“D*mn it! That conniving woman…!”

As soon as Kieron returned to his study, he slammed his desk so hard that it almost broke. If he had used even a little more strength, it really might have splintered.

Herald instinctively swept the documents off the desk and into his arms to protect them, ending up looking rather ridiculous, buried in papers. But Kieron was far too enraged to even notice.

“How did she manage to sway her?”

As would be expected, he was entirely angry with Princess Sylvia.

However, he had no grounds to take action against her, especially not against the second princess, who was beloved by the people.

For now, all he could do was wait in silence.

“Um… Your Grace, what happened…?”

He could hear Herald’s cautious voice coming from his side, but Kieron ignored it.

Instead, he considered Sylvia’s true intentions.

Everything she had said today in an attempt to persuade him had been flashy, empty words; not a single one of them had held any real weight. And yet Ariadne had been swayed by them.

Throughout it all, she kept throwing him displeased glances. By the end, she was practically glaring at him.

Kieron felt foolish for staying in the room, and for letting the situation unfold just as it had when Lorelei arrived.

“What on earth is she thinking…?”

But that wasn’t the only problem.

What troubled him far more was that Ariadne was growing cold towards him. She no longer welcomed him. She no longer sought his opinion on matters she needed to decide on. She no longer seemed to want to tell him anything.

His thoughts shifted from Sylvia to his wife.

After agreeing to be a bridesmaid, Ariadne dismissed them both from the drawing room. Or, more accurately—

She had excused herself first, saying she didn’t feel well. She had looked almost relieved when she agreed to it, so why had she suddenly fallen ill?

Sylvia told her to rest and left soon after.

Ariadne followed.

This meant that he was forced to escort Sylvia off the estate, the most absurd and inexplicable event he had dealt with lately.

From beginning to end, nothing had gone the way he had intended.

The insolent princess!

His wife, who now treated him as if he were a villain.

The conversation he’d had with Sylvia while escorting her had only worsened his mood.

Kieron slammed his fist against the desk again, remembering their exchange.

***

“If something like this happens again, I won’t stand by and watch.”

He was deeply displeased by everything that had happened that day. Not only had Sylvia arrived with barely a few hours’ notice, but she had also disturbed his wife.

Even the Peytons, Ariadne’s powerful and influential family, would never have dared to do something like that. They could have interfered if they had wanted to, of course, but they refrained out of consideration for Ariadne.

Kieron, however, did not consider any of that. All he could see was that his already fragile wife had been burdened with something troublesome. She was weak, what if she overdid it and collapsed again?

Being a bridesmaid would certainly require stamina.

What if it damaged her health?

And this wasn’t just any event, it was her brother’s wedding. If she collapsed there, she wouldn’t just become the subject of gossip among the Empire’s nobles; she would also have to endure the full pressure of House Peyton.

Sylvia had insisted that nothing like that would happen, but that was naive.

Who could guarantee that news of an incident at a princess’s wedding would never spread?

When he imagined his wife retreating to her room because of it again, a suffocating frustration tightened his chest.

Kieron had never realized that all these thoughts pointed to one simple truth: he was deeply worried about her.

Rather than acknowledging this, however, he only felt irritation, as if everything around him angered and suffocated him.

These thoughts and feelings were actually proof of his concern for his wife, yet he directed all his frustration at Sylvia for causing Ariadne more worry.

“And if I won’t stand by quietly?”

Sylvia, of course, was not easily intimidated.

She glared right back at him.

“This concerns the duchess, Duke. It’s not something for you to meddle in. If she wants to do it, she will. If she doesn’t, she won’t.”

“You were the one who convinced her in the end.”

“And you were the one who dragged every last reason out of me.”

Sylvia scoffed, telling him not to blame others for his own mistakes.

“If you hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have said half of that. I could have persuaded her without listing all those reasons. If that hadn’t worked, I would simply have given up.”

In Sylvia’s view, Kieron was entirely to blame for getting involved and making a mess of things.

She usually believed that every outcome stemmed from personal choice, but in this case, if blame had to be assigned, it was the duke’s.

