Previously
King Roderick confronts Duke Duncan during a meeting, exposing a complaint about the Duke's tax discrepancies and refusing to reinstate Albert Duncan. Despite the Duke's attempts to exploit rumors of the King's madness, Roderick remains sharp and announces that the hunting competition will proceed as scheduled.
I Miss You Terribly (Part 3)
After the Boy Spirit vanished, Lee-jae could hardly contain her indignation.
She buried her face in her hands for a while, swallowing down her rising fury.
Even so, it was not long before she had to look up again.
She had caught the sound of a familiar voice.
It was Roderick.
His brow had been furrowed ever since he approached from a distance.
It was because he had spotted the Queen sitting near the edge of the lake, her head hanging low.
When she lifted her head, she raised an eyebrow at him.
In truth, she did not look as though she had been crying at all; while her cheeks and the rims of her eyes were flushed, she looked thoroughly furious.
Even so, Roderick considered the matter for a moment and concluded, given the place and circumstances, that she must have wept.
Lee-jae, as he sat down beside her, asked indignantly,
Roderick had good reason.
Hailey was the one who had once thrown herself into the river.
If someone like that went out to the lakeshore every day to sit in quiet solitude, anyone would feel uneasy.
Roderick ran a hand roughly through his hair, glanced around, picked up a twig, and held it out to her.
Lee-jae took it from him with a dry chuckle.
Roderick shook his head again, looking as though he were truly ready to throw up his hands.
Then he stood, extending a hand down to her.
Lee-jae took his hand and rose to her feet.
Once up, she carefully pulled her hand back.
Having brought her to the bedchamber, the King stared at her face for a long time, his jaw set firm.
Because his expression was so dark, she seemed slightly intimidated, and the attendants around them simply watched on edge.
Yet the moment the King rose from his chair and lay down upon the bed, the valets and maids practically raced one another out of the room.
The King’s valets had thought they would surely win.
However, the maids led by Deborah were far swifter.
Deborah was a veteran who had never lost a single battle, and the maids trained under her hand were more adroit than anyone else.
Lee-jae looked down at Roderick and asked,
Lying down beside him, unable to hide her sulky pout, she muttered,
Roderick chuckled.
Roderick choked back a laugh, rubbing the corners of his mouth as he struggled to suppress his amusement.
Oh? Is he laughing?
Lee-jae clenched her fists and lifted her chin.
Watching this little beast put on her fiercest snarl, Roderick covered his face with one hand and shook his head.
Yet he truly believed the Queen was someone incapable of harboring such deep rage.
Though she prattled on without filter, in the end she would seal her lips and take a step back.
Quietly, like someone preparing to vanish at a moment’s notice.
Yet she also struck him as oddly lonely and sad.
Was it because she had been raised under her father’s constant scolding?
Roderick had never cared for Duke Duncan in the first place, but he found it all the more repulsive remembering how the man had grabbed his daughter by the hair and shaken her.
Anyone who saw the King’s gesture might have thought he was trying to initiate something again. But they were husband and wife, and this was their bedchamber.
When Lee-jae hesitated before finally resting her head against his wrist, he let out a soft sigh.
She looked just like a stray cat, wary of people and keeping its distance.
At that, Lee-jae slowly shifted her body a little closer to him.
She obediently did as she was told, but her expression remained tense.
Roderick gazed at the sight, then turned his head away and chuckled softly.
Lee-jae, still watching him, asked,
He thought she would protest that it was an improper advance, but Lee-jae simply burst out laughing.
Roderick, who was on the verge of bringing up the Duncan name, wisely held his tongue this time.
Instead, he asked something else.
You’re the matter.
Even today, harboring a secret she could never utter, Lee-jae wore a conflicted expression.
Even if she and Hailey were both fated to die young, having it said aloud stung nonetheless.
Pushing the idle thoughts aside, Lee-jae asked,
You didn't marry because you wanted to either.
There had been no avoiding it, but the truth was that he had simply married her out of necessity.
Roderick sighed just as Lee-jae had, his mood turning momentarily sour.
A tyrant. Madman. Two-faced monster.
"…"
Roderick spoke as though talking to himself.
Yet Lee-jae answered at once.
Roderick glanced at her with an odd look in his eyes.
So she shook her head slightly and affirmed it once more.
In fact, that was the greatest trouble of all. She felt drawn to Roderick precisely because she could see through him better than anyone else.
Shamans possessed a vision of their own.
And there were words Grandmother Yunsan had once told her.
‘Grandmother, why aren’t you helping that person?’
‘…Did you see it too?’
‘Yes… If he goes on like this, he’s going to die.’
‘Lee-jae, do you think humans are happier dying knowing their fate, or dying in ignorance? Just because you can see such things, do you fancy yourself a saint now?’
Her words had meant one should never meddle in matters beyond one’s station.
Yet she felt that the things she had once dismissed as trivial were growing larger and larger.
Lee-jae knew that Roderick was constantly giving her something.
Perhaps… it was warmth.
Her past life had been a continuous string of yearning for it, of begging for scraps of affection.
Feeling self-conscious, she buried her face in his chest for a brief moment before looking up to ask,
Roderick let out an amused snort at her sharp tease.
And… he truly was a good husband.
The two continued to chuckle, exchanging harmless banter for a while.
Seeing the Queen look so content, Roderick, who had been indulging her every whim, noticed that in a rare turn of events, drowsiness was beginning to wash over her features.
The result was that one was recovering vigor with every passing day, while the other was being drained of hers day by day on his account.
The King gently pulled the blanket up over her shoulders.
"…"
Roderick shielded his eyes with a forearm and laughed.
When he opened his eyes early the next morning, the two of them were tangled together once more, as always.
Roderick clicked his tongue softly upon realizing he had wrapped his arm around the Queen’s waist as if clinging to a lifeline.
Yesterday, they had fallen asleep together from the start, so it hadn't felt as jarring.
Even so, he felt a twinge of guilt, having clung to her so tightly that he felt almost like a leech.
Roderick gently slid his leg off, which had been weighing down Lee-jae’s small frame.
Then, gazing down at her sleeping face, he murmured,
Humans rarely grasp an intuition that flashes past too quickly.
Yet when that same intuition keeps recurring, anyone would want to pin it down and make sense of it.
Before the Queen was welcomed into the royal family, the investigation report on her had been barely over a quarter of a page; because she was a Duncan, the scrutiny had been vastly different compared to his previous fiancées.
Roderick pulled out the dossier he had recently tucked away in a drawer and studied it carefully.
He summoned Jade, pointing out every single discrepancy that bothered him.
Perhaps Kang Lee-jae had dug her own grave by keeping the vengeful spirits at bay from him of late.
"…"
‘Yes…’
The King’s expression was sour in the extreme.
Roderick scowled as he pointed to the line reading ‘Prefers sweet treats and pastries.’ He had never once seen her eat anything of the sort.
Even when Lee-jae ate food with just a hint of seasoning, she would grimace as though her appetite had evaporated entirely.
Jade realized then that the King had been observing the Queen with extraordinary vigilance over a very brief span of time.
It was born of suspicion, yes, but it was also the fruit of genuine fascination.
His suspicions about her were not fading; they were only mounting.
Yet he also found it terribly difficult to resist that bizarre pull.
The King clicked his tongue softly and caressed the apricot-tinted hair of Lee-jae, who was sleeping peacefully.
Roderick twined a lock of her hair around his fingers, his eyes clouded with worry.
His sober reason told him to push her away.
Yet strangely enough, he found himself entirely unable to let her go.
In the end, all he could do was gently brush his fingers over her cheek and lips.