“Madam, Madam. Please… try to get up, all right?”

After having tea with Kieron, Ariadne, who had seemed to be slowly recovering, suddenly deteriorated.

The size of her meals, which had recently been almost double her usual portions, shrank to barely a quarter of that.

She could barely wake up and spent more than half the day in bed, staring blankly and showing no expression.

Despite having no obvious physical problems, she was unable to regain her strength and remained limp and lethargic.

Watching her mistress droop as though her body had been drained of all life, Jay was consumed by worry.

“You have to eat something, Madam. You barely ate anything yesterday too.”

“Mm… but Jay, I don’t really want to eat.”

“No, you must. Dr. Brown said you have to finish everything prepared for today.”

Jay moved frantically, trying to lift the weak and limp Ariadne from the bed. The doctor had been very clear: do whatever it takes to get her to finish her meal today. Jay followed this instruction with determined focus.

But it wasn’t only because she had been told to.

Today, no matter what happened, she had to get Madam to eat.

Recently, Ariadne had only consumed the bare minimum required for survival.

At this rate, Jay was certain that something terrible would happen, something she didn’t even dare to imagine.

Shaking her head to push down her rising panic, Jay gently helped Ariadne sit up and placed a spoon in her trembling hand.

All she could do now was trust Dr Brown, the ducal physician, who had promised that he would find a way to help Madam recover if he were given a little more time.

Dr Brown was worried, too.

Ariadné’s moods had always been fragile, but she had never lacked proper nutrition until now. Suddenly, she had started refusing food and retreating into sleep.

There was no true medicine for an illness of the heart.

All they could do was prevent her body from weakening further, make sure she got some sunlight and encourage her to do the things she used to enjoy.

But now, Ariadne was refusing everything.

She had no appetite or willpower.

Seeing his patient doing nothing more than the bare minimum required to stay alive, Brown felt increasingly worried day after day.

He feared that something irreversible might happen.

So he continued pressuring the madam’s personal maid.

But even that was not enough.

“You have to allow her to do something, Your Grace.”

Brown had done everything in his power for the most fragile and delicate person he had ever treated in this household, the kindest person of all.

Despite the duke’s heavy workload, Brown sought him out and implored him to allow Ariadne to work again.

In his opinion, she had been most engaged and alive since she had come here and managed the household’s internal affairs.

Meeting and speaking with people, and keeping busy so that she had no time for negative thoughts, was precisely what she needed.

For someone drowning in self-pity born of too much time alone, nothing could be more beneficial.

Thus, the loyal physician set aside his fear and approached his lord to request the treatment he believed would help her most.

The duke’s eyes were always as cold as winter frost, stripping a person down to their bones.

“Doing nothing is far more harmful for the Madam.”

“She has never enjoyed crowds, but she finds joy in helping others. Allowing her to return to her earlier routine — even simply meeting the staff and exchanging a few light words — would be the most effective remedy.”

But fear meant nothing in the face of a patient’s life.

Recalling Ariadne’s increasingly gaunt face, Brown repeated himself to Kieron, who listened with a blank expression:

“Please, Your Grace. Allow the Madam to work with the internal affairs again.”

Ignoring the suggestion that his wife’s recovery would benefit him too, Brown bent his already aching back in a deep bow.

Realizing that the longer treatment was delayed, the more dangerous the patient’s condition would become, he used the most effective method he knew to persuade the Duke.

“Call Derrick.”

And unexpectedly, it worked far better than he had hoped.

Watching Kieron give a stiff order to summon his aide, Brown inwardly rejoiced.

‘Good. Now the Madam will live.’

If he could save his patient, it would be worth it to bow his head.

The earnest physician truly believed that the madam would begin to recover by tomorrow.

However, he was so consumed with worry for his patient that he failed to consider what kind of man his lord actually was.

***

“It seems we’ll need another doctor for the household.”

Kieron said this, looking at the butler, his voice as dry as dust. In other words, he was telling them to remove the physician standing before him.

For Brown, who had served the Ambrose family since the previous duke, this came as a shock.

Only moments ago, the old doctor had been unable to hide his nervous relief.

Now, he stared at Kieron blankly, unable to hide his confusion.

But Kieron merely clicked his tongue at that look.

“The best you can offer as a prescription is telling me to give her work? To force someone who’s frail and should be resting to work? If you’re incapable, then we need another doctor.”

Kieron’s cold gaze slid over the startled physician.

It had been over a week since Ariadne had shut herself away in her room, ever since their first cup of tea together.

The fact that she had essentially taken to her bed, acting as though the world had ended over something as trivial as a cup of tea, irritated him.

He couldn’t understand why it had required the summoning of a physician and the stirring up of such a commotion.

He privately acknowledged that he might have played a part in it, but he didn’t consider it to be of any real importance.

