It was too late to be awake, yet Astaire couldn’t sleep a wink.

It seemed he wouldn’t be able to sleep at all tonight.

Befitting the early dawn when even the insects outside had fallen into deep slumber, silence flowed through the corridor. No one would disturb this time that belonged entirely to him.

Right now, only one person occupied his mind.

His wife, who had just received him with her delicate body.

The bold girl who had insisted on her usefulness at their first meeting had become a woman in the blink of an eye and now lay sleeping in his arms.

Watching the woman who had fallen into deep sleep without even tidying her flushed skin and sweat-dampened hair, an indescribable emotion welled up inside him.

Somehow, he couldn’t take his eyes off this woman.

If Daphne opened her eyes like this, her clear sky-blue eyes would meet his.

The fact that he would be the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes secretly pleased him.

That pleasure didn’t stem from love for his wife or attraction to a charming woman. Definitely not from such sweet emotions.

It was closer to possessiveness.

The desire to keep a very beautiful and useful object in his hands alone. The wish that what he’d obtained wouldn’t be tainted by others.

A man always needed useful tools. Just like he’d said long ago, Daphne was useful in many ways. When he taught her and gave orders, results came immediately.

He couldn’t say his married life with Daphne was happy. In fact, he’d barely experienced true happiness in his life.

Still, this current life wasn’t bad.

A life like a calm lake.

He thought it was enough to pursue a stable life instead of a happy one.

One day, ripples disturbed the calm lake.

Daphne had thrown a stone.

‘Let’s divorce.’

At first, it was merely laughable.

Anger was an emotion you only felt when there was some possibility of realization. She would never leave him.

So at first, he wasn’t even angry.

Still, he sat quietly and listened to everything she said. He thought she was using divorce as a weapon to demand something else. Though Daphne usually wasn’t the type to use something as leverage to demand what she wanted, you could never fully know a person’s heart.

‘From now on, I want to live a life that’s entirely my own.’

But what she wanted was a life for herself.

She said with her own mouth that she wished for a trivial, insignificant life. When he heard that humble wish, paradoxically, Astaire read her sincerity.

That made him even more furious. He couldn’t stand it.

To a successful man, a wife wasn’t much different from a landscape painting displayed on the household wall. A painting that looked presentable to others while adequately freeing him from annoying matters like marriage proposals.

He’d never looked closely at the decorative painting placed in his home.

He’d believed that would be fine.

He never imagined the hung painting would leap out of the frame he’d placed it in.

“What a strange feeling.”

The sensation of tearing the canvas with a knife still lingered vividly.

To erase that peculiar feeling, the man clenched and unclenched his right hand. He repeated it countless times until his palm lines and fingerprints might wear away.

Even so, the woman’s presence only occupied more and more space in his mind.

He admitted it. There was no need to tear that painting.

It was purely because of a petty impulse.

Astaire quietly looked down at the woman who was now shaking him. Light wheezing breaths flowed from lips that still hadn’t lost their redness.

Ironically, this woman seemed most beautiful at times like this.

Right now, this moment, when she slept wrapped in his scent.

To be clear, this definitely wasn’t love.

Just like there was no need to tear the painting, embracing her in this old warehouse was also entirely unnecessary. It wasn’t even a contractual obligation.

He quietly furrowed his brow in the darkness.

Right now, this woman kept pushing him toward the cliff of impulsiveness. This was the first time he’d felt something like this.

None of it felt good.

The man clenched and unclenched his hand again. Somehow he wanted to eliminate this soft, warm sensation lingering at his fingertips.

This woman was warm and soft.

Endlessly different from his hard, cold self.

Every time he touched her, every time he penetrated her, he thought this. Though this innocent wife probably didn’t know it herself.

He wanted to drive Daphne’s presence from his mind. But the more he tried not to think about it, the more she surfaced.

At this rate, he’d repeat his previous mistake.

Hadn’t he made a mistake recently?

After finishing the act, he’d stared down at her and unconsciously reached out to touch her.

…Should he just remove her from his sight entirely?

Would that make things better?

Having thought that far, the man slowly lifted his eyelids. His eyes, which had transplanted the dawn forest itself, filled again with his characteristic coolness.

If she slept n*ked like this, she’d definitely catch a cold.

If that happened, she wouldn’t be able to attend social events and ladies’ gatherings for a while. 

She wouldn’t be able to obtain the information he wanted to know. Since she’d be sick, naturally she wouldn’t be able to fulfill her duty to bear a child for the time being either.

