Side Story 5. Roxenhardt’s Spring (4)

2024.04.16.

The time when golden twilight grazes the ground.

The hand signing documents without pause, seated upright, moved with grace—but urgency seeped through.

Eyes, usually lowered, occasionally glanced at the desk clock. As evening drew near, his heart grew restless.

In the mansion without Yuan, Clade had never waited for mealtime.

During the more than ten years of confinement, food was merely something forced down to survive, to sustain the bare minimum of bodily function. After Yuan left, he filled the hollow ache inside with resentment, throwing himself obsessively into reshaping his domain.

Food was enough as long as it kept him alive—even then, only if the butler or Lancelot pleaded enough would he reluctantly chew and swallow a dry sandwich.

But now, things were different.

It couldn’t be explained by the cliché that food tastes better when shared.

He marveled at the process: ingredients from orchards and wheat fields he himself had approved, prepared by hands he himself had hired, entering Yuan’s mouth and nourishing her body.

Watching her cheeks—once pale as freshly bloomed lilies—regain color like ripening apples, plumping with life, made him feel he might finally understand the life of a farmer, something he’d never experienced before.

Cheeks that looked as if biting into them would release sweet, tangy juice; the faint scent of fresh grass rising from her smooth, white nape; and beneath that, softness…

A period was placed beneath handwriting growing increasingly impatient.

He clenched his hand—tinged with irritation and urgency—and swallowed a short groan.

He had clearly intended to think of Yuan within wholesome, bright, good thoughts—yet sensations branded across his entire body like hot iron rose with maddening sensitivity, forcing him to douse his mind with cold water several times a day.

Knock knock-.

At the neat, light knock, Clade straightened his back and lifted the hands he’d buried in his face as if in self-reproach.

The moment the innocent face peeked timidly through the door, his expression crumbled entirely.

“I told you, you don’t need to come fetch me every time.”

Even as he said it, he made no effort to hide his curving eyes or smiling lips—he sprang to his feet and hurried toward Yuan.

Yuan, who he expected to chatter as usual about how Hire had praised Pelliese today until he felt embarrassed, or how Lancelot had challenged him again to chess despite being terrible at it—yet to him, she still felt fragile, delicate. He ushered her slight frame into the study and slammed the door shut behind her with his back.

“…Why?”

“You told Marquis Rev to apologize to me, didn’t you?”

So he finally did apologize.

When Clade answered only with a short sigh, Yuan looked up at him intently.

Clade merely gazed down at her as if to say, “What’s the problem with that?”

“What if you make him apologize for every little thing he muttered afterward? Besides, from what I heard, he had some valid points.”

“You’re uncomfortable around Eddie. Both him and that guy. If someone has to bend while living under the same roof, it should be him.”

“Do you really have to go that far…?”

“I find it distasteful.”

As Yuan turned toward the window with a sigh, Clade immediately followed, wrapped his arms around her shoulders from behind, and pulled her close.

A brief silence followed.

Yuan knew what would come after this subtle quiet.

Golden hair, shimmering red in the twilight, tickled her ear.

Hot, humid breath slowly brushed against her earlobe.

I love you.

Barely audible—like the world’s most secret whisper—she shivered and curled inward from the tickle.

The arms encircling her shoulders tightened further.

Whenever Clade whispered “I love you,” he always pulled Yuan tightly against him and murmured directly into her ear.

As if afraid the words might vanish instantly, he clung to her desperately, whispering so softly—as if pressing his lips right against her ear—that each syllable’s escaping breath would cling to the fine hairs there, as though no one else must hear.

And then, as if to soothe her subtly trembling body, Yuan quietly patted his arms.

Encouraged, he would whisper again.

I love you, Yuan.

Hey. You. His voice, calling her not by some crow-like nickname but by her real name, was thick and sweet like honey.

Each time Yuan heard him speak love, she widened her eyes like a child who’d swallowed an entire beehive, trembling all over.

The arms constricting her grew tighter. Nestled in his embrace—warm at first, then increasingly hot—Yuan swallowed a languid sigh.

After savoring each other’s breaths and scents to their hearts’ content, when he tilted his head, Yuan willingly offered her lips.

The gentle kiss gradually deepened.

The man’s eyes, slowly opening, drifted toward the small, white hand resting upon his chest.

It was a clean hand, adorned with nothing.

A faint shadow instantly passed over his feverish violet eyes. His large hands gripped her small frame even more firmly.

At last, he sank his teeth into the fragrance that had haunted him all day long.

***

That evening.

Yuan returned to her bedroom, finished bathing, and sat before her vanity.

