Chapter 31

The reason Alberto went hunting was a single one.

Rabiana. The frail woman who felt the cold easily had coughed.

He had ordered his aide, Pell, to procure thick clothes, but hearing that a custom order would take more than a week, he set out to hunt himself. He could have waited, but they were needed immediately.

He had a knack for hunting. He had never skinned an animal to make fur, but Alberto was always confident in everything. It was nothing—he only had to try.

And at last, Alberto caught a wolf. After the servants put the wolf in the lodge, they left the forest.

Alberto knelt with a blade to skin the wolf’s hide.

It was then that Pell burst into the lodge in a fluster. This lodge was Alberto’s personal space, filled with tools for hunting.

Alberto’s brow furrowed at having his leisure interrupted.

“ This is no time for you to be doing this! ”

Alberto tapped the wolf’s tail that Pell had stepped on with the blade. Only then did Pell notice the wolf’s corpse and, with a scream, fell flat on his back.

Alberto clicked his tongue at the faint-hearted man startled by a carcass. A grown man, frightened by something like this.

“ So why did you come in.”

“ H-huff—Lady Bianca just threw Her Grace out! ” What? For a moment Alberto thought he had misheard.

“ Threw her out? What nonsense is that? ”

No matter how vicious Bianca was, Rabiana was unquestionably the Duchess of Roen. Besides, though the Selden family had fallen, it still carried a noble name, and even a lower title deserved courtesy.

“ It’s true. Lady Bianca drove Her Grace outside! I was on my way here after seeing her being tossed out! ”

Pell had been returning with an armful of women’s clothes on Alberto’s orders. Custom tailoring would take too long, and the clothes Alberto had seen while attending her were all thin, so he was bringing ready-made garments.

Instructed to buy modest, demure clothes, Pell had sensed the ominous atmosphere at the front entrance. It was truly menacing.

The servants looked on with pity, but not one dared to step forward. Bianca stood triumphantly, while Rabiana sat frozen, pale as snow.

The moment Pell saw the scene, he rushed straight here. His first thought was: Alberto must be told.

Alberto tilted his head back as if something pulled at his temple.

Whatever had happened, it was bound to be a headache. He had barely paid the price for the ankle injury, and Bianca was already causing trouble again.

He put down the blade and left the lodge. Snow was falling. He could already picture Rabiana thrown out into the cold. She’ll catch another cold. Just imagining it was exhausting and troublesome.

***

The scene that met him after running a short distance was a spectacle.

Pell’s words had been true.

Rabiana sat on the ground in front of the manor, snow falling onto her without shelter. Standing under the portico, Bianca was yelling something.

“She’s barren, so she needs to pack up and leave immediately.”

The words, barely audible at first, grew clear as he approached.

Alberto froze at the vicious accusation.

Unable to conceive?

Bianca wore a smug expression, as if she had seized the perfect weakness. The sight made Alberto sick.

His guts twisted. Unbelievable.

Throwing around this unheard-of claim of infertility—her motive was obvious. She wanted to use it to force an annulment.

And afterward, no doubt she planned to marry him off to some woman of her choosing.

Bianca had always been someone who wanted to pull him down. She would never sit idle while he acted of his own will.

He had expected this. And yet seeing her act exactly as predicted made Alberto scoff.

He looked to Rabiana.

Her profile, quietly enduring the abuse, was dazed. She sat there taking it all without resistance, just like when he had first gone to see her.

A lifeless face. Eyes empty of will to live.

That foolish acceptance of everything—Alberto resumed his halted steps.

The closer he drew, the colder his blood ran.

“I’ll file for annulment right away—!”

“Annul the marriage?”

The one who cut Bianca off was Alberto. As if shielding her, he stepped in front of Bianca.

Rabiana lifted her head. Snowflakes fell onto her pale face. Her blue eyes wandered through the air; even though Alberto stood right before her, she could not find him.

Without a word, he turned and looked at Rabiana. He reached out and touched her cheek. She must have been outside for some time—her skin was cold. His fingers brushed the scratch.

In that instant, the moment he saw Rabiana, Alberto understood the blood-roiling anger surging in him.

Kinship.

Bianca’s violence—she had never acknowledged him as part of this house—was now aimed at Rabiana simply because she was the woman he had brought here.

Powerless, Rabiana endured Bianca’s hatred exactly as he had done in childhood.

“Since when was I not this woman’s husband?“

Alberto wanted a child and did not love Rabiana, yet he could not abandon her.

Guilt, born of their shared pain, weighed heavily on his heart.

A red warning.

Leave her now, turn away from that pale face, send her off.

“Infertile?”

But Alberto ignored reason. Emotion won for the first time.

So he made the mistake of speaking words he did not mean.

“Even if she cannot bear a child,”—because the present Rabiana looked so pitiable—

“it does not matter.”

He merely wished that this lonely woman might find comfort, even for a moment.

It was meddling he would never repeat.

***

Alberto touched Rabiana’s trembling cheek. The way she flinched and stepped back the instant he did so felt unfamiliar.

He had always respected her fear of unannounced contact, warning her each time before he touched her, yet now and then he forgot and laid a hand on her without notice.

Still, Rabiana merely flinched—she didn’t avoid him. What on earth had Bianca done to make her shrink back this much?

“Is there something I don’t know about?”

“…”

“It’s fine—tell me. That will make resolving this easier.”

Rabiana said nothing. She had no idea where to start.

Suddenly being grabbed, her sleeve yanked up, and forced into a fertility exam was humiliating—proof she’d been treated as less than a person.

She was even startled by how she’d recoiled from Alberto’s touch; the memory of rough hands clutching her arm had flashed back.

“I’m sorry…”

“What have you done wrong to me, My Lady?”

Alberto’s voice turned cold. Rabiana, about to apologize out of habit, bit down on her lip.

He had no intention of scolding the tense Rabiana. What could he scold her for? There was nothing at all.

“The one at fault is my aunt, My Lady.”

“…Yes.”

“And if you keep standing out here like this…”

Alberto strode forward. Closing the gap, the toe of his boot nudged hers.

He’s going to ask to touch me.

When Rabiana nodded, his hand moved—not to her cheek, but to her back.

The zipper at her back slid down; Alberto’s breath brushed her ear. His low, husky voice bored into her eardrum.

“You’ll catch a cold.”

“…”

“It would be best to change clothes.”

The lowered dress exposed her rounded shoulders.

Rabiana seized Alberto’s wrist in alarm, her heart pounding as if it would burst.

The mix of iron scent and Alberto’s own smell made her dizzy; her thoughts were a tangled mess, as though her mind itself were screaming.

She sucked in a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and raised the subject she wished to avoid. Whatever his reason for shielding her as his wife, she knew it wasn’t out of genuine feeling.

“You heard it, didn’t you.”

“…”

“That I can’t bear children. You heard—so why don’t you… drive me out?”