“What’s wrong, Regina?!”

Roselyn snapped back to her senses at the sharp cry.

“Did I hurt you?”

“My ankle… No, it’s nothing, Aunt.”

“Nothing? It’s already starting to swell! You must have twisted it badly.”

As she watched Regina’s ankle begin to swell, Roselyn bit her lip. She was supposed to be her guardian and yet she’d let her niece get hurt.

“You should take your shoes off and ice it immediately. Come on, let’s sit down.”

Regina leaned on her aunt’s arm and tried to take a step – but the pain shot through her and she shrank back instinctively.

“Oh dear, what are we going to do?”

Roselyn looked around desperately for help – when suddenly Regina’s feet lifted off the ground. It was so gentle, it felt like she was on a swing.

Before she knew it, she was cradled in Grey’s strong arms and against his broad chest, the shock leaving her gasping for breath. Right in front of her was his chiseled jawline, his slightly red lips and his silver hair glowing mysteriously in the lamplight.

“Are you all right, my lady?”

Of course she wasn’t. That dangerously beautiful face, close enough to touch, was too overwhelming. Regina’s heart pounded and a rush of heat blossomed across her cheeks, as if someone had pinched them.

Roselyn, finding her niece speechless, shouted in her place, her voice rising sharply.

“Count of Cabil! What do you think you’re doing? How dare you lift an unmarried young lady like that!”

“No need to thank me. It’s a gentleman’s duty to help a lady in distress.”

His shameless reply left Roselyn speechless. Seizing the moment, Grey leaned down and murmured softly.

“If you don’t like it, you can hit me.”

Grey was fully aware that what he had done was a clear breach of etiquette – one that could very well damage Regina’s reputation. Yet he had done it willingly, just to provoke Roselyn further.

A wicked man. Selfish and cold-hearted.

And yet Regina couldn’t tear her eyes away from the intoxicating smile on his cruelly beautiful face. A realisation, as despairing as it was sudden, struck her heart with crushing force:

She would never again be able to imagine a future with another man… nor dream of a quiet, stable marriage.

Instead, what grabbed her now – what would surely take the place of everything else – was this vivid moment and the captivating man in front of her.

***

‘Looking back now, it wasn’t too late even then.’

The Regina of today – more worn down, less naive – could only regret.

‘I should have fled back to the Odair estate, as if chased by a wildfire that threatened to consume my whole life. Perhaps then, after a few years, I might have forgotten.’

But the daughter who had grown up among the wheat fields was eventually married off in a distant southern port. Like a well-aged anchovy, she would be soaked in bitter seawater and tears, and finally buried beneath a white grave of salt.

‘When that time comes, will you be the one standing at my grave?’

‘Grey Cabil – my cold and silent end.’

Whenever disaster struck Regina, he was never at her side. Perhaps it was a mistake to believe him when he promised to try.

Look at him now. A man who couldn’t even bother to ask if his wife was all right after she was almost attacked by fishermen. She couldn’t bear the coldness of it all without confronting him.

“Grey. We need to talk.”

She knocked on his door – closed, like his heart – but he wasn’t even there. She hadn’t seen a carriage leave, so Regina turned to his study instead.

“Regina?”

Just as she expected. Grey appeared, looking tired. His rolled-up shirt was rumpled at the sleeves and hem, and the fine bridge of his nose could not be concealed by his sharp-framed glasses, smudged with the stains of a long night.

“What is it, this early in the morning?”

Had he noticed? That the very fact that she had to ask was the problem?

A dull, heavy despair suddenly settled in Regina’s chest. The root of it all was that he didn’t love her – didn’t even care about her. But even if she said it out loud, Grey would never really understand.

“I saw you yesterday. With Nadeira Beaufort.”

Instead of bringing up the fishermen, a completely different subject broke out. Only then did Regina realise how deeply she had been affected.

Grey, unsurprised – probably already warned by Finley – showed no reaction.

“She just went to thank me for recommending the best accommodation on the Cabil Estate. We had tea for about an hour, and there were staff both inside and outside the office.”

“That’s not the point, is it?”

Regina sighed at the end of her sentence.

“Why didn’t you tell me? That Nadeira was at our estate.”

He’d had countless opportunities to be honest with her – he could have told her clearly instead of hiding it under vague phrases like ‘a guest I’m meeting on business’.

“If it upset you, I’m sorry.”

As expected, Grey was clever. Realising the disadvantage he was in, he calmly admitted his mistake.

“When Miss Beaufort first arrived, you weren’t in any condition to talk. And after you came out of your coma… I didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Why not?”

“Weren’t we about to get divorced? I didn’t want to cause more trouble for no reason.”

“You should have told me anyway.”

Even as she reproached him, a part of Regina silently wished that he would continue to explain himself – to insist that he hadn’t done anything wrong. Then she could turn away from him without hesitation, without regret.

“I misjudged the situation. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Ah… If only humans were simple enough to have only one side. But even the lowest of them could have noble thoughts at certain moments, and even the most selfish could sometimes show grace.

That fleeting possibility was like a sticky trap – it stuck to the heel of the one trying to escape, forcing them to struggle in place in vain.

“To be honest, Miss Beaufort is rather uncomfortable for me as well. If you don’t mind, I would like to refuse her future visits – on the pretext that you need rest and care.”

She couldn’t refuse, of course. Regina nodded and Grey smiled with a visibly relieved face.

As she looked at that smile, a question suddenly blossomed inside her.

‘If one day I no longer love you… If I no longer show up like this, if I no longer bother you with these conversations…Will you still smile like that?’

But instead of asking that, Regina asked the next question.

“You heard about what happened on the docks yesterday – from Mr Finley, right?”

“That the fishermen in Capturn were cleaning out their traps according to the lunar calendar?”

“Yes. It wasn’t the most courteous way to do it.”

‘You have heard what I have been through. Now explain yourself – defend the silence, the emptiness left by your indifference.’

“Actually, I’ve reorganised the security system at Capturn Port because of that incident.”

Grey gestured for her to come closer. Her eyes were drawn to the piles of documents on his desk.

“May I see them?”

“Of course.”

As Regina leafed through the densely packed pages, she began to feel uneasy. The documents were filled with plans to increase the number of guards, expand patrols and increase penalties for crimes.

‘Is he… doing all this because of me?’

A strange heaviness settled in her chest – along with a quiet sense of futility. She felt a stark difference between them – something firm and unbridgeable.

When she had been ill, she had wanted her husband by her side to nurse her. Instead, Grey had brought in the best doctors in Wailin and paid for a state-of-the-art life-support system.

When she’d been through something terrible, she’d hoped for comfort. But Grey had focused instead on redesigning the system to make sure it wouldn’t happen again.

Neither was wrong. But they were undeniably different. And maybe, just maybe, that’s why when they reached for each other, nothing ever really met in the middle.

“Look at the last page.”

Grey suggested, noticing that her hands had frozen in the middle of the page.

Following his words without thinking, she turned to the last page and found detailed personal information on several people.

“Who are they?”

“They are candidates to be your personal guards.”

Startled by the unexpected answer, Regina’s eyes widened.