“……”

Riley wanted to argue, but knowing the king’s colorful history, she could only keep her mouth shut.

At that, Esena’s face crumpled with misery and she began to cry.

“I never know when his heart might leave me, and without a child…… hic…… I do not know what I should do anymore…… He already finds me tiresome…… hic.”

Riley could not find words of comfort, but she understood the feeling to some degree.

So it was the anxiety of not conceiving that had been wearing her down.

What can I do. It will not happen in the future either.

But there is no way to tell her the truth.

Esena kept talking through her sobs.

“And His Majesty does not understand my heart at all, he only gets angry and says I am being demanding…… hic…… he says the obligation of the marriage bed is a burden and he keeps pushing me away. Hic…… he is already tired of me.”

“……”

Riley now understood what had been happening.

……How desperately must she have been pressing him……

Growing anxious over not conceiving, the queen had been pushing the king without meaning to.

The king, knowing he was already infertile, would have felt guilty and wounded in his pride by a wife fixated on having a baby. He had most likely been taking out his irritation on her and avoiding her, unable to give her the one thing she desperately wanted.

Riley rested her index finger against her chin and thought it through, then asked carefully.

“So…… how often are you sharing that, um, love these days?”

The queen dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief.

“Twice a day, morning and evening…… but lately even that seems to feel like a burden to him, and he keeps trying to avoid me……”

“Pardon?”

Riley’s mouth fell open.

Twice a day, morning and evening, is the reduced amount…… and every single day at that?

He is not young, and he has a kingdom to govern, so twice a day or more…… no man could sustain that.

And knowing he can never give his wife the child she wants, having to go through the motions like a scheduled obligation? While listening to her go on and on about a baby the whole time?

Good heavens. This couple has a problem.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

That night, Andrea came up behind Riley as she sat alone looking at something.

Glancing over her shoulder and seeing what it was, he went rigid for a moment, then snatched it away with an air of interest.

“Ah.”

“……What is this.”

“……Th, that is not what it looks like, honestly, give it back.”

But Andrea dodged her outstretched hand and flipped through it rapidly.

He went through every page with keen interest, then raised an eyebrow and asked.

“We have already tried everything in here. Are you looking for something more special?”

Riley’s face went scarlet and she yelped.

“That is not it! Give it here.”

“Hah…… I can come up with plenty of creative ideas on my own without any manual like this.”

He paid no attention to her denials, and she shot him a look and explained.

“It is not that. It is because of His Majesty and the queen.”

“What? His Majesty and the queen?”

“Yes, things between them are not right at the moment.”

Riley had no choice but to tell him everything that had happened that day.

Andrea rested his chin on one hand and listened with half an ear, then answered with the same indifference.

“Leave them alone. A baby is never going to come anyway. They should just wait for grandchildren from us.”

Riley’s cheeks flushed at that, and she primly pretended to smooth her skirt as she grumbled.

“That is too harsh. Their happiness affects ours too, you know. If they get along well, we can live comfortably and at ease.”

“And after all that thinking, this is what you came up with?”

Andrea gestured at the *rotic picture book she had taken back from him and asked.

“Yes, exactly. I think this might actually solve the problem.”

Sensing the meddlesome gleam in Riley’s brightened eyes, Andrea let out a small laugh.

There she goes again with something ridiculous.

He reached out to ruffle her hair the way he always used to, then stopped himself.

He had nearly done it again. Ever since Riley started growing her hair out and wearing it braided or pinned up in pretty styles, she absolutely hated that habit of his.

He withdrew his hand and instead pressed a kiss just below her ear, his way of saying he supported whatever charming little scheme she was cooking up.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

A few days later.

“Then I shall take my leave, Mother.”

“Very well.”

Riley rose from her seat after discussing which hall to hold the ladies’ dinner in, how to decorate it, and what kinds of desserts to include.

Since confiding in Riley, the queen had stopped trying to assert her authority over her, listening to everything with a vacant air and wearing a subdued expression.

Her manner had also softened, and Riley found her considerably easier to face.

Even as Riley took her leave, the queen sat with a blank, melancholy look in her eyes.

“Sigh…… I wonder how this will go.”

Riley glanced back one last time toward where the queen was sitting.

The target had landed precisely at the queen’s feet.

The *rotic picture book, with its thirty-six inventive positions.

Riley had used Queen Esena’s n*de portrait to engineer her marriage to the king, so she bore some responsibility for this marriage.

So please, use that book to set some kind of mood between you……

She sent up a silent, earnest wish that the picture book would do some good for the royal couple.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

After Riley left the room, Queen Esena sat in a daze for a moment, then rose from her seat and noticed something.

“What is this?”

She picked up the book without thinking and flipped it open, then let out a startled little shriek and dropped it.

But her hand, which had hovered in the air for a moment, reached cautiously back toward it, and soon the pages were spread open before her eyes.

“Oh my!”

Esena’s eyes went wide, then trembled in small, rapid blinks.

There, drawn out in full, were all manner of positions and arts of seduction that a man and woman could employ in their lovemaking.

In one corner there was even a section introducing oils and aromatic scents that heightened desire, along with some rather scandalous implements.

“Good heavens! How indecent!”

Esena snapped the book shut at once.

Her heart was pounding rapidly.

Good Lord! Where on earth had this come from?

She quickly made the sign of the cross, wondering whether some spirit of indecency had visited her room, but her racing heart refused to settle.

Even so, a little while later, she could not stop her hand from reaching out to open the book again.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

The following day.

The queen came to the king’s study.

“What brings you here at this hour?”

The king looked at Esena with the wariness of someone bracing for something ominous. His expression suggested he was dreading that she had come all the way here to start in about a baby again.

But the queen had her outer robe buttoned neatly up to her neck, giving the impression she was heading out somewhere to shop.

She glanced around and made a request.

“Your Majesty…… would you dismiss the attendants for a moment?”

The king suspected she was about to press him again and felt his mood sour, but he waved his hand as she asked. The attendants standing at their posts drained out of the study like a receding tide.

The door closed, leaving only the two of them.

The queen then approached the king’s large desk and slowly drew the fastened cloak cord loose.

A sensual figure, nearly bare, was revealed in the quiet, dry air of the study.

“……!”

Esena was wearing a chemise that covered just enough to be more tantalizing than nothing at all.

The intent was unmistakable, and the king drew a sharp breath before his brow furrowed hard.

He burst out in anger.

“What on earth……! Have you lost your mind? There is a limit to how much you can go on about that baby. Coming all the way to my study and daring to do something like this……!”

But the king could not finish.

Esena had slipped around the desk and dropped to her knees between his legs.

Positioned at a suggestive angle directly before him, she pressed her full br*asts together and smiled with a provocative curl of her lips.

She looked less like the queen of a nation and more like a high-class courtesan, and somehow that was not unpleasant but deeply stirring.

The king looked down at his young wife and swallowed.

The sight of her br*asts spilling over the top of the chemise like ripe peaches made something stir below that had been unresponsive for days, hardening like stone.

Still, feeling he ought to maintain some dignity as king, he made a show of scolding his wayward queen.

“Wh, what do you think you are doing first thing in the morning? In the study, in broad daylight?”