Chapter 33
From the morning, the Duchess’s maids were bustling about for the first time in a while.
“How about this one?”
Kaella gave a feeble smile at the question.
“It doesn’t matter.”
It truly didn’t matter to her, but the maids were determined not to let the day pass ordinarily. They were more cautious than the Lüsenford scouting party patrolling the borders and more vigilant than the knights guarding Soleil Palace where the Emperor resided.
“As if it doesn’t matter! This is the occasion to face those wicked nobles again! You must show them the dignity of the Ostein Duke’s daughter!”
It was the gathering where the Duchess, who had nearly died at the welcome banquet, would meet the northern noblewomen after recovering. The maids had been deeply shocked by the frivolous and crude behavior of the northern nobles at the welcome banquet.
Their first impression had stuck so firmly that the maids assumed all northern nobles were like that, and they put extra effort into dressing the Duchess. It was the most basic rule of high society.
The more enemies you have, the more splendidly you must adorn yourself—like donning armor.
“This sky blue really suits Your Highness’s eye color.”
“This vivid blue is pretty too.”
It was the first time Kaella had seen so many jewels as the Duchess of Lüsenford.
She had received many gifts from foreign envoys at her wedding, and besides the jewels she owned as the Ostein Duke’s daughter, she had brought all of her mother’s jewels from when she was the Ostein Duchess.
They were all things that had been taken away when her father had died so futilely at her previous marriage. She had hurriedly packed them when her father told her to take them all. As long as they were in her hands, even if her title was stripped away later, at least the jewels would remain.
The bride who had been looked down upon for being so poor and shabby had become immensely wealthy. With the jewels plus the ample fortune her father had set aside separately for her, it was fortunate, she supposed.
‘As if.’
Kaella had already begun her life as the Lüsenford Duchess by collapsing after eating Ferenco. In this place where frailty was a sin and no one understood not being able to eat what everyone else did, she was forever an outsider who could never blend in.
Before dying, she had strived desperately to gain recognition, but she only realized during her confinement that effort wouldn’t suffice.
This time, she lacked even the will to make such efforts, so she might go down in history simply as ‘the Duchess who couldn’t adapt to Lüsenford.’ Or rather, everything would end before she even left a mark.
“Why do you look like that, Your Highness? Your complexion isn’t good.”
The gazes of the Lüsenford nobles watching her had been filled with contempt and criticism. Recalling those unique stares that softened only slightly when she proved herself incessantly, only to revert right back, made her breath catch again.
“Is something wrong?”
The maids dropped what they were doing and all rushed to Kaella. Then came a knock at the door. A maid went out from behind the screen and opened it.
“Pardon the intrusion. Your Highness, time is already up. You must go out now.”
With no head maid, the butler had appeared.
“What are you talking about? There’s still plenty of time. You haven’t even finished getting ready yet.”
“In Lüsenford, punctuality is paramount. Since Your Highness is hosting the event, you must go out first to greet the arriving guests.”
“What? Where’s the rule like that? These people are coming to pay their respects to Your Highness!”
“Those arriving guests are at least of higher status than you, so you’d best watch your words. Your Highness, make haste. You’re already too late.”
See? Nothing had changed. There were more than a few who glared daggers at Kaella for presuming to be Pheon’s parent or guardian and taking Beatrice Lavalle’s place.
“Her Highness is not in good health. The doctor cautioned as much, so she must move slowly.”
Cecil, who had held back once, spoke firmly and clearly.
“Even so, you can’t ignore Lüsenford customs. The host must greet arriving guests in advance.”
“Since when did Lüsenford have such a custom?”
A low voice echoed through the corridor of cold stone. Kaella, who hadn’t stirred, flinched for the first time. The Duke strode in with heavy footsteps, passing the butler.
“It’s cold. Close the door.”
As he entered, cloaked in a mantle with black fur at the collar, the spacious room felt utterly filled.
Kaella reluctantly rose from her seat. Pheon immediately stopped her.
“No, Your Highness, please sit. I’m not here to disturb you.”
Not ‘sit down,’ but ‘please sit’—the butler was shocked to notice the Duke using the utmost honorific toward the Duchess.
“The host greets guests when the host feels like it, not because it’s some Lüsenford custom. Since when was that a rule, Rolph?”