If Daphne’s body fell ill, the losses would be considerable in many ways.

Having quickly finished his calculations, Astaire rose from his seat, thinking he should call a maid to at least bring a blanket.

‘I’m concerned about the maids seeing us.’

But he didn’t know why those words grabbed his ankle now. The moment he stepped out of the warehouse, Astaire stopped again.

They were a married couple anyway. Naturally, Astaire hadn’t cared at all whether maids saw traces of the couple’s intimacy. So what? It was natural anyway.

But his feet wouldn’t move easily.

Astaire had no choice but to turn back and return to the warehouse.

He roughly removed his outer garment and wrapped it around Daphne. He planned to carry her directly to the bedroom himself.

He was passing through the long corridor and descending the stairs. At some point, someone else’s footsteps overlapped with his.

“…Your Grace?”

Then the footsteps stopped abruptly.

The voice belonged to Duke Seyfried’s aide, Germo.

Come to think of it, a shadow about the size of a person’s head was faintly visible on the pure white wall.

If he descended just a few more stairs from here, he’d meet Germo.

The aide would also see the Duchess held n*ked in Astaire’s arms.

“Stay on the first floor.”

“Pardon?”

Naturally, his arms holding Daphne tightened.

“Don’t come here.”

He didn’t particularly want to show Daphne’s current state to his ‘male’ aide. Even though he knew his capable aide would react silently, pretending not to see anyway.

“Yes. I’ll wait downstairs.”

At the brief but firm command, Germo seemed flustered. He seemed to wonder if this warranted such a sharp reaction.

But faithful Germo, who had stood by the Duke’s side since his childhood, didn’t voice his doubts. The aide was moving away, descending the stairs.

“No. Just go outside.”

“Pardon?”

“Go outside the annex and wait there.”

The moving shadow hesitated once more.

“…Yes.”

Then, worried the Duke’s irritated words might fall again, the aide quickly disappeared completely from Astaire’s path.

Despite the small commotion in between, Daphne still slept comfortably in his arms.

Was it necessary to go this far? It was pointless.

But better to be thorough. Having completely blocked the possibility of an encounter, his mind felt at ease.

Astaire could now understand Daphne’s feelings.

* * *

After taking Daphne to the bedroom, Astaire opened the door outside the annex. The aide who had been standing outside with his hands in his pockets, shivering in the cold, rushed inside.

“Did you resolve it well?”

“Resolve what?”

At Germo’s casual question, Astaire answered sharply for no reason. The aide realized his mistake and flinched.

“My apologies. It must be one of those things I shouldn’t know about anyway.”

“Good that you know.”

Though he was the closest aide who spent the most time with him during the day, the Duke didn’t share everything with his closest aide. Always surrounded by people, Astaire didn’t easily trust others. It would be more accurate to say he trusted no one.

The aide’s nose and ears had turned red from standing outside the whole time. It was understandable, having stood outside in thin uniform attire in the early dawn.

Astaire looked at Germo intently and asked.

“Were you very cold?”

“…To be honest, yes, I was extremely cold.”

Looking again, Germo held a stack of documents bound together with twine in his hands. The contents all seemed too sensitive to exchange by telegram.

Astaire silently took the stack of documents from his hands. He turned and strode toward his office without looking back even once until he arrived. The aide would follow along well on his own anyway.

“Read it.”

Astaire set down the stack of documents on the office floor and leaned back in his chair. He quietly closed his eyes.

Fatigue rushed in belatedly. But there was a mountain of work to handle.

Following the rustling sound of turning pages, the aide began his report.

“We’ve identified the flow of funds for the ghost company owned by the Marquis family.”

There was no need to specify which Marquis family. Tension showed on Germo’s face.

They checked daily for traces of intrusion or eavesdropping in the Duke’s office without fail. So there was no way the conversations in the Duke’s space here would leak outside.

Which also meant it would be serious if they did leak.

“Explain.”

Marquis family, ghost company, flow of funds.

Three important expressions had appeared. Astaire’s hand, which had been loosening his cravat, hesitated.

His languid eyes sharpened.

“We suspect the source of all the suspicious money flowing into that company is Count Lucipela.”

Count Lucipela was the representative of the now few remaining Second Prince faction forces in noble society, and also the Second Prince’s maternal uncle.

“This confirms that Marquis Melanian has one foot in with the Second Prince as well.”

The Melanian Marquis family.