This won’t do. Lionette pushed herself to her feet. She usually had only one maid close by to help with bathing, but today felt like it called for something more elaborate.

“Would you draw me a bath? Let the other maids know as well.”

The maid gave a quiet nod. Before long, Lionette was sinking into water at just the right temperature. The faint scent of rose petals drifted through the air, and a smile rose to her lips on its own.

The young maid who wrapped Lionette’s hair in a towel and twisted it up seemed to be choosing her words carefully, then spoke to her gently.

“My lady, please don’t worry too much about today.”

“Hmm?”

The maid plucking rose petals nearby balled her fist and chimed in.

“That’s right. The master and you are on such good terms right now!”

“Hmm??”

What on earth were they talking about? Lionette tilted her head. Only then did she notice the maids’ faces had gone pale.

“You didn’t know?”

“What is it that I don’t know?”

The atmosphere froze for a moment.

Lionette let out a small breath.

“Well, that is…….”

“Tell me everything. Leave nothing out.”

Lionette realized that when she was flustered or upset, her mind actually went colder. She hadn’t wanted to find that out this way.

“Well, today…… the duke’s…… betrothed from before birth came to visit.”

Betrothed from before birth?

Another maid cut in with a correcting tone.

“More precisely, a woman claiming to be that.”

So that’s why the butler stopped me. The butler’s choice made sense now.

“My lady…….”

“No, I’m alright.”

She didn’t feel betrayed, and she didn’t find herself resenting Dante.

But there was something stranger than that. Lionette found her hand pressed to her chest without meaning to. The ache there felt deeply wrong. The maids watched her carefully.

“My lady? Are you feeling unwell?”

“No, no.”

Lionette finished bathing quickly, pulled on her chemise, and sent all the maids out.

What is this? Lionette murmured quietly. The moment she thought there might be a betrothed, an original “real” one she had known nothing about, her chest throbbed. This was…… almost like she had feelings for Dante.

Like she had truly married Dante for love, and had been looking forward to having a child and building a warm family together……

Tears rolled down her wide-open eyes one by one. When had she last cried this hard? The shock and the grief refused to go away.

Lionette wiped her tears with the back of her hand and couldn’t stop the quiet sobs.

I have feelings for Dante. I’ve had them for a while.

But that’s not the kind of wife Dante needs.

Even after realizing she was in love, she felt no flutter of excitement, no warmth of embarrassment. Cold reality swept through her mind first. A hollowness settled in her chest and made it ache. No matter how tightly she wrapped her arms around her own shoulders or pulled the bedsheets around herself, the emptiness wouldn’t leave.

Dante sent word through the head maid that he would be late tonight and to go to sleep without him.

It was a night she had no wish to sleep through, but Lionette closed her eyes. She told herself that at least in a dream she could confess everything to Dante without consequence, and tried to fall asleep.

Realizing her feelings for Dante didn’t change Lionette’s daily life in any significant way.

What actually changed her days was not that realization but the arrival of Elise. Elise was the name of the woman claiming to be the betrothed from before birth.

Elise Schurn Brise. She had come all the way from Kinyata, a city known for its port, to the capital. The face Lionette had glimpsed in passing was, well.

“……Pretty.”

A beauty of an entirely different kind from Lionette. Blonde hair close to platinum, a contrast to Lionette’s jet-black locks. Eyes of vivid red, a contrast to the summer-green shade of Lionette’s own.

On top of that, unlike Lionette, Elise was tall. She had never seen Elise and Dante standing together with her own eyes, but two tall people standing side by side would surely create an atmosphere that was hard to approach. Which meant they made a well-matched pair.

She was sitting in quiet resignation, letting out a long sigh, when Ephine came over and set down a freshly brewed cup of black tea. The scent was lovely, yet she had no particular desire to drink it. Even though it was surely fine tea that had crossed seas and mountains to reach Siegfried, something the Wagner count household could never have imagined having.

“My lady, are you alright?”

“I don’t think I’m particularly alright…….”

Lionette sighed again and pushed herself to her feet.

“I’d like to take a walk in the garden, but I wonder if that’s alright today?”

She was phrasing it like she was asking Ephine’s opinion, but the real question was just one thing. Would she be able to avoid running into Elise if she went outside today? Ephine seemed to think it over for a moment, then nodded.

“The breeze is fresh today, so it should be lovely weather for a walk.”

“That’s a relief.”

Lionette replied flatly and, with Ephine’s help, gathered her parasol and gloves. The gloves, made of thin fabric suited to summer, felt soft enough that she might as well not be wearing them, and the lace-trimmed parasol was a pearlescent shade that went with any dress.

Both the parasol and the gloves had been chosen by Dante. He could easily have left clothing and meals to the staff, but Dante made a point of having everything that went into Lionette’s mouth or onto her body reported to him personally. He would occasionally adjust the menu or change the color of a dress, and nothing that passed through his hands had ever failed to please her.

“How do you know my taste so well?”

Even when she asked, Dante only smiled and never gave her an answer. Had he asked Ephine? Or did he simply have a sharp eye for these things? Either way, Lionette enjoyed the process, because the attention Dante paid her made her happy.

Dante Siegfried was a thoughtful man. There had been days when she had quietly thrilled at the thought that his warmth was directed at her alone.

Now, well. The thought of him extending that same warmth to Elise gave her a headache. It was nothing more than speculation, and yet she couldn’t help but feel certain, because Elise had already been settled in the estate for a full week.

What made it stranger still was that in that entire week, Elise had never once come to greet Lionette. The way a person would act if that simply wasn’t done between them.

If you were staying in someone’s home, the proper thing was to pay your respects to the couple who owned it, yet Elise had not come to see Lionette, as though Dante’s permission alone was all she needed.

The one time Lionette had glimpsed Elise in passing had also been in the garden. She had seen her walking with Dante toward the main gate, just across the fountain from where she was walking now. They seemed to be going out together. Lionette had watched them get into the same carriage, and she pressed her fingertips together until they hurt.

Fortunately or not, she didn’t cross paths with Elise today. The scent of the garden roses was overwhelmingly strong, though. Lionette sat down on a bench in the shade and folded her parasol.

The weather was languid enough that she felt she could fall asleep just by closing her eyes. She was slowly blinking them open and shut when she felt something settle over her shoulder. Someone’s jacket. Lionette recognized Dante before she even turned to look, from the scent that reached her.

“……Dante.”

“You’re out today.”