Maybe he had heard something about her. Selina was consumed by anxiety as she waited for his next words.

“Your gloves. Aren’t they uncomfortable?”

But what Calix said was nothing like what she’d expected.

“M-my gloves?”

Selina hesitantly unclenched her hands. After wearing them through the entire ceremony, the gloves clung tightly to her arms, making her feel stifled.

“Yes, a bit…”

She nodded, and Calix gently drew her arm toward him.

“I can take them off myself—”

“So I’ve heard.”

Ignoring her protest, he proceeded to slip the gloves from her arms.

“Apparently, doing things for each other that you could easily do alone is one of the virtues of marriage.”

Every time his firm hands brushed her bare arm as he removed the gloves, Selina couldn’t help but flinch.

‘Maybe it’s because of what happened on the terrace earlier.’

She thought this, feeling far too aware of his touch. She tried not to dwell on it, telling herself that it was just the lingering effects of their intimate moment.

Once Calix had removed her gloves, he tossed them aside. Selina wondered if it was really all right to treat such expensive items so carelessly, but she kept quiet for fear of seeming unworthy of her new status as the Marquis’s daughter.

Perhaps sensing her discomfort, Calix spoke softly.

“It’ll take longer to get to Thalia than you might think.”

“Oh—how long will it take?”

Selina realized she hadn’t even considered the distance between the Empire and Thalia.

Calix spread his fingers and held up both hands.

“Ten hours.”

“No.”

This time, he curled the fingers of one hand, showing her five.

‘Fifteen hours… That’s still less than the trip from the convent to my father’s estate.’

Just as she was beginning to reassure herself that they’d arrive in Thalia by this time tomorrow—

“Fifteen days, plus another five.”

“…Excuse me?”

“If we take breaks to rest, it might even take two more days.”

‘Good heavens…’

Selina had known the journey to Thalia would take a while, but she’d never imagined it would be more than two weeks.

‘So that’s how far Calix traveled to get here…!’

Suddenly, she understood why the Thalian soldiers had been so upset when they heard about the wedding. After a grueling fifteen-day journey, only to find out the bride had been switched upon arrival—anyone would have been furious.

Noticing how pale Selina looked, Calix’s eyes curved as he smiled.

“What’s wrong? Are you already losing your nerve about going to Thalia?”

“N-no, not at all. It’s only fifteen days, after all.”

She shook her head and tried to sound unfazed, but in truth, her worries were piling up.

She remembered how miserable she’d been after spending just a week in a carriage to reach the marquis’s estate. She hated feeling trapped, and being shut inside a carriage only made it worse.

‘But this time, we’ll be stopping to rest along the way… I’ll be fine..’

She told herself, glancing out the carriage window.

Calix, noticing her gaze, offered a quiet, reassuring smile.

“You’ll get tired. Try to sleep as much as you can while you have the chance.”

As if to demonstrate this, he folded his arms, closed his eyes and settled down to rest. Though his long legs were folded awkwardly, he seemed perfectly composed in every other way, not the slightest bit ruffled.

Selina found herself sneaking glances at him, studying his sleeping face beneath his straight brows and dark lashes. His calm, handsome features seemed like an angel’s lost in deep, peaceful slumber.

‘…He looks just the same when he’s sleeping as he did back then.’

Selina smiled to herself as she remembered the first time she had met Calix. At that time, he had been wary and always on edge around her.

However, as soon as he fell asleep, all his defences melted away, and Selina soon got into the habit of quietly studying his sleeping face.

‘He used to be so gentle back then. How could someone change so completely?’

She felt a pang of sadness mingled with sympathy as she wondered whether the war had changed him. She found herself caught in an emotional loop: feeling sorry for the man he had become, then feeling resentful that he had changed so much.

Jumping back and forth between those memories and the present left her feeling exhausted. Before she knew it, she had fallen asleep beside him.

