At the sound of the window opening, Yuan jerked her head up.

The pure white angora fur earmuffs on either side of her flushed cheeks fluttered slightly in the wind.

Yuan, tightly gripping her fur cloak, saw Clard’s golden hair fluttering in the sunset glow.

As she slowly moved back to see his face, a soft voice, as if lying, drifted to her ears on the wind.

“Not like some crazy puppy. Jumping around just because of new clothes.”

It was an unpleasant remark, enough to make her forget to say thank you for the new room and clothes.

Yuan blinked in momentary confusion at his unchanging prickliness, then projected her voice through white breath.

“It’s not, not because of the new clothes! I ran to see Your Highness!”

“Me.”

“Yes!”

“Why.”

Clard wasn’t pressed close to the window.

So Yuan, seeing his wind-tossed golden hair instead of his face, hesitated a bit before answering.

“I said I’d work for Your Highness, but you didn’t… seek me out.”

I was anxious that your heart might suddenly change and you’d drive me away.

But seeing you give me a room and clothes, it seems you won’t drive me out.

So I wanted to say thank you very much.

Even though I had nightmares every day about being driven out, seeing the new clothes hanging in the closet and my things filling the room made me feel at ease…

Yuan gathered the words swirling in her mouth, then called out again to the silent Clard.

“And I’m not excited because I’m wearing new clothes! This cloak is new, but what I’m wearing underneath-”

Yuan spread her cloak wide and jumped up.

“It’s the clothes I’ve been wearing all along! It doesn’t look so worn now, does it? It doesn’t bother you anymore, right?”

Clard’s forehead, slightly visible each time Yuan jumped, wrinkled a bit.

“You didn’t buy clothes? Why aren’t they new?”

“They haven’t arrived yet!”

Clard gave no reply.

Yuan started to worry that the butler might get in trouble needlessly.

Remembering the lavender dress Michelle had left behind, she jumped up again.

“I have new clothes! I’ll show you!”

“You said they hadn’t arrived.”

“I have them!”

Yuan immediately ran to the bedroom and urged Monica.

She could easily imagine Clard starting to berate Gustav, calling him a ‘sluggish old man with slow work.’

She had to prove that the butler had carried out his orders without fail.

Yuan, having hurriedly put on the new clothes, rushed past the numerous rooms in the corridor and stood in front of Clard’s bedroom.

After catching her breath and knocking several times with no answer, she cautiously opened the door to find Clard leaning askew against the window, arms folded.

His eyes, half-hidden in shadow, turned towards her.

“Your Highness.”

Clard stared at her for a long time without answering. More precisely, he seemed to be looking her over a bit.

He didn’t seem displeased, nor did he seem offended.

Rather…

“Your Highness?”

“Who said you could come in?”

For just a moment, Clard burst out in anger as if he had momentarily lost his mind and then regained it.

Yuan quickly wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand from running. Then she swiftly lifted the hem of the lavender dress slightly and fluttered it.

The smooth fabric wrapped in appropriately large frills swayed pleasingly.

“I’m wearing new clothes.”

“…”

“Thank you.”

Clard’s face, backlit by the sunset, was unreadable.

However, he was no longer angry.

Yuan hesitated for a moment, then looked at him straight on.

It was finally time to state her business.

“Are you not in pain?”

The sunset glow was growing deeper.

He would soon be sinking back into the swamp of pain.

“Why didn’t you seek me out?”

“Are you unhappy because I didn’t give you work?”

Clard slowly loosened his stiff body and walked over to settle into the rocking chair.

Deep fatigue hung on his face as he looked up at the ceiling.

He had fought the pain alone yesterday.

Without calling for Yuan.

Though he had told her to work for him, was he embarrassed to call her, knowing what that prescription was?

Or was it a matter of pride?

Yuan stared intently at his perfect half-face, trying to discern his intentions.

A warm, cozy new room. Beautiful clothes softly enveloping her body.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

“I’ll come right when the sun sets.”

The creaking, rocking chair momentarily fell silent.

Yuan spoke again in that gap.

“Every day from now on. Around this time… If it’s inconvenient, I’ll come a little later.”

“…”

“Don’t lock the door.”

Yuan approached Clard, who was staring at the ceiling without answering.

After dropping a few drops of the newly made sleep aid into the teacup touched by butler Gustav’s hands, Yuan carefully held out the cup to Clard.

Eventually, the darkly sunken purple eyes traveled from her large black pupils, her small nose, her plump pink lips, down her exposed white neck, to the teacup in her small hands.

