“Was your afternoon peaceful?”

Avoiding her arms reaching out like vines, he pulled at his lips while stroking his wife’s pale cheek.

His wife was no longer young. When he returned at twenty-three, Jeanne was already a seventeen-year-old girl. Jeanne had aged eleven more years since then. During those eleven years, the couple had truly become husband and wife.

Their eldest son was now the same age Jeanne had been when she came as a bride.

Looking at his young eldest son now made him realize how young his wife had been when she married him. Jeanne had truly married him when she was very young.

“Jeanne.”

He called his wife gently. His tender hand brushed her eyes. Her cheeks flushed pink. She neatly clasped her hands together and turned her head slightly. She wasn’t foolish enough not to know what he was asking about. He was talking about what happened at noon.

“You seem better than I expected.”

“Your Majesty, I……”

Unable to find an answer, she only fumbled with her lips. During his free time, he had suggested going horseback riding to the hunting forest connected to the arboretum. She had been preparing to check her young sons’ dining table and then prepare her husband’s lunch when suddenly her wrist was grabbed and she had to mount his horse.

“You’re not answering.”

She raised her gaze. She recalled what had happened in the forest. Though it was something to blush about, she didn’t want to react that way right now. Conscious of the children’s eyes, she felt shame. Her husband traced her neck while brushing back her fallen hair.

“……That was enough.”

“That’s not for you to judge.”

“Have you forgotten what happened in the forest?”

“I remember.”

He pulled his lips into a smile. His smoothly sculpted contours were noble and delicate. The sunken eye sockets under his straight and elegant eyebrows gave both a masculine and seductive impression. Jeanne looked at the perfect man like a young god.

The young and firm flesh touching her fingertips was beautiful and enchanting enough to make her heart ache.

She recalled her husband whom she had reunited with at seventeen. The freshness of fifteen was hidden, leaving only a man’s sharpness. She bit her lip to keep from blushing. Though he read the stern light of rejection on his wife’s face, he continued his mischievous actions like caressing her chest.

“Lift your head. I want to see your lovely face.”

There was no hint of impatience in his amorous and subtle gaze. Jeanne met the eyes of the man who lowered his head to leisurely savor her.

“Your Majesty, please don’t. The children……”

His clear purple eyes beneath long, delicate lashes finer than those of noble ladies who spent days grooming were strong and mysterious. Smooth flesh touched her bitten lips. She shook her head while pushing his thick chest. He who had been trying to merely overlap their lips gently suddenly grabbed his wife’s hair. A sharp moan escaped as her scalp was roughly pulled. However, as if completely unconcerned with her pain, the Emperor whispered harshly.

“You know, lately you’ve been driving people crazy often.”

The Emperor asked. Tears that had welled up from physical pain rolled down her cheeks. She looked at her husband with a stubborn face. He who had been gripping her hair released his hand.

“I’m curious what could make your mood so twisted. Is it because of what happened during the day?”

The woman who fled from him as soon as he released his hand ran to the sofa and picked up their whimpering daughter.

He asked without even glancing at the young daughter who was the spitting image of his wife. At the suddenly chilled atmosphere, his four sons ran to their mother and began to cry. Jeanne turned her gaze away from him.

It was an attitude showing she didn’t want to talk anymore. Cesare stared at that cold attitude. He raised his hand that had hurt his wife. Then he slowly mulled over what had happened at noon. 

 * * *

 His wife was preparing his table. Stopped at the entrance of the villa, he watched the woman busily moving between the elegant cream-colored curtains. She was chosen as the Emperor’s primary wife and had grown up as his consort. Though she had been raised not to even wet her hands, let alone do needlework, she seemed quite familiar with trimming vegetables and peeling fruits.

“Her Highness the Empress Consort is very diligent.”

Marquis Calley, his guard captain, murmured with a pleased expression seeing her running busily around the kitchen wearing an apron. The woman was constantly tasting stew and preparing root vegetables, not knowing her bridegroom had arrived at the entrance. He thought she had quite a talent for things she had never been taught.

