“…It was my fault. There’s no need to punish anyone.”

“Perhaps. But the fact remains, those who failed to report your disappearance in time did not fulfill their duties either.”

Kieron’s reply was cold and unwavering.

From the outset, he insisted that it was her fault for not realizing sooner that she was missing. Then he ordered Derrick to inform the entire staff about the wage cuts.

“Dock every servant’s pay for the month. If a single one of them had done their job properly, this mess wouldn’t have happened.”

“Your Grace!”

A collective gasp rippled through the nearby line of servants.

Ariadne cried out almost in a pleading tone, but he had already said all he intended to say. Without another word, he turned away.

“You will come to my office.”

He spoke as if commanding a subordinate, then strode up the stairs and disappeared without a backward glance, no matter what expression she wore.

“…My lady. Are you all right?”

“How could someone behave like that?”

Jay asked softly, watching Ariadne stand frozen in place, too stunned to speak. But Ariadne couldn’t offer her even the slightest reassurance. She could feel the weight of countless accusatory eyes on her.

Accusing eyes. Resentful eyes.

A few were pitying.

Some were dull with indifference.

She stood there, absorbing every gaze, while the servants who had witnessed the scene slowly slipped away one by one.

“But—my lady hasn’t even left yet…”

Jay looked around in alarm as she stared at the departing servants.

She tried glaring and gesturing to show that their lady was still there, but it was as if they had already erased Ariadne from their minds.

“Let them go, Jay.”

Ariadne stopped her quietly, because she understood. She understood them all too well.

“To them, I’m hardly a lady of the house. There’s no reason for them to show courtesy.”

“But my lady! You’re still the mistress of this estate!”

Jay’s voice rose in protest at Ariadne’s faint, defeated murmur. But Ariadne only smiled—a small, resigned curve of her lips.

“It’s fine. I won’t be here much longer anyway.”

Her voice dropped to a whisper as she spoke the final words, her gaze lifting towards the staircase he had climbed. He had told her to come. And just like that, something hot and fierce ignited inside her.

Had he not even noticed that she was gone until morning? Yet he had the audacity to drag innocent servants into the matter.

He had humiliated her in front of everyone for no reason. And now he had the nerve to lecture her about escorts when he had never assigned her a single knight of her own?

Her hands curled into tight fists.

Ariadne climbed the stairs with grim, unwavering resolve.

If he refused to listen again or insisted on pursuing his own stubborn views, she would stop feeling guilty about him.

Determined to shake off the unease that had plagued her since her meeting with the lawyer, Ariadne headed towards Kieron’s office.

“It’s me, Your Grace.”

She knocked softly, and the door opened immediately.

It was Herald, Kieron’s aide. Ariadne stepped inside. After offering her a brief greeting, Herald slipped past her and closed the door behind him.

Silence settled over the room.

Now alone, Kieron and Ariadne stood facing each other, each needing a moment to steady their thoughts.

Kieron looked at her, struggling to hold back the reprimand that had risen the moment she had walked in.

Ariadne, meanwhile, battled the opposite impulse — the fierce, blistering words ‘I want a divorce’ threatening to spill from her tongue.

If she had followed her heart, she would have said it immediately, but…

“I know it was wrong of me to leave yesterday without saying anything.”

She was the first to speak. Her voice steady, her gaze icily clear as she looked at him.

“But you’ve never really cared where I go, so it didn’t occur to me that I needed to tell you.”

As he had never assigned her a personal escort before, it had never occurred to her that she was supposed to bring one this time.

She began by admitting fault, but everything she said afterwards implied that it was his responsibility.

Kieron let out a short, incredulous laugh as he looked at his wife, who spoke with such brazen calmness.

“So what you’re saying is your wrongdoing is entirely my fault.”

“If that’s how it sounded to you, then I suppose that’s what it means.”

“Are you joking, my lady?”

His brows drew together sharply at her insincere reply. If that’s how it sounded to him, then so be it.

Was she claiming that she hadn’t meant any of those words?

Even under the weight of his deepening scowl, Ariadne did not flinch. She merely looked back at him as though she genuinely didn’t understand the problem.