Yuan saw his eyes ripple finely as she looked at them up close.

Soon, the black hand that had been immersed in pain took her medicine.

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he gulped down the tea.

Yuan led Clard to his bed.

The huge body slowly rose from the rocking chair and sat on the bed, following her.

Enduring the gaze staring down at her, Yuan very slowly approached him and kissed his black cheek.

Clard stiffened his body.

The expressions of the Lev brothers, who had barged into Clard’s bedroom since morning, were pale.

Clard awkwardly fumbled the empty but still human-warm space beside him before slowly getting up.

“You’re sleeping in this late?”

“Wasn’t it your wish that I sleep well?”

Clard answered Eddie Lev’s cold question indifferently and adjusted the fit of his nightgown.

His long fingers fumbled for the starting point of the knot, then flinched.

The gown was unnecessarily clean and tidy, needing no adjustment.

It was in stark contrast to the adjacent space, which bore clear traces of intense thrashing.

But since Lancelot’s usually sluggish face looked unusual, Clard decided to temporarily ignore the uncomfortable truth.

“What is it?”

“See for yourself.”

Ignoring the creeping sense of unease, Clard picked up the golden letter Eddie tossed to him.

A thick golden envelope. A wolf emblem stamped in purple wax. A letter from the imperial family.

Lancelot, who had been pacing behind Eddie, called out to Clard as if about to cry.

“Clard…”

It was a notification that his uncle, Emperor Igor Yufris, who had turned Clard into a monster, would personally visit this black mansion.

Saying he would throw a wedding celebration party for his nephew, whom he hadn’t visited even once in 10 years.

The small chapel where Louise’s body was entrusted was beyond the white forest, at the entrance of a small village near the well.

Whenever Yuan accompanied the servants going to fetch water or rode in the cart, she would stop by the chapel to meet the priest. Then she would pray at the chapel’s communal cemetery where her sister was temporarily buried.

“Then, now for sure! The lady can stay at the mansion permanently, right?”

Henna, who had followed Yuan out, chattered as she welcomed Yuan back to the cart.

Yuan nodded quietly with a gentle smile.

There was a clause about being responsible for his peaceful sleep, but he had said she could stay as long as she lived quietly, so that was that.

“Now I believe the saying that everyone has their match. Who would have thought the day would come when the master would willingly take in a mistress.”

Well, to others, they were a couple who shared a bed every night anyway.

It was only natural that not just Henna, but the servants and even the butler had strangely flushed faces.

Moreover, as soon as Yuan finished breakfast in her room, butler Gustav handed her the mistress’s ledger.

Whether Clard had directly ordered it or Gustav had done it on his own initiative was unclear, but in any case, it meant she now had authority.

It also meant that Yuan would soon have money at her disposal.

Gustav apologized that there was no budget this year as there hadn’t been a proper mistress until now, and for the time being, handed over all the jewelry left behind by previous brides who had fled in haste as a means to maintain dignity.

While there was nothing so valuable as to make her eyes pop, there were quite a few usable items, so Yuan gave small valuables to the chapel instead of buying new clothes or accessories.

It was to continue entrusting Louise to their care.

“These days, I’ve even been having such fantasies, you know? Since you two get along so well, I feel like soon we’ll hear the sound of little masters and misses who look like the master and mistress running around this mansion… hehe.”

Keck-

Yuan, who was taking a sip from the water bottle Henna handed her, choked and coughed.

The hand gently patting her back was so kind that it made her conscience prick even more.

As she rode in the cart crossing the white forest, Yuan found herself thinking of Clard anew.

The man who had been nothing but an unidentified beast when she first crossed this white forest was already erased from her mind.

The Clard Yuan had seen was like a slightly sensitive and wounded lynx with no zest for life.

They only faced each other for very brief moments, only in his bedroom, but even in those short instants, he showed quite diverse faces.

He was basically sensitive, fierce, and incapable of speaking kind words.

He was a crooked, rude, and rough person.

But when she would casually mention that she would come at a certain time tomorrow night, or that yesterday had been a bit difficult, his shapely mouth that only spoke unkind words would clamp shut.

Especially if she brought up words like ‘last night’, his shoulders would twitch and, as if remembering himself, he would close his mouth and swallow before weakly countering once that he too had a hard time.

He looked as if he thought he was being molested, just lying there sleeping.

Yuan found herself smiling without realizing it.

At such times, his normal half-face would gradually redden, and he was clearly imagining the time he couldn’t remember in his head.