And having squandered even that on her own extravagance, she was exactly the kind of woman not worth a shred of sympathy.

There were, however, women from time to time who deluded themselves into thinking they had gotten a hold on Yantis Kal’s weakness.

That woman had been one of them.

Yantis clicked his tongue lightly and lifted the crystal glass on the table to his lips.

He forced the flat brandy down his throat and reached for a cigarette.

Whoosh―

He drew a deep pull from the cigarette as it began to burn and furrowed his brow deeply at the thought that had been circling his mind more and more lately.

Yantis had attended the banquet last night, as he always did.

To put the Chancellor and the Department of Magic, who kept their guard up around him, at ease, he had willingly become a dissolute playboy and a gambler. He was present at every notable banquet held in Attica, and women, alcohol, and cards had become things he could not do without, at least in appearance.

These past few days, though, even he had been acting rather impulsively.

He had been leaving the estate every night even when there was no outward need to show his face at a banquet.

Beneath the glittering lights of a grand banquet hall, the thing that appeared without warning and seized his thoughts was the woman back at his estate.

It had started, clearly, as light curiosity.

He had found it remarkable that this woman had seen straight through his sarcasm at a glance, when others missed it entirely beneath the bright smile he always wore.

So he had teased her all the more, and he had rather liked the vivid anger that filled those expressionless eyes.

When those achromatic black eyes held anger, it was somehow like watching a bright color bloom before him.

And then he had simply become curious about something else.

If those eyes held an emotion other than anger, what color would bloom in them?

So he had deliberately pulled the woman who had aimed a gun at him toward himself, as though to provoke her.

He thought he had also wanted to disturb that flawless posture of hers with his own hands.

He had been enjoying himself well enough when puzzlement filled the black eyes meeting his, and the edges of them began to color with something like flustered surprise.

But then, the sweet scent drifted from her without warning.

On the day he had first met this woman, his impulsive decision to carry her back in his arms had been, in a way, because of this scent.

The soft, sweet scent that called to mind warm milk, so completely at odds with her cold exterior in every way, had struck him as a little funny, he supposed.

“……”

The tightness in his chest, like something lodged there again, made him impulsively tip the flavorless brandy into his mouth.

Here he was, with that woman sitting in his own house, while he himself had been wandering off on inexplicable overnight stays. The absurdity of it had caught not only the household staff off guard but Yantis himself as well.

“…I should put an end to this soon.”

It was time to end this sudden, aimless drifting.

If that woman kept circling his thoughts, the answer was simply to go and see for himself. Curiosity about an unknown subject always ended the moment that subject became known.

So it wouldn’t take long.

Spend enough time with her until he was thoroughly tired of it, and she would eventually be unable to hold back from telling him everything.

* * *

“…What is all this?”

Her cool black eyes swept over the rows of boxes filling her bedroom as she asked. Bellus’s voice, still slightly husky from having just woken up, sat lower than usual.

Jane, who had opened the door at the knock, was standing at a loss watching the boxes being carried in one after another.

The only one among them who had known in advance was Lora, who simply carried on brushing Bellus’s hair without a care, finishing what she had been doing.

“These are things Lord Yantis ordered for you, Miss Bellus. Various items you’ll need for daily life, and clothes and accessories for going out.”

Even with Lora’s pleasant reply, the furrow between Bellus’s brows showed no sign of easing.

Always so expressionless that she had been called a human weapon or a coldblooded killer, Bellus had been overflowing with a liveliness she had never shown before during her short days here.

And entirely through the emotions of irritation and anger alone.

Glaring at the carefully wrapped boxes, which were unmistakably all of the finest quality, Bellus thought back to the previous evening.

From the moment she had first woken in this estate, Bellus had always eaten alone.

Mornings and afternoons in the rear garden, evenings in the estate’s dining room. She had wanted to eat in the rear garden at night as well, but Lora had refused absolutely on the grounds that it was still early spring and the night air was cold, so they had reached a compromise of a short walk after dinner.

But last night.

The man’s sudden return to the estate had left Bellus in a foul mood throughout.

She didn’t think it was her place to take issue with the owner of a house entering his own home, but the man kept hovering around her, and now she simply wanted him to go away somewhere, anywhere.

“Why are you sitting there?”

Bellus, seated at the far end of the long dining table, asked coldly as Yantis pulled out the chair directly across from her and sat down.

“Because it’s my dining table?”

Scrape―

Before his casual reply had even finished, Bellus was on her feet. The movement was so clean and without a single wasted motion that Yantis opened his mouth with a touch of urgency.

“I can’t say anything right, can I. Just sit down. It’s hard on the staff to set out two separate meals.”

“……”

It was closer to an order than a request, but the last part stopped Bellus in her tracks. She sat back down, and lowered her eyes in a way that made it clear the man in front of her did not exist to her.

It was written plainly on Bellus’s face that she had no intention of speaking to him, and watching that, Yantis had no choice but to let out a hollow laugh.

One by one, food filled the table, and between the two of them eating, only the occasional clink of cutlery broke the silence.

The one who finally could not hold out against the silence was Yantis.

“Is there anything you need?”

“No.”

Bellus glanced up briefly to look at him and answered flatly. Her gaze returned to the steak being sliced cleanly.

Yantis had set down his cutlery entirely at some point and was resting his chin in his hand, watching her.

Her full lips parted slightly, a glimpse of white, even front teeth showing. A piece of steak cooked to just the right doneness disappeared between them, and then her firmly closed lips moved in a slow chew.

The steak steadily dwindled alongside the movement of those red lips. The motion was neat enough to seem deliberate, but the pace was far from slow.

‘She likes it.’

A smile had formed at the corner of Yantis’s mouth without his realizing it, and he happened to glance up.

“……!”

The flat black eyes had been watching him, for who knew how long, looking straight at him. Faced with those opaque black eyes that gave away nothing of what lay behind them, Yantis felt an inexplicable embarrassment and dropped the arm propping up his chin.

“…What are you looking at?”

The timing was rather unkind to be pleased that the woman, after Yantis having been the only one asking questions all along, had finally asked one first.

Yantis rolled his lips inward and thought for a moment, then found something to say and recovered his footing.

“Ahem. I hear you always take a walk after dinner.”

Bellus kept chewing as she watched the man, who had looked briefly caught off guard before smoothing it over with a smile. A bite of steak that melted softly before she even had to chew properly had stolen her attention for a moment.

Enough to make her forget who was sitting across from her.

She had simply let her thoughts drift back to the man and glanced over at him, only to find him wearing an expression like a mother bird contentedly watching her chick eat its fill.

But that puzzlement was short-lived, quickly swept aside by the word “walk” that followed.

The evening walk was one of the things Bellus had come to truly love since arriving here. The rippling amber sunlight was beautiful enough to ache, but the great moon filling the night sky and the countless stars were nothing short of wondrous.

The first time she had taken them in with her own eyes, Bellus had felt a shiver run through her entire body.

Paying no mind to Lora’s fussing that she would actually catch a cold this time, she stood still for a long while, gazing up at the night sky.

“And?”

The black eyes questioning him settled slowly.

She had managed to tolerate dinner well enough. But the evening walk was something she had no intention of giving up. With no way of knowing how long she would be here, not a single day felt anything less than precious.

“Together with me…”

“No.”

Before Yantis had even finished.

“Absolutely not.”

It was Yantis who was left speechless by the refusal, repeated in a way so unlike her.

It was almost enough to feel wronged. He was someone who received a warm welcome wherever he went, not someone who got turned down. And yet even an enemy would not say no this bluntly. The refusal, so direct it didn’t even bother with softening, only made him dig his heels in.