Gesturing to the maids to tend to the Duchess, Pheon turned to the butler.
“I’ve been here about twenty years, and I’ve never heard of such a custom.”
“It’s… among the noblewomen…”
“Even if it exists, local customs do not supersede imperial law.”
If the Duchess went out first to greet the northern noblewomen, that’s exactly where the disdain would start. It was a position for Kaella to receive greetings, not give them. The butler’s reason for urging the young Duchess to curry favor with the noblewomen was obvious.
“You know full well about hierarchies of status.”
That’s why he had taught the maid to ‘watch your words about noblewomen higher in status than you.’
“No need to belabor the Duchess’s own status here.”
The maids kept glancing at the Duke even as they touched Kaella’s hair.
The aura emanating from him overwhelmed everyone present. Even the butler, tall and sturdy like a typical Lüsenford man, was completely subdued and speechless.
“If you insist on expressing Lüsenford hospitality, perhaps you should go out and greet the guests yourself.”
Pheon’s gaze bore down on the butler. He said nothing about showing the Duchess proper respect henceforth. It went without saying. If the moment came where he had to say it, the butler would have to step down.
“Y-yes!”
The butler managed a trembling reply and hurried out.
While everyone held their breath watching the Duke, only Kaella kept her expression unchanged. She was all too familiar with this heavy, suffocating atmosphere.
She knew exactly how the butler felt. If Pheon wanted, he could lacerate with words until the listener felt utterly humiliated. For a butler, this was him holding back considerably.
‘…No, could the butler already have fallen from favor? That can’t be?’
Pheon spoke more to those he cherished and said nothing unnecessary to those he didn’t care about.
Rolph the butler surely prided himself on raising Pheon, so he should have been soothed more gently. Yet Pheon had cut him down without mercy this time too.
As Kaella pondered this strangely, Pheon spoke first.
“…I’m sorry. I have nothing to offer Your Highness but apologies. I’ll have to ask you to handle the internal arrangements.”
‘Internal arrangements’—meaning even Rolph would be dismissed. And he was telling her to handle the ‘arrangements’ herself. Her eyelashes trembled faintly.
“How could I interfere in what Your Highness governs? I couldn’t.”
“It’s shameful that it’s come to this under my watch.”
Pheon replied through gritted teeth, then quickly schooled his expression when he saw Kaella glancing at him.
“Please change whatever displeases you. From now on, it’s yours to oversee.”
By then, the dressing was complete, and the maids hurriedly withdrew. Before Kaella could rise, Pheon approached her. She looked into the mirror capturing his figure. The spotlessly clean mirror, polished by the maids without a speck of dust, was worlds apart from the Duchess’s bedroom before her death, where cleaning had always been haphazard in spots. This room gleamed from every corner, scrubbed to a shine.
With the head maid gone, the maids watched the Duchess’s every cue excessively.
“Of course, take it slowly, without harming your health.”
He gestured behind him. Knight Wilberg, who had quietly approached at the flick of his fingers, opened the box he carried and presented it deferentially.
“Oh my!”
“Oh goodness!”
Even the maids from Ostein, where gold flowed like rivers, couldn’t help gasping in awe and surprise at the dazzling contents of the box.
“I prepared it thinking it would suit the ring. Fortunately, it was set quickly.”
The necklace lifted in Pheon’s gloved hand felt immensely heavy.
Kaella’s bare neck and collarbones were suddenly covered by it. So ornate that it reflected light in a brilliant cascade, nearly blinding.
Seeing the size of the central diamond, Kaella’s lips parted in shock. Before she could speak, Pheon fastened it and spoke first.
“I’ve heard a wife’s dignity is upheld by her husband.”
Though most knew it the other way around, no one in the room dared contradict the Duke.
“I worry I may shame you, as this is something I’ve never done before.”
It was excessively humble. Would the Lüsenford Duke need to bow his head like this to his already wedded wife? Yet he did.
He knew best that a mere Lüsenford Duke—the Empress’s illegitimate son, less than a mongrel cur—could never have married the Ostein Duke’s daughter.
If the Emperor, coveting rich Ostein, hadn’t disguised a shooting accident to murder his brother, cunningly stripped the lands and title, and to keep Pheon in check, essentially sold Kaella off to the north like chattel, she would have been a noble lady far beyond his gaze.
