Frederic finished his reply and went back to arranging the bedding on the sofa. His tone was courteous, yet there was something about it that left a faintly unpleasant taste.

“Oh, um. I’m not quite sure I understand what you mean……”

Margie tilted her head, watching his fussy, irritable movements.

“……Miss Flynn.”

Frederic, who had kept his back to Margie the entire time, finally turned and stood directly before her. His cold gaze landed on her like a blade pressed to every inch of her.

Margie Flynn.

A woman of average height, neither tall nor short. A frame a touch slimmer than most, with long arms and legs that gave her a graceful silhouette no matter what she wore. Blue eyes that brought out every refined feature of her face. A girlish smile. The striking contrast of black hair against milky skin, and a peculiar charm that drew a disproportionate amount of attention from the opposite s*x.

“I’m going to sleep in the bed, so why did you bring the pillow over to the sofa? Please tell me. I don’t understand. Frederic.”

A bright manner of speaking. An optimism so guileless it could almost feel selfish, utterly without reserve. The damned…… damned benefactor who, in less than half a day, paid off hundreds of millions in debt my father had accumulated over years.

“The one sleeping in the bed is you, Miss Flynn. Not me.”

Each syllable he murmured in a voice laced with deep resentment carved a sharp shadow along his clenched jaw.

“Then what about you, Frederic?”

“I’ll be sleeping on the sofa.”

“On the…… sofa?”

“Alone, without you, Miss Flynn.”

“Frederic…… alone?”

Margie’s tilted head swung to the opposite side.

“Aren’t the two of us supposed to sleep together?”

Margie could not make sense of a single thing her new husband intended.

“Are you saying you want to sleep separately on our wedding night? Did I understand that correctly? We’re a married couple.”

He remained silent, and the questions kept pouring out of her without pause.

“Do you perhaps toss and turn terribly in your sleep? In a rather undignified way?”

“Undignified……”

Frederic’s expression turned to one with a great deal to say in response to her absurd question, but he soon bit down on his lower lip and let out a short sigh.

“……I have no such habits. Not in the least.”

“Then why? What’s the reason? Why do I sleep in the bed alone while you sleep on this uncomfortable sofa? Why? Why? Is there a reason it has to be this way?”

Before Margie’s rapid-fire chatter, Frederic held his silence with an expression as composed as ever.

“……”

Though, of course, he couldn’t help pressing his right hand lightly to his slightly furrowed brow.

“Tell me, Frederic. Why on earth……”

“There is no need to force intimacy simply because we are married.”

“Pardon?”

“I do not wish for you to strain yourself. So.”

Frederic turned his back to her, cold and dismissive. Every line of him radiating that he had no intention of indulging her whims any further.

“For the time being, let us sleep separately.”

“Frederic. What do you mean by saying I don’t need to strain myself…… Oh?”

Margie had been about to press him with wide, round eyes when she stopped abruptly.

“Oh!”

Then she recoiled with a start and clapped both hands over her mouth.

“Oh, Frederic. Don’t tell me.”

His name slipped through her slender fingers, threaded through with tears.

“You’re being considerate of me…… on purpose……”

Tears of deep emotion began to well up in Margie’s clear blue eyes.

“……?”

Considerate? What consideration? Me? Toward you, Margie Flynn? You can’t be serious. This isn’t sleeptalking, so what on earth……?

The perpetually impassive Frederic’s eyes twitched with irritation.

He simply had no desire to hold that woman right now.

He despised Margie Flynn, daughter of a vulgar merchant family that had bought his honor with money. A woman like that had become his wife and was drooling over his golden hair and fine physique.

This worthless shell. Useful only for bewitching base, lowly people, and good for absolutely nothing beyond that……

Loathing his own incompetence, he had come to regard his own beauty as something close to a curse.

His pride, swept through by a storm of inferiority, was now nothing but raw wounds. With a heart muddled by self-reproach and a sense of persecution, there was no room left for any instinct toward intimacy with a woman.

That was all it was……

“You, who hold back even your own desires for my sake…… Oh, you truly are a wonderful husband.”

What on earth had this woman conjured in that head of hers.

“Well then, Frederic, sweet dreams. Good night!”

Having bid her farewell to a Frederic too bewildered to speak, Margie leapt up onto the bed.

“Goodness. How can anyone be so gentlemanly. Nobility really is different. Is this what they call the dignity of a duke? If so, I must not forget my own place as a duchess. I should carry myself with a bit more decorum so as not to bring shame upon the Graham name……”

As she tucked her small body beneath the warm covers, she murmured those satisfied words to herself.

She often enjoyed reading. Naturally, she had no inclination toward books of principle or philosophical insight. Her preferred reading list consisted mainly of popular novels centered on the profound dynamics between men and women, or more precisely, on the depiction of er*tic relationships and moans of one or two syllables.

The heroines of such novels were, for the most part, pure of body, and so they expressed fear before the joy of union, while the heroes, though burning with desire, repeatedly delivered the line ‘I will wait until you are ready’ out of consideration for the virgin heroine. Some said ‘I will cherish you’ instead of promising to wait, and Margie found the latter more romantic.

But her opinion had just changed.

‘There is no need to force intimacy simply because we are married. I do not wish for you to strain yourself.’

He said there was no need to strain herself! A line worthy of any romance hero! No author could ever dream up something so romantic! Oh, good heavens. Was there a happier woman in all the world than her!

It was the moment the line of her life, which had once lived in a novel, was replaced by a single word from her husband.

“Isn’t patience one of the virtues of a leading man?”

Murmuring shyly to herself, Margie drifted quickly into a deep sleep. The tension that had wound through her body all throughout the wedding melted away the moment she lay down.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

The suspicion that Frederic’s patience might be a little excessive crept in one month after the wedding.

Even then, Margie remained untouched.

To put it plainly, since becoming husband and wife, he had not laid so much as a single hair on her.

Hmm. He’s being awfully careful, even for careful. He said not to strain myself, but is he planning to preserve me as a virgin forever like this……

Margie’s doubt grew beyond all control. Enough that she couldn’t help but confide in someone or seek advice from a wiser, more experienced person.

But where on earth was she supposed to ask about such an embarrassing matter of married life. She decided in the end to rely on the wisdom of those who had come before her, preserved in the pages of a book.

〈The Grand Ducal Household’s Lewd Wedding Night〉.

That particular volume had spent twenty-four consecutive weeks on the bestseller list after publication and received high praise for its nuanced emotional portrayal of the relationship between a man and a woman…… was a complete lie. It was a dependable piece of er*tic fiction known in certain circles as ‘the underground bible,’ thanks to positions that made one wonder whether they were anatomically possible and the hero’s shockingly expl*cit dirty talk.

Anyway, according to the novel, once the hero and heroine confirmed their feelings for each other, they were at it constantly, at every opportunity. In the middle of eating, over tea, during quiet conversation at a party they’d been invited to, and even inside the carriage on the way home.