Cleve looked down at her own chest, rising and falling rapidly. Her breathing was still uneven, catching in short bursts. Eldrich’s chest, by contrast, didn’t move at all.

“Phew.”

She tried to calm her heaving chest.

“Your stamina is terrible.”

“……Sorry, phew, about that.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. Do you like it?”

“Yes, it’s beautiful. I’m glad we stopped.”

It was the kind of scenery that would stay with her for the rest of her life. Cleve couldn’t look away, drinking it all in.

“Where is the residence?”

“You won’t like it.”

“That’s all right. It doesn’t matter where it is.”

What she really wanted to know was whether he would make it through the night. No, wait. If they didn’t have a wedding night, wouldn’t he be fine?

Something had happened every time a wedding night was about to take place. Maybe that was actually a reasonable assumption.

“How long will we be at the residence together?”

“Two weeks. At least two weeks of leave, so I won’t be going outside.”

Two weeks?

That was longer than she had expected. She couldn’t tell whether it was leave for the wedding or a reward for having been on the battlefield right up until the day of the ceremony.

“You thought I wouldn’t be staying at the estate with you.”

“Ah…… I thought that might be the case. My brother said soldiers have to keep moving between postings and rarely come home, so they tend to neglect their wives.”

“Does that worry you?”

“……It doesn’t worry me.”

She shook her head, squeezing her own hands together.

“As I said, I have no intention of leaving the house for two weeks.”

Cleve nodded. Not a single step outside. Hearing him say it so firmly made her throat go strangely dry, and she turned her head away.

“Still, wouldn’t two weeks at home get boring?”

She didn’t need to look to feel it. He was staring straight at her.

“I doubt there’ll be time to get bored.”

“……Pardon?”

“Building stamina takes regular effort.”

“What, what does?”

“What else. The one thing we’re supposed to do.”

That’s what he means.

Cleve’s heart thudded at his words.

“A, a wedding night won’t be good for you. Something bad will definitely happen.”

“I’m not so sure. The third husband didn’t die, after all.”

He had a point. The first two husbands had died, but the third hadn’t. He had simply vanished, with no way of knowing whether he was alive or dead.

Of course, no one outside the Chartres family knew the clear reason behind the two husbands’ deaths.

An investigation had been conducted, but nothing was uncovered. Given that she and her husband had been alone together, the investigators concluded it was impossible for her to have harmed him.

The possibility of an outside intruder or an accomplice was also looked into, but since Cleve had lived such a restricted life, no suspicion fell on her.

‘Hereis said it was the work of someone with a grudge against them, but……’

Viscount Seregei’s disappearance made no sense to her. He had even transferred the mine into her name. Why would he have left?

Cleve let out a quiet sigh and said,

“It’s still not too late. We haven’t had a wedding night yet. Even if Your Grace were to call off the marriage, everyone would just say, finally, he’s come to his senses!”

“Whether or not we have a wedding night, I won’t be calling off the marriage.”

Cleve opened and closed her mouth.

A marriage without a wedding night was nothing but an empty shell. Without an heir, everyone would blame Cleve. Having married for the fourth time, the wedding night mattered more to her than to anyone.

In truth, for all that Cleve had been married four times, she had never actually experienced what typically passed between a husband and wife. They had all died before the wedding night, every one of them.

So the wedding night carried its own weight for her too.

That said, she felt no regret about not having shared a wedding night with any of them. She hadn’t chosen those marriages, and she had met each husband for the first time at the altar, so there had been no love to speak of.

She had simply followed Hereis’s insistence that she fulfill her duties as a wife.

Even that had been left undone, because her husbands kept dying……

Every time a husband died, Hereis had said it was a good thing.

“It’s a relief you didn’t have a wedding night. That’s why there are still men who want you.”

Yes. The men who had been set to become her husbands all knew she had no experience. They had been drawn in by the temptation of being the first to hold the most beautiful woman in the kingdom.

“……Still, doesn’t the wedding night matter? This is your first marriage, Your Grace.”

“Does being first matter?”

He answered with complete indifference.

The others had all placed great significance on the first night of marriage too. He surely knew she had no experience, and yet he showed no particular reaction.

Of course, no one outside the family knew that Cleve, for all her four marriages, still had no experience.

If that fact ever came to light, she might have to return everything she had received from those marriages. The families involved would never stay quiet. With no heir, the title had passed to the nearest male relative in each case, and only a portion had been returned to her as a former wife in lieu of divorce.

Cleve had assumed Eldrich knew, naturally. Every man set to become her husband before him had known.

But he wore the expression of someone for whom it made no difference whether she was experienced or not.

“……Doesn’t it matter? I thought it did, since everyone seemed to think so.”

“Being first is what counts.”

He took off his jacket and spread it over the grass, then patted the spot beside him.

“Come here.”

“……Oh. If I sit down, your clothes will get dirty.”

“They’re already dirty enough. Don’t worry about it. They’ll get dirty again anyway.”

Cleve tilted her head slightly at his words.

“Why will they get dirty again?”

She blinked, genuinely puzzled.

“Being first is what counts, you said.”

What? What does that mean?

Her mind was full of question marks. He had said being first mattered, but she had no idea what he was actually thinking.

Eldrich pulled her hand gently. Cleve’s slight frame tumbled down onto the jacket.

The sky that had filled her eyes was replaced entirely by him.

“……Your Grace?”

“Eldrich.”

He narrowed his brows slightly.

“……”

“Who calls their husband ‘Your Grace’?”

He had a point. Cleve gave him a slow nod.

She had never called anyone by their given name before, so it felt strange. Her mouth wouldn’t quite open.

“It feels awkward……”

“You’ll get used to it.”

He leaned in and kissed her. The press of his lips was soft. Cleve was too startled to close her eyes and simply stared at him.

He hadn’t closed his eyes either, and their gazes met. His tongue slipped between her parted lips.

“Mmph, phew.”

It was her first kiss, and she had no idea what to do. She just blinked.

His tongue moved through her mouth, unhurried and thorough. It traced along her teeth, then pressed against the soft inside of her cheek. The unfamiliar sensation made Cleve gasp and grab onto his shoulder.

“Mm, hh, hmm……!”

Her body shuddered, as though she had forgotten how to breathe. His tongue filled her mouth and tangled with hers.

It was her first kiss. She had received bridal lessons, but what she had read about and what she was experiencing were worlds apart.

He pressed deep, all the way to the root of her tongue, and held her there.

“Phew.”

Air, I can’t breathe!

Cleve tapped at his shoulder and squirmed, and his body finally pulled back just slightly. She drew in a breath and let it out in unsteady gasps.

“Haah, haah.”

Was kissing always this suffocating? It felt almost like he was pulling her very soul out of her. Her vision blurred, her thoughts went hazy, and every muscle in her body tensed at once.

Her already rigid body locked up further under his touch.

“Breathe. It’s not like this is your first time.”

It was. She had never even been touched. Because all her husbands had died.

“……It, it is my first time.”

Something shifted in his eyes.

‘He really didn’t know.’

Hereis clearly despised the duke. Otherwise, he would never have withheld the one piece of information every other suitor had been told.

“First time, and you still have room to think about other things.”