Previously
Dolores and Resurreccion stage a fierce, believable wedding night for Adrian's spies outside the door by trading genuine pinches, bites, and even shattering the headboard before Resurreccion displays unexpected gentle care toward her pain.
Taking a bite of his apple, Resurreccion was hardly any different.
“Seems it worked all too well.”
“What a relief….”
Dolores let out a groan, gingerly rubbing her bruised arm.
In the end, it had left marks.
“I couldn’t do that twice…. It hurts too much.”
“I told you, I held back.”
“Grand Duke, as I’ve said, you and I are built rather differently.”
Still, thanks to the charade, the servants had been completely fooled.
Even the seasoned head maid.
Letting out a breath of relief, Dolores glanced sidelong at the Grand Duke.
‘Choosing an impotent man really was worth it….’
Men were said to be easily stirred at the mere sight of a woman’s body, yet Resurreccion had displayed no sign of interest whatsoever.
‘Ah. Could he prefer men?’
Either way, it made no difference to her.
Where else could she find a transactional arrangement so utterly free of troublesome strings?
So long as she tuned out his caustic tongue, putting her mind to work as he wished was nothing.
The morning passed pleasantly enough.
Soon, however, the hour came to leave the room for luncheon.
Yet unlike when he had first entered the guest suite yesterday, a smile played across the groom’s lips.
“Come now. Let’s go have a look at my dear brother’s face.”
Taking his proffered arm, Dolores offered a genuinely bright smile.
“I’ve been looking forward to it.”
Adrian, seated at the luncheon, looked like a spent cinder burned down to ash.
He had stayed up the entire night in the Crown Prince’s Palace, waiting.
Waiting for Dolly to come bolting out midway.
Waiting for the servants to rush over and report that it was all an act.
Or at the very least, waiting for someone to confirm there had been no signs of consummation….
Instead, the head maid had trampled on his heart with an apologetic bow.
‘I am terribly sorry, Your Highness. From everything we observed… it appears the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess have truly consummated their vows.’
Adrian tossed back cup after cup of afternoon tea, struggling to steady his composure.
‘That can’t be. Did Dolly truly choose that scoundrel over me?’
He despised his younger brother sitting across from him.
Had he truly lost her to that hulking, shadowed brute?
That lovely face, that slender waist, that soft skin… all of it?
Biting down on his lip, he clung stubbornly to denial.
‘No. Nobody actually saw it.’
They had merely heard sounds through the door. And noises could easily be faked, couldn’t they?
‘Dolly. Do you truly wish to escape me that badly?’
Yet he could not fathom why the flower that had slipped from his grasp looked so much more enchanting now.
If that was her game, he would see it through to the end.
“Resurreccion. Dolly. The two of you will be returning to the manor shortly, I presume.”
Having watched Adrian’s expression with quiet amusement, the pair set down their teacups without a word.
Dolores grew steadily more disgusted by her former husband’s persistence.
‘I wish he would stop looking at me like that.’
The days when she longed for such a gaze were long past.
To have the man who had subjected her to two decades of torment look at her with such longing stirred nothing but nausea.
Adrian then spoke with a look of profound concern.
“Still, I hear there isn’t a single lady-in-waiting to attend to Dolly at the estate.”
“There is hardly any need for one. The housemaids suffice.”
“Nonsense. Dolly is imperial family now…. Why not take one of the imperial palace ladies?”
Resurreccion’s expression turned cold and rigid.
The corner of his mouth twisted with mockery.
“Your duties as Crown Prince must have lightened considerably of late, considering you have time for such lavish consideration.”
“Hardly lavish. Surely you wouldn’t leave your beloved wife in the hands of common maids?”
The other guests invited to the luncheon began turning their attention toward them.
The elder brother and former fiancé, and the younger brother and present husband.
A battle of words between the two was far too entertaining to ignore.
Yet Dolores felt her nerves tightening to the point of a headache.
‘What a nuisance.’
From the looks of it, Adrian meant to whisper into the Emperor’s ear again and force a spy onto them.
She was better off stepping in herself to turn the tide to their advantage.
“Yes, Prince Adrian. Having a lady-in-waiting would be wonderful.”
“Dolores.”
It was Resurreccion who called her name.
Though he had been reasonably courteous all morning, his gaze was now twisted with displeasure.
“…Assuming my husband approves, of course. Since she would be residing in the home I share with him.”
Dolores blinked at him with an apologetic glance.
“Would that be acceptable, Your Highness?”
“…”
Resurreccion barely swallowed his irritation.
Though he had made light of holding back his strength, he could not forget how she had whimpered in pain through the night.
And he knew that as long as Adrian remained stubborn, avoiding the matter was impossible.
“Ha… of course.”
“Then I would like Lady Rachel Kirkland.”
At her proposal, however, Resurreccion shot her a look that asked if she had lost her mind.
He silently mouthed to her:
‘That loud-mouthed chatterbox?’
Dolores barely stifled an unseemly laugh.
Their new married life had finally begun after weathering an unexpected storm.
Yet once they returned to the Lancaster manor, Dolores was met with a tight-lipped Resurreccion.
“Grand Duke.”
“…”
“Are you angry with me?”
