“I’m fine, Frederic. I didn’t particularly want to buy anything anyway. Don’t worry about me!”

Unable to meet his eyes, she forced brightness into her voice and answered him. The same kind of hollow words she had offered when they first arrived at the stable, no, the manor. She had said it hoping he wouldn’t trouble himself over her empty hands, that much was certain.

But before she even finished speaking, a shadow crossed his face for just a moment.

How am I supposed to not worry about you. How is that something a person can do.

His eyes said it with the same look that had once blamed and reproached her.

Though of course that was only Margie’s imagination. How could a man who chose this marriage purely for money possibly look like a devoted lover abandoned by his beloved. All delusion and wishful thinking. Of course it was.

Margie glanced away toward empty air and felt the familiar bitterness settle in.

“Margie, if something like this would still be welcome……”

After a brief silence, what Frederic held out to her was a bright bouquet dressed in pale pink roses.

“……Oh my goodness! It’s so beautiful, Frederic! Wow!”

Margie cried out in delight. Unguarded wonder at beauty, pure joy spilling out at the sight of something she loved.

Roses were a flower looked down upon by the nobility of the capital.

Too old-fashioned. Too common. Lacking in refinement.

Those were a few of the reasons the newly wealthy and the well-regarded nobility alike tended to avoid them.

But Margie loved roses dearly.

What did it matter if they were old-fashioned. What did it matter if they were common. People could call them lacking in refinement all they liked, but no one could honestly deny that tearing one’s eyes away from a rose, the very symbol of beauty, was an enormously difficult thing to do.

Perhaps what people had been dismissing was never really the rose at all, but their own weak-willed surrender to its primal enchantment. Watching roses, beautiful before they opened, beautiful in full bloom, beautiful as they faded endlessly away, Margie often found herself thinking exactly that.

She was especially fond of young roses with small, tightly closed buds. Getting married in a chapel surrounded by young rosebuds was her first great wish in life.

‘Roses, of all things!’

Ian Flynn had shot it down without a moment’s hesitation. His firm opinion was that decorating with something so plain and unimpressive would lead the nobility, and the Graham ducal family in particular, to look down on the Flynns and cast doubt on Margie’s taste. So instead of roses, a wide variety of flowers symbolizing wealth and glory filled the venue.

Cattleya, priced at the equivalent of a silver spoon per stem. Calla lilies, requiring such careful handling that dedicated professional staff had to be hired separately. Hellebore and scabiosa, premium imports from the Mediterranean coast. The guests had nothing but praise for Flynn’s incomparable wealth and the new bride Margie’s sophisticated sensibility.

The modest dream of marrying beneath a cascade of climbing roses had been denied, but Margie still had a second wish yet to be fulfilled. And that was……

“The moment I saw the roses, I thought of you, Margie.”

To receive a bouquet of pink roses from the man she loved, along with a proposal.

“I worried something this small might not be enough to make my wife happy.”

That wish had just come true! Well…… not the proposal part, unfortunately, but she had received roses from her husband either way, so the second wish was at least half fulfilled.

“This is the first bouquet of roses I’ve ever received in my life!”

She’d had the occasional opportunity to receive flowers. Margie Flynn was wealthy and beautiful and of marriageable age, after all. But none of those insufferably proud noble men had ever brought her anything as simple and unassuming, yet somehow not inexpensive, as roses.

What did expensive orchids or jewels or dresses mean? There was no gift in the world greater than a bouquet of pale pink young roses chosen by Frederic Graham himself, the finest man alive!

“Thank you!”

Margie wrapped both small hands around the bouquet.

“I love it so much. Look at how fresh the leaves and stems are, Frederic!”

She cheered like a child.

“There must be a flower farm somewhere in the town? You couldn’t find roses this fresh even paying a premium in the city!”

Whump!

Still unable to calm down, she threw both arms around his neck and buried herself against him. The habit of throwing herself at her father the moment he came home from a trip bearing a precious gift had slipped out before she could stop it.