She didn’t know how much time had passed when she was suddenly woken by a commotion. Rubbing sleep from her eyes, she sat up. Night had fallen, and the carriage had stopped.

‘What’s going on?’

She brushed off her drowsiness and straightened up, only to notice Calix’s coat draped over her shoulders, having slipped down to the floor.

‘Where did Calix go?’

Hesitant, she opened the carriage door to look for him.

Several soldiers, bustling around a campfire, turned at the sound. One of them—someone she remembered seeing at the Thalian camp the night before the wedding—met her gaze, then quickly looked away, awkwardly.

The soldiers gathered in small groups, roasting vegetables over the fire and chatting quietly among themselves.

But Calix was nowhere in sight, and she was bursting with questions. Why had they stopped? Where was he? Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to ask. As soon as she’d appeared, the previously lively group had fallen dead silent, as if on cue.

‘They’re really on guard around me.’

Just as Selina was thinking she’d be better off slipping back into the carriage to wait for Calix, a voice called out to her.

“Madam, are you hungry?”

Pushing his way through the other soldiers, a man with hair as bright as the flames of the campfire approached her. His gentle, smiling eyes gave him the look of a friendly puppy—utterly disarming.

“I’m Rochester, I’m the Duke’s right hand—and some might say, absolutely indispensable!”

“Oh… N-nice to meet you.”

Selina replied, bowing politely.

“I’m Selina Ilios… no, just Selina.”

She hesitated. By custom, she should be using her husband’s family name now, but she wasn’t quite ready to call herself that.

More than anything, she had a feeling Calix wouldn’t like it if she did. So she left it at just Selina. Luckily, Rochester took it in stride, breaking into another hearty laugh.

“Of course, I know who you are. You’re quite famous in Thalia, you know!”

“I… I see.”

Selina managed, awkward and unsure. No doubt, she was famous in all the wrong ways. Seeing her discomfort, the man standing beside Rochester responded with a languid expression.

“You don’t have to feel bad. It’s your father we dislike, not you, Madam.”

He was a dark-haired man, exhaustion written all over his face—someone she vaguely recalled seeing near Calix before.

“I’m Zenfri.”

He said, bowing his head in a brisk, businesslike manner.

Rochester clapped Zenfri’s shoulder with a boisterous slap, making the man shoot him an annoyed glare. Still, in the end, Zenfri simply raised his hands in surrender, resigned to the other man’s brute strength.

“We were hungry, so we roasted a few things. Would you care to try?”

With that, Rochester held out a skewer with a perfectly roasted potato for Selina.

‘Potato…!’

Her eyes widened with surprise and a hint of longing.

When she had lived in the convent, Selina had only tasted roasted potatoes a handful of times. Back then, dipping them in salt made her feel as if she owned the world. She remembered that feeling of happiness so vividly now.

‘Can I really eat something so precious?’

Hesitating, she couldn’t bring herself to accept the offering right away. Zenfri, noticing her reluctance, muttered as if he’d expected this all along.

“I told you not to bother—she’s a noble lady. Why would she eat plain old potatoes?”

He then snatched the skewer from Rochester, ready to pop the potato into his own mouth. But in that instant—

Chomp.

“…??”

Selina shot forward and took a big bite out of the potato with all the speed and determination she could muster. She just couldn’t stand by and watch such a perfect potato slip away. It was an instinctive move, almost desperate.

Chewing the piping hot potato, she looked up at Zenfri and said with her mouth full.

“I—I like potatoes.”

“…Ah.”

Zenfri was so stunned he could only hold out the rest of the skewer for her, wordless.

Selina, smiling blissfully, popped the rest of the potato into her mouth, savoring every bite.

Watching the whole exchange, Rochester burst out laughing, then leaned in behind her and teased,

“You’d better be careful, Madam.”

Curious, Selina glanced back over her shoulder to see who was there.

“You might just have a rival for your affections—a potato.”

And there, wearing an odd expression, stood Calix, his eyes locked on her.