“I’m not joking. That wasn’t my intention, but if that’s how you heard it, what can I do? Isn’t that how misunderstandings work?”

“That’s like hitting someone and saying, ‘I never meant to hit you.’ How is that any different?”

“At the very least, I didn’t hit anyone. I didn’t harm anyone.”

Ariadne met his gaze head-on. In that moment, Kieron understood with certainty that she was implying that everything that was happening now was his fault.

After holding her gaze for a moment, he finally turned his head away.

“That still doesn’t excuse what you did today.”

The fact that someone is hurt doesn’t give them the right to run away from home.

He understood her feelings; he wasn’t oblivious to them. However, he had no intention of indulging them.

He had done his best in his own way, and he was certain that he had been the more wounded one last night.

What was so wrong with wanting to spend one night with his wife?

If she struggled to express herself, was he supposed to force the words out of her just so she could pretend she had given in?

He had never imagined that spending one night away would cause such an unbearable crisis that she would leave the estate entirely.

Kieron fixed her with a hard glare as he spoke.

“You’ll have to endure the servants’ resentment for a while. No matter how you look at it, all of this happened because of you.”

“So you wanted to make this whole situation my fault—is that it?”

“What?”

He reacted as though he were the one who had been hurt the most by all of this.

Ariadne couldn’t understand it. After all, he had caused her every possible wound — so why was he suddenly acting like the victim?

She couldn’t tolerate this kind of deception or this reversal of roles.

“I admit I was wrong for leaving without a word. But that doesn’t mean you’re blameless. You’ve done plenty wrong to me, Your Grace—you just don’t realize any of it.”

She wasn’t sure whether he had genuinely not noticed, or was simply pretending.

Her sharp tone cut through the room, leaving Kieron staring at her in bafflement, unable to comprehend what she meant or why she would say such things.

His expression — which insisted that she had done nothing wrong and knew nothing — drained her completely.

Moments earlier, she had felt a stubborn spark of determination, but now she just wanted to leave the room as quickly as possible.

“So tell me—what exactly am I doing wrong? You’re the one who ran away first, not me.”

“If you didn’t want me to run, then you should’ve created an environment where I couldn’t. If there had been an escort stationed at my door, none of this would’ve happened.”

Her expression made it clear that she didn’t understand why he was criticizing her when he had never previously shown any concern.

After all, he was the one who had allowed everything to become lax and unattended. He had given her the opening, so how could he act as though he bore no responsibility at all?

Her steady tone left him momentarily speechless.

Truthfully, she was right.

Until now, he hadn’t paid her much attention. But now he was trying to care.

Why couldn’t she see that?

“So you’re saying none of this is your fault?”

“I never said that. I’m saying you don’t have the right to corner me like this.”

She exhaled softly, shook her head and fell silent.

He looked as though he wanted to press the issue further, but she didn’t have the energy to continue.

She had the sinking feeling that no matter what she said, she would be seen as the unreasonable one, the only person who remembered the pain she had endured because of him.

Ariadne let out a small sigh.

“That’s enough. As for the servants’ resentment, I’ll deal with it myself. You should focus on your own affairs, Your Grace.”

But her calm dismissal only served to make him even angrier.

Did she truly not see it?

How hard had he tried—awkwardly, clumsily, imperfectly—to talk to her and resolve something? Did she not realize how often he had sought her out, trying to bridge the growing divide between them?

The way she brushed all that aside, acting as if he had never tried at all, caused all his repressed feelings to surge to the surface.

Why?

Why was everything he did treated as if it meant nothing?

Why did she refuse to see anything but the worst in him?

Kieron was angry for his own reasons. Ariadne was angry for her own reasons. If they had reached out to each other, they might have found a way to understand each other. But they were both trapped inside their own perspectives, unable to see beyond them.

Each was convinced that their feelings, position, and thoughts mattered most.  And just like that—

—their conversation came to an end.

No compromise was reached.

“Then I’ll be going now.”

In the end, Ariadne chose to leave.

And as she turned away, she made herself a quiet promise: to forget every trace of guilt and discomfort she had felt earlier, when she met with the lawyer today.