You are at the End of the Downfall

Throughout her married life, even when disrespected by her husband, she never got angry and always maintained her manners towards him, forcing herself to smile. It was something impossible without tremendous courage.

“Wouldn’t it be unfair if all those other women heard what you said, but I, your husband, didn’t?”

No doubt he thinks I’m going to act as a spy for Crania because I’m the Emperor’s niece.

If so, he could just confirm with others, so why is he asking me directly? As Kaela walked, biting the inside of her lip in frustration, her brain belatedly processed and interpreted what Peon was saying.

“…Pardon?”

Kaela’s brain firmly told her ears, ‘You must have misheard.’

In fact, several knights and maids with brains that had made similar judgments looked at the Grand Duke with bewildered expressions and started to slowly escape from reality. We must have misheard, right? Right?

“Do you dislike telling me?”

Is he mocking me? Kaela scrutinized Peon’s serious face. His handsome features, still unfairly good-looking today despite the pallid, lifeless appearance, showed no signs of joking.

His voice and gaze were consistently earnest, as always. No matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t find any intention or expectation of “I’m eagerly waiting for what you’ll say, so I can laugh at you right away.”

‘Come to think of it, he wasn’t someone who laughed at what I said.’

He was the only one who didn’t laugh when Kaela spoke. The problem was that he didn’t laugh at all and usually didn’t even listen. So there was no one in Lusenford with whom Kaela could have a proper conversation.

That’s why Kaela was so shocked by this first-time request to “tell me more because I’m curious” that she forgot to answer, busy being suspicious.

Her eyes, wide with surprise, stared blankly at him. Peon looked down quietly at Kaela, who was tilting her head back to look at him, and nodded.

“I see. I understand. I’ll try harder.”

“Pardon?”

“I said I’ll try harder to be a husband closer to you than those other women.”

His attitude of trying harder was very much like that of a dedicated knight. But was that something to try hard at? Somehow, the term “other women” didn’t sound quite right.

“They’re not ‘other women,’ but the noble ladies of Lusenford, Your Highness. There were also wives of knights who serve you.”

“To me, all women except for you are ‘other women.'”

At this point, Cecile, the oldest of the Grand Duchess’s maids, and Sir Renard, the most perceptive of the knights accompanying the Grand Duke, simultaneously began to clear away the surrounding people.

–’Step back. Quickly.’

–’Why?’

Sir Renard once again realized why Sir Wilberk, who was staring blankly at him, didn’t have a lover.

Unless Renard was the person directly involved, such realizations were not at all refreshing or satisfying, but rather irritating. What a slow and stubborn man.

It was fortunate that Sir Wilberk, intimidated more by the new maid Cecile than his friend Renard, slowly began to step back at her gaze. Now the ducal couple and their attendants were at least three steps apart.

“I think the relationship between spouses should be closer than with them. What do you think, Your Highness?”

If Kaela disagreed, Peon was prepared to change his mind immediately. The beliefs and will he had been determined to protect even at the cost of his life were nothing more than the stubbornness of a petty and foolish person.

So he no longer had any beliefs or will. His standards would simply change according to what Kaela, whom he couldn’t help but admire every time he saw her, said.

How could you maintain such unwavering courage to the end? No matter how he thought about it, it was difficult for the mean and shameless Peon to understand.

Kaela was a heavenly creature that the lowly, crawling Peon always had to look up at. A being that he couldn’t take his eyes off, constantly following with his gaze, finally feeling the urge to reach out and snatch.

As the Emperor said, like a true “mongrel,” he had done every bad deed possible before finally recognizing the beautiful, tender, and kind being far too late.

“Well… that’s true. We should be closer… than others.”

Although Kaela wondered why Peon was saying such things, she nodded because it was correct. It’s right. After all, this marriage was political, so the two were political partners.

Moreover, with the Ostein ducal family backing Kaela, the union of the two territories had to be solid. She thought how much had changed now that her father was alive, but Kaela didn’t attach particular meaning to each of these words.

They went in one ear and out the other, evaporating from her mind.

No words remained in her heart. There wasn’t even space in her heart to cherish any words. Her tired, indifferent eyes gazed down obliquely.

‘He’ll stop soon enough.’

Anyway, like before she died, the days she met Peon would become countably rare. She already knew enough about married life in general.

Peon was not Kaela’s husband, but Beatrice’s man. Honestly, wasn’t Kaela included among the so-called “other women”? As she was walking quietly, lost in these thoughts, Peon called out to stop her.

“Your Highness? Where are you going?”

When she looked up, she saw that Peon had turned in the opposite direction from her and stopped.

“To my room.”

She thought it was strange to ask such an obvious question. Of course, she should be confined to the Grand Duchess’s bedroom, shouldn’t she?

But Peon looked at her for a moment, as if examining her. His expression seemed to darken slightly. He spoke to the puzzled Kaela after a brief pause.

“Of course, that is the direction of your bedroom, but aren’t you using my bedroom now?”

To be precise, Kaela had never slept in the Grand Duchess’s bedroom. As soon as she arrived in Lusenford, she collapsed, and the Grand Duke personally carried her to his bedroom. From then until now, the Grand Duke’s bedroom had been where Kaela stayed continuously.

“You’re not well enough yet to return to that room already.”

Peon’s voice wavered slightly. He spoke almost pleadingly to Kaela, who had already taken five or six steps towards the Grand Duchess’s bedroom – a room she had never used and was unfamiliar with – while he stood frozen like a stone.

“Moreover, it’s a room that was decorated by a criminal. It won’t be sufficiently prepared, and it will be terribly cold for you to stay in since it hasn’t been used for a while.”

He couldn’t place that woman, who seemed so fragile she might dissolve into the air, in the Grand Duchess’s room decorated by the exiled head maid Doris Windgood in a style that was, charitably put, modest, or less charitably, miserly.

Kaela would suffocate and disappear in a room decorated by a stubborn person who firmly believed that a fashion 20 years out of date was the latest trend.

No, that was an excuse. A dirty excuse. The conqueror of the North, the ruler of winter who was said to face evil dragons without fear, desperately ignored the anxiety that approached even more chillingly than the cold of Lusenford.

This, well, this was just worry that Kaela might harm her health if she went to that room. That’s why he was trying to stop her. Yes, that’s it. It absolutely wasn’t because she seemed to know about that room.

“Come here.”

He reached out his hand. He extended his hand for his wife, who had never once refused his hand, to quickly grasp it.

“Come on.”

Then Peon realized a contradiction he had been ignoring.

Kaela had never refused his hand.

Before the regression.