When her thoughts grew heavy, she would stare blankly out at the sea. It gave her the illusion that all her worries and troubles were being swept away by the waves. She could no longer do that now.

“Do you miss home?”

The word “home” made Yuria think for a moment of the small town where she had lived as Lucy. Then she realized that the home Valen meant was Il Mare, where the sea had been.

“Not enough to miss it. Ever since our engagement, I’ve always been prepared to live in Montagna.”

Afraid he might send her back if she said she was homesick, Yuria answered quickly. In truth, she had been missing that place without quite realizing it. The Bellaris of Il Mare held a proud sense of identity as descendants of the sea, and somewhere along the way Yuria had come to feel that pull herself.

Valen gave a slow nod at her answer and looked at her with eyes that seemed to be trying to see through to something. Like he was determined to find out what she truly felt. His persistent gaze made her flinch, and she turned her head without thinking.

“You can be honest with me.”

“I am being honest.”

“It doesn’t seem that way.”

“What would you know about it?”

Cornered, Yuria snapped back without meaning to. But Valen didn’t so much as twitch an eyebrow. Like hearing something like that from her was nothing new.

“You’re right, I don’t know anything. That’s why I want you to tell me more honestly.”

“Fine. Honestly, I miss the sea.”

Valen’s lower lip curved inward slightly. He seemed to sink into thought.

“Then let’s make regular visits to Il Mare together. If that’s too far, there’s a beach to the southeast we could go to instead.”

How considerate. A young lord who accompanies his homesick wife on trips to the seaside. That would certainly make him look like the perfect husband he was aiming to be. Yuria smiled a crooked smile and said nothing more.

“Is there anything else I should know?”

Yuria thought over his question. Valen was asking for the answer to how their marriage could appear perfect. Despite his insistence on honesty, Yuria was carefully turning over the traits of the constructed persona she had built, the Yuria Bellaris she performed for the world.

What if this was Valen’s scheme to draw out her true self and find grounds to break off the engagement? The noblewoman of Bellaris everyone knew, the young mistress of Castoria, was in fact hiding countless secrets. She might even be a spy who had infiltrated the Castoria household. That kind of accusation could take her all the way to a courtroom.

Yuria could not afford to let her guard down for a single moment. She must not. Pulling herself together, she put her mask back on and spoke with cool composure.

“As you know, I won’t wear anything but the finest clothes in the Pantheon, and I won’t put on any jewel that isn’t the most beautiful. As long as you keep that in mind, I don’t see why there would be any problems.”

“And?”

Valen tilted his chin up slightly, as though telling her to go on. Yuria clenched her back teeth where it wouldn’t show and racked her mind for what answer he could possibly want. But no matter how hard she thought, she couldn’t make out his intentions. Growing frustrated, she pushed back her chair and stood up.

“What exactly do you want from me?”

“I want your honesty, Yuria. This isn’t a suggestion. The more you try to hide something from me, the more danger you’re in.”

Yuria couldn’t make sense of what he was saying. The more she hid, the more danger she was in? If anything, showing her true self would put her in danger. The danger of divorce.

“What I mean is that within this manor, I am your only true ally.”

She had thought that the moment she entered the Castoria household, all her hardships would be behind her. But the man kept implying that her real trials were only just beginning. Valen watched her face, thrown into confusion, with a perfectly calm expression. Unable to bear his gaze, she turned sharply away.

“L-let’s talk about this another time.”

Hiding the turmoil inside, Yuria turned to leave, and this time Valen didn’t stop her. He only left a flat farewell for the back of his departing wife.

“Then I’ll see you at dinner.”

Yuria didn’t look back at him, but from the rustle of paper and the scratch of a pen nib she could tell Valen had returned to his work. He had thrown her into complete disarray and was perfectly unruffled himself.

She closed the door and stepped into the corridor, drew a deep breath, and deeply regretted ever going to the study. She would have been better off going back to her room and going over her duties as the young mistress. Valen’s unexpected questions had nearly cracked the mask she had maintained all this time.

Yuria let out a long breath and slowly walked away from the firmly shut door of the study. The grand manor she still hadn’t grown used to was unnaturally quiet, and a silence proportional to its size wrapped around her.

Perhaps because it was so quiet, the voices of people whispering in a corner of the corridor reached her ears with perfect clarity.

“…Poor young master. The young master must be getting manipulated by that wicked Bellaris woman. Someone who used to shudder at the mere mention of the name ‘Bellaris’ is supposed to be genuinely in love with his wife? Does that make any sense?”

“I always thought Lady Vivian Libero would be the right match for him. She has such a fine character, and she isn’t cold or heartless like some people.”

“She’s a woman who cares for nothing but power and money. The Castoria family might as well have been blindfolded when they married their only son off to his natural enemy.”

Yuria knew perfectly well what people said about her. The villainess who had ruined the love between Valen and Vivian. A cold and heartless woman. Someone obsessed with nothing but power and wealth. These were names that had followed her even after she had built her current reputation. Let alone what the Castoria people, who despised Bellaris to the bone, must think of her.

In the eyes of the empire, the virtuous heroine had always been Vivian Libero. And the villainess who had stolen her man was Yuria Bellaris. It was a fairy tale they had freely invented to suit their own tastes.

Yuria weighed whether she should simply stand there and listen, or step out immediately and set the record straight. Honestly, what they were saying didn’t even come close to qualifying as an insult.

The curses she had heard during her days as a wanderer were far worse than this. The gossip of a handful of maids couldn’t touch her. Besides, the part about caring for nothing but money wasn’t entirely wrong.

But Yuria was no longer Lucy. As a lady born and raised in one of the empire’s great noble houses, she was expected to regard it as a proper disgrace when those beneath her spoke such slander. And beyond that, she absolutely had to prevent rumors like these from spreading and driving a wedge between Castoria and Bellaris.

Suddenly, Valen’s voice repeated itself in her mind.

Within this manor, I am your only true ally.

She was beginning to think that might actually be true. Was this the kind of thing he had been warning her about? In her rush to deal with the immediate crisis, she had overlooked the fact that those who hated Bellaris might genuinely mean to harm her. How foolish.

It almost felt like even the god who had given her a new life was laughing at her. Or perhaps not almost. Perhaps this second chance had been given so she could spend her life repaying the sins of her past.

Yuria held her breath and took a step toward the source of the voices, then paused and turned back. She decided this wasn’t the right moment.

Let them talk all they want. Acting rashly could only make things worse.

Rather than wasting energy on their gossip, it seemed more productive to think about her inexplicably behaving husband. Dinner wasn’t far off, and she had no idea how she was going to face him again.

Biting the tip of her tongue, Yuria began walking in the opposite direction from where the maids’ voices had come. She wanted to put as much distance between herself and the study as possible. She had listened carefully to every word of the Duchess’s tour and committed it all to memory, so she knew exactly where she was headed.

Keep going this way and she would reach the smaller of the manor’s two gardens. It was close to the bedroom she and Valen shared, and she had already marked it as a new refuge for herself, now that the sea was no longer within reach.