54. Do You Really Not Love Your Wife?

2023.11.23.

Yuan stood blankly for a long time.

The sensation of her heart pounding so hard it felt like it would burst slowly began to settle.

Feeling somewhat deflated, Yuan let out a faint chuckle.

Dying wasn’t particularly a problem for her. Even if the pain was unbearable, she ultimately hadn’t died.

“Yes.”

But Clade looked serious.

Yuan, feeling the tension tightly coiled in his shoulders, glanced up at him with a pale smile.

“I promise.”

As if retrieving a flicker of light that had briefly glimmered from his eyes—eyes like an endless underground abyss—Yuan answered carefully, yet firmly.

“I won’t die in front of Your Highness.”

Clade’s grip tightened.

The warmth radiating from his body passed through his clothes, seeped into Yuan’s damp clothes, and finally pierced her skin, heating her heart until it burned.

The sound of approaching hoofbeats grew closer from afar.

A carriage bearing the Roxenhardt crest was cutting through the rain.

Yuan quietly gazed at the pouring rain, wondering what this sudden, warm, tingling emotion welling up without reason could possibly be.

She thought—this moment, standing here in his embrace watching the rain fall, felt like happiness.

Having a home to return to.

Having someone beside her who would let her do anything, as long as she didn’t die.

***

“What happened outside to make you so busy, Your Highness? Did you get pelted with eggs or something?”

“Don’t be cheeky.”

“I’m only saying because you’re skipping meals and acting up.”

Lancelot, who had come to the Black Mansion early in the morning to hear the emperor’s thoughts on his first estate inspection, pointed at the sandwich left by butler Gustav.

“Why won’t you eat me? Do you think my mashed potatoes mixed with carrots and onions taste bad?”

“That’s absurd.”

“Oh, that’s exactly how I feel about you right now!”

Lancelot brushed back his neatly tousled caramel-colored hair and tapped the top of a towering stack of documents.

According to Marquis Mamsim’s report, spring had brought a labor shortage, leaving the commercial district nearly empty, and Lord Clade had appeared deeply dissatisfied and flustered.

Moreover, a heavy downpour had interrupted the inspection halfway through, rendering the entire trip practically a failure.

Yet Clade, who should have been slumped in a rocking chair upon arrival, had long since disappeared from his bedroom. Instead, he sat in the dusty office—a room untouched for ten years except by men of the Rev family—pretending to be busy as if he were a completely different person.

Lancelot was utterly baffled by the speed at which Clade now handled state affairs, as though determined to take full control after only gradually touching them here and there in response to his slowly improving health.

“Well done, Lancelot. You who’ve only ever used your body.”

“Has my time come to die…?”

“Tell Eddie and my uncle too.”

“Eddie might not care, but Father would be so overjoyed he’d burst into tears if you told him yourself—?”

A sharp gaze and a sly one clashed instantly.

Lancelot immediately noticed that those sharply glinting eyes were no longer the same shade he’d faced for the past ten years, but resembled the gaze he’d seen when they first crossed swords in sparring over a decade ago.

The eyes from before the terrible curse.

That brilliant light, glimpsed only for an instant, now brightly illuminated Lancelot’s heart after ten long years.

“So, what grand plans does our titleless, land-only lord have in mind?”

Lancelot approached Clade, who was buried in paperwork, his heart swelling with emotion.

The densely scribbled handwriting was clearly no ordinary script.

“…Huh?”

“This is the central city of Roxenhardt. It should be dazzling and radiant again, like before. I’ll make it a place full of attractions.”

“Don’t pretend to be so harmless. Read exactly what you wrote here.”

“….”

“You’re saying you’ll drain your entire personal fortune to turn Central Roxenhardt into a commercial city?”

“Does that sound like I’m asking for a miracle? Do you really think my parents loved this city simply because it had many forests? Located at the far northwest edge, a terrain without even a single mountain. Just past the northern forest lies a harbor with access to another continent—without threat from monsters. If we pour in gold, it’s entirely possible within ten years.”

Lancelot silently stared at the neatly completed stack of documents, his lips trembling.

“You did all this in just one day? Didn’t you sleep?”

He opened his mouth in disbelief, then quickly shut it again.

…He must have slept.

Clade’s face showed no sign of fatigue, brimming with such vitality that even a fly would slip right off.

“Is it because of your wife?”

The hand placing the final document on the pile froze.

Lancelot caught that fleeting moment again and clicked his tongue.

“She seemed disappointed after touring the estate? Or did our lord feel embarrassed because he wanted to show her something good but couldn’t? So now he’s desperate to turn it into a wealthy, glittering city. That’s it, isn’t it?”

