Though the conversation had begun by chance, Eleanor glanced over at Cayel as he sat quietly listening to her talk about the suffocating situation she had found herself in since her father’s death, and her resolve grew steadily firmer.

‘Yes.’

It might be this person.

The one ally who could pull her out of this crisis might just be……

Eleanor kept up a stream of small talk on the surface while her mind turned the thought over and over without rest. At last, she opened her mouth.

To say those words, which might have been somewhat impulsive.

‘I beg your pardon…… what did you just say?’

‘I asked you to be my husband.’

‘I will accept.’

Though Cayel had earned the title of knight in recognition of saving the Marquis’s life, he still had no family name.

But if he were to marry Eleanor, he would inherit nothing less than a marquisate.

And what manner of position was a marquisate?

Setting aside the imperial family, the high nobility of Hyder consisted of three dukes, seven marquises, and ten counts.

Through a single marriage, he could become one of the highest-ranking nobles in the empire, counted on one hand.

Surely even the most indifferent of knights would have no choice but to accept such an offer.

Eleanor felt certain of it as she watched Cayel fall silent at the unexpected proposal.

And yet.

‘No.’

Cayel’s hesitation had not lasted long.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I apologize, Miss. I will pretend I did not hear it. Well then.’

It was not the reaction she had expected.

Cayel bowed politely to the dumbfounded Eleanor, rose from his seat, and turned to leave.

That night, Eleanor had no choice but to watch Cayel’s back grow smaller and smaller as he walked away from her.

“Please wait here for a moment. I will fetch my things and……. Miss!”

But tonight, she would not back down so easily.

He must have assumed Eleanor would simply wait where she stood.

Cayel had finished speaking and was about to move when he stopped short.

In the brief moment his guard was down, Eleanor had pushed the slightly open door all the way and stepped inside the house.

Cayel clearly had not expected Eleanor to do something so bold. There was no other explanation for how a capable knight like him had let Eleanor into his home without putting up any resistance.

Eleanor smiled at Cayel as he reached out to stop her and then hesitated. She decided to press on shamelessly.

She kept walking even as his large hand swiped at the air just short of reaching her, and in an instant she had passed through the entryway and come to a stop in the middle of his small living room.

Her gaze moved from the cold, unlit fireplace to the worn wooden table, then to the sofa with torn leather patched over with cloth, and finally to the sword scabbard resting on top of the wooden table. Eleanor parted her lips.

“Cayel. Is your home not a little too bare?”

There were so many things a person needed to live.

Cayel avoided Eleanor’s genuinely sympathetic gaze and said nothing. Eleanor let out a small laugh, then pulled out the chair in front of the wooden table.

“Please make me some tea.”

Cayel’s eyebrow twitched.

Eleanor had already taken her seat and looked up at him with a faint smile.

“It is late at night. I walked quite a long way to find your home. I am a little cold because of it.”

Even at Eleanor’s perfectly composed request, Cayel only looked at her.

‘Should I shiver a little?’

Eleanor was waiting for the unmoving knight’s response when she gave a small, deliberate shudder, putting on the appearance of feeling the cold.

At that, he finally let out a sigh, gave a nod, and moved toward the kitchen adjoining the living room.

A little while later.

Hisss. Hisss―

The sound of a kettle coming to a boil filled the small house, which had been full of nothing but the quiet breathing of the two of them.

Eleanor settled in front of the wooden table and watched the knight’s broad back as he focused on boiling the water.

Thump thump. Thump thump!

She sat with her chin resting on her hand, looking perfectly at ease, but in truth Eleanor’s heart was pounding so hard it felt ready to leap out of her chest.

‘I did not know I could be this brave.’

It was something her former self would never have done.

Into the home of an unfamiliar man.

And at this late hour after dark, no less, barging in without the owner’s permission!

If the well-bred young ladies of Korenca were to hear of what Eleanor was doing right now, they would call it shameless and condemn her without end.

‘What sweetheart could someone like you possibly have!’

When she heard those words from Baroness Gotren, Eleanor had made up her mind.

‘That kind of reputation is no help to me at all.’

