Right now, Peon was exercising a great deal of restraint. Every time he saw the state of the Grand Duchess’s bedroom, his blood boiled.
To treat his only justice, his only ally, his only truly sincere wife like this. Even tearing everything apart and smashing it wouldn’t be enough.
“Earlier, Her Highness seemed a bit frightened. She turned pale when she saw the torn sofa.”
Peon instantly froze.
“Here, of course, strong men are popular, but Her Highness is from Ostein, isn’t she?”
But if her husband was constantly smashing household furniture, it would be easy for others to misunderstand, and even more so for the wife.
“…Was she… scared?”
To Peon’s question, his voice now stiff, Sir Wilberk couldn’t bring himself to answer, while Sir Renard, true to form, responded.
“If Her Highness is a brave person, wouldn’t she be more annoyed than scared by a husband who keeps creating problems?”
“Annoyed…”
Peon’s voice grew even heavier. Either way, he didn’t like Kaela being wary of him.
It was an instinctive aversion and also the source of the fear consuming him. After an amicable divorce, he wanted to remain in her memory as a good brother figure. But Kaela didn’t seem to think of him as a brother at all.
“If I don’t break things, they won’t consider replacing them.”
“Our household isn’t that poor, are you worrying too much about appearances? Why don’t you try talking to her? Isn’t communication between spouses very important?”
Sir Renard, never one to miss such opportunities, advised earnestly. His lord’s happiness was directly tied to his own welfare.
“Yes. At this point, you should be able to replace the rest of the furniture through conversation alone. In fact, Your Highness has broken enough…”
Even Regen nodded in agreement, leaving Peon speechless.
Kaela being frightened or thinking of him as a violent person was no different from his previous life. But conversation? It was too difficult for him, who had always desperately tried to ignore her.
****
How on earth should he talk to Kaela? Throughout the day, as Peon worked, this worry occupied a corner of his mind, binding him tightly.
She had drawn a firmer line since the wedding preparations, and acted as if their shared childhood had evaporated into nonexistence.
Just as he had done before his regression, she was now acting the same way. It felt unsettling, and at the same time, he felt shamelessly hurt and upset. Yes, it hurt. It should hurt even more terribly.
Lost in his thoughts, he had come outside and was staring at his bedroom where light still flickered. Kaela hadn’t fallen asleep.
Peon eventually went up to the bedroom. The stairs in Lusenford Castle were all extremely steep, particularly dangerous for noblewomen in long dresses.
He remembered Kaela struggling after falling on the frozen stairs.
Yet the strong woman who always seemed to persevere through everything had been broken so easily. No, it was natural for her to break when the most brutish and violent hands had snapped her. He stood before the tightly closed door with a heavy heart.
“It’s me. May I come in?”
After knocking cautiously, when there was no sound from inside, Peon’s complexion changed instantly. His heart sank. Once again, the image that flashed before his eyes was of Kaela lying on the tower floor with her eyes open.
There was no time to find a maid to send inside. What if she had already collapsed like that? The incredibly light weight of her in his hands as he thoughtlessly pushed open the door was still vivid.
As soon as he opened the door, he looked towards the desk full of light. Kaela was slumped over the small desk he sometimes used for work in the bedroom.
Peon immediately approached to check if she was breathing. He felt warm breath on his finger as he held it near her.
Her small hands were stained with ink, and her starlight-like hair, shimmering in the light, was let down. Her eyes, so clear and cold that he could hardly look at them directly, were peacefully closed. She was asleep.
‘I may not be a frightening husband, but I certainly am one who keeps creating work.’
It would be fine to do things moderately, but did Kaela not know how to be moderate? Or did she enjoy working?
On the desk, three ledgers that the butler always carried were open, and Kaela had scattered a few sheets of paper, neatly writing numbers, dates, and items on them. Did she enjoy doing this kind of work, or was it annoying and troublesome as Renard had suggested?
[Shouldn’t I do my own work, Your Highness?]
There was a time when he was annoyed by her constantly appearing, asking to let the Grand Duchess do the Grand Duchess’s work.
It was never easy to mechanically ignore someone. Even as he kept avoiding encounters and places where he might meet Kaela, she appeared persistently to a terrible degree.
‘If she wants to work, she can just go and do it. Why is she begging me for work?’
When Peon, unable to bear it anymore, insulted her pride, Kaela endured and asserted her rights. As he considered allowing her to some extent, when it was finally proven that she was the Emperor’s spy, he praised himself for having held back.
Pathetic fool. He stood up, unconsciously widening the distance he had narrowed. Did he have the right to look at Kaela sleeping so shamelessly after spouting such nonsense?
Turning his gaze away, he looked at the papers Kaela had been writing on. There were circles drawn around numbers and question marks scattered about.
After staring at the numbers and ledger pages for a while, Peon reflexively glanced at the fireplace. Pieces of paper that Kaela had written on and burned remained, not completely incinerated. It seemed she had been in the process of burning and disposing of papers.
He quietly picked up the fire poker and completely tossed the remaining paper scraps into the fire, leaving no trace.
****
“Your Highness, Princess. You should sleep in bed. You’ll catch a cold if you sleep at the desk.”
Kaela woke up startled by the gentle rousing. The maid Marie was taking the pen from her hand.
“You must have been tired. It’s very late.”
“Ah, I must have dozed off. I’ll clean up. You go to bed.”
“No, no. I should at least see Your Highness to bed.”
While Marie went to fetch water to clean the ink from her hands, Kaela neatly burned all the papers she had written while finding questionable points in the ledgers.
“Oh my, it’s stained.”
Marie lamented the ink that wouldn’t come off no matter how much she rubbed.
“It’s alright. It’ll all come off in a few days. Go to bed now. I’ll sleep too.”
“Yes, Your Highness. Good night.”
After seeing Kaela turn off all the lights and get into bed, Marie quietly closed the now darkened bedroom door and came out. Outside the bedroom, Peon, who had sent Marie in, was quietly waiting.
“Her Highness has retired to bed.”
“I see. Understood. Don’t mention that I was here.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
After once again enjoining her to keep quiet, Peon quietly left the place.