“…”
In the end, Lady Rachel Kirkland had indeed been assigned as Dolores’s lady-in-waiting.
And the moment the decision was finalized, the newly wedded pair fell into this awkward strain.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Resurreccion muttered a quiet curse.
“Damn it all.”
“You are angry.”
“Fine… of all the women… did it have to be her?”
“I am not fond of her either.”
Lady Rachel Kirkland was a landmine in high society.
A mine that exploded whether stepped on by a gentleman or a lady.
‘And in the most distasteful manner, at that.’
Though she harbored no real malice, she had a loose tongue and spread everyone’s business far and wide.
‘Once she takes an interest in someone, she clings like a burr.’
Were it not for the fact that the Kirkland family had produced Ministers of Finance for generations, she would have been exiled from polite society long ago.
…And in her previous life, Dolores had suffered greatly from Rachel’s vulgarity.
For she had been the lady-in-waiting Angelica hired after giving birth.
‘His Majesty the Emperor visits our Madame Angelica again tonight, yet why does the Empress’s Palace remain so desolate?’
‘Oh goodness, where is my head? I completely forgot Her Majesty was so busy caring for the Crown Prince!’
Though she blabbed Dolores’s deepest indignities in such fashion, she had never faced punishment thanks to Angelica.
“Yet that is precisely why I chose her.”
“Haah….”
“Better to make this short and decisive, wouldn’t you agree?”
To ensure Adrian never bothered them again, their charade as ‘an embarrassingly passionate newlywed couple’ needed to continue a while longer.
And Rachel was the sort to take the slightest glimpse and blow it up a hundredfold for all to hear.
‘Besides, getting rid of her later will be simple enough.’
She was bound to overstep sooner or later, and Dolores could use that very offense to dismiss her.
Even so, Resurreccion remained deeply displeased.
‘Letting someone who reeks of imperial society inside.’
That place was a den of suffocating pretension.
A place where people mocked anyone different, yet excluded you for failing to read the room if you dared to protest the ridicule.
A place where court poets sang of love while not a single soul meant a word of it.
He had fled to a manor of his own to escape that wretched sphere….
“Haah.”
Resurreccion pressed hard against his furrowed brow.
Brooding like this would do nothing to halt the passage of time.
Yet this time, he drew a firm line, his voice sharp.
“Let’s make one thing clear.”
“Yes.”
“I went through with this marriage as you asked. I even played along with a laughable farce I had no desire to perform.”
“Yes.”
“And against my every instinct, I am letting an outsider into my home. Do you have any idea how much tighter security must be with that woman around?”
“That too… yes. I know.”
“Then you know what comes next.”
Lowering her gaze slowly, Dolores murmured in response.
“…Yes.”
Thanks to this man, she had escaped a marriage that promised nothing but hellfire.
It was now time to prove her worth according to their bargain.
“I will build a rapport with Dowager Marchioness Lindinis and ensure she chooses Viscount Oswald. You have my word.”
“…Fine. Ha. To throw that chatterbox off our scent, our days of separate bedrooms are finished for the time being.”
“…”
This time, even Dolores averted her eyes at the encroaching headache.
An ‘embarrassingly passionate newlywed couple’ would never sleep in separate quarters so early into their marriage.
Thus, to fool Rachel, Dolores decided to move into the Grand Duke’s bedchamber.
Bertrand, the butler, clasped his hands together in sheer delight.
He had not the slightest inkling that this was a marriage of convenience.
“We have refurbished the room so Your Highness the Consort may rest comfortably. Please, Master, have a look.”
“Thank you, Bertrand.”
Concealing her mild surprise, Dolores smiled.
Though both were white rooms, this space felt quite different from her imperial-style quarters.
Furniture finely crafted from deep brown wood.
White ceramic vases adorned with sharp-leafed green plants.
A floor laid with a rug of alternating reddish-brown and navy diamonds.
Arched windows that looked ready to bathe the room in abundant sunlight.
‘How peculiar. The garden outside is quite ordinary.’
Yet sitting quietly in the room, it somehow brought the sea to mind.
As night fell, Dolores awkwardly smoothed the bedsheets.
To think that after spending a night pinching each other in the imperial palace, they were sharing a bed once more.
Just then, fresh from his wash, Resurreccion approached with a scowl.
“What are you doing? I’m putting out the lamp, so get in.”
“Um….”
Dolores glanced toward the plush sofa.
‘Could I not simply sleep there?’
Misunderstanding her look, Resurreccion let out an exasperated sigh.
“I have no intention of sleeping on a sofa when there’s a perfectly good bed.”
“…”
“Here. We’ll draw a line with the pillow.”
He tossed a long bolster pillow between them. Even with it in place, there was ample room for two.
Carefully slipping beneath the covers on the right side, Dolores whispered,
“Once Lady Kirkland is sent away, I’ll return to my own room.”
“Be sure to do so.”
“…And if you snore, I will wake you immediately.”
“Best of luck with that.”
“…”
Before long, the lamp was snuffed out.
As darkness enveloped the room, nothing could be heard save for the sound of breathing.
Yet this was no peaceful silence; it was an awkward stillness, each keenly aware of the other’s presence.