34

「Lavian. How old are you, still putting honey in your milk. That’s a child’s taste. Don’t let others see it. And eating like that will make you fat. You’re already taller than average, so growing any larger will do you no favors. People will find fault. How on earth did you raise the girl, my dear.」

Chelino, endlessly lenient with himself and impossibly strict with his daughter, said those words, and Lavian’s diet changed. From that point on, her meals came with restrictions, and sweets were naturally forbidden entirely.

She could eat a proper dessert only when guests came, or once a year on her birthday. And each time, the sweetness that flooded through her made her crave more, so she kept her distance from sweet things on her own.

The more she knew what she loved, the more desperately she would want it. That frightened her.

So when Klen gave her the chocolate, she had simply kept it where it was. She couldn’t bring herself to throw away the first gift her husband had ever given her.

“I kept it so carefully and still couldn’t eat it. Cora, shall I tell you a secret?”

“Mrrrow.”

“The truth is.”

Lavian lifted the cat and whispered in her ear.

「Hide your feelings. Conceal what’s real. Make the false look true. That’s how you keep people from finding your weakness.」

The words she had heard all her life rang faintly in her ears, but Lavian pushed them aside and quietly confided in Cora anyway.

Along with a small secret no one else would hear.

“It’s a secret. You mustn’t tell anyone.”

Lavian stared into the cat’s blue eyes, so like Klen’s, then smiled and lowered her face. She pressed a kiss to the heart-shaped patch of fur, and Cora let out a low, contented purr.

“If we really did have a child, all this squabbling would……”

Lavian gently touched her own stomach, and a memory surfaced without warning. Something her mother had said before their wedding night. From there, the events of that day came back in a chain, each one vivid and sharp.

But she decided not to dwell on them. The night she had first been held by him had been painful in too many ways, and she had no desire to revisit it.

“How did things end up like this.”

She scattered the thoughts before they could take shape and dropped the chocolate back into the wastebasket.

What was the point of holding on to something already gone.

Better to let it go.

Lavian pushed the wastebasket to the side and stroked Cora gently.

“Someone raised by people who treated children as weapons…… there’s no way I could raise my own child properly. It’s better not to have one.”

Still, even so.

The hand stroking the cat went still.

She rested her hand quietly on her flat stomach and moved her thumb in a slow circle.

Maybe I could love completely, and be loved completely. At least by that child. At least that child could love me.

Lavian had told herself she didn’t want a child, worn down by the life she had lived.

But the truth was, she wanted one more sincerely than anyone. A hollow corner of her chest, a longing that never filled, made her want it.

A thirst she couldn’t quench on her own kept pulling her back to that wish.

But she doubted herself endlessly. Could she raise a happy child. That was why she had made it clear to Klen that he must not bring a child into the world with anyone else either.

Because no matter whose womb a child came from, that child would end up living the same fate as her.

Because she didn’t want to hurt a child who knew nothing.

And yet, even with all of that, Lavian always dreamed and always promised herself.

“Cora, if I ever have a child, I will never raise them the way I was raised. I will be their absolute ally. I will pour out nothing but love. I will let them live freely.”

Lavian stroked the cat’s soft fur, warm against her hands, and let herself speak the dream aloud.

“Cora, my child would be beautiful, wouldn’t they. So sweet. Would they look up at me with wide, trusting eyes. I can’t even imagine what that would feel like.”

“Mrrrow.”

The child didn’t exist yet. And still, a bright smile spread across her face as she imagined the moment.

The thought alone made her happy. But the happiness was brief.

What good does imagining this do.

To everyone else, they had to appear as a devoted couple, hopelessly in love, so the physical side of their marriage was quite frequent.

And it wasn’t purely for show, either. The two of them were rather well-suited in that way. Klen was skilled and passionate, and while Lavian was neither bold nor experienced, she followed his lead well enough.

But as long as Lavian kept taking her contraceptive, pregnancy was impossible. It was possible she would never have a child at all.

That was why, on nights like tonight, when children came up at a banquet or at her family’s home, Lavian felt quietly devastated.

“Dreams are just dreams. Any child born to me would find it hard to escape the same fate. So it’s better not to let it happen in the first place.”

The happy smile that had touched her lips settled back into something dim.

I shouldn’t have let myself dream. Another useless dream.

Lavian had been stroking her flat stomach, and now moved her hand to touch the finger where her wedding ring usually sat. She only wore it at parties and gatherings, so she had taken it off the moment she came home, and her ring finger was bare.

The ring had always sat uneasily on her, feeling like a prop to hide the hollowness of what they were.

