Instead of opening her eyes, Jeanne felt him. It was the touch of her husband who had returned after touching another woman’s br*ast. It was easy to read emotions from his touch.

The sticky touch that combined lust and affection was disgusting. She wanted to shake off his touch, turn around, and shout, but her lips wouldn’t part.

It might have been because she felt weak.

‘Jeanne.’

The soft call tickled her ear. She opened her eyes and looked at her husband. She rose unsteadily and raised her head. An emotionless gaze scrutinized her face intently as if trying to find and read something.

‘Were you surprised that I suddenly left?’

‘No. I’m fine. I heard from the maid.’

Cold fingers traced her chin and rubbed her cheek. Jeanne shook her head, pushing him away as she straightened her waist. The shadow of her chest revealed through her unfastened gown was sharp.

The dark remnants of night spread across his smooth skin made him look enchanting, but she felt disgusted. She was ashamed of her arrogance and pathetic in her conviction.

That it would be okay to share him. That it would be okay even when love remained only as a trace fading with time. The arrogance of those past days was shameful. So there was no need to be angry with him. Self-loathing was her burden to bear.

‘……I thought you’d be asleep.’

‘I was just drifting in and out of sleep from exhaustion.’

‘Really?’

He smiled crookedly.

Jeanne read the cruelty nestled in that smile. She read his inner thoughts like feeling for mud beneath flowing water.

‘Do you want me to throw a pillow and cry?’

‘……There’s no reason why you shouldn’t.’

He withdrew his smile. He turned his head, lowering his gaze. His strength drained with a sense of emptiness. She felt truly exhausted and wanted to stop. The very act of confronting him was painful and tiring.

‘Go back.’

‘Where to?’

‘Should I leave instead?’

‘Where would you go?’

She bit her lip. She lost her words at the anger carried in his low voice. Just as she was trying to steady her breathing due to a sudden headache, fingers slipped under her chin.

‘Doesn’t it bother you at all?’

‘What are you saying?’

‘You’re not bothered that your husband came back after digging between another woman’s thighs?’

‘Your Majesty.’

‘Should I show you me coupling with another woman in front of you? Would that crumple your smug face?’

Distorted, Cesare asked harshly. She bit her lip as she watched him flickering like a fiercely burning flame.

Her solar plexus hurt. As if her lungs were completely blocked…… Cold sweat flowed and she felt nauseous. She shook her head while holding onto her husband’s arms that were gripping her.

‘Stop it.’

‘Jeanne!’

‘She’s a concubine Your Majesty brought in. How dare I do anything? Why are you tormenting me like this? What should I do to appease you? What should I do…!’

Her vision spun. Jeanne collapsed forward, unable to hold herself up. Startled, Cesare caught her. She heard him shouting, ‘Jeanne!’ Her consciousness kept drifting away as her vision blurred.

* * *

“I’m curious about the pregnancy itself. I’ve never even embraced you.”

“Your Majesty! Wh-what…! How could you humiliate me like this?”

Martha shed tears drop by drop. Cesare stared at the woman with an emotionless face. It wasn’t that he had no ‘memory’ of embracing a woman other than his wife, but that such a ‘fact’ didn’t exist.

It was because of his identity. What many people overlooked about Adam was the matter of ‘imprinting.’ Adam imprinted on only one woman, that is, one Eve.

He couldn’t even get aroused for a woman who wasn’t his mate. The one who defied this providence and died was the deceased Richard II. But how severe was the price he paid for forcibly taking a woman he remarried, even drinking drugs, for the reason of continuing his lineage.

So when Ilenore died without seeing an heir, it would have been right to say that the imperial bloodline was cut off. All the emperors of Riscarlo were so imperfect and unstable until Cesare was born. So even if he was tired of his wife’s indifference, there was nothing he could do.

“We, we already agreed that…”

“When did I say you could deceive me and my wife?”

Cesare frowned. His face, rigidly distorted, was stern and fierce. Martha trembled at the atmosphere that seemed like he would call the imperial guard at any moment to bind her hands.

