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Klen looked at the red lips finishing that sentence and laughed inwardly.

So she’s decided to go along with her father’s wishes.

“Is that so. I had no idea.”

He looked down at Lavian and said it with a faint smile. He was starting to think he ought to redirect her career even now.

What a consummate actress.

Klen thought quite seriously that Lavian should have gone into theater instead of marriage.

She knew full well what purpose a child born between them would be put to. And yet she looked at him like that. Like she genuinely, desperately wanted a child. He found her revolting.

“If we announce that a child is on the way, Father will quiet down for a while. I’m sorry you’ve had to hear such unreasonable demands.”

Her eyes, settled and still, dropped sharply as her head bowed with them. It stayed down for just a moment before lifting again, and her blank face turned toward him.

“We’re both still young, so it shouldn’t take long.”

The slight urgency in Lavian’s manner made Klen’s brow furrow and then smooth.

She held back this long, how did she manage…… Ah, something did seem off lately. Was this the reason. How much of the count’s influence has gotten into her.

Klen had noticed Lavian bringing up the subject of children more often, and behaving strangely in bed, and now he understood. The change had come from outside.

He found it unpleasant, again, that something other than himself was putting cracks in that porcelain face of hers.

D*mn old man. I knew he was a slippery one and I let my guard down.

Klen felt he should have looked into why her family kept summoning her so often, instead of handling it so carelessly.

Irritation rose in him.

She was supposed to be entirely within his grasp, and yet it kept feeling like she wasn’t.

Then the solution is simple. Make sure this can never happen again. Don’t let them push Lavian around. Don’t let them push a child around either.

His nature couldn’t tolerate anyone handling what was his. It was his, so it had to be entirely and only his.

“We’re young and healthy, so it’ll happen soon enough. More importantly, stop going back to your family home. If you really want to go…… hold that urge too.”

Klen shoved one hand into his pocket and said it with casual arrogance.

Lavian answered without hesitation, as though it posed no problem at all.

It wasn’t as though she went there willingly.

“Understood.”

She agreed to staying away from her family home without resistance.

Then, as though she had nearly forgotten to say something, she added quickly.

“Oh, and just so you know, wanting a child has nothing to do with my father’s wishes. It’s what I want.”

Klen answered just as cleanly as she had.

“Who said otherwise. If you want it that much, I’ll give it to you. Let’s do that.”

“I’ll get checked again, just to be safe. The examination before the wedding showed nothing wrong, but just in case.”

“Who knows what kind of talk could leak out from something like that. Just pretend you’re pregnant. I’ll hand you a child when the time is right.”

Klen said it without feeling and walked out of the dining room.

The words were as light as if he were picking out merchandise, or passing off something he had no use for. It was enough to stun Lavian.

Her wide eyes shook with the impact.

“What did he just……”

She couldn’t even call after him. The strength drained out of her entirely. The feeling of having been struck hard in the head refused to leave, and her whole body trembled.

“He said he’d hand me a child.”

Lavian fell into genuine confusion. She repeated what she had heard from Klen and still couldn’t quite believe she had heard it.

He had said nothing about children after telling her to use contraception. He had said nothing even as her father kept summoning her. Was this the reason all along.

“So that was his plan.”

Lavian had always thought Klen was too cold whenever the subject of children came up. But how could anyone have no desire for their own blood. He wasn’t the type to be neglectful in that regard either.

My worrying was completely pointless from the start. What was I agonizing over. What was I even anxious about.

Lavian let out a low, humorless laugh, her fists trembling.

Her own anguish felt like garbage in an instant.

The dream she had carried only in imagination shattered all at once.

The foolish dream that even if they weren’t perfectly suited to each other, they would someday become a real couple, have a child, become a family.

The worry had been for nothing. The dream had been nothing but a dream.

Why am I so hopelessly stupid. He had no thoughts about any of this, and what was I expecting all this time.

She felt wretched. She had tried not to, but in this moment it became painfully clear that she had been living on that threadbare hope, and the devastation of it was unbearable.

She couldn’t stand herself. Nurturing expectations and wishes that could never be fulfilled, not a single one, and not even noticing until they had grown this large.

“I suppose I should have married some old man instead.”

The misery kept trying to escape.

But she held herself together and refused to break. Then a name surfaced in her mind.

“Lena……”

Lavian left the dining room around the time the warmed milk had gone cold. She was quite low, but she walked toward the second floor with her usual grace.

Whatever else happens, that one thing I have to stop.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Climbing the stairs, Lavian kept her composure, but her heart was being swallowed by love and urgency together, and her reason had gone numb.

She knocked on the bathroom door.

The sound of water must have drowned it out. No answer came.

She had been scolded for this before, and yet she opened the bathroom door without hesitation.

“Dear.”

Lavian stepped inside and called to him as he was just turning off the tap.

“I don’t recall inviting you in.”

Klen turned his head with an expression of exaggerated surprise at a voice that had no business being there. He thought he had misheard, but she was really standing inside the bathroom.

“Excuse me. I thought you didn’t hear the knock.”

“Well, this is unexpected. Did you come to bathe together with me?”

Klen asked with a sour edge.

The line she kept was clear, and not once since the wedding had she come into the bathroom with him. Something about it being improper.

Was it improper, or indecent. Whatever word she used, it was some kind of excuse.

And now, after all that, she had come rushing in and crossed a line she had guarded so carefully, just to fulfill her father’s wish for a grandchild.

He should have gone to the count’s house and snapped the man’s neck instead of playing the pleasant son-in-law.

“Did you mean what you said just now?”

“Why would I lie?”

“……There’s no reason.”

“And what are you doing here. It’s very obvious. You know that?”

“What is?”

Klen didn’t answer. He looked at his wife for a moment, then offered a clarification.

“Trying to use a child to get something out of me.”

“Don’t misunderstand. I genuinely want a child. That’s all.”

Whatever her father intended, she had not the slightest thought of using a child for any such purpose. She wanted a child desperately, yet knew she shouldn’t want one, and had even been thinking of leaving after giving birth.

Lavian felt not a trace of shame about her own sincerity.

“Then why the rush. What’s so urgent. Like you’re trying to get a child out of me before you kill me off.”

Lavian was appalled. Even so, she didn’t raise her voice.

All she managed was something close to a sigh.

“What a frightening thing to say.”

“That’s why you came barging in here. Is that what noble pride looks like?”

Klen scoffed and turned away.

“My pride is now you……”

The words came out low and rough, scraping across Lavian’s dry lips. But she couldn’t finish the sentence. My pride is you now. She couldn’t let it out. She was afraid her true feelings might show.

Her voice cut off, and Klen turned back toward her.

Through the slightly open robe, the marks of old sword wounds faced Lavian.

Too bright. I didn’t think of that. He’ll hate this……

Seeing them in the dim light of the bedroom, pinned beneath him, was different from facing them directly in a room this bright.

She kept her posture straight, but to avoid staring at the scars, she had no choice but to shift her gaze to his blue eyes.

Watching her fight desperately not to look away, Klen’s expression went from serious to something that looked almost frightening.

“Say what you have to say now and don’t change your story later. Or get out. You can’t stand the sight of me, so what are you doing here.”

“Pardon?”

Lavian didn’t understand what he meant and stared at him blankly. Disgusting? What was?