No excuse came easily to mind.
As Sveta drew in a breath, painfully aware of the heat creeping up to the tips of her ears, Hazel curved her lips in a faint smile and spoke in her place.
“Does she need a reason?”
“What?”
“I asked if she needs a reason. Maybe she simply wanted to come here.”
“…I need one.”
“Why?”
“……”
Aiden did not answer, but Sveta understood.
He was a man who sought to control everything about her. That was precisely why even the smallest of her actions required justification.
Even coming to the East Wing demanded that she persuade him.
That was what she was to him. A doll meant to sit in the bedroom all day and wait for him. His possession.
Unaware of any of this, Hazel asked again with innocent curiosity.
“I asked why.”
“……”
When faced with questions he did not wish to answer, Aiden often responded with silence.
It was a habit that revealed both his arrogance and his elevated position. No one dared ask him the same question twice.
No one—except his elder brother.
“Does the young lady of Baron Luce need your permission just to come here?”
“……”
The flow of the air shifted.
It always did when Aiden fell silent, even for a moment.
Unable to endure the weight of the thickening atmosphere, Sveta answered instead.
“My stomach hurt, so I went to see Mr. Bartley.”
“Why would your stomach—”
“Well…”
A breeze swept through again, brushing softly past her orange hair. The strand moved aside, revealing the faint bite mark on her earlobe.
Aiden’s gaze drifted there. The green of his eyes darkened slightly.
Noticing, she lowered her voice and whispered.
“It’s… a little difficult to explain in words, Your Grace.”
“……”
Rather than offer a clumsy lie, Sveta chose an ambiguous answer.
At least Hazel was there. Perhaps because of Hazel’s presence, Aiden did not press further.
His gaze, which had lingered near her ear, slid along the curve of her eye. After holding her eyes for a brief moment, he lifted his chin slightly and gave a crooked smile.
Hazel, meeting Aiden’s gaze, did the same.
“Do you truly have to ask? Even lovers need a certain distance between them.”
“So the nagging begins again.”
“Nagging? That hurts.”
“……”
Though no reply came, Hazel only smiled good-naturedly. He, too, seemed accustomed to Aiden’s silence.
“It would be cruel to keep my wife in such an unfamiliar place for long. I should be going.”
“……”
“It was a pleasure speaking with you, Lady Luce.”
“The pleasure was mine, Viscount.”
Even as the polite farewells were exchanged, Aiden did not add a single word.
There was a faint comfort in knowing that he was equally sparing with everyone.
Looking up at him—so stiff, so rigid—Sveta stepped closer with careful resolve.
“Your Grace.”
Gathering courage she scarcely possessed, she lightly took hold of his gloved hand.
To her surprise, he slowly intertwined his fingers with hers.
That small response gave her courage again.
“Could we… walk together? Just as far as the main building.”
“……”
Afternoon light, deeper than usual, spilled across his neatly swept-back blond hair.
The sunlight that brushed his head seemed to fall straight onto her, warming her cheeks until they flushed red.
“…I would like to talk a little.”
Though Aiden did not answer, he gave a faint tilt of his chin and began to walk slowly.
Sveta followed, her steps hesitant.
The brusque man who had once held her roughly, as though punishing her—so severe that he had frightened her—
Now seemed, somehow, a little gentler.
***
Even after they had entered the garden, which was filled with clusters of pale pink roses, they continued to walk in silence.
Aiden’s gaze lingered on the pale curve of Sveta’s neck, visible amid the strands of hair swaying in the warm breeze.
Despite the heat, Sveta wore a dress that covered her neck. Just above the stiff lace, a faint red mark was barely visible — and the sight of it pleased him in a deliberate, almost calculated way.
Beneath that modest beige dress, he could clearly remember the softness of her skin, the delicate line of her collarbone and the gentle curve beneath it.
Satisfied with his thoughts, he was the first to break the silence.
“What is it you wished to say?”
“Mm…”
Her peach-colored lips moved carefully as she searched for words. Even the soft fullness of them as they parted pleased him.
“Sveta.”
Her name slipped from him without thought, brushing lightly against the roof of his mouth.
Her pale blue eyes lifted to meet his.
Perhaps she took it as a prompt. Sveta began to speak at once.
“I heard that Your Grace is from Muwieo.”
“My grandmother was a princess of Muwieo.”
“I’ve heard the only ship to Muwieo departs from Czernok. Is that true?”
“There are a few in Prisada as well, but yes.”
The small hand clasped in his shifted slightly.
She guided them towards the edge of the path. Aiden followed without resistance.
Gently brushing the petals of a roadside rose, Sveta asked again.
“Can only nobles board that ship?”
“That is not the case. Why do you ask?”
“I was just curious. I once lived in Czernok.”
“……”
He had heard that she had once roamed the streets of Czernok.
The rumors about her were far from kind. The gossip that followed after she became his mistress was unpleasant enough, but the stories from before she was adopted into the baron’s household were even worse.
