“……Yes! It was a lie! I deceived you on purpose!”

Fear crushed down on her, and she leaned back without thinking, putting distance between them.

“I remember everything about you, Frederic. Every last bit, from beginning to end!”

Even so, she couldn’t stop the accusations pouring out of her.

“Why do you think I did something that stupid! Who do you think it was for!”

“……!”

The moment he heard her last words, Frederic’s face contorted with anguish.

“Does it disgust you? Me, playing the fool and pretending to have lost my memory to deceive you?”

Margie’s eyes, swimming with unshed tears, glared at him with everything she had.

“It must have been agonizing, kissing and holding a woman you’ve never loved!”

Even at her outburst, he offered no defense. He had been sitting exactly where he landed after falling, not moving at all, only looking up at Margie.

“But even so…… I have never, not once, Frederic, not you……”

Never stopped loving you. Not even in this moment when you despise me.

Those were the words Margie swallowed, her trembling lower lip pressed shut, unable to say them aloud.

It’s over now. How repulsive it must look, a woman he never loved, shamelessly pretending to have lost her memory just to hold onto the shell of a husband. A devastating lie between two people who should have trust at their foundation. Being made to pay for betraying her husband with petty deception, for trampling on that trust, with divorce is only fair.

“……I’ll explain things to Father myself, somehow. That we parted on good terms. My things, first thing tomorrow morning……”

But this is the worst kind of goodbye.

“The divorce papers……”

I never imagined saying something this heartbreaking to Frederic and parting like this……

“I’ll have them prepared on my end, so please wait a little……”

It hurts. It hurts so much I can barely breathe……

How long it took to finish that last sentence, she couldn’t say. The grief clogging her mouth kept catching in her throat, kept snagging on the tip of her tongue.

Margie decided it was better to end things here before showing him anything uglier, and turned her head away to hide how badly she was crying.

“I’m sorry. For making you……. lie, Margie.”

“……?”

She had expected her husband to rage at her for the deception and demand a divorce. An apology was the last thing she expected.

It was enough to make her doubt both her ears.

“Would asking for forgiveness…… come across as an insult to you.”

Am I hearing things right now? Is this my imagination?

Margie stared at Frederic’s face with wide eyes.

“For a man who can’t give the woman he loves anything…… Someone this useless……”

Neither hallucination nor imagination.

“Whether I deserve to ask you to stay……”

Frederic had moved close to her, and pressed his face into her lap. The real Frederic, not a fantasy.

“If I’m being honest…… The day you lay in that hospital bed and asked me who I was, I was elated.”

“Pardon?”

“It felt like a chance had finally come to fasten the buttons properly, from the beginning.”

“Pardon?”

Buttons fastened wrong? Where did that come from? Are you a tailor?

Margie blinked rapidly at his words, unable to make sense of them.

“I’m so sorry to say this to you and to Sir Flynn, but…… I hoped you wouldn’t get your memory back.”

He still couldn’t lift his head. Both broad shoulders were trembling faintly.

“I wanted you to forget me like this. To never remember again, not forever……”

“Frederic! I have no idea what you mean!”

Margie pushed at his shoulders, not gently. His head, bowed toward the floor, rose very slowly.

“Don’t push me away, Margie. Please.”

“……!”

The most famously arrogant man in the kingdom, crumbling at her knees and forcing down his own grief. He’s so beautiful……

The moment Margie saw his face, she had to clamp her twitching lips shut hard.

“Have you grown to dislike me now.”

“……Pardon?”

“The look on your face right now, you can’t even stand to look at me.”

“That’s not……”

That couldn’t be further from the truth!

If there were a contest for the prettiest crier in Oslande, the first prize would go to you, Frederic! How could I not want to look at you? I could stare at this all night and be happy. You are the greatest entertainer in Oslande. Just looking at your face makes me want to laugh! If I could, I’d make you cry even harder. Cry more, more, more!

“What would I have to do to change your mind about the divorce.”

“……”

“Please tell me, Margie.”

