Chapter 23
A Harmonious Couple
Yuan's head snapped up at the sound of the window opening.
Snow-white angora earmuffs fluttered slightly in the breeze against her flushed cheeks.
Yuan clutched her fur cloak tightly, watching Klaud's golden hair, dyed with the colors of the sunset, dance in the wind.
As she slowly leaned back to see his face, a low voice, as if carried on the wind, brushed against her ear like a lie.
"Not even a crazy mutt. Showing off just because you have new clothes."
It was an obnoxious remark that made her gratitude for the new room and clothes vanish.
Yuan blinked, momentarily taken aback by his unchanging prickliness, and then sent her voice out on a puff of white breath.
"It's, it's not because of the new clothes! I ran to see Your Highness!"
"Me."
"Yes!"
"Why."
Klaud wasn't standing right next to the window.
So, instead of his face, Yuan looked at his golden hair fluttering in the wind and hesitated before answering.
"I said I would work for Your Highness, but you didn't... look for me."
I was worried that your mind had suddenly changed and you would kick me out.
But seeing that you gave me a room and clothes, it seems like you won't kick me out.
So, I wanted to say thank you very much.
Even though I have nightmares every day about being kicked out, when I see the new clothes hanging in the closet and all my things filling the room, I feel relieved...
Yuan gathered the words swirling in her mouth and shouted again at the unresponsive Klaud.
"And I'm not excited because I'm wearing new clothes! This cloak is new, but what I'm wearing underneath is—"
Yuan spread her cloak wide and jumped.
"It's the clothes I've been wearing! It doesn't look so old now, does it? It doesn't bother you anymore, does it?"
Klaud's forehead creased slightly each time Yuan jumped, revealing a glimpse of it.
"You didn't buy clothes? Why aren't they new?"
"They haven't arrived yet!"
Klaud didn't reply.
Yuan began to worry that the blame would fall on the butler.
Remembering the lilac dress that Michelle had left behind, she jumped again.
"I have new clothes! I'll show you!"
"You said they hadn't arrived."
"They're here!"
Yuan ran straight to the bedroom and urged Monica.
It was easy to imagine Klaud starting to berate Gustav, saying, 'That snail of an old man is slow to get things done.'
She had to prove that the butler had carried out his orders without a hitch.
Yuan, hastily dressed in her new clothes, passed through the many rooms in the hallway and stood in front of Klaud's bedroom.
She took a few breaths to calm herself and knocked several times, but there was no answer. Cautiously, she opened the door and saw Klaud leaning against the window, arms crossed.
His eyes, half-hidden in the shadows, turned to her.
"Your Highness."
Klaud stared at her for a long time without answering. To be precise, it seemed like he was scanning her.
He didn't seem displeased, but he didn't seem unhappy either.
Rather...
"Your Highness?"
"Who told you to come in as you please?"
For a fleeting moment, Klaud suddenly flared up, like someone who had briefly lost their mind and then returned.
Yuan quickly dabbed the sweat on her forehead with the back of her hand, sweat that had formed from running. And she quickly lifted the hem of her lilac dress and fluttered it.
The shimmering fabric, wrapped in moderately large frills, swayed beautifully.
"I'm wearing new clothes."
"......"
"Thank you."
The light on Klaud's face, backlit by the sunset, was unreadable.
However, he was no longer angry.
Yuan hesitated for a moment and then looked straight at him.
It was finally time to say what she had come to say.
"Are you not in pain?"
The sunset was getting deeper and deeper.
He would soon be sinking deeper into the swamp of pain.
"Why didn't you look for me?"
"Are you dissatisfied that I'm not giving you work?"
Klaud relaxed his stiff body for a moment and slowly walked over to the rocking chair, where he settled into it.
Deep fatigue hung on Klaud's face as he looked up at the ceiling.
He had fought the pain alone yesterday.
Without calling Yuan.
He had told her to work for him, but perhaps he was embarrassed to ask her to come, knowing what the treatment was?
Or was it a matter of pride?
Yuan stared intently at his perfect half-face, trying to understand his intentions.
A warm and cozy new room. Beautiful clothes that gently caress the body.
There is no such thing as a free lunch.
"I'll come right away when the sun goes down."
The rocking chair, which had been creaking, was silent for a moment.
Yuan spoke again in that gap.
"Every day from now on. Around this time... If it's uncomfortable, I'll come a little later than this."
"......"
"Don't lock the door."
Yuan approached Klaud, who was staring at the ceiling without answering.
She dropped a few drops of a newly made sleep aid into the teacup that Gustav, the butler, had prepared, and carefully handed the teacup to Klaud.