The noble reputation that had turned her into a saint she never wanted to be was, for the Eleanor of now, nothing but poison.

And as long as that reputation remained intact, no one would ever believe her claim that she had someone who held her heart.

Which meant, in the end―

‘That terrible thing will repeat itself.’

The image of the white cloth covering her eyes and smothering her mouth and nose rose before her again, and her breath caught. She was pressing her lips together slightly when.

Hisss. Hiss!

The loudly boiling kettle fell silent.

Eleanor’s blue eyes turned toward the knight, who was now lifting the kettle and pouring hot water into a teacup.

‘Cayel.’

A knight of commoner birth.

This choice was no different from a gamble, but there was no other way.

‘If this choice can protect the family.’

If it could prevent everything that might otherwise come to pass.

“Miss.”

Eleanor had been about to sink into deep thought when the voice calling her name made her look up.

A large cup, steam rising from it in soft curls, was slowly being set down in front of her.

It was not pretty or dainty like the teacups in the mansion, but it carried a deep, rich fragrance of tea.

“Thank you, Ca……!”

Eleanor had been smiling and reaching for the cup he had set down when she stopped short at the sensation against her fingertips. The heat was too much to hold the cup by its handle.

‘There is nothing to be done.’

She was thinking she would have to wait for it to cool a little, gazing at the steaming cup with mild disappointment, when.

Swish.

Cayel folded a handkerchief from somewhere and wrapped it around the teacup, then spoke.

“This should make it a little easier.”

“Oh.”

“I will prepare to escort you home while you drink your tea, so please leave once you have finished.”

Cayel turned away without the slightest hesitation after he finished speaking.

“Sir Cayel!”

Instead of picking up the now much easier to hold teacup, Eleanor called his name urgently. Cayel stopped at her call, and she moved her lips.

“The proposal I made to you a few days ago. Have you given it any thought?”

Cayel’s eyebrow twitched.

“……Did I not already refuse?”

“Please think it over again.”

“Miss.”

“I need you.”

The words had come from her own mouth, but they were remarkably bold.

Ten years of suffering at Marcus Damel’s hands had changed the woman who had once been naive to the point of foolishness.

Eleanor began to lay out honestly the purpose that had brought her to find him in the southern district at this late hour.

“I want you to be my husband.”

Eleanor rose from her seat and took one step, then two, then a few more, closing the distance between them.

Swish.

A distance close enough that stretching her arms forward would bring her straight into his embrace.

Eleanor stopped at a distance where she could feel Cayel’s breath at the tip of her nose and his gaze wrapped around her, and she lifted her head.

Thump thump. Thump thump.

Looking into Cayel’s calm, still eyes, her heart raced wildly.

But she had to say everything she needed to say. She spoke to bring out the next part.

“You must have heard. That Baroness Gotren traveled all the way from Bioram to Korenca without stopping, just to meet me.”

Cayel gave a nod, and Eleanor continued.

“The reason the Baroness made that long journey was entirely to arrange my marriage.”

“I am aware.”

“She is recommending a distant relative of hers as my husband.”

“……The young lord of Viscount Damel.”

“Sir Cayel. I do not want to marry the young lord of Viscount Damel.”

Cayel, who had been adding quiet remarks to Eleanor’s words, gave a small flinch.

It was only a moment, but he had reacted.

“Do you not love him?”

Cayel asked after a brief pause, and Eleanor let out a laugh of disbelief.

“Love? Sir Cayel, how could you think……”

She had been about to wave her hand and say it was out of the question. Eleanor stopped herself.

‘Well.’

It made sense that he would think so.

Until just one week ago, right before Eleanor had crossed the threshold of death and woken up here again.

There was not a single person employed at the Sivert Marquis Mansion who did not know that the sole young lady of the Sivert family had been eager to meet Marcus Damel, the distant relative of Baroness Gotren.

Watching her treat the letters Marcus sent as more precious than an imperial decree, the knights had no doubt exchanged more than a few words among themselves about it.

And so the news had perhaps reached even Cayel, who tended to be indifferent to the rumors of the world.

But― the past was the past.

“I do not love him.”

Eleanor said. A little louder this time.

“I do not love him!”