“I’m…… glad you like it.”

The moment she pressed herself against him, Frederic’s voice, warm until then, went very cold. Even the awkward way he had been perched on the edge of the bed suddenly looked deeply uncomfortable.

“Oh! S, sorry, Frederic!”

His cool tone snapped her back to her senses. Margie yelped and pushed against his chest.

“I, I got so caught up in my own joy and committed this terrible, unforgivable rudeness……!”

But her slender hands were never going to budge a man of his solid build. The one who lurched back from the impact was Margie herself.

“Careful.”

Frederic caught her around the waist as she tilted. Then he pulled her firmly against him to keep her from tumbling off the bed.

“Oh!”

She narrowly avoided going over the edge, but her nose collided squarely with Frederic’s chest.

“……!”

The scent of roses rose from him. The fragrance of young roses, small petals pressed tightly together.

Had he been holding the bouquet against his chest the whole way here. Cradling it carefully, the way he’s holding me now……

“I don’t mind. My wife, holding onto her husband like this. We are…… married, after all.”

Frederic’s voice dropped low.

“R, right……? That’s how it should be, isn’t it? A hug is the most natural thing in the world, isn’t it? Because we’re married…… right?”

Still buried against his chest, Margie rambled.

Right. I’m currently performing the role of someone who lost her memory after a traffic accident. Which means I know nothing about the trouble between me and Frederic. So staying like this, pretending not to know…… should be fine, right?

But why has Frederic changed this much? Is he feeling guilty about my accident? People don’t change this drastically. It’s almost unsettling, like the real Frederic has vanished somewhere and whatever is wearing his face is only doing an impression of him. At this rate, maybe it’s Frederic who has amnesia, not me.

Once I recover my memories of before the accident and he realizes we weren’t exactly a happy couple, he’ll go back to being the frightening Frederic I know, won’t he. Hmm…… I feel terrible for someone carrying this much guilt, but there’s no way around it. I’ll have to keep playing the amnesiac until the day I die.

Oh, Frederic. Even if the only thing in your eyes when you look at me is pity for a wife who’s lost her memory, that’s all right. What does it matter. I’m this happy just being able to hold onto you freely!

“Thank you so much for the bouquet, Frederic.”

Eyes still spinning with calculations, Margie pressed deeper into his arms.

“I, I, I…… wish you a long and healthy life in gratitude for this gift!”

Even with all her nerve, she couldn’t bring herself to say she loved him, so she blurted out whatever came to mind and squeezed her eyes shut.

“……”

Frederic said nothing.

Thud, thud, thud.

What filled the silence was a deep, reverberating beat and one long, careful exhale.

“I don’t know what to do with myself when my wife is this happy.”

Frederic murmured it quietly, and it was his heartbeat striking against her ear. Loud enough to be less a sound and more a commotion.

“Frederic……?”

“All I gave you was a few roses.”

“Ah……”

“How do you forgive me this easily.”

Thump.

Margie fell back onto the bed, and Frederic’s large frame came down over her. Even so, he didn’t forget to brace his right arm against the mattress, keeping his weight from pressing down on her slight body.

Oh, this position, this mood……!

“I want to…… kiss you.”

“……!”

I knew it! Finally, a first kiss……!

“May I, Margie.”

Of course! Obviously yes! Go ahead, as much as you like! More! More! My lips are hardly the only thing I’d give you, Frederic.

Margie cheered silently. She would have loved to tie his hands and feet so he couldn’t change his mind later and spend the whole night kissing him, but……

“Yes……”

Lowering her eyes softly and giving a slow nod was the best she could manage. The Margie Graham of this moment was an amnesiac patient who had forgotten even that she loved her husband, a ward of the state who had to entrust the rest of her life to her husband and guardian.

Having successfully received her consent, Frederic swallowed. His throat moved slowly up and down several times as he did, his Adam’s apple shifting with a sensuous deliberateness.