Soon, the dim, sunken purple eyes moved from her large black eyes, her small, neat nose, her plump pink lips, down her moderately exposed white neck, to the teacup held in her small hands.
Yuan saw his eyes flicker slightly as she looked at him up close.
Soon, his black hand, submerged in pain, accepted her medicine.
His Adam's apple bobbed each time he swallowed the tea.
Yuan led Klaud to his bed.
His massive body slowly rose from the rocking chair and followed her to sit on the bed.
Enduring his gaze as he stared down at her, Yuan very slowly approached him and kissed his dark cheek.
Klaud stiffened.
***
The Lev brothers, who had burst into Klaud's bedroom from the morning, had pale expressions.
Klaud awkwardly groped the empty space beside him, where a person's warmth still lingered, before slowly getting up.
"You're still sleeping in?"
"You always said my sleeping well was your wish."
Klaud answered Eddie Lev's cold question indifferently and adjusted his dressing gown.
His long fingers fumbled for the starting point of the knot and then flinched.
The gown was excessively clean and neat, needing no adjustment.
It was in stark contrast to the obvious signs of intense struggle on the adjacent side of the bed.
But since Lanslet's usually oily face was unusually serious, Klaud decided to ignore the uncomfortable truth for the time being.
"What is it?"
"See for yourself."
Klaud ignored the creeping sense of unease and picked up the golden letter that Eddie tossed to him.
A thick gold envelope. A wolf emblem engraved in purple wax. A letter from the Imperial Family.
Lanslet, who had been pacing behind Eddie, called out to Klaud as if he were about to cry.
"Klaud..."
It was a notification that Emperor Igor Euphris, the uncle who had turned Klaud into a monster, would be visiting this Black Manor in person.
He would be throwing a party to celebrate the marriage of his nephew, whom he hadn't visited once in ten years.
***
The small chapel where Louise's body was laid was beyond the white forest, at the well at the entrance to a small village.
Whenever Yuan accompanied the servants who had come to draw water and the baggage carts, she would stop by the chapel to meet the priest. And she would pray in the chapel's cemetery, where her sister was temporarily buried.
"So, now it's certain! The mistress can stay in the mansion, right?"
Henna, who had followed Yuan out, chattered as she welcomed Yuan back to the baggage cart.
Yuan smiled quietly and nodded.
There was a clause that she was responsible for his comfortable sleep, but he said she could stay as long as she lived quietly, so that was how it was.
"I'm going to believe that everyone has their match now. I never thought the day would come when the master would willingly bring in a mistress."
In any case, to others, they were a couple who slept together every day.
It was only natural that Henna, as well as the servants and the butler, had strangely excited faces.
Moreover, as soon as Yuan finished breakfast in her room, Gustav, the butler, handed her the mistress's ledger.
It was unclear whether Klaud had ordered it directly or whether Gustav had handed it over with a sense of tact, but in any case, she had been given authority.
This meant that Yuan would soon have money to manage.
Gustav apologized that there was no budget this year because there had never been a proper mistress before, and then handed Yuan all the jewelry that the previous brides had left behind in a hurry to escape, saying that it was for maintaining her dignity for the time being.
There was nothing so valuable as to make her eyes widen, but there were still quite a few useful items, so Yuan gave the small valuables to the chapel instead of buying new clothes or accessories.
It was to continue asking for Louise's care.
"I've even been imagining things like this lately? Since you two are such a harmonious couple, the day will soon come when we'll hear the sound of little babies who look like the master and mistress running around in this mansion... Hehe."
Cough-.
Yuan, who was drinking from the water bottle that Henna handed her, choked and coughed.
The hand that gently patted her back was so kind that her conscience pricked even more.
As she rode the baggage cart across the white forest, Yuan thought of Klaud again.
The man who had been an unidentified beast when she first passed through this white forest had already been erased from her mind.
The Klaud that Yuan saw was like a slightly sensitive and wounded wildcat who had no desire for life.
They only faced each other for a very short time, only in his bedroom, but even in that short moment, he showed her so many different faces.
He was basically sensitive, fierce, and couldn't say a kind word.
He was a crooked, rude, and abrasive person.
But if she let slip the time she would come at night tomorrow, or that yesterday was a little difficult, to him, who revealed his uncomfortable feelings without filtering them, that shapely mouth, which only said hateful things, would shut tightly.
Especially if she brought up words like 'last night,' his shoulders would flinch, and he would close his mouth and swallow a groan as if he remembered it himself, and once in a while, he would weakly retort that he was also having a hard time.
It was the face of someone who thought he was being molested while lying still and sleeping.
Yuan unconsciously let out a chuckle.
At times like that, his otherwise fine half-face would slowly turn red, and it was clear that he was imagining the time he didn't remember in his head.
