“This way I can rest my sore legs, and we can talk on the way. Isn’t that good?”

Kais flashed a grin at the astounded Lariella and tapped the back of the driver’s seat to start the carriage.

As soon as the carriage started moving, Lariella regretted having spoken to him in the square. If she had just ignored him and walked past, she wouldn’t be sitting in this cramped carriage in such an awkward position.

This carriage wasn’t large and splendid like those of the Elmano family, but very small and modest. It was so cramped that even sitting opposite Murina, their knees would touch, but sitting opposite the large Duke of Elmano, her two legs ended up wedged between his widely spread thighs.

His spread crotch was right before her eyes, and his firm thighs kept pressing against both sides of her legs covered in thin muslin dress. Lariella was seriously considering whether she should stop the carriage and leave this man on the roadside, when the Duke of Elmano, who had been sitting comfortably, spoke first.

“Before I tell my story, there’s something I’d like to ask.”

Lariella pretended she hadn’t been paying any attention to him and replied.

“What is it?”

“When we met in front of your door the morning after I arrived, why did you suddenly mention Sir Worklan?”

Lariella’s face crumpled at his seemingly casual question. No matter how shameless he was, she hadn’t expected him to bring up Sir Worklan’s name first. She let out a scoffing laugh.

“Are you really asking because you don’t know, or are you asking thinking I don’t know anything?”

She looked as angry as when she had kicked his shin that day at the mere mention of Worklan’s name. But Kais truly couldn’t understand. He could list more than ten reasons why she might be angry and disappointed with him, but no matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t recall anything related to Worklan.

“What do you mean?”

Seeing the Duke of Elmano asking with such an innocent face as if he really didn’t know, Lariella felt a surge of anger. With tears welling up in her eyes, she burst out.

“How long are you going to pretend not to know? I already saw everything! The day Sir Worklan returned from his territorial inspection, I saw with my own two eyes what you two were doing in the office!”

Kais furrowed his brow and traced his memory of the day Worklan returned from his territorial inspection. Then, remembering how he had fought with Worklan, grabbing him by the collar in the office, he made an embarrassed expression.

“Oh, that.”

He hadn’t thought at all that Lariella might have seen that. Thinking he had shown such an undignified side of himself, unbecoming of a nobleman, Kais scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

“I didn’t mean to go that far, but I was too excited at the time……”

“Ex…… excited……you say?”

Lariella covered her mouth with her right hand in shock.

She had held onto a tiny bit of hope despite everything, but seeing him admit it so readily, even that small remaining faith completely crumbled.

Yet he continued speaking quite calmly.

“We’ve been like that occasionally since we were young. Still, it’s not proper for nobles to behave that way, but I was too blind with anger then. Anyway, I showed you an embarrassing side of myself.”

“Since you were young…… occasionally…… ah.”

Lariella let out a despairing moan and buried her face in her palms.

She had thought that when she brought it up, he would at least deny it. But he not only admitted it readily but even proudly revealed that they had been doing it occasionally since they were young.

Why had she fallen for such a selfish and cruel man? Why did she still harbor hope when she already knew what he was like? The sorrow she had been suppressing welled up to her throat, and Lariella burst into tears.

“La…… Lariella!”

When Lariella suddenly started crying sorrowfully, Kais was startled and flustered.

He wasn’t sure if his scuffling with his cousin was something that would make Lariella this sad, but regardless, Lariella was crying, so he had to comfort her.

“I’ll make this promise, so please don’t cry, Lariella. No matter how much Sir Worklan angers me in the future, I will never again fight with him by grabbing his collar.”

The great Duke of Elmano promised in a solemn voice, as if swearing before God. That he would never again grab his cousin by the collar and fight.

Hearing this, Lariella lifted her tear-streaked face and stared blankly at the man before her.

“Co…… grabbing his collar?”

Lariella blinked her wet eyelashes incessantly.

“Not…… kissing?”

Now it was Kais who was dumbfounded. He clearly heard it with his ears, but he couldn’t quite understand what she meant. Then, understanding her words a beat late, he stared at Lariella with a face drained of color.

“What did you just say…… Ki, kissing…… who? Surely not me…… and W, Worklan?”

The moment he uttered it, his stomach turned.

“That’s the most nauseating thing I’ve ever heard.”

Kais muttered with a pale face. Just imagining it made him feel like he would throw up everything in his stomach.

“What on earth did you imagine with this small, pretty head of yours.”

He chuckled in disbelief and stroked Lariella’s hair.

“Really…… it’s not true?”

“Rather than ki—, ugh, ……doing such a thing with Sir Worklan, I would rather live as a eunuch for the rest of my life.”

Kais’s face, contorted as if the mere thought made him sick, seemed completely sincere.

While Lariella’s welling sorrow had somewhat subsided, her heart remained confused. She still couldn’t understand his behavior, having never laid a finger on her until now.

“Then why on earth……”

Kais pulled the small hands before him and clasped them firmly in his own. Then he gazed steadily into her powder-blue eyes, still streaked with tears.

“That’s what I wanted to tell you, what I wanted to share with you. That’s why I came all this way, Lariella. Can you listen to my story now?”

After a long game of hide-and-seek, Lariella nodded quietly to the seeker who had finally caught her.

Kais kissed the forehead of his whimsical and lovable bride and began to tell her his long and cowardly story.

“If I could, I would want to turn back time to the beginning, Lariella.”

His foolishness began with the wrong choices he made from the moment he first met her.

When their eyes first met at the ball, he should have approached her first instead of waiting for her to come and greet him.

When he saw her reading a book in the garden, he should have politely spoken to her first instead of stomping his feet like a mischievous child.

Instead of secretly hiding on the second floor of the inn to steal glances at her, he should have invited her for a cup of tea at the café by the fountain.

To establish her position in Elmano Castle, rather than forcing her to use the Duchess’s room, he should have shown people how much he cherished and loved her.

To prove to Lariella that his feelings were genuine, instead of filling her drawers with jewels and delivering new dresses every day, he should have had more conversations with her.

People are not trees or flowers; rather than keeping Lariella at a distance and secretly admiring her from inside the window, he should have walked with her in the garden.

By hiding a lustful beast under his jacket and only maintaining a noble appearance, he had foolishly inflicted an unreasonable deep wound on her.

“From the moment I first saw you, I wanted only you, Lariella.”

Kais confessed sincerely with his gaze fixed on Lariella’s clear eyes, hoping his belated feelings would fully reach her.

“Yet I hid those feelings and tried to act aloof alone, ending up hurting you terribly. I’m truly sorry, Lariella. I…… was such an idiot who had never known what it meant to fall for someone, so I didn’t realize how precious that feeling was. You can call me foolish if you want, but please, can you give me one more chance?”

The man who had always looked down at her arrogantly, who had always coldly turned his back on her, was now pleading with the most desperate face.

The most noble aristocrat in Bayaroman was cursing himself as a foolish idiot and begging for one more chance.

If this wasn’t sincere, what in the world could be?

Clear tears welled up again in Lariella’s eyes. If earlier tears were shed from sorrow, these were tears shed because his sincerity had reached her heart.

“……Alright. I will. I’ll give one more chance to the arrogant and foolish Duke Elmano.”

Kais’s lips, bearing a smile, descended hotly onto Lariella’s lips as she answered distinctly despite sniffling. The taste of lips mixed with tears was salty yet sweet.

It was their first kiss, as belated as his feelings.