With practiced ease, he wove the armful of azaleas he had been carrying into a bouquet and held it out to her.

The scent of azaleas — rich and dizzying — brushed past the tip of her nose. Sweet as a candy rolling around on the tongue, so sweet it almost gave her the fleeting illusion that even all her past grief might simply melt away.

Olga stared at the bouquet of vivid, burning-red azaleas.

‘A poisoned cup.’

This flower — beautiful enough to make her eyes ache — was nothing more and nothing less than a poisoned cup, meant to bewitch her.

Leod, after all, was someone who would change the moment he learned she was with child.

“……Thank you.”

“Your voice still doesn’t sound well.”

His blue eyes met hers, full of worry.

It was nothing but repulsive.

Because beneath it all, she could only see those same eyes — cold as a sheet of ice — that had looked through her with such indifference before.

“It must have been the strain of hosting your first party at the Morvant estate that’s worn you out.”

“Yes, I’m still not feeling quite myself.”

Olga answered slowly, her mind reaching back to a party now so distant in memory it felt like another life.

“Even so, your father seemed terribly pleased on the day of the party. I’d wager he drank every last bottle of wine in the estate.”

He laughed aloud, teasing and light.

Then he stepped forward — one bold stride, as though he might vault right over the windowsill and come inside.

Leod smiled and said —

“May I come in?”

The words caught her completely off guard. Olga’s eyes blinked rapidly, flustered.

Then she collected herself and spoke, slowly.

“……A duke climbing through a window — what would people think?”

The truth was, she didn’t want to look at him any longer than she had to — she would have used the excuse of being unwell if it came to that. The sight of Leod’s face turned her stomach.

“What does dignity matter in front of one’s own wife?”

But as though he hadn’t caught a single trace of what was passing through her mind, he swung his long legs over the sill and stepped inside in one easy motion.

Olga’s eyes flew wide.

“Truth be told, I don’t particularly want to be gracious about it.”

He gave a lazy shrug and continued, unhurried.

Then his blue eyes flashed — cold and sharp, just for a moment.

“The people who treated you so poorly.”

Leod moved toward her slowly.

Then he leaned his face against her shoulder and murmured, softly.

“To the people who hurt you.”

The one who hurt me most was you.

She swallowed the words that had risen all the way to her throat and said nothing — only gazed back at his eyes as though caught in a spell.

Those eyes, cold as ever, unchanged from before. Cold sweat broke out across her skin without her meaning it to.

Simply meeting that frigid blue gaze was enough to make her heart drop.

“Still — it was what you wanted. For me to treat them well…….”

Leod’s hair brushed lightly against the line of Olga’s shoulder and the curve of her collarbone, bare above the neckline of her dress. The sound of his breathing reached her clearly, warm against her ear.

The person she had once been might have been overjoyed by Leod’s return to tenderness.

But now was different. Her skin crawled from her toes upward, as though something was creeping along her.

‘Just because the future has changed doesn’t mean everything I remember simply disappears.’

Her emerald eyes trembled, like something caught in the wind.

Even now, the moment she closed her eyes, flashes of Leod — the Leod who had looked through her — would come to her.

Of everything, what had torn her chest apart most deeply was the day he had brought another woman into the annex.

And not only brought her there.

He had smiled at that woman — the very same smile he had once given her.

The memory seized her by the throat.

“Olga?”

As the color drained from her face, he pulled back quickly and studied her, his voice edged with worry.

“Are you alright? Have I kept you from resting when you should be…….”

Leod’s brows drew downward, his expression falling.

Olga found herself glaring at him, cold and involuntary.

‘I won’t be fooled by you again.’

She gripped the fabric of her dress at her chest and drew a slow, steadying breath.

‘A person who could be endlessly tender one moment — and turn without warning the next.’

Then she raised her head and curved her colorless lips upward.

“I’m still not feeling well. I’m cold, too.”

“……You should rest at once.”

The moment the words left his mouth, Leod swept her up into his arms.

“Wh — what are you doing……!”

“Putting you to bed.”

“I can walk……!”

He paid her words no mind whatsoever and carried her to the bed. Then he set her down gently.

Olga’s face burned as she pressed her lips tightly together.

“……Olga.”

“……Yes.”

Leod placed a hand at her waist and eased her carefully back against the pillows.

“Even when you’re struggling — don’t take it out on your lips.”

His thumb moved to her lips, where she had pressed them hard enough to chafe the skin.

His expression was pained, somehow — and he brushed her lips with a strange, lingering touch.

“……I understand. I do, so——”

The feeling it stirred in her was unsettling. Olga took his hand and slowly drew it away from her lips.

“Will you let me rest — just for a little while?”

She smiled at him, eyes curved with the effort of it.

For a moment, their gazes tangled together.

What on earth was he thinking right now? What had happened to her?

She had been lost in thought for some time before she realized their eyes were still locked — and quickly turned hers away.

“……Alright. Rest.”

Leod, too, pulled his gaze from her with some effort. Then he smiled — a sad, quiet thing — and forced his feet to move, though they seemed reluctant to go.

The door closed. Stillness settled over the room.

“Haah.”

She let the sigh come without fighting it, and sat back up.

There was much to think through.

All this time, she had been living without knowing whether she was truly alive or simply not yet dead.

In all her life, there had never been a moment when the will to live had burned in her as fiercely as it did right now.

One week until New Year’s Day. Within that time, she had to lay out her plans for what would come after she conceived Liet.

‘This time, I will not wither away in this place.’

Olga’s gaze moved to the window.

On the branches that had always been bare on those cold winter nights, white blossoms clustered in little bunches alongside fresh spring buds.

‘Mama! Wook, wook!’

The voice that had called for her — mama, mama — even in its clumsy, half-formed words, was still vivid and clear.

Three years old. Only three, and you faded away for nothing. How could I ever forget you.

‘Liet.’

A cold, k*lling light settled into her eyes as she clenched both fists.

‘This life, Mama will protect you. No matter what.’

After Liet was born, the child had fallen ill — again and again, for no reason anyone could name.

‘I have to keep him from going to the front.’

She already knew the nature of her daughter’s condition. But she had never been able to pursue a solution with any real force — not given her position, standing as a wife whose husband had asked for a divorce. Her mother-in-law had helped, but only so much.

There was still time. She would use it to find out everything she could about Liet’s illness — and to do whatever it took, by whatever means necessary, to make him act like a father. At the very least, that.

“Just hold on a little longer.”

She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering with a chill that made her teeth want to chatter.

“Right. Just a little longer…….”

And yet, even so, her resolve held firm.

Once she had conceived, once she had found a way to cure the illness——

“I’m going to leave him.”

Olga remembered it with perfect clarity — the divorce papers Leod had sent back again and again through his head butler.

Shouldn’t you feel it too? The betrayal. The devastation. Everything I felt.

The corner of her mouth curved up, cold and sharp, as she fixed a hard, unforgiving gaze on the door he had walked out of.