“What?”

“Your Grace is suffering and in pain like this because you truly love the Duchess.”

He’d lost count of how many cigars he’d burned through.

A bleak night wind seeped in through the window, and white smoke rose from the man’s fingertips. In the stillness of the night, the man’s expression remained calm, but his eyes had somehow grown distantly hazy.

In the flames of the burning cigar, his loneliness and frustration showed deeply.

“Ha.”

After the head butler left, Astaire leaned back in his chair and stared blankly at the ceiling.

His vision blurred in the thick cigar smoke. But the thing truly scattering his thoughts was something else.

Daphne.

“Your Grace is in love right now.”

The butler’s voice echoed in his head.

“Insane.”

The Duke muttered in a low voice, chewing on the words. His thin lips twisted up.

He could say with certainty.

The head butler was seeing things wrong.

“Your Grace is suffering and in pain like this because you truly love the Duchess.”

“…I’m in love?”

Ridiculous.

Duke Astaire Seyfried in true love.

Even to him, it sounded laughable enough to make a passing dog laugh.

The man’s life had always needed to be upright.

He shouldn’t let uncertain, irrational emotions like love into his life.

When he saw people fall in love and lose all sense, he found them utterly pathetic.

He’d vowed he would never fall into that damned thing called love.

But to others’ eyes, did it look like he loved Daphne?

“Love, what even is that?”

D*mn it.

He added a small curse at the end.

Having never truly been loved in his life, he didn’t know how to love others either.

Not knowing love, how could one love?

Even his parents, who should have been the first to give him love after birth, had given him something else instead.

Expectations for an heir, and duties as the next Duke.

“Did you hear? Count Mihaille apparently eloped with a maid who served him, blinded by love.”

“Isn’t he insane! If he’d married that Marquis’s daughter who followed him around, his future would be secure—why throw away that opportunity and run off with a mere maid?”

Sometimes he’d overheard his father, the previous Duke, talking with visitors. Each time, his father would laugh heartily.

Growing up watching that, perhaps it was natural he’d developed such thoughts as an adult.

But he was the Duke of Seyfried.

A position that carried many duties and responsibilities.

In such a position, how could he have unstable emotions?

Even if he wanted to, it was a position where he couldn’t afford to love.

“No. There’s no way I love that woman.”

Moreover, that woman’s essence was utterly shabby.

A fallen noble’s daughter with nothing.

He’d simply picked up an ugly duckling, cleaned and dressed her, and made her pretend to be a swan.

Daphne—that woman’s essence was truly that insignificant.

There was no way he loved such a woman.

No way he loved a woman with so many deficiencies.

“This isn’t it after all.”

Muttering that, Astaire clenched his fist tight.

“If I were going to love someone, I’d love a more plausible woman.”

He muttered that.

Once again, the sound of the cigar burning down filled the room.

His gaze was unfocused, directed somewhere far away.

* * *

The next day.

After going through the most painful period of her life, Daphne fortunately regained consciousness.

“My lady, are you all right!”

As soon as she opened her eyes, the maid who’d been nursing her cried out in shock.

“How many days have I been lying down?”

Daphne muttered blankly. Her voice was still murky and submerged, like it was deep underwater.

“Four days have passed. Ah! Don’t sit up, please stay lying down.”

“I’m fine like this.”

As she tried to sit up leaning against the headboard, the maid helped her lie back down again.

Daphne ended up having to bury her head in the pillow, only able to blink.

“I’ll call the physician right away!”

Before long, the physician came to see Daphne, asked several questions, and measured her heartbeat and temperature with a stethoscope and thermometer.

“You’ve improved greatly. Still, please don’t overdo it, and I recommend gradually getting used to moving your body.”

“Thank you.”

Daphne watched the physician let out a long sigh of relief while organizing his medical bag.

She could roughly understand the situation.

The Duchess had suddenly fallen seriously ill, so naturally the estate would be turned upside down.

What had Astaire’s reaction been?

“No.”

Daphne shook her head vigorously, trying to erase the thought she’d just had.

Why was she curious about that man’s reaction?

But she still remembered.

The man who’d thrown aside his work all night to nurse her, then dozed off at her bedside.

He’d held her hand tightly then, like he wouldn’t let her go.

Warm and solid hands.

Solid enough to lean on.

“…But I mustn’t lean on him.”

Finally, when Daphne was left alone in the bedroom, she muttered quietly.

* * *

After leaving her sickbed, her boring daily life remained unchanged.

Daphne recalled the past month or so when she’d worked busily at Belinda Gallery.

She missed those times.

She missed the days when she’d labored and sweated, and directly grasped the fruits of her labor in her own hands.

She missed when people were amazed by the results she produced, praised her as amazing, and acknowledged her.

