady who might be visited by the lord at any time.

That alone was worrisome, but the mistreatment Claudel endured after coming to Rowen Castle was infuriating.

“This can’t go on.”

Unable to sleep all night due to her indignation, she finally headed towards Kaian’s bedroom in the early dawn.

“If we continue to live with such injustice, we’ll develop a sickness that didn’t exist before.”

The subject of Hannah’s worry about developing this sickness was, of course, not Hannah herself, but Claudel.

She was concerned about Claudel, who kept her mouth shut, saying she was fine despite hearing all sorts of insults.

Anger or rage that isn’t expressed outwardly tends to swirl inside, damaging the heart.

“I must somehow speak to the Duke. It’s too unfair.”

Hannah felt her blood boil when she saw Claudel, who should have thrown away that ring – now known not to be a ring at all – still refusing to remove it from her finger.

Claudel wouldn’t lie.

If she said she received it from him, that he gave it to her, then Kaian must have done so.

How could he then pretend not to know Claudel in front of so many servants, humiliating her?

A wife’s dignity is upheld by her husband.

With yesterday’s incident alone, in just three days since arriving at Rowen Castle, Claudel had practically lost all dignity as a mistress to be served by the servants.

That point was what brought Hannah to this place.

She wanted to see Claudel living happily and well, not being successively ignored and broken down.

If there was no improvement or resolution after speaking to Kaian today about the injustice, Hannah was even considering fleeing Rowen Castle with Claudel.

She could easily feed one small woman who didn’t eat much, even if Hannah had to do piecework sewing until her hands were calloused or do menial work in other people’s homes.

The wages she had saved at Vermonte Castle were enough to buy a small house in a quiet outskirt village.

As she was organizing her anger to unleash on Kaian like this.

Click.

The bedroom door opened, and out came a woman.

With long, lush black hair and large blue eyes, she had a voluptuous figure unlike Claudel.

Goodness, some young lady from who knows where, wasn’t she ashamed? She walked out of Kaian’s bedroom – an unrelated man, as he couldn’t be this woman’s husband since he was Claudel’s husband – without any intention of hiding what had happened the night before, her hair disheveled and unkempt, her clothing loosely tied and in disarray.

Hannah blushed with embarrassment at the sight.

“Who are you?”

Not expecting to encounter anyone, the woman finally pulled her shawl to cover her half-exposed upper chest and ran her hand through her hair.

“The Duke is still asleep,” she said.

Hannah had heard rumors that the women entering and leaving Kaian’s bedroom at Vermonte Castle changed daily.

However, for the past two days, he had been resting in Claudel’s bedroom, and Hannah had momentarily forgotten about it, distracted by the torment from the castle maids that was getting under her skin.

“That’s what I should be asking. Who are you?”

The woman’s eyes widened as Hannah, who looked like a servant, spoke assertively.

“As far as I know, there’s only one person in Rowen Castle who can enter the lord’s bedroom.”

“Ah. Hahaha.”

The woman pointed at Hannah with her index finger, as if she had just realized who she was.

“Ah, yes. It’s you. That mad fighting chicken of the rain-soaked wilted flower that everyone’s talking about.”

Hannah had never hit a woman before.

But she wanted to slap this woman who brazenly referred to Claudel as a ‘rain-soaked wilted flower’ right off the bat.

“You still don’t know who I am.”

The woman extended her left hand to Hannah.

On her hand was a ring with a large blue diamond.

Hannah could recognize it at a glance.

It was the ring prominently worn by the Duchess in the large portrait of the previous Duke and Duchess hanging on the front wall of the main hall of the lord’s castle.

A ring with a simple thick band and a large blue diamond that covered the entire finger.

The late Duchess was a beauty with wispy lemon-blonde hair, fair skin, and large blue eyes.

Although his personality was foul, the Duke of Temnes had looks that could honestly be acknowledged as befitting his lineage, matching his mother’s beauty.

The blue diamond on her finger suited her so well, as if it were her living third eye, making the portrait quite impressive to those who passed by.

Probably in her lifetime, the Duchess knew how well that ring suited her.

“Remember me. My name is Antione.”

The woman smiled brightly, seeming to have noticed Hannah’s gaze.

“You recognize this ring. It’s the one the Duchess had, which Lord Kaian gave to me.”

Usually, giving an heirloom inherited from one’s mother was understood as a pledge of lifelong fidelity, a vow of chastity.