“……”

“Call me selfish if you want. Losing you would make me far more miserable than spending my life beside you being blamed and resented.”

“……”

“I have never…… thought about parting from you…… not once…… hnn.”

“……!”

“I’ll do anything. Whatever you want, I’ll do it. Whatever you don’t want, I won’t do it, not even if it kills me. Anything you ask of me as your wife. So please……”

Frederic’s tears fell in drops.

He had just been radiating an overwhelming pressure, and now, in an instant, he was showing a pure, guileless beauty that could bewitch anyone who looked at him. Margie was baffled, and couldn’t hide her amazement.

One impossible sight after another. Am I losing my mind over Frederic?

Margie reached toward him without thinking. She wiped the tears running down his cheek.

“Don’t say the word goodbye, Margie……”

‘Stay with me, Margie!’

What surfaced in her mind was the minor collision near the Somerset duchy.

‘Open your eyes! Don’t die!’

Frederic worrying about her. Frederic wanting her to live. Frederic crying for her.

She had thought it was a delusion even then. But……

“I was…… wrong.”

Frederic pressed his wet left cheek into her palm. The strange sensation of his grief being slowly absorbed into her hand raised the hair on the back of Margie’s neck.

I was wrong. So please, huk……

The wet warmth from that day and the unfamiliar sensation right now match exactly.

That wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t a delusion.

“Ah……”

A dizziness nauseous enough to make her sick washed over her, and her slight upper body swayed slowly. Frederic rushed to catch her, pressing his palm to the back of her head, sparing her from hitting the corner of the sofa.

“Hold me.”

Margie wanted to confirm this was real, not a fantasy or a dream.

“……?”

“Your words, that you don’t want to part from me, they don’t feel real. So hold me tightly enough that I can feel what you mean……. Hnah!”

Before she finished speaking, Frederic pulled her in and kissed her. She was buried in his solid arms nearly to the point of being crushed, and she ran out of breath trying to keep up with his rough urgency.

“Hah, hk! Fre, derick! Breath, hahk!”

Reckless and rough, like a scoundrel stealing a woman’s first kiss……

“Mm, mmph, hnn……”

And yet the kiss was vivid with the neurotic desperation of a man terrified of losing the woman he loved.

“S, top, hnn!”

Just before he sucked at her tongue and lips hard enough to pull them out by the root, Margie pounded against his chest, and only then did Frederic’s battle of a kiss come to a stop.

“I…… understand. I understand your feelings, Frederic……”

“Divorce. Do you still want it?”

“N, no. I don’t. I won’t……”

“Then you forgive me for everything I’ve done wrong.”

“That’s……”

Margie hesitated with a reluctant tone.

If I forgive everything that easily, it’ll look too simple!

“Depending on how you behave as a husband from now on……”

Gasping and panting like someone just pulled from the water, Margie looked at Frederic with transparently wet eyes.

“……Kissing alone isn’t enough to express how much I care for my wife.”

The desire stirring in Frederic’s eyes as he gazed at her blue irises replaced the pitiful weeping that had been there moments before, gone without a trace, leaving nothing but a look full of want and heat.

“……!”

“And this study is…… too small to show you the extent of my efforts.”

“Oh……!”

Frederic slipped one arm under her neck and one behind her knees and lifted her in an instant. She had come into the study clinging to him like a baby, and she was leaving it cradled like a princess.

“Slowly, Frederic!”

Margie asked as gently as she could through a mild dizziness, but his pace didn’t slow.

“I don’t think that’s going to be possible today.”

His long strides toward the bedroom showed no sign of shortening, and he pressed kisses to her the whole way. His expression and his breathing made no attempt to hide either the anxiety or the excitement in him.

“Your Grace, my lady, good ev…… oh goodness!”

“Good lord.”

The maids and servants who spotted them couldn’t find anywhere to look, confronted with their employers’ brazen disregard for any sense of propriety.

“Your Grace, the letter you mentioned this morning, sent by the fastest post…… oh my.”

The forty-year-old aide also turned sharply away, unable to believe what he was seeing, then quietly raised his head and pushed his glasses up.