“With the news of the pregnancy, I was so flustered, but earlier you said you were in pain….”

It was only natural that his gaze drifted to the bandages wrapped all over my body.

“Oh… these. I actually took a fall yesterday. I got quite a few cuts and bruises, so while I was at the doctor’s I asked them to wrap it up with bandages.”

“A fall, you said.”

His eyes sharpened. He even moved to unwrap the bandages, as though he could not bring himself to believe me.

“Is it strange that I fell?”

“No. But if Evie had fallen, someone would have seen it, and I never heard anything about that….”

His voice trailed off, and then, as though something had just come to him, he turned a suspicious eye toward Mary, who had been following quietly behind us, so unobtrusive one could almost forget she was there.

“Come to think of it, that handmaid has been with you since yesterday.”

“Yes, so?”

“…Rather than a fall… something else seems more fitting.”

I looked at him and gave an awkward smile, the way someone would when caught at something they should not have been.

“What do you mean by that?”

“It seems more believable that the handmaid Rechel brought used etiquette training as a pretext to use a whip on you.”

Dertosse’s gaze was on Mary, and his finger moved toward her waist. I followed the direction of his finger and looked behind me, and there it was: a leather whip hanging at Mary’s hip.

“Mother had been seething with resentment as well. And come to think of it… while Rechel was causing a scene in the dining room, Mother took that woman out with her.”

“……Is that so?”

“Yes. That is how it was. Something about this does not sit right with me. Did you really just fall?”

I gave another awkward smile, and only then did Dertosse’s face harden, the look of someone who had just reached a clear realization.

“I had hoped not, but it seems the etiquette training went too far.”

“Dertosse.”

I shook my head slowly, the way someone would when caught in something serious.

“…What are you trying to hide?”

“…I am not hiding anything. It is just that if I were honest….”

“If you were honest?”

“I was afraid no one would be left by my side. That is why I could not say anything. Not because I was hiding it.”

“…What do you mean, no one left by your side. Evie. By your side there is….”

I took both his hands firmly in mine as he spoke with conviction.

“Who is there by my side?”

“I am here…!”

“I know that, of course. But… you know, Dertosse. I could not even get a single handmaid of my own choosing assigned to me.”

“That was something I….”

I had clearly spoken to Dertosse before about letting Karla stay by my side, but it had come to nothing. He was not the kind of person who would push back against his mother. The only thing I ever heard from him was to try to understand her.

“I am sorry, Evie. I feel truly sorry about that.”

“Dertosse.”

“Yes….”

“It is all right. I am not saying this to reproach you for that. It is just that this time she is someone Mother gave me herself, someone I cannot have taken away, and I want to keep her close.”

I looked at him with a voice that trembled just slightly. Dertosse, who had been showing undisguised hostility toward Mary until just a moment ago, let out a long, belated sigh.

“Evie….”

“This time she is someone I cannot lose. Mother gave her to me herself. That is why I want to keep her even more. All right? Is that not possible?”

“…But.”

“Is it really not possible? Am I not allowed to keep… the people I want close to me?”

I looked at him with as much longing as I could put into my expression.

“Evie….”

“I understood even when you went back on your word about letting Karla stay by my side. But just this once….”

“She beat you under the guise of etiquette training.”

I looked at Mary in silence, the way someone full of grace would.

“Even so, she was the one who took me to the doctor. If she had truly been a bad person, if she had truly been Mother’s person, reporting to Mother would have come first. She only did her job.”

Dertosse was silent for a long while. He simply looked at me with an expression that seemed faintly surprised.

“Evie. I did not know you were such a kind and wise woman.”

“So Dertosse… I am asking you.”

“All right. Mary, was it. You need not worry about etiquette anymore, but never do anything untoward to Evie again. This is my order as the Marquis.”

But even at his firm words, Mary did not yield.

“I am someone who came here under the young lady’s orders from the duchy. I came to teach the Marchioness etiquette.”

“I will speak to Rechel myself. This is the marquisate, and I am the Marquis who governs this household. My word is law here.”

There was no real chance that Dertosse would actually say anything to Princess Rechel. It was plain that if she found out he was using the person she had sent in this way, for my sake, she would erupt in fury. He would never even bring it up. But Dertosse pressed on, offering his own justification to persuade Mary.

“Will you not answer?”

