Of course, she could have found out if she had really tried. But to understand the political affairs surrounding her husband, she would have had to regularly attend social gatherings for noblewomen, which Rosie loathed.

For an unloved wife, those places were nothing short of h*ll.

Lowering her gaze, Rosie spoke in a quiet but meaningful tone.

“I couldn’t take an interest even if I wanted to. You made it that way.”

“…What?”

“What were you saying earlier? I don’t have anything to discuss with you, Your Grace.”

Callios stared at her, expression unreadable. He clearly didn’t like this version of Rosie, the one who talked back instead of shrinking away.

“Why is it that every time I see you—”

He abruptly shut his mouth, as if the words felt uncomfortable even to him. Frowning, he swept back the jet-black fringe that had fallen over his forehead. He looked troubled, which made Rosie pause in confusion.

“I heard you’ve been holed up in your room. You should walk around more. You would have seen good things. That’s why your health has suffered.”

It was unbelievable. As if he wasn’t the very one who made her that way.

Rosie let out a hollow laugh and tightened her grip around the souvenir in her hand.

“Easy for you to say. Do you even know what people say about me? I stayed inside because I didn’t want to hear it. Even a passerby on the street knows…”

When she spoke calmly, containing her emotions, Callios’s previously silent face twisted with irritation.

“You were still paying attention to that nonsense?”

Rosie didn’t bother answering.

His expression shifted again as he stepped closer, casting a long, imposing shadow over her. His broad shoulders and towering height blocked out all the stares aimed at her from every direction.

“How many times have I told you to ignore that—”

But the angry black eyes shifted past her, toward the people whispering behind her. Then toward Rosie’s shoulders, which flinched at their murmurs.

Callios abruptly fell silent. A dark, heavy quiet swirled around him.

Rosie knew very well—after several experiences—that when he became like this, it meant he was truly angry.

“You’re always like this. You never believe what I say, and you never listen.”

‘Who is he to say that?’

Rosie thought silently as she turned her gaze away entirely.

Callios’s voice dropped, low and sharp.

“So you’ve decided to ignore me completely?”

His eyes fixed on her with an unreadable expression. Slowly, he tilted his head toward her and deliberately whispered by her ear.

“You seem perfectly fine today.”

His lips moved slowly along the firm, sharp line of his jaw.

“Be ready tonight.”

Rosie flinched as his breath brushed against her sensitive ear.

What was he doing out here, in front of everyone?

Meeting her gaze calmly, Callios gently grasped her neatly arranged brown hair. He handled it as if it were a fragile flower stem that could snap at any moment.

“As your husband, I should fulfill my duties. And you, as someone of the ducal house, should fulfill yours.”

Meeting her narrowing brown eyes, he leaned closer. His large hand tightened around her hair, heat gathering in his grip. His low voice rumbled near her ear, slow and intimate.

“Last night… were you just making excuses?”

“…No.”

“You’d better not.”

His gaze, when he lifted it, was frigid. His body was warm as always, but his eyes remained cold.

As soon as he released her hair, Rosie took a step back.

How could she avoid him tonight? Should she just run away without looking back?

There was still time.

Deciding to think of a plan later, Rosie feigned indifference as she asked him a question.

“So why did you go to the palace without sending word?”

“Find out yourself. Attending social gatherings and obtaining what the ducal house needs is part of your duty.”

He sounded as though he was scolding her for not fulfilling her duties as a wife. As if he even knew what came before those duties!

Rosie suddenly recalled last night. She had been sure she had heard a man’s footsteps.

“So… did you come last night to check if I was really sick?”

Callios froze for a moment, then bit his lip, looking troubled.

The unexpected reaction made Rosie blink in surprise.

‘Was he really checking on me?’
‘If it wasn’t about my health… did he intend to come for that?’
‘Did he get aroused in the meantime?’

‘I told him I didn’t want it…’

Her surprise quickly turned into deeper anger. Before she could react, Callios abruptly turned around.

“Anyway, go back. This isn’t a place for someone as weak as you.”

“It’s just a street.”

“Not something someone with such a pale face should say.”

‘It was fine until just now. You made it like this.’

‘Social gatherings…’

As if he cared about the humiliation or ridicule she suffered in those places.

Yet even her long-held resentment now felt light.

Thinking of leaving made everything that once weighed on her seem almost laughable.