“Ah, but he doesn’t want it either. What a pointless dream.”

Reaching the end of her thoughts, Lavian realized how truly futile all of it was. Hadn’t Klen been the one to bring up contraception first.

And here she was, dreaming like this. She felt foolish.

Lavian laughed at herself and stroked Cora absently. Then a thought came to her.

“But what if he changes his mind and wants a child? He’ll need an heir eventually.”

Klen had never given any sign of it, but there was no reason to assume that day would never come. She murmured to herself, not quite sure whether it was worry or something else, and a sad little smile crossed her face.

If that day comes, I might hate the reason, but I think I would love the child.

“Mrrreow.”

The cat stretched long and licked the tip of her chin. It was enough to pull Lavian back from the edge of the melancholy that had been closing in.

She laughed softly and didn’t push Cora away, even as she said it tickled.

This creature gets more endearing by the day. Growing as fast as she has these past few months.

“Oh, come to think of it, I think I have less than a month’s worth left. I’ll have to get more without Father finding out. What am I going to do……”

The contraceptives she had secretly obtained while preparing for her marriage to Marquis Batl, slipping past Melang’s watchful eye, were nearly gone.

She was far more recognizable now than before, which would make getting them discreetly much harder. Lavian turned the problem over for a moment, found no good solution, and tossed a comment at Cora.

“Would you go find some for me?”

“Mrrrow.”

Cora tilted her head with an expression of complete bafflement.

The sheer adorableness of it made Lavian let go of the heavy thought.

She would find a way to get the medicine somehow.

If nothing else worked, she could always ask her husband to buy it for her.

Lavian swept the layers of accumulated thoughts aside and straightened her posture.

“I should stop lounging about.”

She stroked Cora’s head gently and prepared to go attend to her work.

Klen had been unusually busy lately, which meant he would be working late, and if she was going to have a snack ready for him, she couldn’t afford to sit here any longer.

“I’m ridiculous. What’s so special about it.”

Lavian let out a quiet laugh at herself.

She genuinely considered skipping it tonight. But before she even finished the thought, her body was already moving.

She smiled faintly and reached for the door handle with perfect composure, as though nothing had happened.

“Oh.”

Lavian had been about to pull the door open when she swayed and caught herself against the wall. The world spun around her and she couldn’t open her eyes against the dizziness.

She held on and forced herself to breathe through it. The spinning seemed to ease quickly enough.

But then her stomach lurched.

“Why does this keep happening lately.”

This was why she hadn’t been able to greet Klen herself when word came that he was arriving.

Around the time he would have been crossing through the front gate, nausea had hit her and she had been clutching the washbasin. It had been happening several times a day recently, the world tilting without warning, her stomach turning at odd moments.

The physician said there was nothing wrong. I suppose I just have to wait for it to pass.

Knowing there was nothing else to be done, Lavian swallowed her frustration in a sigh, smoothed her clothes, and went downstairs.

“My lady.”

Camilla paused on the second-floor stairs and gave a small bow.

“I’d like to have a snack prepared.”

“The master just went out.”

“Ah……”

“He’s been so busy lately.”

“It seems the situation in the western continent is unsettled. There keep being problems getting trade goods through.”

“I’ve heard the sea routes are in a terrible state because of pirates.”

“The admiral was injured, apparently. That’s likely the cause.”

Lavian thought of the admiral she had met not long ago.

She had managed to build a fairly warm connection between him and Klen, and had invited him to the house a few times. She made a mental note to send a letter of inquiry tomorrow and gave Camilla her instructions.

“Send the snack I was preparing to the office.”

“Yes, my lady. And for yourself……”

“I’m fine.”

“You won’t have eaten properly at the party either…… It seems like you haven’t been eating a full meal even once a day lately. You’ll ruin your health. Your color hasn’t been good recently. You’ve gotten thinner.”

“That can’t be right. He hasn’t said anything, so I suppose I’m still passable, but I’ve actually been worried I’ve put on weight since the wedding.”

“Pardon?”

Camilla stared at her frail mistress with an expression that said she had just heard something deeply unreasonable.

Lavian waved her hand lightly to say never mind.

“I don’t eat dinner as a rule, you know that. I’ll be in the sitting room, so once you’ve finished what I asked, go in and rest.”

She offered a warm smile and headed toward the library.

She intended to pick out a book to pass the time until he came home.

She wandered through the library for a while, then settled in the sitting room at the window with the clearest view of the front gate.

The soft sound of turning pages accumulated beyond counting, and she had worked her way through several books when her head slowly drooped.

Past two in the morning, she drifted into a light sleep.