Baron Luce himself was a questionable and unsavory man, so it came as no surprise that the things said about her were all terrible.
Aiden could not help but wonder: What kind of life had she lived? Why was she pretending to be Beth Gould?
Yet she refused to tell him the truth.
While his mind was filled with restless thoughts, she merely brushed her fingers over a rose, her expression clear and untroubled.
Using his free hand, Aiden snapped the rose from its stem and held it out to her.
It was a thornless variety.
Her pale, slender fingers closed gently around the smooth, light-green stem.
“For me?”
“If not for you, why would I have cut it?”
“Thank you.”
She offered him a faint smile.
He lowered his gaze to her sky-blue eyes and noticed a tiny speck on the edge of her right iris. It looked like a speck of dust.
In that instant, this insignificant woman — nothing more than a barbarian slave, as trivial as dust itself — seemed unexpectedly endearing to him.
He was glad he had spared her life.
Jace Gould would soon be captured, and the truth about Beth Gould would be revealed. It felt as though the day when the last of the Zloytan rebels would be wiped out was not far away.
Simply meeting her gaze filled him with a quiet sense of promise.
Aiden allowed the corner of his lips to lift in a faint, satisfied smile.
“His name is Caleb.”
“……”
“The baby’s name. Your Grace’s nephew.”
“I see.”
Despite claiming to have little interest, he already knew his nephew’s name. But why mention the child now?
When Aiden tilted his head in silent question, she lifted the rose to her nose and asked.
“Why?”
“Your Grace…”
“……”
“Don’t you want a child?”
A humid, heavy wind swept past.
A faint baby scent clung to her. She must have held a baby earlier.
It wasn’t hard to picture Hazel, overjoyed at having a son, urging her to hold the child.
“Not particularly.”
After giving the short reply, Aiden tried to picture Sveta holding his child.
The image did not come easily.
“It would be beautiful. With green eyes like yours, and red lips…”
Her voice trailed off as she waited for his reaction.
Green eyes and red lips.
Aiden guessed that his nephew must look like that, too. Green and red were the colors associated with him, Hazel, and their mother.
“And hair shining gold like yours. A truly lovely baby.”
He knew she would often steal glances at him.
He knew that when their bodies touched, she would gently stroke his hair before pulling her hand away and clutching the sheets instead, as though she did not dare touch him any longer.
Sveta seemed especially fond of his hair.
Gold was the color of his father’s hair — and his own.
Aiden once knew a child with golden hair.
Blonde hair and brown eyes: Nadia.
His dead sister.
How had she died?
What expression had she worn when her eyes closed for the final time?
How much blood had flowed from her tiny body, staining and soaking her soft, golden hair?
He did not want to remember. He did not want to see it.
And so he could not bring himself to imagine having a golden-haired child of his own.
Suppressing the terrible memories that were coming to the surface, he answered her in an emotionless voice.
“There is no need for such things.”
“…Such things.”
She lifted her face toward the sky, now steeped in crimson twilight.
“What if I were to have a child? Would you send me to the forest?”
“Do you truly think I would?”
“…It wouldn’t matter, I suppose. I’ll be dead by next spring anyway.”
She spoke of death again.
For some reason, this woman uttered the word without hesitation. He disliked that.
He did not like the shadow of resignation pooling in her large eyes.
“You speak of death far too easily.”
His fingers tightened around the hand he held. The pressure grew firm enough that Sveta let out a soft gasp of pain.
Even so, her gaze remained fixed on empty air.
“I do not like it.”
“Are you…planning to spare my life?”
“…I am.”
“Why?”
“……”
Why indeed?
Aiden began walking slowly toward the far end of the garden.
“Because I am your bed slave?”
The words slipped out abruptly. Startled by her own boldness, she flinched and quickly pressed her lips together.
Her ears turned bright red. The deep bite mark on her earlobe stirred up memories of their last intimate moment together.
“I love you.”
“……”
“Please answer me, Your Grace.”
She was unusually persistent in demanding an answer.
He liked it when she cried beneath him. He enjoyed it when she clung to him, whispering her pleas for love.
Yet he never once gave her the answer she longed to hear.
Even Aiden knew that was cruel.
He was aware that there might be something sadistic about the pleasure he took in those moments. But he had never regarded her as nothing more than a woman to warm his bed.
He gave her rooms in the Duchess’s wing. He bought her only the finest things. He took care of her health.
Today had been no different.
He had even postponed a meeting with a vassal who had travelled all the way from Levizan to visit the East Wing.
He had never treated her carelessly.
“Is that truly what you think?”
“……”
Sveta did not deny it.
The fact that she thought so little of him hit him harder than he had expected.
In a roughened voice, Aiden muttered.
“You turn me into a wretched man.”
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bluemoon238
You have a mouth that refuses to speak. You don’t even show it with your actions. What words spoken are hurtful and what actions taken are painful and abusive. Expecting someone to view such nonsense positively is asking for a miracle.