At that moment, Jenny—who had been searching frantically for Rosie—ran over, only to freeze when she saw Callios.

“I—I’m back… Huh? Your Grace?”

Startled, Jenny bowed in a panic.

Ignoring her completely, Callios gave Rosie one last command.

“Be prepared. I’ll make up for what wasn’t done.”

“……”

“I have other stops to make, so I won’t be returning immediately. Go ahead first.”

He lightly touched her shoulder, then turned back toward the carriage.

As the Benedict carriage disappeared, Jenny cautiously glanced at Rosie.

“What did he mean by that?”

“There’s no need to listen to any of it. Forget it.”

Rosy cut off Jenny’s questions firmly.

Jenny, still uneasy from Rosie’s cold reaction, cautiously asked again.

“By the way, Madam… why did you mention my relatives in the north…?”

The person she currently trusted most with her money was a businessman and a distant relative of Jenny’s. When Rosie was bedridden in her previous life, he was one of the few people who kept her company by talking to her.

‘I know exactly how honest he is.’

Whatever happened to her later, she could entrust this to him. Knowing the future certainly had its advantages.

“I want the rest of the money in my account transferred to him. Tell him I’ll give him a separate payment for helping. If he refuses, we can find someone else, so don’t force yourself.”

“That won’t be difficult but… why are you doing all this?”

Rosie’s brown eyes gleamed with determination.

“I’m leaving the ducal residence.”

“…What?! Truly? H-How…?”

Jenny’s eyes widened as she stuttered, imagining the only possibility she could think of.

“Are you… planning a divorce?”

***

Back at the ducal estate, Rosie headed to the garden — the only place she had ever been permitted to call her own.

The flowerbeds were unchanged.

As she walked amongst the fresh, vibrant colors, her gaze settled on a flat patch of soil where she had planted seeds.

‘I moved them here for now, but…’

The moment she returned to life, when she opened her eyes in bed, she found a fully bloomed white flower cradled in her palm and a wilted flower of the same kind with dry, preserved seeds.

A strange white flower. She placed the blooming one in a vase and planted the seeds in her garden as soon as she saw them.

Something about it felt uncanny.

“It’s strange… almost as if it wanted to be planted.”

Muttering to herself, Rosie stepped into the shade of a tree to escape the harsh sunlight. Jenny, who usually held a parasol over her, had stepped away for a moment.

Left alone in the quiet, the nightmares of her past life resurfaced and slashed through her chest with renewed pain.

The venomous voice of her mother-in-law, Isabella, clawed through her mind.

“It’s all your fault! If only you didn’t exist—”

“What do I want? Why don’t you just die and disappear.”

“Does this hurt? My heart suffered worse, it was torn apart. So you should hurt more.”

The violence, so vivid it felt real, came crashing down again.

Clutching her throbbing chest, Rosie took a deep breath.

Cold sweat trickled down her body, and she trembled.

‘I have to leave. I need someone—anyone—who might help me.’

After some thought, she remembered her older sister, who had married into the royal family of the Kingdom of Yones. But she quickly shook her head.

She had tried to go there several times, but had been dragged back by Callios every time.

‘If only our family hadn’t collapsed… would things have been different?’

The Counts of Moavis, her birth family, had once prospered through maritime trade. However, their fortune changed in an instant.

The imperial family banned trade with the Kingdom of Yones, their largest trading partner, and several other nations allied with Yones due to repeated wars.

Once the flow of money stopped, the family’s fortunes declined rapidly. Desperate to survive, Count Moavis fell victim to massive fraud.

Her parents died soon afterwards, overwhelmed by grief.

Left alone, Rosie was certain that her engagement would be annulled. Rumors spread that the ducal house was considering breaking it off — and rightfully so, as everyone knew that the Emperor’s sister admired Callios, the war hero with the sculpted face.

Old promises and honor meant nothing compared to political advantage.

During her parents’ memorial, her older sister Serena Moavis returned home briefly and tried to persuade her.

“Come to my husband’s country. It’s not as if Callios takes proper care of you. And if you’re going to be cast aside anyway, you might as well leave first.”

In the end, Rosie was persuaded. That night, she tried to cross the border secretly, following her sister. However, she hadn’t got far before she collapsed onto the frozen ground in the middle of a fierce blizzard.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Callios stood there in the storm as if he had expected it all along, his face terrifying.

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