“Jasper, who are those two?”

“The gardener, Parker Blair, and the maid, Nina Mason.”

“Look into them both. I’ll tell you what to do with them after.”

Kaiden yanked the curtain shut and covered the window.

Elsie’s smile unsettled him in a way he couldn’t name. The sight of her laughing with empty hands, so unstained and white.

A woman born into a different world from his own, one where he had done whatever it took to survive and staked his life for a handful of coins.

The world had changed, and she had lost her usefulness. And yet even now, he couldn’t let go of her.

What a pathetic state to be in.

Kaiden’s mouth twisted. The contempt he felt for himself only deepened as time passed.

***

Elsie had struggled with insomnia for years, and her physician had often warned her to take better care of her health.

But lately things were different.

Sleep came over her with an almost unnatural force, and she kept nodding off at the most inconvenient moments.

“My lady, it’s time to leave.”

“Oh, right.”

She had even dozed off while the maids were doing her hair.

Elsie forced her eyes open and stood, and the people around her snickered.

The embarrassment was mortifying. Her ears burned red.

She hurried her steps, but the smirks on the faces of those trailing behind her didn’t fade.

Stepping out through the front gate, a black carriage waited for her.

The sight of it sent a wave of tension through her body. Elsie drew in a steadying breath and climbed in with the help of Valet Lead, not Kaiden.

Inside the carriage sat Kaiden, not sparing her a glance.

“We’ll depart.”

Whether intentional or not, Kaiden kept his gaze fixed out the window without once looking toward Elsie.

Watching him from the corner of her eye, Elsie ran her tongue over her dry lips.

She had loved Kaiden.

The Kaiden of the past had smiled gently at her and whispered of love.

The one she had loved was the Kaiden of those days.

No, she had loved the Kaiden of her childhood too.

Either way, the Kaiden Grey who had stolen her heart was not the man sitting in front of her.

Right. That’s a different person.

Whispering that to herself seemed to ease the heart weighed down by grief, at least a little.

“……I heard you weren’t planning to attend, yet here you are.”

Kaiden’s sudden murmur made Elsie flinch in surprise.

“I was told I had to go. I didn’t hear the details.”

She answered in a way that sounded like an excuse.

Ivy had said there was an important engagement today. Kaiden had been invited to some kind of opening ceremony, and as always, Elsie had declined.

Then Ivy had said something.

Before they left the estate, she had set down a newspaper with something close to a throw and said one thing.

“I wonder when this kind of talk will ever stop…… If you don’t go this time either, it’ll cause an even bigger scene.”

Those words had drawn her eyes against her will, and Elsie had ended up reading the paper.

Several columns covered the Grey couple’s divorce and the appearance of Eleanor Underwood.

Hero of the Revolution, Colonel Kaiden Grey, Heading for Divorce?
Professor Eleanor Underwood Spotted on a Date! Her companion is none other than the famous……

The headlines were loud.

In the black-and-white photograph was a well-matched pair.

The scene she had witnessed before passed through her mind naturally.

So that woman was a professor.

A professor. Professor.

She knew well enough how remarkable it was for a woman to hold a professorship. Even someone as foolish as her could easily grasp what Eleanor represented.

The reason this felt so wrenching was probably that the two of them suited each other far better than she and Kaiden ever had.

In that moment.

Elsie made an impulsive decision to attend the opening ceremony.

“Well, I suppose so. You wouldn’t have thought to find out for yourself.”

Kaiden’s reply carried a note of amusement. It was the same tone as the maids who mocked her.

The humiliation was enough to make her want to cry, and Elsie lowered her head.

The maids doing it was something she could manage, but Kaiden was different. Her heart didn’t just shrink, her whole body seemed to curl inward.

Time passed.

Even through the uncomfortable silence, sleep pressed down on her. Her eyelids grew impossibly heavy, and she couldn’t fight them. They fell shut.

“About that divorce you mentioned……”

Kaiden, who had been looking out the window, spoke again.

But his words stopped without finishing.

He looked at Elsie nodding off and let out a short, disbelieving breath.

This woman really is impossible. Still.

His eyes went cold.

