I sighed once as I looked at Yezar’s face, then sighed again as I looked at the tip of his chin.

‘What should I do? His handsome face is scratched…’

During our sparring match, I was so focused on hitting him with my wooden sword that I didn’t notice. But now, up close, I could see the skin on the tip of his chin was scraped. There were even drops of blood in some spots.

I only found out when I called for the royal physician to treat my wrist. After that, Yezar also applied medicine to his wound and stopped the bleeding.

“My lady, is your wrist hurting? Perhaps we should go see Ditban again.”

But that foolish man was worried about my wrist, which would heal just fine with some rest.

Muscle aches and tingling wrists are a natural part of learning swordsmanship. As a knight, there’s no way he wouldn’t know that. Yet Yezar was fretting over my condition as if I was a gravely injured patient bleeding profusely.

I was more upset about the wound on his handsome face.

“I told you I’m fine. I sighed because I’m sad that your chin got hurt because of me, Yezar.”

“This level of injury is very minor. My back wasn’t sliced straight through, nor was the sword embedded in my flesh by mistake.”

He said such horrifying words with a gentle face.

“Like I always say, Yezar, you need to cherish yourself – both your heart and your body.”

Despite his words, I wonder how shocked the people around him were when he suffered serious injuries.

I too got greedy once and accidentally cut myself while practicing with a real sword. My nanny, who witnessed the stinging pain and spreading blood, was so traumatized that she cried her eyes out.

I can’t forget how angrily and pitifully she cried then.

“Even as a knight, getting badly hurt shouldn’t be taken for granted. You seem to have forgotten for a moment. We are husband and wife now.”

Even if it’s a contract, he was the one who asked us to truly act as a married couple.

“It’s only natural for a wife to worry when her husband is injured, and be even more upset if the injury occurred because of her! Really, why did it have to be on your face of all places…”

I gently stroked his chin, making a sorrowful face.

“Especially not on your handsome face. That would be a shame.”

It would be a national loss and a loss for humanity. Of course, my loss would be the greatest, as I get to see that handsome face every day.

“Do you like my face, my lady?”

Yezar asked a strange question.

“Is there anyone who dislikes a handsome man?”

“But don’t people have different tastes?”

That’s true. After all, people are drawn to different looks. Come to think of it, I had only thought Yezar was handsome but never properly examined his face.

So I pulled his face closer to me. Luckily, the sunlight was shining down on Yezar’s face at just the right moment.

“Stay still for a bit, Yezar…”

Swept along by my pace, he lowered his body to help me examine his face.

I carefully studied his face. His wavy golden hair glistening in the light, his straight eyebrows. His smooth forehead. And his eyes.

As if unable to resist the urge to touch a statue sculpted by God, my fingers moved.

Slowly and leisurely, I brushed his eyes.

Ah. Looking closely like this. I noticed one more thing.

“Yezar, looking at you like this. Your eyelashes are lush and long. How pretty.”

Moreover, his nose rises straight and elegantly, and his jawline looks soft but has a firm masculine shape.

But again, my gaze stops at those clear, transparent eyes.

The upright gaze looking at me. Those blue eyes that seem to know nothing of the world’s filth. Those blue eyes that sometimes make me space out as if looking at a vast ocean.

“The blue eyes are so captivating…”

My fingertips caressed his cheek as they came down. Come to think of it, Yezar’s skin was so clean that not a single pore was visible.

To the point that even I, as a woman, was jealous. Ah. Above preference is a handsome man, and above a handsome man is Yezar.

“You really are to my liking.”

The moment my fingertips touched his Adam’s apple, it moved up and down. As if my touch made his throat go dry.

When I took my hand off, he stared at me silently. I could feel his breath up close.

Realizing how close we were, I took a step back.

“So… what I meant was that I like your face, Yezar.”

‘I caressed his face without even realizing it.’

Looking back, I wondered why I did that. But seeing the man gazing at me in front of my eyes, I couldn’t resist the sudden urge.

Yezar was quiet for some reason. He gently took my hand, the same distance I had stepped back.

It was the hand that had just caressed his face.

“My lady, I think you need to be a bit more careful.”

“Pardon?”

“…For your sake, and for my sake.”

His calm, lowered gaze turned to my fingertips. His fingers brushed over my fingertips.

“Don’t you dislike men who can’t resist the urge and recklessly touch your body as they please, my lady?”

His gaze slowly rose and stopped at one spot.

Is it my imagination? Or is he really looking at my lips? Thinking that, something rose from my toes and heated up my body.

I covered my lips with my free hand that he wasn’t holding. Then, as if disappointed, his gaze dropped and looked into my eyes.

“Your eyes are also so beautiful that it feels like I’ll be sucked in if I keep looking at them, my lady. Very pretty.”

