Lysith’s face today looked much better than last time. As if meeting him wasn’t as difficult as he had thought. While he had such positive thoughts, of course, he also had negative ones.

For instance, that she might consider him not worth spending her emotions or attention on.

When he raised his gaze again, her profile as she peacefully embroidered looked both indifferent and gently relaxed. Although he couldn’t help feeling a hollow emptiness in a corner of his heart because her attitude was colder than when she had shown affection toward him, he could vaguely tell.

That the current Lysith was much more at ease than when she had lived with him.

It was true that he hadn’t paid much attention to her back then, but since she was his political marriage partner, he couldn’t completely ignore her. And he had keenly picked up on something about her. The occasional loving gaze when they happened to meet, the urgency underlying it.

Ah, yes. Thinking back, he might have been more displeased by that urgency which she tried but failed to hide.

In contrast, the current Lysith showed no such urgency whatsoever.

Perhaps that was why he felt irresistibly drawn to her, why she seemed more beautiful to him.

“……No matter how well I do now, you won’t look back at me, will you.”

Though his tone wasn’t questioning, the sentence Dietrich uttered was clearly asking Lysith a question. Whether there was any possibility for him at all.

“……”

Lysith, who had been brushing her slightly fallen side hair behind her ear, paused her hand for a moment and then pressed her lips together.

To be honest, if this were a game where she had to choose one male protagonist in the end, she probably wouldn’t choose him.

People aren’t machines; how could they be fixed and reused?

She was the type who believed people couldn’t be fixed, and at the same time, she thought that someone who had done something once could do it again. In that sense, Dietrich was out.

Of course, back then he disliked her for some reason, and now he was acting this way either out of guilt or missing her affection. But where was the guarantee that they wouldn’t return to how things were before? It was obvious that living together while remembering how he had ignored her in the past would be quite painful.

And decisively, this man still hadn’t apologized to her even once!

Having reached a conclusion, Lysith, with a much harder expression than before, simply examined her embroidery once and his embroidery once.

Thinking about the game’s strategy, perhaps she should answer him here and leave some possibility, but for some reason, she didn’t want to do that.

“If you’re like this, it will become uncomfortable later.”

“……I see.”

The once gentle atmosphere turned cold in an instant.

Dietrich swallowed a bitter smile and carefully corrected the spot that Lysith’s thin, straight white finger pointed to. How nice it would be if relationships with people could be fixed like this, if they were as visible as this.

……All futile assumptions.

The man, inherently awkward in relationships with others, continued to embroider, pricking his fingers with the needle several times.

* * *

“As you might know……”

“……”

“Your Highness the Grand Duke really has no, absolutely, none, whatsoever—dexterity.”

“……”

Lysith’s words were scathing, but there was nothing incorrect about them. When asked to embroider an apple, he had created a sea urchin instead, so his dexterity was truly at a destructive level.

However, Dietrich’s hands were hands that held a sword. They had calluses here and there, and honestly, they were closer to rugged than pretty. Still, perhaps because he had more administrative work, they weren’t quite like those of knights.

Lysith vaguely thought that perhaps she should praise him for creating even a sea urchin with those hands.

“Then coming in the future……”

“You want me to come again?”

For Lysith, it wasn’t a bad proposal. The problem was the constant clash between her reason and emotions.

As she hesitated, looking like she was about to refuse, Dietrich, growing anxious, hastily added conditions.

“Once a week or even once every two weeks is fine. As compensation, money……”

“I have plenty of money.”

And some of that money was given by you.

Swallowing those words, Lysith rolled her eyes around and suddenly her gaze landed on the green outdoor scenery through the large window.

“……Then, may I take a walk in the garden today? Alone.”

“That’s enough for you?”

“Yes.”

The garden of the Grand Duke’s residence was well-maintained and decorated. It didn’t look much different from how it had been when she was the Grand Duchess, when she had managed it.

He probably didn’t know and just left it as it was. He wasn’t the type to pay much attention to places like gardens in the first place.

And supporting her thoughts, Dietrich seemed not to understand why she wanted to go to the garden.

In her memories, Lysith frequently took walks in the garden that she had cultivated and managed herself, and she intended to walk through the garden since she was at this residence. It was a space she had put considerable effort into, after all.

He had no reason to stop her from going out. Greeting Lysith, who had left the reception room with Dietrich’s permission, were maids who had received orders from Dietrich to guide her to the garden.

Due to the suspicious nature of their master, the staff of the Grand Duke’s residence rarely changed, so all the maids she met had familiar faces.

What stopped Lysith’s hesitation about what to say in such a situation was a question from the maid standing most respectfully at the front.

“Which parasol should I prepare for you?”

“Any will do.”

At this ordinary response, the maid looked slightly hesitant. When a puzzled Lysith asked why she was acting that way, another question quickly followed as if she had been waiting.

“I asked because there is a parasol you left behind before.”

“Left behind? What is……. ah.”

Recalling what she had left behind, Lysith covered her mouth with one hand. She didn’t know why she only remembered it now, but when she had stayed at this residence, she had embroidered a parasol.

She couldn’t understand why she had embroidered something like a parasol rather than an embroidery cloth, but anyway, that parasol had the family crest engraved on it in small detail.

That is, the crest of the Clonair grand duchy.

And the fact that the previous Lysith hadn’t bothered to take it meant……

‘She gave up, her one-sided love.’

Most of the emotions she had come to know through gaining memories were intense, like waves. For example, misery, fervent affection for someone, inexplicable urgency, and such. She didn’t know many calm emotions like this, where there wasn’t even a trace of waves.

“No. It’s fine, I would appreciate it if you brought something else instead. You can give it to the next Grand Duchess if she likes it.”

At Lysith’s kind but firm refusal, the maid nodded without a word and brought another parasol. It was a conventional white parasol with lace.

Taking the white parasol, Lysith glanced at the still bright sky and lightly opened it.

If she walked along the path she usually took, she might learn something like just now. If not, she could simply enjoy looking at the flowers and trees she had personally selected.

And there was someone watching Lysith from afar as she calmly began her garden walk.

From the second floor of the massive mansion, from the Grand Duke’s office, the garden view was clearly visible. It had been used for generations, so Dietrich didn’t know why it was designed this way, but right now, he was grateful to the ancestor who had made it so.

The large, well-polished window clearly reflected the woman walking through the garden.

The woman standing among various flowers, with a parasol as white as her hair color breaking apart the light, truly sparkled in his eyes. It wasn’t simply a matter of appearance, but a feeling as if he was seeing something he hadn’t seen before.

Come to think of it, in the past, he had once seen her walking in the garden. At that time, she had deliberately lingered below his office, and when their eyes met, she smiled brightly, but now……

“She’s not interested at all.”

“Pardon?”

“Never mind.”

Adiz, who had reflexively responded, briefly stared with a contemptuous gaze at Dietrich, who couldn’t leave the window area, before burying his face in documents again.

He looked pitiful, like a puppy with drooping ears and tail, which was both pathetic and somewhat sad, but on the other hand, it was also satisfying.

This was because Adiz, who’s working by his side, naturally had many opportunities to encounter the Grand Duchess. And he had no choice but to witness Lysith Clonair gradually withering away.

It was somewhat laughable that after ignoring someone like that, he was now acting this way. That was Adiz’s thought, but it seemed human hearts couldn’t be helped. Catching a heart that had already left was more difficult than finding a horse that had escaped from the stable at dawn and coaxing it back, yet he was trying to do just that.

Unaware that his aide was looking at him with contemptuous eyes from behind, Dietrich continued to stare blankly at Lysith’s profile as she walked through the garden.