Judith’s face flooded with color, helplessly.

Watching her lips move wordlessly, unable to refute a single thing, Rainer swallowed a satisfied smile.

“……Please call a lady’s maid next time. You ought to think of your own dignity as well, Your Highness.”

“I don’t have much dignity worth preserving, as it happens. And — next time?”

Rainer repeated it back with an amused look and smoothed a loose strand of hair away from her temple with his finger.

A faint warmth lingered on her forehead where he had touched.

“So you expect something like this to happen again? Rather bold of you, Lady Grein.”

“Do not twist my words.”

“I’m teasing. Come inside. Her Highness the Princess is waiting.”

He laughed under his breath, as though he had thoroughly enjoyed her reaction, then straightened his rumpled sleeve with a casual flick — as if none of it had happened. The ill-mannered amusement that had been playing at his lips vanished in an instant, leaving behind the same languid, indifferent expression he always wore.

It was almost hard to believe this was the same man who had been backing her against the wall only moments ago.

Judith shook her head at his brazenness, collected the duty log from the adjutant, and followed him inside.

The moment the two of them stepped back into the drawing room, the conversation cut off and every eye turned toward them.

“Oh, Judith! Your face is even redder than before. Are you sure you don’t have a fever?”

Dorothea asked worriedly. Judith fanned herself with her hand.

“I’m fine. The heating pipes in the corridor…… must have overheated. The air was stuffy — I simply flushed for a moment.”

“The heating pipes? This building’s radiators are centrally controlled — the corridor should be practically freezing.”

Theodor looked back and forth between Judith and Rainer, who had followed her in, with a suspicious eye.

Then his gaze narrowed, as though something had clicked into place. Judith pointedly ignored it and moved toward the table where Rainer had been sitting.

Princess Fiorenza raised her teacup to her lips from her place on the sofa, a knowing smile drifting across her face.

“(Is that so. The palace’s heating system seems rather…… passionate.)“

“(……I will put in a request for a facilities inspection.)“

Judith’s reply came out stiff. Fiorenza simply shrugged.

At that, Rainer, now seated, reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and slid a folded piece of paper across the table.

“The schedule going forward.”

“You mean for the journey to Rosenbaum, Your Highness?”

“That’s right. Immediately after the New Year’s ceremony on the first of January, you attend the charity event with Her Highness the Princess. Departure is the morning of the fourth, three days later. Have your things packed before then.”

His tone was businesslike.

It seemed to belong to an entirely different register than the voice that had whispered I dressed you myself in the corridor only moments ago.

Judith bit the inside of her lip and picked up the paper he had pushed toward her.

Her fingers tightened slightly at the edge.

‘This is who he actually is. What happened earlier was just a game.’

That was the reasonable way to read it.

Judith forced her eyes to fix on the words printed on the page.

[January 4th, 06:00 — Departure from Central Station, the Capital]

But the words would not enter her mind.

The faint warmth of his fingers brushing her temple kept returning like a phantom, clinging to her senses and refusing to let go.

***

The year turned.

The streets were overflowing with crowds celebrating the new year, but the place where Judith stood was far removed from all that festivity.

A worn civilian orphanage on the outskirts of the capital. Cold wind cut between the faded brick buildings.

“Line up! No cutting, or you won’t get a present!”

“Oh, you! Don’t run there — it’s slippery!”

Sabine and Sophie were raising their voices trying to manage the children, while Wilhelmina worked efficiently behind them, taking stock of the relief supplies.

Princess Dorothea was pulling woolen hats down over children’s heads herself, smiling brightly all the while.

It was a peaceful scene.

Judith leaned against a pillar in the corridor a step removed and watched.

‘……Strangely quiet.’

The quiet she meant had nothing to do with the sounds of the orphanage.

She was thinking of the political climate surrounding the empire.

The year’s end and the new year — winter in particular — was ordinarily a season rife with border skirmishes.

But the moment Lorenz disappeared, the borders fell quiet, as though the tension had never existed.

Which had produced a peculiar phenomenon.

Rainer von Rosvalt, Grand Duke — who reportedly could not be seen even once a year, drifting as he did from one battlefield to the next — had now remained in the capital for over a month.

‘……A miracle, they say.’