The moment Hena, chattering away, left with Monica carrying all the bath supplies and closed the door, silence stepped boldly in.

Yuan pulled the drawer open fully and reached deep inside.

Soon, a small ring case wrapped in red velvet appeared atop the vanity.

Yuan opened it and stared for a long while at the ring nestled demurely within.

The night she returned to Roxenhardt.

Yuan had received this ring—from Clade—the Empress Eleonore’s ring.

The very ring Emperor Alexei had presented when proposing to her; its delicately crafted diamond shimmered with a faint violet hue under light, like his eyes—sometimes shifting to the caramel shade unique to the Rev Marquis family—casting a rare, mysterious radiance.

When she first placed this ring in her bedroom, Lancelot had called it an Aurora diamond—so precious it couldn’t be bought for all the gold in the world.

Yuan had kept it without ever slipping it onto her finger.

She thought Clade didn’t care, since he’d merely handed it over—but she was wrong.

Over the past few months, while initially focused on Yuan’s physical condition, Clade would sometimes stare fixedly at her hands.

His eyes clearly wished for her to wear the ring.

Embarrassed by her empty hands, she clenched them into fists.

After gazing at the ring for a long time, she carefully closed the case.

Then, reaching again into the drawer, she pulled out a thick golden envelope sealed with violet wax.

Tracing the distinct wolf emblem with her fingertips, Yuan—though no one was watching—glanced once at the window and door, then turned her back to them and carefully opened the letter.

[To the esteemed Countess Yuan Pelliese.

I have heard, without so much as a greeting from you, that you went to Roxenhardt for convalescence.

Thanks to my brother’s uniquely considerate consideration, I am currently enduring extremely busy and exhausting days.

Still, seeing laughter never leave Mother’s face brings me some peace.]

Noel’s letter detailed his daily schedule, consumed entirely by state affairs.

Though she’d read it many times already, each reading felt fresh and fascinating. She’d never before received such a lengthy letter from a “friend.”

Moreover—addressed to Countess Pelliese.

A strange title—and a quiet giggle escaped her lips.

[I understand your divorce from him has already been formally processed. Unless you submit a separate document to nullify the divorce, I’ve enclosed a pamphlet—in case you might wish to… experience something else.]

She’d learned shortly after entering the mansion that the divorce papers she’d signed earlier had already been received and fully approved.

Clade had fumed, complaining that the slowpoke Euphris judges were disgustingly swift when processing other people’s divorces.

That very day, he’d immediately sent documents to the Pelliese Count’s household to draft a divorce nullification.

Yet even after winter passed, Enoch still hadn’t stamped and returned the documents with the seal Yuan had sent him.

Yuan knew Clade tried meticulously to oversee everything around her.

The reason he ordered Eddie Rev to apologize to her over outdated “slander.”

The reason he kept glancing at her hands, watching for when she might finally wear the ring he’d given her.

The reason he kept sending new betrothal gifts to the Pelliese mansion—adding several more crates of gold each time, despite her repeated refusals.

He remained uneasy.

It was baseless anxiety—that even the tiniest speck of discomfort might turn Yuan’s heart away from him.

This had nothing to do with how many times he whispered “I love you.”

After all, he surely still remembered vividly the Yuan who left the morning after spending two nights repeating only “I love you.”

Clade rejoiced that Yuan had returned home on her own two feet.

Every night, they slept together; at dawn, he’d awaken and fiddle with Yuan’s hair as she slept beside him.

On most days without appointments, he dined with her and enjoyed walks together whenever he could steal a moment.

Yet he behaved as though he never forgot the possibility that Yuan might suddenly vanish someday.

Yuan knew it was an absurd thought—but she still couldn’t rashly slip on the ring he gave her or begin discussing marriage.

She ran her fingertips over the pamphlet delivered with the letter.

Made of stiff, smooth paper, it was promotional material for the Euphris National Academy.

[The academic year begins twice—spring and autumn. I will send you a recommendation letter shortly; you may enroll whenever you wish, during either term. That’s all.]

A recommendation letter for the National Academy.

[Whatever choice you make, your eternal friend, Noel Euphris]

The smiles of students clad in pure white uniforms depicted in the pamphlet made Yuan’s heart race.

Over the past months, separate from her feelings for Clade, another wish had quietly grown within her.

She longed to experience, in a wider world, all the things Clade had seen and heard.

It was wonderful to eat delicious food nestled in his arms and enjoy peaceful walks—but above all, she wished to grow first as Yuan Pelliese, not as Duchess Yuan Roxenhardt, so she could become his most helpful companion. How could she convey this wish to Clade?