It was too honest to be an excuse. Too graceless to be a confession. Vivian felt the tension drain out of her all at once.

“So you’re saying you won’t protect me because you’re afraid I’ll be disappointed in you.”

“No, that’s not it. I already swore I would give my life for you. But…… keeping you happy isn’t something a vow alone can accomplish…… don’t expect too much.”

As though his entire body were rejecting Vivian’s interpretation, Renard let go of the door he still held open and moved toward her urgently. Of course, he only reacted to the part about not protecting her, so the words that followed shrank back into a helpless and almost comical plea. But rather than laugh at him, Vivian swallowed.

The truth was, this was Vivian’s first time too.

The femme fatale of the social world, the undefeated strategist. Behind the glamorous curtain of those rumors, the real Vivian never bared herself to any man. Not her inner thoughts, and not her skin either. She always reached checkmate before it ever came to that.

At first she simply had no desire for it. Later, she held back all the more out of fear that the truth behind the inflated rumors about her would be exposed.

So Renard’s words were meaningless. Whatever man might have existed in Renard’s imagination as a point of comparison, no such man existed from the start.

But of course, there was no reason to quietly confess any of that.

“Don’t worry about that.”

Vivian smiled on the surface only. Inside her head, countless secondhand accounts she heard over the years drifted past.

It was only painful, there was no pain at all, it was over in an instant, it never even got started…… She knew more than enough. But knowing and doing were entirely different matters.

“We’re husband and wife. Do I look like someone who would be disappointed in the Grand Duke over something like that?”

She would be disappointed. Vivian had her own fantasies she nurtured over the years. Not that she ever thought she’d get to fulfill them with the idiots of the social world. She felt the air quietly leaking out of the excitement that built up as things went according to her plan.

No, this is just another card. Just a useful one, even if it goes clumsily and messily and disappointingly.

Vivian bit the inside of her cheek and quietly talked herself through the letdown. She even reached out and took Renard’s large hand in hers, just in case he noticed. Large-knuckled, scarred, warm. She tightened her grip on the hand she deliberately took.

The man with no way of knowing what was going on inside her went still for a moment, then took her hand in return, very awkwardly and very carefully. His manner was that of someone handling something that might shatter at any moment.

Vivian kept her expression neutral and, still holding his hand, walked toward the bed.

Renard said nothing the entire way. There was no resistance, but he didn’t seem to be accepting it willingly either. If she had to guess, this was probably how he looked when he received an order on the battlefield that he couldn’t make sense of. He followed it for now, but was ready to overturn it on his own judgment the moment circumstances changed.

Vivian felt a petty flash of irritation. She wanted to escape this clumsy wedding night just as much as he did. But the die was already cast.

“Grand Duke?”

Renard stopped right in front of the bed. Vivian turned her head when she felt the hand she held stop being pulled along.

“I don’t have to take off the mask, do I?”

“Pardon?”

The unexpected question left Vivian momentarily speechless. But only for a moment.

A clumsy wedding night was already dreadful enough. A wedding night where that handsome face was also hidden behind a mask? How dreadful would that be? If the experience itself was going to be miserable, at least the view should offer some consolation. One look at that mask and whatever warmth she managed to feel would dry up completely.

“Of course you have to take it off. Who spends their wedding night in a mask?”

“Generally that’s true, but I……”

“If it’s because of the cursed mark, I already saw it earlier.”

Since meeting Renard, Vivian never took as firm a stance as she did now. Renard gave up trying to persuade her and let out a deep breath. The voice that came after a brief silence was a shade darker than before.

“Seeing my face will only make it a more dreadful memory.”

It was a question settled somewhere between resignation and despair, with not a trace of any intent to test her. If Vivian wasn’t being sincere, this was her last chance to retreat.

Vivian looked at Renard’s hand, gripping the pen hard enough to snap it. The fear inside that grip was unmistakable. The familiar refusal.

But Vivian was certain that even if there truly was a cursed mark on Renard’s face, seeing it bare would be less dreadful than spending the night with a man in a mask.

“It’s fine. No, please take it off.”

Vivian’s answer was firm. She had absolutely no intention of giving up the only consolation available in what was bound to be a clumsy first night between two people who were each doing this for the first time.

Renard certainly didn’t interpret that answer the way she meant it. He let out a very quiet breath, set the pen that looked slightly bent by now on the desk, and sat Vivian down on the bed.

“Keep your eyes closed.”

Vivian had no intention of obeying. Renard didn’t check whether she closed them either. Instead, he drew the curtains tight and extinguished every light in the room.

The room, already curtained and dim to begin with, was now as good as painted black. Finally Renard smothered even the embers in the fireplace. When the last glowing ember died, the room sank into complete darkness.

Vivian opened her eyes slightly and admitted, just this once, that Renard won. Opening her eyes was useless. It was a pitch-black dark where no shape could be made out at all.

The heat radiating from another person’s body, drawing near and then receding and near again, was the only proof that she was not alone in this space. His obsessive thoroughness in blocking out every last trace of light was, in a purely detached way, impressive.

“Can you tell where the bed is?”

“I’ve come back from darker battlefields.”

Meaning Renard could at least make out vague shapes in the dark. That felt unfair. She tried her best to recover her sight in the darkness the way Renard seemed to, but that was not an ability a few minutes of effort could produce. Vivian gave up and focused on her other senses instead.

From somewhere in the darkness came the low sound of hardwood settling onto a surface. He took off the mask. Then came the soft rustle of fabric. A faint sound told her he only removed his shirt.

Vivian felt the heat approaching with hesitation and lay back on the bed, bracing herself for the ordeal ahead. Soon one side of the bed sank deep under his weight.

“Just in case, keep your eyes closed.”

The low, dry voice came from right beside her now. The warmth of his body drew close enough to feel like heat, but his shape remained swallowed by the darkness.

The strange sensation of her senses conflicting with each other was unpleasant, so Vivian closed her eyes without protest. The handsome face that might have been some comfort was already long since hidden in the dark by his own considerate hand.

A brief silence passed.

Just before Vivian lost patience and said something, Renard’s fingertips touched her shoulder. But that was all. After pausing a moment, then taking hold of the fabric and letting go two or three times, Renard confessed through gritted teeth.

“……I can’t figure out how it’s put together.”

The buttons he needed to undo ran along both sides of Vivian’s bodice. Vivian squeezed her already-closed eyes tighter. Dear God, why must you send me this trial on top of everything else?

“I’m not laughing at you.”

“Go ahead and laugh. I think poorly of myself too.”

Vivian fumbled for his hand and guided it to the buttons at her bodice. It was perhaps a mercy that her expression couldn’t be seen clearly in the dark. She could hide it perfectly in her voice, but failing to manage her expression for even a split second was something that hadn’t happened since Vivian’s social debut at sixteen.

Meanwhile Renard’s hands, very carefully, began to undress her. The heat hovering just at the edge of contact burned hot, in complete opposition to what was going on inside Vivian’s head.

And then, at last, when his fingertips touched bare skin instead of fabric, she heard Renard draw a sharp breath.

Renard gritted his teeth. He never imagined the patience he trained on the battlefield would come in useful like this. Fingers that knew only how to grip a sword hilt moved awkwardly down along her collarbone.