‘Everything?’

It was a greedy thing to say.

Brazen, even beyond being blunt.

The calm and quiet gaze was gone without a trace, replaced by the man’s dark eyes, burning with a dangerous, consuming heat, fixed on Eleanor.

The image of herself reflected in his eyes was that of prey trembling before a predator, and Eleanor found herself clenching her back teeth before she knew it.

She could not escape the fierce intensity of his gaze.

‘Was he always like this?’

He had been known as someone so reserved he seemed cut off from the world entirely.

He moved only on the orders of the Sivert Marquis, and without those orders, he paid no attention to anyone around him.

‘Sir Cayel is a little difficult to approach.’

‘So I was not the only one who felt that way.’

She remembered clearly something the knights of the marquisate had once said about him.

Like a lone wolf that did not run with the pack, Cayel had clearly belonged to the knightly order and yet not belonged to it.

So it had struck her as somewhat unexpected.

‘I will stay, Miss.’

Even after the knights who had sworn eternal loyalty one by one departed, he had been the one who had never voiced his opinion, and yet he suddenly declared his intention to protect the Sivert Marquisate.

When he tried to protect her until the very end.

At the time, Eleanor had thought that Cayel’s feelings came from nothing more than guilt over failing to protect a lord who had met a meaningless death.

That he was trying to protect the one and only daughter in place of the lord he could not save with his own hands.

That was what she had thought.

‘I want all of it.’

‘From your body to your heart…… everything that is yours.’

No matter how many times she doubted and looked at him again, the man before her had no intention of taking back what he had said.

If anything, he was watching Eleanor with steady composure, waiting only for her answer on whether she would meet his demand.

‘Everything.’

Eleanor turned his words over in her mind one more time, then let out a quiet scoff.

‘What is that supposed to be?’

At this moment, the thing Eleanor could most easily give away from the marquisate was herself.

She did not know what reason Cayel had for wanting her body and heart, but there was nothing Eleanor would not do to protect the marquisate.

Eleanor stared straight at the man, whose eyes gleamed with a dangerous energy.

‘Beautiful.’

The dark eyes, black as obsidian, came into view beside his sharply defined nose.

She had not noticed until now, but having looked at him for this long, she realized his lashes, stretching straight out before her, were remarkably long.

And the eyes beneath them were so deep.

Full of a dizzying light.

If not for that scar running long from beneath his eye to his ear, there would probably have been no shortage of noble young ladies trailing after him.

‘Yes.’

It was almost fortunate.

If Eleanor gave him her insignificant body and heart to protect the family, and managed to have with Cayel the child she had found so impossibly difficult to conceive.

And if, unlike her previous life, she could make up for the shame she had felt toward her ancestors.

Giving away her everything was not so difficult a thing.

“I will.”

There was no need to think long on it.

Eleanor answered with the air of someone who had made up her mind, and the surface of Cayel’s eyes, still as a deep black lake, shook visibly.

Eleanor smiled.

“Why are you surprised? I said I would.”

“Miss.”

“Sir Cayel. A knight worth the name does not go back on his word, does he?”

“……”

“I trust that you will keep what you have said. Our agreement has been reached at this very moment, so be sure to keep your promise.”

He did not answer.

But Eleanor knew that Cayel’s silence meant yes.

‘Have I crossed the biggest hurdle?’

The heavens she had thought had abandoned her had given her a new chance.

Eleanor had no intention of letting this chance slip away, and to that end she believed she had to put in constant effort herself.

She pulled her gaze from him as he stood without responding, and looked around the room.

“By the way. Where is the washroom?”

“Why do you need it all of a sudden?”

Eleanor smiled at him, his guard still not fully down, and said, “Why else? Because I need it.” She added, “Now that we have promised to marry, I would like us to come together tonight.”

Cayel’s eyes went round.

Was he flustered?

Eleanor smiled at his pronounced reaction, then shifted her gaze to the still-dark window outside.

“It is embarrassing to say this myself, but I am known as quite a proper young woman within Korenca. However, if word spreads that I spent the night with you, even the family elders who support my marriage to the young lord of Viscount Damel will have no choice but to accept our union.”

Eleanor smiled deeply.

“Washing before being with someone is basic courtesy. And did you not just say you would have my ‘everything’?”

“……”

“So. Where exactly is the washroom?”

* * *

‘There is no separate space for bathing as you mean, Miss…… though there is a place that serves a similar purpose.’

Just beside the kitchen where Cayel had boiled the water earlier, there was a narrow partitioned room.

Its entrance was covered by a long black cloth, and in the middle of that cramped space sat a single round wooden tub.

It was a tub that, no matter how Cayel’s large frame was folded into it, would surely leave his legs hanging out over the edge.

‘Cayel used that?’

Eleanor stood at the threshold, unable to step inside.

Cayel went in first and spent some time emptying and wiping out the tub, then poured hot water heated from the stove into it with a rushing splash.

‘It will be too hot if you get in right away, so wait a little while before entering.’

‘……Excuse me, Cayel.’

‘Yes?’

‘That tub. Have you ever actually used it?’

‘……’

Eleanor had been staring at the tub as steam rose from it in an instant, and asked with a note of suspicion. Cayel said nothing.

‘Well.’

That was what she had thought.

Eleanor caught a faint trace of discomfort crossing his blunt face, swallowed a laugh, and answered.

‘Thank you for the consideration. I will wash up well.’

She had only learned today that commoner homes did not have a dedicated washroom.

Until now, she had been a flower in a greenhouse who never left the mansion.

Eleanor told herself she must not make such a mistake again, and looked at the tub, which had in no time become a space perfectly sufficient for one person.

Swish.

Eleanor shed the layers of clothing wrapped around her one by one.

Swish. Shh.

When she finally lowered the white linen undergarment that reached her knees, her body, hidden beneath layers of cloth, was fully revealed.

Eleanor stretched out her long legs and lowered herself into the tub.

“Haah……”

The moment her pale, white skin met the water, it spilled over the rim of the tub with a rushing rush. Each time she drew in a full breath and let it out, two peaks rose and fell above the still surface of the water.

A bead of sweat that had gathered at the tip of her chin slid down Eleanor’s neck as she leaned her back against the tub, and fell into the valley between.

“I am tired……”

She had left the mansion the moment the sun set and made her way to the southern commoner residential district where Cayel’s home was.

She had asked him for hot tea partly out of worry that he might send her away immediately, but it seemed she had grown quite weary without realizing it.

Perhaps because she had waited a little before getting in, as Cayel had said, the temperature of the water felt just right. Eleanor let out a long breath and was about to lower her eyes when she stopped.

She had been about to lower her arm beneath the water without thinking, when something caught between her fingers.

Eleanor recognized at once that it was an herb leaf, and let out a small laugh.

Had he put it in on purpose?