“Your Grace……”

“Rian. I’m not ‘Your Grace’ to my wife. I don’t want even my wife calling me that.”

“Ah, yes. Rian.”

As if enchanted, she watched him suddenly turn to look back, and she followed his gaze out the window. Come to think of it, the thunder had stopped at some point. Seeing the rain had also thinned, it seemed it would be fine now. Above all, her instincts were screaming at her to quickly return to her room.

“I’m sorry for coming suddenly. Please rest. I’ll go rest too.”

“You’re leaving?”

“Yes. Good night.”

As she naturally put down the blanket she had been holding and tried to get off the bed, the man suddenly grabbed her wrist and smirked. Her hair stood on end at his strange smile, different from before.

“I should help you sleep well.”

“……What?”

“If you seduced me, you should take responsibility.”

“……R-Rian?”

He was a completely different person. His tone, expression, actions — he was not her husband. Because His Grace was someone who disliked even the slightest touch.

Startled, Belita quickly pulled her hand away and shouted.

“W-Who are you!?”

Rian tilted his head at her question, her face went pale. However, the man’s next action was faster than lightning as he calmly asked back.

“Who? Can you not recognize your husband’s face now?”

“Ah! What are you doing!”

The sudden, rude action of the man pushing her down and climbing on top of her belly left her momentarily stunned. Belita belatedly struggled with all her might to push the man off, but she couldn’t overcome his strength as he restrained both her hands and looked down at her.

“R-Rian!”

“How long do you plan to keep acting like an elegant Grand Duchess?”

“……?”

“Were you not planning to perform your duties as my wife?”

“Th-that……”

Her struggling body suddenly froze at the man’s sudden accusations.

Ah, had he harbored such complaints? Is that why he’s acting so rudely? Then he should have said so earlier. Why is he humiliating me like this?

Though upset at her husband scolding her through such rude actions, she had no particular rebuttal. But she felt wronged. Who had drawn the line first?

But she couldn’t argue back. She couldn’t say ‘why are you acting like this when you’re the one who wanted separate rooms first?’ She didn’t want to receive strange misunderstandings from unnecessary words.

But Belita’s eyes filled with shock at the man’s next words. He had an even more terrible misunderstanding.

“Ah, perhaps you finally came to give it up today…? Did you use thunder as an excuse to perform your wifely duties?”

What…? What’s with this man? Is he really His Grace…? Is he really my husband!?

Before she could calm her startled mind, Rian’s gutter mouth showed no signs of stopping.

“If so, you should have stripped and laid down right away, why were you trying to leave? Ah, is this your preference? Did you want me to pounce on you? Well then, gladly.”

Rip–!

“Ah! Rian!”

The man who suddenly tore open her closed robe flicked his tongue and grinned while looking at her exposed br*asts.

“I didn’t know. That your br*asts would be this big. They must be delicious to suck.”

“A-are you crazy?”

“Ah, first time seeing the crazy one? You’ll see him often from now on.”

“!”

“So just spread your legs obediently.”

With those final words, Belita experienced hell. Rian penetrated her body, receiving a man for the first time, without any consideration, and smirked while watching her wail. He sucked and devoured her entire body leaving marks, and his ferocious c*ck entered her body relentlessly.

On that thunderous night, Belita had to feel the terror of death again in another sense. Her first night, which was more frightening than the carriage accident, was truly excruciating pain and seemed like an endless hell.

* * *

Belita, who had been blankly staring at the now cold tea, stood up leaving it untouched behind her. Remembering that day made her feel terribly unpleasant as it simultaneously reminded her of last night.

Just then, something dropped on the back of her hand.

“!”

Looking at the sky, the clear blue sky that had been so bright had completely disappeared, and black clouds had gathered as if to watch her future unfold. A curse naturally escaped at the weather that was as mercurial as that man.

“Damn it!”

Where should she hide today? Though getting caught by that man was inevitable no matter how many times she ran and hid, she was too scared of the man who transformed into a beast to wait obediently. Running away was just instinct. The instinct to survive.

Haah…… Belita, who was trudging toward the main building while heaving a deep sigh, stopped abruptly when she saw a carriage entering the mansion. Seeing the man return earlier than expected naturally made her frown.

But as the Grand Duchess, she couldn’t just ignore him and go inside. Inevitably, Belita stood demurely waiting for her husband.

“Wife.”

“Welcome back.”

“Why are you out here?”

At a glance, they looked no different from any ordinary couple. A wife greeting her husband returning from an outing. A husband asking his wife about her day. Though on the surface it seemed like an affectionate couple’s greetings, Belita couldn’t be as composed as the man before her because she knew his duality better than anyone.

As always, his expression was very calm, as if he had no memory. Unlike yesterday when he acted like a beast, his proper appearance now made her keep furrowing her brows.

“I was just taking a short walk.”

“It looks like it’s going to rain. Let’s go inside.”

“Yes.”

Belita bit her lip hard while watching the back of the man walking ahead. The urge to slap the back of the head of the man who remembered nothing boiled up. Would that bring his memories back?

Entering Rian’s room, Belita blankly watched the man placing his outer clothes on the sofa as usual. Perhaps because he doesn’t like their hands touching when handing over clothes, he always placed his outer garments on the sofa.

Yet yesterday that man…… Sigh……

Though they weren’t particularly talkative to begin with, today this silence felt especially uncomfortable. Her face burned remembering how she had mixed bodies with this man all night yesterday. It left a bitter taste in her mouth, as if she alone had done something improper with memories only she possessed.

As she hurriedly hung up his clothes and tried to quickly leave the room, Rian’s voice stopped her feet.

“Wife.”

“Yes?”

“I’d like to have dinner a bit later, are you hungry perhaps?”

“Ah, no. I’m fine.”

“Then I’ll come down after resting a bit.”

“Yes. Please rest.”

Whatever had happened, his expression wasn’t very good. She quickly left the room after glancing at the man who had sunk into the sofa and closed his eyes. Returning to her room, Belita fell deep in thought at her husband who had once again returned like a stranger.

She couldn’t tell if he really couldn’t remember or was pretending not to remember. If he was doing this on purpose, then this man should be an opera actor rather than a Grand Duke for how well he acted.

But no matter how she looked at it, it didn’t seem intentional. The day after first sleeping with the man who had transformed into a beast, when he returned to normal, he made a horrified expression as if he had touched vermin.

Even now, just thinking about that day made her blood boil in reverse. The man who had bitten and sucked her entire body all night without leaving her for a moment looked at her with eyes full of contempt in the morning, as if he had touched something horrible. It was fortunate she had been wearing clothes, otherwise she might have been misunderstood as having pounced on him while he slept.

After experiencing this several times, Belita formed a few hypotheses:

First, if he wasn’t doing it on purpose, then her husband’s personality was split in two. Into the beast-like ‘Crazy Rian’ and the proper ‘Grand Duke Rian.’

She had briefly thought: perhaps while pretending to be proper and polite, he was actually filthily lecherous? That maybe he transformed when night fell to torment her without anyone knowing.

But if that were the case, his behavior when he returned to Grand Duke Rian was 180 degrees different from Crazy Rian. From his polite speech and proper behavior, to his emotionless expression.