The gossipmongers chattered away.

“He must have been bothered by the brands marked on his wife’s body.”

“I would’ve done the same. It’s like someone stamped their mark on what’s mine, he probably wanted to erase it.”

“But it’s not like he didn’t know before marrying her?”

“Was that even a marriage he wanted?”

“Maybe he fell in love with his wife after getting used to her body.”

It didn’t take long for the loudly spreading rumors to cross Mielin’s castle walls. The public interest that heated up even the northern countryside also made the servants’ hearts uneasy.

“Do you think His Highness really committed murder too?”

Laila asked while carrying a dress hanger for Melissa.

Nora frowned immediately upon hearing those words. It was a reproach asking why she would ask such a question.

Nora said:

“Remember the day Count Maidos came?”

“Yes.”

“That day His Highness did his best to save Mr. Robert. We saw it. We know better than anyone that he’s not someone who would commit murder, right?”

“But remember what he said in the office before… asking what we’d do if he really killed them…”

“Laila.”

Nora covered Laila’s mouth.

“Are you stupid enough that you can’t even tell jokes from serious talk? Don’t ever let it slip out by mistake. We didn’t hear anything.”

Frightened by Nora’s serious gaze, Laila nodded. Tears welled up in her wide, startled eyes.

“Forget it. Don’t think about it. Don’t even recall it. We don’t know anything. Understand?”

“…”

“I said, do you understand!”

Laila, her mouth covered by Nora, nodded quickly. And a maid who had been hiding and listening from the side of the corridor quickly turned and ran away.

***

Two brands marked on Melissa’s body disappeared.

They were brands marked on her lower left abdomen and inner right thigh. Whenever she showed her n*ked body to the maids during baths, what bothered her most besides the gaping wounds were the multiple brands.

She thought her dark past engraved on her body would not be erased for at least half her life. She thought nobles would live very long lives and die of old age after living well in luxury.

But Maidos and Kelly met their end earlier than Melissa expected.

As the brands disappeared, the burn scars in those areas healed together. The mass of shriveled flesh on her lower left abdomen was a trace of when Maidos tried to erase her brand with fire while he was alive.

Outside, the rain fell ceaselessly.

After finishing her bath and heading to her room, the window rattled loudly. Melissa became confused. While her wounds were healing, why was her heart so anxious?

She couldn’t stay still for even a moment. She tried to do something by opening a book, but couldn’t focus on reading either.

Though she was doing her best to avoid it, she knew what help he needed most.

As night drew closer, Melissa’s hands became sweaty. Her heart not only pounded but thundered seriously enough to ring in her ears.

As time passed and the door slowly began to open, her throat tightened seeing the blonde man revealed between the light.

“You’re not asleep.”

The window clattered violently as wind and rain blew.

While it was so noisy outside, only Reizen had a composed face. The man who had difficulty even eating in front of Melissa until recently had somehow regained his peace.

She wondered if it was because Emerson had made some effective medicine by now. Even now, watching the man swallow medicine after opening the table drawer as soon as he entered the bedroom made her mouth go dry.

Reizen swallowed water nonchalantly. She could clearly see the transparent liquid going down his throat gulp by gulp.

Below his sharp jawline, his thick neck and developed Adam’s apple moved prominently up and down. When moisture he hadn’t cleanly swallowed leaked from his mouth and flowed down his neckline, Melissa’s gaze lingered there.

Reizen wiped away the flowing moisture with the back of his hand and met her eyes. That gaze shone particularly blue. With an intense gaze like a beast about to pounce, gradually sinking deeper…

“Why?”

Melissa averted her gaze with a guilty expression like someone caught stealing glances at something they shouldn’t see. Though her wavering eyes seemed to give it all away.

Reizen’s gaze narrowed slightly as if measuring her. The man tilted his head slightly to the side and walked over silently to sit on the bed.

This situation was awkward. Every time, Melissa didn’t know what to say so she pretended to be asleep under the covers just before he came.

Sometimes she really fell asleep, sometimes she didn’t, but Reizen always considerately never touched her like a gentleman.

But… this was the first time Melissa was awake to see him getting into bed like today. Her heart tightened. What should she say to seem natural? Should she talk about the medicine? Since he just took it.

“Is the medicine… working well?”

Reizen, who was about to lie down and get under the covers, stopped moving. Then he sat up straight on the bed looking down at her with gentle eyes.

Melissa sat on top of the covers hugging a pillow to her chest. Her heart had been racing since earlier so she was holding it for stability. She couldn’t hug a doll at twenty-three after all…

Her clear eyes gazed intently at Reizen’s face. While Melissa’s shoulders were all hunched up with tension, Reizen had a very comfortable expression.

His fine golden hair scattered in strands like gold thread as it dried, and his surprisingly blue emerald eyes…

Golden eyelashes hung over the eyes looking down at her. Perhaps because of the slight shadow under his eyes, that appearance looked decadent.

Melissa’s arms tensed up completely.

“Are you trying to burst the pillow? Melissa.”

Ignoring her question and starting conversation as he pleased.

“I thought you were upset with me. But looking at your eyes, maybe not. I can’t tell.”

Reizen smiled leisurely and tilted his head.

It would have been better if he had said she was angry rather than upset since saying upset made it seem too petty. Melissa made a slightly angry expression. She wanted to emphasize that she wasn’t upset but angry.

“Last week, you stopped me from speaking because other people were there, right?”

“Last week?”

Reizen’s daily life moved quite busily.

The man who had to think back carefully as if he needed to go far back to recall last week finally found the point she was talking about.

“Ah, when you said you knew who the culprit was?”

Melissa bit her lips while hugging the pillow.

“Should I testify?”

“About what.”

“Among the evidence was a cufflink I gave to Selheim.”

As soon as she started speaking, Reizen’s lips gradually pressed into a straight line.

“It’s a one-of-a-kind item I commissioned from a craftsman when I was about fourteen. Since Selheim wore it at official events several times, we can find evidence to support my testimony if we look for old photos.”

“Ah, really?”

The man’s gaze that had seemed quite pleased gradually grew fierce.

“Sorry Melissa, but don’t all cufflinks look similar?”

“That one was special.”

“Ah, I see.”

He answered as if uninterested. Her insides burned like firewood at his halfhearted response.

The woman pressed the pillow down hard on the bed and barely managed to make a sound with wide eyes.

“Why… why aren’t you explaining yourself more actively?”

Circumstantially all evidence pointed to Reizen as the culprit, and even the servants who had clearly seen him caring for Robert in the reception room that day started whispering.

People get swept up in rumors.

Even if truth A is real, when everyone around insists it’s B, it’s human psychology to start doubting ‘could it really be true?’

Knowing this, it pained her to see Reizen just taking it until the case grew and backed him into a corner. Because Melissa knew how much such public criticism hurt.

“You told me that if I don’t speak up you won’t know, that I should tell you.”

“Yes.”

Reizen nodded.

“So you’re doing well, even now.”

He stroked her hair with a patronizing touch like giving a reward to a child.

Her long black hair slipped through between his thick knuckles like sand.

Melissa pretended not to notice that touch.

As the conversation kept going off track, she now felt he was dismissing her. Rather than an equal, was he thinking of her as just a pet kept at home?

Come to think of it, Reizen’s actions were similar to how she used to treat her dog Lab in the past. Though he said he took medicine, he didn’t even seem excited seeing her anymore…

Ridiculously, she even started suspecting if he was secretly holding another woman, and found herself horrifying for thinking that.