Their eyes met. A blue river whose depths she couldn’t read surged before her.

“This doesn’t seem like enough.”

Meliciel awkwardly loosened her arms and blinked.

“I’ll need that kiss of thanks.”

Meliciel’s eyes sharpened and she stepped back.

“Running away is a bad habit. You should be bold.”

Kahar gently took her wrist. Meliciel came along easily.

A dizzyingly sweet scent. A fragrance like Lani’s.

There were times it nearly drove him mad. Meliciel made him miss Lani, and made him forget Lani.

When he tried to keep Meliciel at a distance, she rose like a thorn and pricked at his nerves, and when she was close, it was like this…….

Kahar lowered his chin and pressed his lips to her nape.

Peck. The sound of lips meeting was intimate. Meliciel hunched her shoulders and her lashes fluttered.

“Grand Duke, there are people here……”

“You’re old enough to know that somewhere without people is more dangerous.”

Kahar answered in a low voice and laughed softly. Everyone else would have already looked away.

Anyone who openly watched the Grand Duke’s affections would rightly lose their eyes for it.

Whether they did or not. Kahar bit Meliciel’s nape without hesitation. Then he sucked deeply, like someone who wanted to pour the scent into his mouth, into his body.

“Ngh……!”

“You’ll have to hold back the sounds. There’s no way to block ears.”

Meliciel’s skin grew hot and flushed red. Kahar felt an inexplicable sense of fullness, and at the same time pressed his lips softly to ease a thirst that remained.

He traced her slender nape and stopped at her firm shoulder blade. He licked the hollow of her collarbone and bit hard beside it.

Then he breathed in, deep and deep. Like he was intoxicated by something.

D*mn it. Other than Lani, this was a first. The feeling of being bewitched by something.

After a long while, Kahar lifted his head and whispered at her ear.

“Since it’s not even the proper thing yet, I suppose this much will have to do?”

“……You, lecher.”

The composure with which Meliciel closed the door and went inside, cheeks flushed, made him laugh. Kahar pressed his thumb into the aching pull below his navel and turned away.

It was the first time in a long while that desire shook him, and he was still swimming in the confusion.

But this confusion would soon be forgotten.

“Your Highness, I believe the noble faction will push back hard on this matter.”

Mihael, following behind him, said something, but he didn’t properly listen.

So much for forgetting. He was already thinking about Meliciel.

The reason he showed Meliciel’s face to the servants just now wasn’t particularly for the sake of order in the Grand Ducal Castle.

Honestly, he had little interest in order or rules. Handling such things was Chayden’s role, and he was the type to think that troublesome sorts could simply be dismissed as they came up.

His words sounded fine, but his real reason was something else.

“The way she cries is just.”

“Pardon?”

Mihael, who was chattering about the noble council, asked back and followed along.

“Get that face out of my sight.”

Kahar ignored him and headed for his office.

Meliciel’s crying unsettled him.

The sight of her sobbing miserably under the tree lodged in his chest like a stone since yesterday and kept surfacing.

That was why it irritated him. Not wanting to see that again, he gathered everyone together and did something unlike himself.

The nape she touched was still warm, and he found himself absently rubbing it, then licking his lips.

Something keeps remaining. Like an impurity.

***

Head maid Belita nearly collapsed clutching the back of her neck when she heard about the previous day’s incident.

To think the servants dared to treat the young lady poorly over one flower pot.

Of course, touching something the Grand Duke cherished could have been a problem, but even so, the maids should have attended to the young lady’s feelings first rather than worrying about their own necks.

Maids who insulted the young duchess out of fear of being punished by Kahar. There was no room for forgiveness.

Belita expelled the two maids from the Grand Ducal Castle.

Belita was usually kind, but when she made a decision, she was merciless.

Along with Kahar establishing Meliciel’s standing before everyone, Belita’s punishment would serve as a good example.

“But why did the young lady go to the Od Palace?”

No one entered the area around Od Palace carelessly. The Od Palace beyond the forest was a place the Grand Duke held with particular regard.

Because that was where Lani, that person, used to be.

Belita didn’t know of Lani’s existence from the beginning.

Only after that person disappeared from the Grand Ducal Castle did she learn through Mihael that such a person existed.

“Lani Deloën. She was the Grand Duke’s lover. She vanished without a trace, and as you can see, His Highness’s state……”

Only then did Belita realize that the small escort knight who occasionally appeared at Kahar’s side was in fact the Grand Duke’s beloved.