Judith smiled faintly and dropped her gaze.

Everyone called it a miracle — and yet the man at the center of it was harder than ever to catch a glimpse of.

Since that night, Rainer had been without a moment to spare.

The unsettled political situation following Lorenz’s downfall, the formal transfer of the Rosenbaum estate, and the reorganization of the border guard — all of it had fallen on him at once.

“I, as I am right now, want you this much.”

To shake a person so thoroughly to their core — and then vanish without a trace, buried in work.

Judith found herself fidgeting with the cuff of her uniform sleeve without quite realizing it.

Every place his hands had touched that night still burned, as though the skin had not yet forgiven the heat.

Her body was here. Her mind had been entirely swallowed by him.

This unfamiliar, viscous thirst left her with a strange, restless edge she couldn’t shake.

“(Captain Grein.)“

A voice from behind her broke through her thoughts. Princess Fiorenza.

She pulled her fur coat collar close and came to stand beside Judith.

“(What are you thinking about so intently? You look like someone pining after a lover they’ve quarreled with.)“

“(……Nothing of the sort. I was keeping watch.)“

“(Keeping watch. Hmm. To me, it looked rather more like waiting for someone in a daze.)“

Fiorenza studied her with a teasing smile.

She appeared to be on the verge of adding something further — when a commotion broke out near the orphanage entrance.

“Out of my way! How dare anyone block my path!”

A sharp, raised voice split the cold air.

Judith’s eyes went hard in an instant.

She reflexively straightened her posture and moved toward the disturbance.

A man at the entrance, locked in a dispute with the guards.

An elaborate but somehow disheveled coat. A face contorted with vicious fury, causing a scene.

She recognized him.

‘Count Conrad Falkenhain.’

Imperial Master of Ceremonies. And Isabel’s husband.

He had been one of Lorenz’s closest confidants — a man who had wielded considerable power over the hierarchy of noble society. Rumors had reached her that his standing was crumbling in the wake of Lorenz’s downfall, but she had not expected to see him making a spectacle of himself in a place like this.

“What is the matter here.”

Judith stepped forward, her voice low and level. Conrad wheeled around.

The moment he spotted her, a contemptuous sneer curled at his lips.

“Ah. So here you are. Destroying another person’s household and now playing the philanthropist.”

“Count. This is the venue for a charitable event organized by Her Highness the Princess. If you intend to cause a scene, I ask that you leave.”

“A scene? Ha! A mere captain dares to give orders to a count?”

Conrad bore down on her with long strides, the smell of alcohol rolling off him in waves.

Up close, his eyes were shot through with red.

“Do you have any idea what your actions have done to my household? You slandered my wife with that filthy tongue of yours and drove her out — are you satisfied now?”

“Slander?”

“Isabel stealing from Her Highness the Empress? Laughable! That was all your doing! Because of that business, Isabel was sent back to her family in disgrace and our name became a laughingstock! All because of someone like you!”

Conrad screamed, his voice raw.

The Isabel incident. The affair in which Isabel had bribed the lady’s maid Dora to frame Judith as a thief — only to have it turn against her.

Isabel had been expelled from the palace as a result, and the once-proud Falkenhain family name had been dragged through the mud.

Evidently the fallout had driven the household to a breaking point.

“You brought it upon yourselves. It was your wife who attempted to frame me first — the truth simply came to light.”

“Shut your mouth!”

Conrad, all reason gone, raised his hand.

The sharp crack of a slap nearly rang out —

Judith caught Conrad’s swinging wrist with a light, clean grip.

She twisted it in the opposite direction and brought him down to the ground, pinning him as she said coldly,

“Ugh, aargh! L-let go of me!”

“Attempting to raise your hand against a military officer — your judgment does seem rather impaired.”

“You insolent——! You’ve crawled into the Grand Duke’s bed and now you think you’re untouchable — how long do you imagine Rainer will keep dragging around something like you?”

It was vile.

The kind of language that made one’s ears feel contaminated simply for having heard it.

Judith tightened her grip, about to shove him away —

“That’s a good question. I intend to keep her close for the rest of my life.”

A cool, unhurried voice dropped from somewhere above her head.

Judith looked up.

Without her having noticed his arrival, Rainer stood behind Conrad in a clean dress uniform.