With a poof, this time my face turned bright red.

The carriage shook once.

‘When will we arrive at the Stemun Duchy?’

Right now, I was on my way to attend a tea party at the invitation of the Duchess of Stemun. The wrist that had ached that day healed completely after resting for a few days.

And the wound on the tip of Yezar’s chin, which I had been worried would leave a scar, had also healed very cleanly.

However, the problem was that the events of that day still occupied my mind. Me examining his face, and him caressing my fingertips while saying those words.

“Just what did Yezar mean by what he said then?”

He told me to be careful, which must have meant to be careful about touching his face up close. It was my fault for impulsively touching his face.

But why did he mention it being for both our sakes instead of pointing out my mistake?

‘Was it not my imagination that he was looking at my lips…?’

Lost in thought for a moment, I inadvertently laughed out loud.

“Puhaha. Hahaha. As if. Am I thinking such nonsense too?”

Anyone else, maybe, but this is Yezar we’re talking about. Recalling how my heart was torn to shreds by his desperate love when I was a reader, there’s no way another woman could find a place in his heart.

‘Besides, I look completely different from Bertisha.’

Bertisha has silvery hair, violet eyes, and is the epitome of a quiet and gentle noble lady.

Originally, when men have an unforgettable first love, don’t they like women who resemble that first love?

But the side of me that I showed him…

On our first night, I took out the sword hanging nicely on the wall, saying I was going to catch a bug, startling him. After waking up drunk, I groped his chest. And during our sparring match, I even wounded his chin.

My expression naturally turned chilly. No man anywhere would feel attracted to such behavior.

‘He might think of me as a troublemaker at best. How could he develop romantic feelings?’

But if he did develop feelings for me, it would mean it’s not because I resemble Bertisha.

I bit my lip without realizing it. Tapping the carriage seat with my finger anxiously, I opened my mouth.

“Then that would mean he likes me for who I am.”

After saying it out loud, my ears strangely felt hot. My heart also felt ticklish for some reason.

Luckily Yezar wasn’t beside me. I blamed his looks as if scolding him.

“…Anyway, he’s unnecessarily handsome.”

To me, who has zero immunity to handsome men, Yezar was too dangerous. For the past few days, he acted as if nothing had happened, but as soon as I recalled that day, I get embarrassed for no reason like this.

If he was next to me, it would have definitely been worse.

Squeak. Right then, as if on cue, the carriage arrived at the Stemun Duchy. The coachman opened the door and I slowly got out of the carriage. Stepping outside, the wind cooled my face that had been hot from the heat.

As soon as I got out, an elderly man who seemed to be the butler came out as if he had been waiting.

“Please come this way.”

I liked his concise actions and neat attitude. I quickly surveyed the inside of the duchy as I entered.

It seemed the spiteful Duchess Ekert had spread completely false rumors.

‘How is this the residence of someone who indulges in extravagance?’

Furnished neatly without a single jewel in sight, the Stemun Duchy was elegant yet humble.

Just in case, I had replied that I would attend Duchess Ekert’s tea party right away, but I felt I made the right choice coming here first.

Finally entering the tea party venue, I saw a woman who looked smaller and younger than I had imagined sitting there. Her hair was neatly pinned up, but her lively brown eyes seemed to reveal her emotions directly.

Sarsina Stemun. She appeared so briefly in the original work that I couldn’t recall right away.

The genius painter shrouded in mystery. The artist known as Cortina who became the talk of the nobility with her God-given hands. That person was none other than the Duchess of Stemun sitting before my eyes now. She doesn’t reveal her identity in front of others much since she’s not the type to stand out, but her relationship with the empire’s imperial family was very special.

She was especially close not only to Camileo, the current emperor, but also the previous emperor. As a painter who drew portraits for the imperial family and whose name was known in other countries through trade, her value was immeasurably high, and nobles were desperate to buy her paintings.

‘It’s fortunate. The male lead Camileo’s perspective described that the painter was Sarsina Stemun.’

The female lead Bertisha never figured out the painter’s identity in the end. To that extent, the previous emperor had kept the secret and only hinted at her identity to his own son.

So there was no reason not to accept this invitation. I thought the Duchess of Stemun, who was under the imperial family’s protection, would not fall, and rather, the more Duchess Ekert messed with her, the more disadvantageous it would be for Duchess Ekert. In the first place, although Duchess Ekert reigned as the power of high society, even she could fall with a single mistake in high society.

As I stood there thinking this, the duchess who was sipping tea noticed me and smiled brightly.

“Duchess, you really came!”

“Thank you for the invitation, Duchess.”

So I must become close with her. There’s no harm in having a high-class connection.