She watched Kahar from the moment he was born, but she never saw him like that before.

It was a little difficult to say, but at the time, Kahar searching desperately for Lani looked like a man possessed by murder.

The Grand Duke cut down not only those who harmed her, but anyone involved in her disappearance. No, it seemed like he intended to leave no one alive.

The day she truly understood how much the Grand Duke loved that person was the day they found her body.

The expression on the Grand Duke’s face as he looked down at the cold remains with his lips pressed tightly shut was something she would probably never forget for the rest of her life.

It rained especially hard that day. Kahar’s soul seemed to have already left this place, and he faced her death with a hollow, vacant emptiness.

Belita’s heart ached too much to keep watching, and she had to leave first.

Thinking back on that, Belita’s heart grew dark.

But no matter what the past held, now was now.

Belita’s duty was to attend to the young lady who would become the Grand Duchess.

Lady Meliciel looked very fragile. They said she suffered a long illness, and she arrived here looking thin, as though to prove it.

She looked like the slightest thing could bring on a crisis, and Belita was constantly anxious.

It would be a lie to say she wasn’t afraid of losing the young lady the way they lost that person.

“Her smile is sad somehow.”

Belita murmured and quickened her steps toward Meliciel’s bedroom.

In truth, Belita fell in love the moment she first laid eyes on Meliciel.

The affection rooted in reverence and respect soon shone with a fierce sense of duty to serve the poor Grand Duchess well.

But knowing nothing about the young lady, she couldn’t approach carelessly, and everyone was treading carefully.

So that the young lady wouldn’t be uncomfortable, wouldn’t be bothered…….

“Head maid, do you think the young lady is very angry?”

A maid asked cautiously. Another beside her added, as though she was waiting for the chance.

“If the Grand Duke gathered all of us together to scold us, the young lady must be very angry too.”

“She’ll be fine.”

Belita, walking ahead, answered in a way that put an end to the idle talk.

“But we might get dragged before the Grand Duke too if we make a mistake.”

“It’s natural to be scolded for making mistakes. Stop flapping your mouths needlessly.”

Belita answered evenly and knocked on the bedroom door where the young lady was.

Knock, knock, knock.

“My lady.”

A small yes came from inside after a moment.

Belita stepped inside with the maids. They heard that noble ladies tended to be sensitive, so everyone was holding their breath as much as possible so as not to irritate Meliciel.

Meliciel was standing by the window. She seemed a little chilly, and greeted the maids with a thin shawl draped over her shoulders.

“Come in.”

“Don’t stand by the window in the evenings, my lady. It gets surprisingly cold.”

Belita said this as she approached, and Meliciel answered with a soft mm-hm.

She made her way to the flower pot by the bedside.

The pot from yesterday’s incident now had a place here, in Meliciel’s bedroom.

The cactus, settled into a new pot with fresh soil, wore a slightly faded wool cover.

But it wasn’t particularly beautiful enough to covet.

Why did the young lady want that so badly?

What was remarkable was that the Grand Duke allowed her to have it.

It must have been Lani’s belonging…….

“I’ll have your wash water ready shortly.”

“Belita.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Could you possibly…… bring me a little yarn?”

It was the first time she asked for something beyond the basics of food, clothing, and shelter, so Belita was a little surprised, but she smiled and answered.

“Of course. As much as you like.”

“Thank you.”

Meliciel smiled slowly. The maids stirred.

It was probably because they never saw her smile like that before.

After spending a few days with her, they understood Meliciel’s nature to some degree. She was an easygoing person who didn’t need to be handled as though walking on thin ice.

Less sensitive and more gentle, if anything, which was its own kind of worry.

“Are you going to knit a new cover with the yarn and put it on the pot?”

“Yes, I think I need a bit of practice first……”

“It’ll be so cute.”

“I hope so.”

Meliciel’s eyes brightened a little. She looked fresh and sweet, like a girl who just heard she was pretty.

“If you like flowers and plants, my lady, there’s a large garden in the Grand Ducal Castle.”

“A garden?”

“Yes. It’s near the knights’ quarters.”

Then the young maid Rose cut in and added.

“It’s the inner castle knights’ quarters, so it’s a bit of a distance from here.”

“Is that so?”

Belita was about to say something, but Meliciel’s eyes were full of curiosity, so she held her tongue for a moment.