If she had conducted herself properly even once, he wouldn’t be feeling something this contemptible.

But Elsie had always been like this. She handed every inconvenient task to the servants and did as she pleased without any sense of occasion.

His cold gaze held until the carriage reached its destination.

***

What had just happened.

The moment Elsie realized she had dozed off in the carriage in front of Kaiden, her face flooded with heat.

She had never done anything like that before in her life.

Sleep had been coming over her so strangely of late, and she still didn’t know why.

She had started to wonder if she had fallen ill, but that seemed unlikely.

The nobles who had enjoyed every privilege under old Midland had not come to good ends.

A small number had joined the revolution and been treated as patriots, but most had either lost their lives or been driven out of Midland.

And yet here was Elsie Grey, living comfortably as the wife of the hero Colonel Kaiden Grey, unlike her father who had been executed.

So there was no reason for her to be ill.

“Are you getting out?”

“Oh, yes.”

The carriage door opened and Kaiden stepped out first. He extended his arm to escort Elsie, his manner entirely businesslike.

Placing her hand on Kaiden’s arm felt strange.

Even so, her heart beat just a little faster.

***

The National Museum of the New Midland Federal Republic.

It was an institution established with ambition, its purpose to record and preserve the history of recent events objectively and in detail.

Extensive publicity had drawn a crowd, and the plaza in front of the museum was packed with journalists carrying cameras and curious citizens.

Anticipating the turnout, the museum had arranged in advance for the capital police to be deployed. Thanks to that, the arrival of carriages went smoothly.

“Get the shot!”

“Both of the Greys came? What is this!”

“Weren’t they on bad terms?”

“Obviously! Who would like that woman? This headline writes itself! Fallen noble lady comes to the museum with the war hero!”

“And confronts the mistakes of her past, how about that?”

As Kaiden and Elsie stepped out of the carriage, journalists surged forward.

She made a conscious effort not to look at them.

The newspaper articles that had been directed at her swarmed through her mind like cockroaches.

Breathing became uncomfortable.

But Kaiden didn’t stop. So Elsie had to keep moving too.

I’m fine.

She murmured it inwardly and faced the people around her with composure.

“It’s been a while, Madam.”

“Yes.”

“You look just the same.”

Your beauty is unchanged, and similar phrases, subtly reworked.

Looking at the smirking eyes and curved lips of the people around her, Elsie forced a smile.

That was the full extent of the interest directed at her. The guests invited to the museum’s opening soon turned their bodies toward Kaiden.

“I hear you’ll be joining the strategic planning council, Colonel. A promotion must be coming soon. You might even be transferred to the Strategic Bureau.”

“You flatter me.”

“Oh, the ‘Frost Death’ who leads the sharpshooter platoon? Of course you’ll rise higher. Flattery, indeed.”

“The hero who stormed the Aldermaine royal palace and drove out the king is being quite modest.”

The people gathered in a circle around Kaiden exclaimed in admiration.

Standing blankly at Kaiden’s side, Elsie glanced at the artwork beyond the crowd.

She liked the rough lines capturing the moments of the revolution in Midland and the brutal reality of various battles.

A single frame holding so much turbulence.

Thinking it was a work that stirred something in a person, she kept her gaze fixed on the art.

“But Madam, you don’t seem very interested in the opening ceremony. Oh, but of course. It wouldn’t be a pleasant occasion for you.”

A voice reached her, and Elsie blinked slowly and pulled her gaze from the artwork.

“Oh, no. It’s nothing like that.”

“Is that so? Ah, but then again. You have a deep appreciation for art, Madam. Just now you seemed far more absorbed in the pieces on the wall than in our conversation……”

The woman spoke in a rapid rush. Every gaze in the room turned to Elsie.

The moment she felt those eyes on her, her whole body went rigid. Her shoulders ached, and heat rose to her head.

She wanted to run.

The weight of all those stares was suffocating. It hadn’t used to be like this.

“I’m sure we’d all love to hear the opinion of such a distinguished lady. I can’t be the only one.”

“Certainly not. Come to think of it, didn’t Mrs. Grey hold a solo exhibition some time ago?”