“Tell your young lady this. Lord Kaian already has someone else he promised to marry. Whether that person is married or not, your lady will never set foot in Lord Kaian’s bedroom.”

“This is outrageous. Then, as an unmarried maiden, how can you be so bold as to enter and leave a man’s bedroom?”

“You’re the ridiculous one. What does a mere written contract of a name matter? The problem lies with your insignificant mistress who can’t win even a piece of his heart.”

“……”

Antione left the corridor, rubbing her waist and massaging her neck and shoulders as if to show how strenuous the previous night had been.

Hannah was so angry and dumbfounded that she was at a loss for words for the first time.

A husband who brings another woman into his bedroom on the third day after getting married and his wife arriving at the estate!

“What should we do? Our poor young lady.”

It was a total disaster.

Hannah’s thoughts leaned towards escaping Rowen with Claudel.

It was quiet inside Claudel’s bedroom.

“My Lord.”

Kaian, who had been standing all night, turned his head at the steward’s voice as the light of dawn began to shine in the corridor.

“What are you doing like this?”

“Well. I don’t know.”

“You’re regretting it, aren’t you?”

Regret?

Regret.

It was a word that didn’t exist in Kaian’s dictionary because everything he did was right.

“No.”

“Don’t be stubborn. For any matter, the quickest time to correct a mistake is now.”

The steward, with deep wrinkles under his eyes, sighed briefly.

“If you treat the lady like this, how will you handle the heir’s education? The discipline in the castle is in shambles.”

The steward was right.

If Claudel, who was being so disrespected, were to have a child, even that existence would be precarious.

It was impossible for a child raised under all sorts of contempt and harassment to become an heir that everyone looked up to, like Kaian.

“Those who never imagined a bride from Vermonte entering the Temnes family are bound to be noisy, but you, my Lord, must boost the lady’s spirits. Only then will they accept her.”

The steward’s nagging, full of nothing but right words, was particularly harsh today.

“Shall we go inside?”

When the steward spoke, Kaian shook his head.

“No. I’ll just leave for today.”

After holding three days of wedding festivities, there was a pile of work that Kaian needed to attend to.

Moreover, he hadn’t yet sorted out what to say to Claudel or what he should do.

Feeling that facing her in this state would only complicate things further, he decided to take a step back.

“Will you rest?”

“No. I’ll go straight to the study.”

“Let me escort you.”

The steward knew why Kaian, who hadn’t slept a wink all night and had been pacing in front of Claudel’s bedroom, was behaving this way, but he couldn’t lecture his master on such matters.

‘Soon, you’ll realize it yourself.’

The steward didn’t know that a day would come when Kaian would regret and lament this day’s decision.

Claudel spent a sleepless night.

“I didn’t sleep at all.”

She, who had been lying in bed covered with a blanket, raised her body groggily as she saw the dawn breaking.

“He didn’t come after all.”

Kaian didn’t visit her bedroom last night.

Kaian, who had turned away saying not to cause a commotion, seemed to be in a very bad mood.

She thought he wouldn’t come tonight, but since he had come on the second night, not just for the wedding night duty, she had a slight hope.

“No way. Perhaps. Still. Maybe. Why am I thinking like this? He’s a Temnes and I’m a Vermonte.”

From the beginning, he wasn’t someone within the boundaries of what she could expect.

The two families were like oil and water.

They were sworn enemies who couldn’t mix even if they tried.

“…I want to sleep.”

At times like this when her heart was so heavy, it would have been nice if she could at least forget everything and sleep deeply.

As she spent the night with open eyes, her body still aching where Kaian had touched her during the past two nights, she kept feeling sad.

“That’s what I thought on the first day. That after the wedding night, I would never see him in the bedroom again.”

But why did she keep feeling dejected and empty?

“It must be because I couldn’t sleep.”

As Claudel was rubbing her head, which was starting to throb with a mild headache, it happened.

“Ugh. Cough. Cough.”

As her breath, roughly scratching her chest, touched somewhere deep inside her body, a pain like her lungs were being wrung out washed over her.

“Cough. Cough. Cough.”

The coughing didn’t stop and tormented Claudel for a long time.

“Haa.”

A warm, fishy liquid trickled down her wrist from her palm that had covered her mouth, dripping onto the front of her nightgown and the blanket.

Seeing this, Claudel murmured.

“…Blood.”