He had tried to control Ariadne, shaping her into whatever suited him, even though she was fully capable of choosing for herself.

Sylvia found it absurd — almost laughable — that the man whom Heidel always praised as a dependable brother-in-law turned out to be no better than the usual short-sighted noblemen.

Or perhaps…

Perhaps he was even the reason the bright, lovely Ariadne had turned out like this.

Still in that unpleasant mood, she turned to leave.

But something still bothered her, and she paused just before stepping into her carriage.

“The duchess is a very well-educated woman, Duke. Trying to suppress her like this—it isn’t right.”

“You’re saying I suppressed her?”

Kieron bristled immediately.

Suppress?

Ridiculous!

He simply hated troublesome situations. Ariadne sometimes made careless choices that put her health at risk, so of course he tried to stop her.

How could that possibly be called suppression?

To him, ‘protection’ was a far more accurate term.

He wondered just how reckless this princess intended to be.

Why had she chosen such a loaded term?

Was she trying to provoke him?

Was she trying to force him to admit something?

But no — her expression was too earnest for that. She didn’t look like someone seeking an advantage. In fact, she looked genuinely worried for Ariadne.

Kieron narrowed his eyes at her for a long moment, then finally turned away.

“Our matters are our own to handle. Please return safely, Your Highness.”

No matter what she claimed, when it came to his marriage, Sylvia was an outsider. Even though she was about to marry Ariadne’s brother, what did that have to do with the Peytons?

The Peytons barely interacted with each other. Once the wedding was over, everything would go back to how it was before.

Unless Ariadne reached out to them first, as she always had, there would be no reason for them to see each other often.

With that thought in mind, Kieron escorted Sylvia to her carriage and then returned to the manor, and that was how he ended up feeling so tangled up and frustrated.

“Herald. Can you look into Princess Sylvia?”

“…S-Sorry? The Second Princess, Your Grace?”

“Yes. Anything you can find bring it to me.”

Sylvia Delphina.

Judging by everything she said today, it was difficult to believe that her approach to Ariadne was purely motivated by a desire to befriend her.

If that wasn’t her true motive, then he needed to find out what was.

He ordered Herald to investigate, then rose from his seat again. The problem wasn’t only Sylvia — Ariadne was a problem too.

What had she been thinking, accepting such an offer? She had never once appeared in public since their wedding.

At her family’s wedding, all the guests would be strangers to her.

No matter how kindly they tried to treat her, they would never be family.

Kieron didn’t want to see her shut herself away again afterwards. If she locked herself in her room, Brown and Derrick would pester him day and night.

They pretended to be indifferent, yet they were always the first to complain endlessly whenever anything happened.

Thinking of his annoyingly loyal subordinates, he headed towards her room. But when he arrived, he heard something that made him forget completely why he had come.

***

Her head was pounding.

Everything was a tangled mess; she had no idea what to do.

Ariadne slumped lifelessly on the sofa, sighing heavily.

“Are you all right, my lady?”

“No. Not at all.”

Jay asked cautiously, and Ariadne answered without hesitation. And with good reason she had never tried to think about so many complicated things at once.

Politics and social dynamics had never been her concern. All she had ever needed to think about was her own inadequacy.

How she fell short compared to her brothers.

The guilt of being unable to help her family in any meaningful way. And her quiet dream of escaping that perfect family, if only to breathe a little easier.

Her parents had always filtered the world for her, only giving her the information they deemed necessary and keeping her safe, healthy and untouched by anything difficult. But now, for the first time, she was confronted with something raw and unfiltered.

She realized how foolish she had been. She had moved through the world with her eyes and ears closed, never questioning anything, and had been extremely sheltered.

A small shock tinged with regret settled deep within her.

“I… really have lived such a comfortable life.”

“What?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

She couldn’t answer Jay’s question.

This was something she couldn’t tell anyone, not even Jay.

All she could do was cradle her head in her hands and sigh.

“…More importantly, Jay. Do you know anything about being a bridesmaid?”

For now, she had to deal with the most urgent problem first.