As the Duchess staying still like a birdcage, her body was comfortable, but her heart wasn’t.

“Blood really can’t be helped.”

Daphne muttered self-mockingly.

Life as a noble didn’t suit her.

Even when receiving Astaire’s sponsorship, marrying him and living as the Duchess, she’d never once thought these clothes were truly hers.

It was a thought befitting a fallen noble’s daughter.

A noble who wasn’t even noble-like. A life of being chased by money, having to enter another noble’s household as a maid and live off them.

“Nothing’s changed.”

Daphne stared blankly out the window. Outside, a swallowtail butterfly was fluttering about searching for flowers.

Then she heard footsteps behind her.

“My lady.”

At first, she thought it was Astaire.

“Head butler, what is it?”

Daphne asked, turning around slowly.

The head butler’s face was somehow slightly flushed, unlike usual.

Had something good happened?

“Aren’t you quite bored?”

The head butler stood behind Daphne and asked while looking out the window in the same direction as her.

Daphne nodded in agreement.

“I can’t say I’m not.”

“There’s one thing that requires your help, my lady. It’s for His Grace.”

“…What is it?”

Looking back again, the head butler’s face even held a trace of excitement.

Was there something to make such an expression?

Moreover, something for Astaire.

She wasn’t particularly inclined, but she owed him a debt.

The time he’d helped her, risking his life.

The time he’d bowed to strangers and taken her unconscious self to someone else’s house.

The time he’d thrown aside his work all night to nurse her.

Daphne hated how that sense of debt weighed on her like a rock. She wanted to shake it off as quickly as possible.

“What kind of thing?”

So she hoped this time it would be something she could sufficiently help him with.

“Well, you see.”

The head butler’s eyes sparkled.

Like he was extremely curious about Daphne and Astaire’s reactions after hearing this.

Daphne’s curiosity was piqued by the head butler’s reaction.

What kind of task could it be?

“It’s not difficult. You won’t need to exert any effort at all, my lady—you just need to taste a little on the side. The difficult and complicated work will all be done by our subordinates.”

Just taste it?

Daphne grew even more puzzled at those words. What on earth could it be?

“What exactly is this about?”

“We’re planning to make a birthday cake for His Grace, and it would be good if you could help, my lady.”

* * *

“My lady! You’ve poured in too much sugar!”

“Isn’t cake supposed to be better the sweeter it is?”

“Still, that’s too much!”

And so Daphne agreed to help make Astaire’s birthday cake.

She didn’t know why the head butler had brought her, the Duchess, all the way into the kitchen for this task.

When Daphne said she’d help, the head butler just clapped and rejoiced like a child.

Well, at least it’s not difficult work.

At first, the servants in the kitchen were shocked—“How can the Duchess be in the kitchen?“—but after seeing the head butler’s sharp gaze, they all quietly shut their mouths.

They were soon surprised by how quickly the Duchess adapted to kitchen work.

The Duchess didn’t shy away from menial tasks, like someone who’d done kitchen work from the start.

Though, she worked hard.

That didn’t mean she worked well.

“Oh my!”

“My lady! Be careful!”

She’d already burned three cake layers. Daphne nearly burned her hand taking the cake layer out of the oven.

“Put your hand in here!”

The head chef ran over with a bucket of ice and held it out to Daphne. Daphne plunged her burned hand into the bucket.

“Thank you.”

“Whew, you took ten years off my life.”

The head chef wiped the sweat from his temple with his forearm.

The story of the Duke nursing his sick wife all night had already spread throughout the estate long ago.

In other words, if even the tip of the Duchess’s finger got hurt, losing one’s job might be the least of the consequences—something even worse might await.

The head chef, who’d just traveled between heaven and hell, grinned when his eyes met Daphne’s.

Despite being the Duchess, Daphne treated the servants relatively well. Of course, she maintained the clear line between employer and employee. She’d never made unreasonable demands or vented her anger pointlessly like other nobles.

So though Daphne herself didn’t know it well, she already had quite a good reputation within the estate.

Rumors of the Duchess of Seyfried’s good character had spread widely among the servants, to the point where servants from other estates wanted to work at the ducal estate.

“Is this the right consistency for the whipped cream?”

“Yes, excellent.”

She dabbed some whipped cream on her fingertip to taste it and made a rather serious expression.

Fortunately, as long as she somehow avoided handling fire, Daphne was managing reasonably well.

“Then I’ll do it like this.”

“My lady, you need to decorate the cake now too.”

“…May I do it?”

“Of course you must do it, my lady!”

The head chef’s eyes now sparkled. Daphne broke into a sweat, burdened by the gazes of the servants watching her.

“Can I do it well?”

“Of course. If it’s difficult, we’ll help you!”