“It is all right, Mary. You may continue the etiquette training.”

“But Evie.”

“This is the right thing to do if we are to get along better going forward. You do not need to worry about me. She is the first person Mother has ever allowed to stay by my side. If she does not even carry out the etiquette training, Mother will take her away. So just this once….”

“Evie. If you put it that way, I suppose I have nothing more to say. All right.”

Only then did he let it go.

“Mary. Just stay by my side. You understand, don’t you?”

Something seemed to dawn on Mary, and after a long moment of thought, she pressed her lips tightly together. Only then did she bow her head.

“I will follow the order.”

At those words, Dertosse seemed visibly relieved and began walking again. Before long, we reached my room.

He had taken to supporting me again on the way there, which was a nuisance, but in order to stay true to the role of a patient, I did not refuse his help this time.

“We are finally at the room.”

“Yes. Now get some rest.”

The moment we arrived, he laid me down on the sofa, and the very first thing he did was press his ear to my stomach.

“I have heard that if you do this, you can sometimes hear the baby.”

“Unfortunately, it has not been long enough yet… you will not be able to hear anything.”

“How much longer before the baby’s sounds can be heard?”

“I am not sure.”

He had been like this before. When he heard the news of the pregnancy, he was overjoyed and wanted to hear the baby’s heartbeat.

But that had only lasted so long. After a few months, he began to doubt who the child’s father was, and he ignored me when I told him to listen to the heartbeat. He said he had no desire to hear the sounds of someone else’s child.

The baby’s heartbeat, the baby’s movements, all of it had been mine alone.

Even so, it had been all right. Even so, I was happy.

‘You killed my child.’

And now I had to watch him light up all over again at the news of a pregnancy.

My stomach turned again. His repulsive behavior made me feel like I was losing my mind. But there was nothing I could do right now. All I could do was keep my feelings in check as best I could.

I had just begun to feel more sorrow for the child who never got to be born than for my own cruel death in my past life, when he opened his mouth again.

“By the way, I was truly startled earlier.”

“I was even more startled. I had no idea everyone would be out looking for me.”

“Mother was making a scene, saying you must have run away.”

“I see.”

“And then the duchy’s carriage arrived, and I was genuinely shocked.”

I leaned back against the cushions piled up behind me and gave a small nod. Dertosse had come out of the manor after the carriage had already left. While his mother and I were exchanging words.

“I was shocked too.”

“By you arriving in it?”

“Yes. I ran into them by chance, and the princess and the lord were inside the carriage. And on top of that, I had not expected them to be so kind.”

I gave a small smile.

“Who was kind? Rechel? Was Rechel in there too?”

“Yes. But Lord Isen, I believe his name was. It was not the princess but him who allowed me to get in the carriage. He was the one I was calling kind.”

I had brought up Isen on purpose, but Dertosse was firmly fixed on the fact that Princess Rechel had been in that carriage.

“Rechel did not say anything to you?”

“No.”

“I am asking whether you said anything out of the ordinary.”

His gaze had shifted noticeably from before. It was nothing like the warmth that had been so present in him just moments ago.

“Are you angry?”

“An, angry? No… I am just… just curious.”

In this life, I had thought that perhaps he had changed, since he had stood up against his mother so harshly, but he was still exactly the same. No matter what anyone said, he thought only of himself, and he was a man who loved Princess Rechel to a painful degree.

Even after dying once and returning to this moment in time, even after making different choices and having a day like today unfold in a new way… he was still the same.

“Just curious… I see. Princess Rechel said something rather strange.”

“Strange? What do you mean? What did she say.”

“Dert. Why are you getting so worked up? Is something going on between you and Princess Rechel?”

“Things ended badly last time. So I was worried… I thought she might have done something unkind to you….”

His words, his eyes, and his manner all told different stories.

“You do not need to worry. She did not say anything unkind to me.”

“That is a relief.”

“She only said that Dertosse loves her.”

“…What?”

“She seemed to pity me. Dertosse, it seems you loved the princess at some point in the past.”

“Wh, what…?”

“It is all right, I am fine. As long as it is not now, that is what matters. Is that not right?”

For just a brief moment, his eyes wavered. As though showing me his true feelings. That unmistakable emotion nearly made me burst out laughing. He could at least be good at lying.

He really had no talent for it at all.