She pulled in her chin and then glared at the empress consort with eyes full of hostility. The white, fragile face was as beautiful as a morning magnolia, but to Martha, it was just detestable. If only a little…… If the emperor had given her even a little leeway, she wouldn’t have plotted such a pathetic thing.

It was unfair.

“Martha, how did this happen……”

The empress consort opened her lips toward her, who was trembling with a red face. The kind voice without a trace of jealousy was detestable. Martha bit her lip and traced back the night that had passed. Clearly, the emperor had promised her.

To give her the power to overthrow that woman Aubrey….

It wasn’t that she was only trying to take advantage. She had agreed to become the Empress Dowager’s lady-in-waiting, using her position as the concubine closest to the Empress Dowager. That wasn’t a difficult task. Among the women of the rear palace, she was the only one close to the Empress Dowager. The rest were all women chosen by the emperor. In other words, the rear palace itself belonged to the emperor. The Empress Dowager had pushed her in to have her own influence in the rear palace.

‘Be the eyes and ears of the Empress Dowager. What she wants from my wife, what mischief she’s been up to while I’m away from the palace.’

The emperor, sitting on the windowsill like a dissolute playboy, was languid and decadent like a god of pleasure and madness. The sharp contours spread by the reddish lamplight were sharp. She gazed at the beautiful man who was enchanting enough to lose one’s mind, with a pipe in his mouth.

He was the empress consort’s man. She must have lived monopolizing every moment of this man. Because even without coveting, the emperor stayed by her side. It was frustrating and unfair. Although she repeatedly tried to keep her composure, it seemed like a futile effort in the emperor’s eyes. He exhaled the smoke he had elegantly drawn in, smiling obliquely.

It was a gentle but terribly cold smile. She felt as if her heart was being cut. Even if not his wife, she was the emperor’s concubine. She was his woman and had the right to be respected. But the emperor said there was neither duty nor right.

The end of her neatly pulled lips trembled weakly. The emperor’s gaze turned toward the round window. White moonlight slid over the lush grass thicket dyed in darkness. Martha crossed her arms and hugged herself. Despite her almost n*ked appearance, he was unaffected.

With virtually no reaction, her nose bridge only turned bright red. She had voluptuous charms compared to the Marchioness of Toulouse, who was known as the most beautiful and highest-ranking woman in the rear palace.

Some criticized her freckles on the bridge of her nose and lips that weren’t plump enough, but her br*asts and hips, which had developed early since girlhood, covered all those flaws and were elements that men admired. But the emperor….

‘I know that your father, Marquis Hortense, and the Empress Dowager are in collusion. If you become her confidant and become my eyes and ears, I’ll give you the power to break Toulouse’s momentum.’

‘Then….’

‘Do you think I walked here without knowing about the power you’ll hold in the rear palace tomorrow just by being with me at this late hour?’

He narrowed his brow. He threw a nervous glance at the woman who was staring at him with an appearance that was practically n*ked. As if it was pathetic and stifling…… Martha felt a surge of defiance and stepped toward him.

She rubbed the protrusions of her er*ect br*asts with her fingers under the muslin negligee that was so transparent it made what she was wearing meaningless, and slightly opened her secret groin. The emperor tilted his head obliquely and looked at her.

The way he slid his lips with the pipe in his mouth was seductive. The empress consort. No, Jeanne was truly a fortunate woman. To have exclusively possessed such a beautiful man until now. He didn’t look at all like a man who had six children.

Perhaps it was because she had never seen the emperor’s children up close. The emperor was a man who was obsessively protective of his children. Although she had never directly encountered them, the palace administrators and high officials evaluated the emperor as peculiar.

Why would he be so protective of young imperial children, as precious as they are? Typically, an imperial grandchild, as a member of the imperial family, would have duties to bear as part of the imperial lineage. They should attend official events and show their faces to the nobles, demonstrating that they are growing well as descendants of the imperial family.

But for some reason, the emperor had placed the birthing room in a villa, not in the main palace, since the birth of his firstborn, the First Prince, and isolated it from the main palace. Even now, he was raising them in the villa, almost like isolation…… Although it was rare for concubines and young princes to sit together, Martha wasn’t satisfied with even that. Moreover, it wasn’t just the young children he was so protective of.

‘Your Majesty.’