Tea time existed for the sake of tea. That was all.

To him, Ariadne’s reaction seemed like nothing more than needless dramatics.

With a tired flick of his hand, Kieron gestured at Derrick and repeated himself.

“Hire a new doctor. Someone more competent.”

“Your Grace! What are you saying? The madam’s illness stems from her heart. It’s not something that can be cured by resting alone!”

“Must I keep listening to this nonsense, Derrick?”

An illness of the heart.

If such a thing existed, his heart should have crumbled long ago under the weight of his suffering.

He had lost family members, lived under the constant threat of being stripped of his position as head of the household, bowed to his in-laws, and spent every day trying to please the Emperor.

Yet Kieron Ambrose had never collapsed from any so-called ‘illness of the heart’.

Instead, he threw himself into family affairs, reviewing one more document rather than wasting time being ill, and fulfilling his role as head of the household through countless sleepless nights.

He had silenced the elders who had always doubted him, maintained ties with other noble families, and secured new rights and assets for the duchy.

Did he not suffer?

Had he truly never felt pain?

To him, such emotions were simply evidence of personal weakness, nothing worthy of a dramatic label like ‘illness’.

“But Your Grace, physicians like Mr Brown are rare. And, as you know, the Madam’s suffering lies far more in her heart than in her body.”

Yet the servants who had once obeyed him without question were now defending that fragile, foolish woman.

Even Derrick, usually cold, logical and exact, was now using the convenient excuse of an ‘illness of the heart’ to mask his wife’s weakness.

And at that, Kieron felt anger surge so fiercely it reached the very top of his head.

“She’s simply weak. She grew up sheltered, lacking nothing, so she’s upset that things aren’t going her way.”

“You know better than anyone that’s not true, Your Grace. The Madam may truly be struggling to adjust to this life.”

“Even if that were the case, do I have any reason to help her?”

Kieron shot the two men a cold, razor-sharp look.

“An illness of the heart?”

It was nothing more than a spoilt complaint.

She wasn’t getting what she wanted — not the life she had enjoyed in the marquisate — and here, nothing at all bent to her wishes.

Everything she had once been free to do was now off limits, and, stung by that, she was throwing a childish tantrum like a foolish young lady staging a hunger strike.

Ariadne had always been that sort of person, so this assumption seemed perfectly reasonable to Kieron.

She had been raised like a precious jewel, wanting for nothing, what else could one expect?

Now they wanted him to adjust her workload and discuss responsibilities and the future of the duchy with her personally over something so insignificant?

“I did not summon you here at great expense just to hear such nonsense.”

Kieron snapped, setting down the document he had been reading.

“Do not ever pressure me in this way again. Understood?”

He flicked his hand dismissively, signaling for them to leave.

He had wasted enough time on something so trivial.

He returned to the documents on his desk, completely disregarding the stunned expressions exchanged between Derrick and Brown.

To Kieron, Ariadne Ambrose was a calculating woman. She had probably coaxed the loyal servants into making these ridiculous excuses.

Over a single cup of tea, she had probably conjured up some melodramatic disaster in her own mind.

He was so thoroughly absorbed in this belief that he didn’t notice how drastically the expressions of his two most loyal subordinates had changed.

Ariadne thought: Kieron Ambrose was more polite than she had expected.

Although he had rejected her, he had done so in the gentlest and most considerate way possible. In the meantime, she had wasted away, consumed by her own feelings and never considering his.

He could have thrown her out.

He could have yelled at her.

He could have made his displeasure clear, or been cold towards her. Instead, however, he turned her down softly and gently during that brief tea time.

Even now, he was being generous. Despite how unbearable those few minutes with her must have been — so unbearable that he left as soon as he could — he hadn’t expelled her from the estate.

He hadn’t woken her up when she wanted to rest.

He hadn’t troubled her in any way.

Compared to Jay, who worried over every meal, or the physician who visited two or three times a day, he was far more considerate.

If it had been her, she reflected, she might not have tolerated the servants entering her room so frequently.

With that thought, Ariadne cooled her heart and carefully gathered the tangle of emotions inside her.

“Madam, you really must finish everything, all right?”

Once she had come to this realization, the things that had previously seemed unbearable — her lack of appetite, her lack of energy and her overwhelming desire to sleep — seemed a little more manageable.

She was still tired and a little confused, but that was OK.

Things would improve little by little.

Ariadne looked at Jay’s anxious feet shuffling in place, then smiled faintly as she glanced down at the hand that had stopped moving.

“All right. I understand.”

“R-really, Madam?”

Ariadne gave a small nod.

She could not trouble the ever-so-polite Kieron Ambrose any further.

She had to stop playing the pitiful patient.

Her paused hand began to move again.

For a future that seemed hopeful, but perhaps all the more despairing because of that.