She felt self-conscious, lying bare and disheveled beneath him.

Her slip had ridden up, and her wet underwear was caught around her thighs. Her body, flushed with pleasure, had grown so sensitive that even the lightest brush made her shiver.

“But Cleve, as I said, I’m easily jealous.”

“Ah……!”

He pulled her underwear down with his mouth. Once it was completely off, Cleve pressed her legs together, and he took his time looking at her.

“I don’t like watching you make an effort for someone else.”

“That’s not……”

“Are you going to say I’m being unreasonable?”

Cleve nodded. She didn’t know if she could actually help, but she wanted to do whatever she could.

“My wife is more stubborn than I expected.”

“Mmh.”

“No matter how hard you try, no matter how many people look for him, it won’t do any good.”

“What do you, mmh!”

Cleve’s thighs were pushed wide open in one motion. Eldrich pressed his mouth to the inside of her thigh and kissed it.

“A person who left without looking back won’t come back.”

“But…… hah!”

“Nothing will be found. I’m telling you not to hope.”

Nothing will be found. He spoke like someone who had seen it firsthand.

Did he know why the viscount had left?

Cleve had been picking up on something strange in what Eldrich kept saying.

“How do you know? You? Tell me.”

“Look at this. Cleve. You’re very interested.”

It wasn’t interest so much as suspicion. Cleve shook her head and pressed firmly against his forehead.

Her small force couldn’t possibly move him, yet he drew back slightly and clicked his tongue.

“I told you not to concern yourself with it.”

She hadn’t known he would dislike her showing even the smallest interest in someone else.

Was it because he loved her? Cleve was confused by his words.

“I want your head and your body to be full of nothing but me.”

Eldrich muttered like a child in a sulk. And the part of him that was just as worked up nudged insistently at her deeply flushed entrance.

“So.”

“Mmh!”

“How about not thinking about anything else right now.”

“Ah, ahh!”

He urged her on while giving her no room to think at all.

“I, I’m, hh, ah, ahh!”

His c*ck drove deep inside her, and Cleve couldn’t string another word together.

He pushed slowly all the way into her depths and stopped.

“Haah……”

Eldrich had gone still without warning. Cleve barely managed to breathe and pulled him close, pressing her back tight against him.

“Cleve, I told you not to think about other things.”

He rolled his hips in a slow, deep circle and pressed his lips to her neck. He had been driving into her hard, and now he moved with unhurried ease, savoring every inch.

Cleve grew more desperate for it. If he would just move faster, she might feel it less.

“El, Eldrich……”

“Mm, Cleve.”

He answered in a voice laced with amusement.

Cleve twisted around his c*ck filling her and pleaded.

“Mmh, mmh. Eldrich, don’t stop, hh, faster……”

“If I give it to you fast, will you stop thinking about other things?”

“Mmh, mmh.”

Cleve had no choice but to nod. She had no intention of clinging to something he disliked.

Only then did Eldrich drive his hips hard again. Just as he wanted, Cleve’s mind went completely blank.

Filled with thoughts of only one person, Cleve clung to Eldrich and let out soft, helpless m*ans.

❀❀❀

Perhaps feeling guilty for sulking at her, he left the residence with her early in the morning.

Cleve stood with Eldrich before the famous lake in the village of Polseitz.

“Oh, it’s so beautiful.”

“I thought you’d like it. Apparently it’s a popular spot for lovers. Though we’re a married couple.”

Cleve smiled faintly at his words. Every time she spent time with him, she found herself not wanting anyone else to know this side of him.

She hoped they never would. He was a man covered in scars, a man whose face rarely changed, and yet he smiled openly for her alone.

Every night he whispered affection, and he held her shortcomings without making her feel them. Even her low self-worth had seemed to fill in since meeting him.

Her life had changed completely after marrying him. She could feel how much she herself had changed.

She had been too afraid to ask until now. The question of why he had married her had frightened her.

At first she had simply tried to define it on her own terms. But seeing the sincerity he showed her, she had begun to wonder if there might be another reason entirely.

If he had chosen her to strengthen noble legitimacy, there had surely been better options available to him. And it seemed strange to think it was about securing his standing in noble society.

He had the crown prince’s favor, and even as the illegitimate son of a duke, he had earned enough trust from the nobility to stand firm.

“Eldrich, there’s something I want to ask you.”

Eldrich had been looking at the lake, and his gaze shifted to her.

“It seems something about me has been on your mind.”

“Honestly, I’ve been curious from the beginning, but I thought I already knew the answer, so I never asked.”

“That sounds like you think you know my heart entirely.”

“……Because the men who married me always had the same reason. I was actually surprised to hear that you insisted on marrying me.”

It was a loss, not a gain. No matter how she looked at it, this marriage brought him nothing.

“Eldrich, why did you marry me? Was there a reason it had to be me specifically?”

“There was.”

“……There was?”

Cleve’s eyes went wide at his answer.

What reason could there be that made him keep sending marriage proposals even after being refused?

“It isn’t a particularly eloquent reason.”

“I want to know.”

“I fell for you at first sight.”

“……Pardon?”

She hadn’t expected that. Looking at Eldrich’s expression, it didn’t seem like a lie.

“At, at first sight…… you’re joking, aren’t you?”

Cleve cupped her cheeks in both hands and blinked. It was a clichéd reason, but the kind anyone would be glad to hear.

Cleve herself had felt her heart pound the moment she saw him at the ceremony.

“It may sound trite, but that was the reason. You already know I kept sending proposals from the very beginning.”

“……It didn’t matter to you that I had been married before?”

“That wasn’t important to me. Marrying you itself was what mattered.”

Her heart felt like it had stopped. His words were that powerful.

Cleve turned her head away sharply.

What am I supposed to do.

She placed her hand over her chest without thinking, and her heart began to beat faster and faster.

A soft, warm breeze drifted in from the lake and swept through her chest, and a feeling of overwhelming fullness came rushing in.

She didn’t trust herself to look at him. An indescribable trembling made her feel weightless all over. Happiness filled her chest so completely that tears threatened to come.

“……Thank you. Truly.”

Cleve reached out with a carefully trembling hand and caught the tips of his fingers. She turned her head slowly, and the moment their eyes met, the whole world seemed to stop.

Her own reflection was held entirely in his eyes.

More than the famous lake, more than the beautiful scenery spread out behind it, Eldrich was the one who looked unreal to Cleve.

Why had she only met someone like this now. If her brother had accepted his proposal sooner, perhaps her life would have been different.

“So, Cleve. All you need to do is be happy by my side.”

He smoothed the hair that had been stirred by the wind, as though there was nothing else she needed to think about.

The words were warm beyond measure, and yet something about them sent a faint chill through her.

The moment Cleve returned to the residence, she saw a letter sitting on the desk.

Marquis Hereis Chartres.

Her brother’s name was written on it. Cleve didn’t open it right away. She turned it over in her hands.

The letter from her brother didn’t bring her any particular joy. He had been reluctant about this marriage.

“What could he be writing about?”

Unease kept her staring at it. She finally sat down and opened it with a paper knife.

❀❀❀

[To my one and only family, my beloved sister Cleve.
Since sending you off, my heart has been so empty that my health has suffered. Even the doctor’s visits have done nothing.
I think it must be a sickness of the heart from missing you so much. I don’t think the duke would allow it if I wrote to him, so I’m writing to you instead.
I really should not have sent it to the duke……! He is clearly intent on severing all ties between family.