“Who would do something so important for such a ridiculous reason—”

“You are, Clade.”

Lancelot shook his head in disbelief.

He had anticipated some change when he saw the west wing being cleaned, and noticed vines similar to those from his childhood slowly beginning to climb its outer walls. But he never expected the transformation to happen so abruptly.

He gazed at the sunlight tracing the sharp, clean lines of Clade’s face with a lump in his throat.

He had always mocked Marquis Mosan Rev, Clade’s father, for being sentimental—tears always held back no matter what Clade did. Yet now, he too found it incredibly difficult to suppress the surge of emotion rising within him.

The image of Emperor Alexei, who had once sat like a mountain in that very spot, cradling the tiny Clade on his lap, soothing and pleading with Lancelot not to fight, flickered like a mirage and then faded.

That small child had seemed like blackened ash, burning away entirely, locking himself in, ready to die in pain and darkness.

Always fragile, always hurt.

Always sensitive, always twisted.

Yet ever since the woman named Yuan Pelliese entered the Black Mansion, Clade had changed dramatically, as if the pain he had endured for ten years had become nourishment allowing him to rise from the earth like a bamboo shoot.

“This is the land your mother… the land your father loved. The land they wished to be buried in—not in the imperial cemetery, but in the backyard of this mansion. Of course I’d take care of it. I’m in good enough condition to sign a few papers. Don’t jump to conclusions. Don’t entertain pointless thoughts.”

Clade.

Are these really pointless thoughts? Are you really jumping to conclusions?

The sunlight clinging to Clade now shone fiercely into Lancelot’s caramel-colored eyes.

He held back the question he couldn’t bring himself to ask Clade, leaving it lodged in his mouth.

‘Do you really not love your wife?’

***

Finally, the west wing was completely cleaned.

The supply cart, returning from fetching water, hesitated at the usual first-floor entrance where it normally unloaded, then hurried all the way to the front of the west wing.

Several servants who jumped off the cart began wandering around the entrance gate, marveling aloud.

The west wing, its original red surface now exposed, sparkled in the sunlight like dewdrops on a fully bloomed rose.

Young maids chattered excitedly about the fresh, vibrant vines that had grown with new life, curling up into the corners, along with the colorful flowering trees planted in the courtyard.

Yuan greeted them, awkwardly holding a worn-out broom that had frayed at the ends, and gave an embarrassed smile toward Mazaring, the one who had driven the cart.

The old coachman grinned back, waving two identical new brooms in his hands as if to say it was all right.

“Madam, shouldn’t you show this to the master right away?”

“He hasn’t come out much lately—do you think he’s unwell?”

At the maids’ chattering, Yuan, who had been about to greet the cart, quickly turned her gaze to Gustav, the butler, who had hurriedly followed behind.

Gustav tactfully suggested,

“Why don’t you tell him yourself? His Highness should have some rest time by now—.”

Yuan, helped by Hena to remove her apron and gloves, nodded firmly.

***

Yuan knocked on the office door, carrying snacks prepared by head chef Ralph.

The office door on the third floor was as massive and heavy as the door to Clade’s bedroom on the second floor.

After knocking several times with no response, Yuan looked up anxiously at Gustav standing beside her.

Butler Gustav faintly smiled and opened the door for Yuan, whose hands were full.

“He said not to disturb—”

“It’s me.”

Clade, who had just issued a dismissal without even glancing toward the door, suddenly lifted his head at the sound of it closing.

Under his roughly swept-back blond hair, his pale, sharp face met Yuan’s gaze directly with languidly raised eyes.

Yuan smiled sweetly and approached, placing the refreshments on the desk.

Clade rubbed his tired eyes and glanced briefly at the clock hanging on the wall.

“It’s almost mealtime. What are you here for?”

“Would you like to take a walk with me to the west wing?”

Clade, tapping his quill against the desk, looked into Yuan’s hopeful eyes, then let out a light sigh and set the quill down.

Yuan hesitated, then quietly slipped the notebook she’d been holding under her arm beside the refreshments.

“This is the recipe for the that cleaned the west wing.”

One of Clade’s eyebrows shot up sharply.

He merely looked down at the notebook, worn with fingerprints, then folded his arms and cast a gaze toward her.

“I made the potion, but the idea was from Hile. He said we could make a fortune selling it commercially.”

“…You want to make money? Is the budget allocated to you insufficient?”

The very first thing Clade had done upon starting to work personally was to raise the budget assigned to Yuan to its maximum limit.

Yuan quickly shook her head and pushed the notebook into the space between his tightly crossed arms. Clade, caught off guard, took it and opened it.

Inside, the recipe for the was meticulously recorded in neat handwriting, accompanied by crooked little drawings.