Cesare wasn’t sure if that was good. Especially since that change marked the birth of their eldest son.

She was his wife who had become a woman and mother by him. It was perhaps natural that he wasn’t pleased with a woman who hadn’t grown up as he had wished.

Jeanne moved her quarters here when she was pregnant with their eldest son Kiril. After reuniting at seventeen, she had been living together with him in the main palace where he stayed.

‘I don’t want to live here.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t think it’s suitable for raising children.’

Cesare stared at the woman who suddenly wanted to leave the main palace and move to a secluded villa. Her face was pale as she avoided meeting his gaze, hiding something. He said he couldn’t allow it.

‘The villa is too old. It’s not a place suitable for us to live.’

‘I visited yesterday with Countess Ranson. I really liked it. It’s pastoral and warm……’

Countess Ranson was her lady-in-waiting. Cesare looked down at his wife who was being stubborn with a stern face. It was unusually rigid. He swallowed a sigh before parting his lips.

‘I hate it. If we make the villa our residence, it will take quite some time to reach the office.’

‘Of course, I meant I would move alone.’

‘What?’

Cesare’s expression hardened. But Jeanne did not back down.

He was quite shocked as he looked down at his wife who still appeared so young. Though she had been stubborn many times before, this was the first time she had come at him so sharply with her defiance. He said he didn’t want to talk and told her to stop bothering him and leave.

Jeanne bit her lip and left him. However, she did not break her stubbornness even after that. It was when she was not far along in her pregnancy. It was even their first child. Cesare feared his wife might show signs of miscarriage from the stress of not accepting his decision. In the end, he had no choice but to yield.

‘Why must it be here? There are many other good quarters in the palace.’

‘I like it here. For me, this is……”

Suitable. Was that what she had whispered? Cesare mulled over the faint murmur that crumbled at his ears. He still didn’t understand why she had made the villa her quarters. She had only said she didn’t want to live in the main palace. Even though that was where she had lived since childhood…..

“Shall I announce Your Majesty’s arrival?”

Marquis Calley asked toward him who remained motionless. He slowly shook his head while watching his wife. Unlike the concubines in the rear palace, his wife had her chestnut curly hair tied with a white linen ribbon. The chemise dress she wore was also simple and plain without patterns.

There was no reward in buying silks and jewels from the East every season to embrace her.

Looking just like the women of common households. Unlike the knight who had a pleased expression at the delicious smell wafting from the kitchen, his mood was twisted and his expression was crooked.

She prepared the table with the maids and called each prince one by one. The third son Maxim and fourth son Giuseppe jumped out simultaneously. His wife calmly seated the brothers who were born in consecutive years who looked like twins.

The bright mischievous boys sat at the table without any caution, unlike how Emperor’s sons should be. A maid smoothed out the wrinkled tablecloth with her hands. The magnolia-colored tablecloth with subtle wildflower patterns was something she had completed by sewing herself while pregnant with their youngest, Enoch.

“I’ll help you, Mother.”

Suddenly a young but calm voice was heard. He turned his gaze to look at his eldest son. His son who had entrusted the Belmore rifle he had recently received as a gift to an attendant walked steadily and rolled up his sleeves.

“It’s alright, Kiril. Instead, could you bring Mona and Enoch? They’re probably watering the portulaca in the backyard with Beth.”

His wife smiled while brushing back her son’s black hair. Kiril nodded and soon brought in his toddling siblings from the backyard. It was a leisurely noon.

His wife spread out his young daughter’s scarf and handed her a fork, then checked if the rest of the sons were holding their utensils correctly and eating evenly. It was a pastoral and warm scene.

Even the knight following him smiled warmly at the scene.

“Your Majesty, aren’t you hungry? Quickly……”

The knight began. He dismounted while observing his wife with a crooked gaze. A hot sensation twisted his insides as if his organs were being wrung. In this scene that made others smile, he wanted to drag his wife out and roughly steal her lips.

“Your Majesty?”