To him, struggling daily to survive, this puppet doll who had lost everything had dropped from the sky. And the doll was utterly miserable.
Even after regressing, their remarriage was, to Pheon’s astonishment, an utter humiliation for the Ostein Duke’s daughter.
The previous Emperor’s granddaughter, who could have wed any foreign prince, marrying a mere bastard—Kaella must want to die from the shame.
“Why this…”
“It’s the raw gem I showed you before marriage. Doesn’t it please you?”
“I only received it recently.”
As she spoke cautiously in a small voice, Pheon bent closer. With the Duke and Duchess so near, the knight and maids discreetly retreated farther.
“I said all twelve raw gems I showed you then were yours.”
The whisper near her ear was so gentle it was hard to believe it was Pheon’s. That’s why Kaella only grew more afraid.
Why did he keep being so kind? He should hate her for not being able to marry Beatrice Lavalle. He had to. That was right.
“I’ll have to keep giving you gifts until you’re used to it. If I do until you’re bored of them, will you eventually accept them as a matter of course?”
Kaella stared into the mirror at Pheon smiling so kindly, her gaze frozen.
Why was this man acting like this?
Everything was gradually diverging from what she knew. No, it had diverged long ago.
Was this another trap?
Pheon, who had endured the Emperor’s blood-draining oppression and humiliation for so long, was no easy man.
His extraordinary mental fortitude, bold decisiveness, and above all, the exceptional martial prowess and command he had honed in harsh environs just to survive had made him the north’s overlord.
With more time, he surely would have crushed the Emperor. That’s why the Emperor had hurried to eliminate him.
Anyway, why was a man of such caliber treating her, the pitiful and unworthy Kaella, with such meticulous care?
He wouldn’t do it without reason. There had to be a purpose.
“If you keep refusing when it’s just beginning, what am I to do? I can’t undo the marriage.”
Pheon said flatly as he personally finished the unfinished touches.
When he even tried to put on her earrings himself, Kaella snatched them and did it hastily, while he fussed over her like he used to with Beatrice in her bratty boyhood days.
“I can do it myself…”
“It’s done.”
It wasn’t curt dismissal but more like ‘All done, just bear with it a bit,’ the tone of an older brother soothing a whiny little sister.
Men who doted on wives or catered to mistresses might tweak a lady’s attire a bit, but she hadn’t expected it from Pheon. Or more precisely, she hadn’t expected him to fuss over her.
So she stood rigidly, merely watching as soft white fur draped her shoulders.
Well, how would our Your Highness know how well men express love?
During the days she struggled desperately to hold her Duchess position in Lüsenford, Beatrice Lavalle’s words, giggling behind her fan with only her eyes peeking out, still rang clear—scraping at her insides.
Yes. Kaella truly knew nothing of such things and was always the one giving devotion instead.
So she couldn’t fathom why this man was acting this way. There had to be a purpose, and she needed to uncover it…
‘No, I’ll just die. That’s all I’m good for anyway.’
Kaella forcibly shoved aside the needless worries and fears, took Pheon’s offered hand, and rose.
“I don’t know how to thank you…”
The necklace felt so heavy it must cost a fortune. Enough to buy a castle outright, probably. Fidgeting with it, Kaella began her awkward thanks.
“That’s enough.”
Pheon, checking if the warm new fur wrapped her snugly without gaps, cut the gratitude short.
“Just that much is plenty.”
“Thank you?”
Echoing blankly, Kaella blinked, and Pheon grinned brightly.
“‘Thank you.’”
It was just like the boy joyfully laughing before being dragged to Lüsenford—vibrant purple eyes brimming with life, a smile pure joy itself. Impossible to overlay deceit or ulterior motives on that face.
“Shall we go? I’ll escort you today.”
A husband who respected her from start to finish appearing at the wives’ gathering to escort his wife would elevate her status sky-high. What Kaella had so desperately yearned for before dying was unfolding in reality.
She walked the cold, chill-filled Lüsenford Castle corridors, always trembling alone before, now flawlessly flanked by maids and knights with Pheon at her side.
She neither wept in感動 nor rejoiced. She knew well this was all futile and empty.
Gazing vacantly at the stone ceiling as she walked, she thus failed to notice the gaze brushing her from nearby now and then. That gaze trembled with deep unease.
