Chapter 38
The hostility stirred in Lüsenford by the words “Emperor’s Investigator” was indescribably immense.
It was obvious that digging up a punishment that had already concluded would only bring another round of bloodshed. The Emperor had always been harsh toward Lüsenford, after all.
“What are they coming here for this time?”
“It’s just an excuse involving Your Highness. How much more will they poke around this time?”
“Oh dear, more bloodshed is coming….”
The Grand Duke had always loved Lüsenford from the start, and the Duchess, who had been the victim, possessed a gentle heart, so the punishment had been severe but appropriately measured—yet now an investigator was coming to stir it all up. Most people took the news badly, while some secretly rejoiced inside.
The steward, who should naturally have been one of those rejoicing, unfortunately couldn’t fully savor his joy.
He was already suffering from stomach pains due to the Grand Duke’s recent habit of smashing furniture, and with the Duchess not yet fully recovered and thus not appointing a head maid, they were short-handed.
Now they even had to prepare to receive the Emperor’s investigator, so even with some time left, it felt like fire had broken out on his feet.
“Could Your Highness handle this side of things?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”
Fortunately, as the daughter of the Ostein Duke, she had a far better eye for quality than the previous head maid, and her sharp frugality made the steward hastily hand off the minor tasks.
Pheon’s instructions were to leave most matters to the Duchess anyway, so this should be fine. Of course, he had no intention—absolutely none—of handing over the key people or the precious ledgers. Those were vital assets he would grip tightly until his dying day.
As the steward overseeing the entire Lüsenford Castle, it was his duty to manage them to the end. He had done so for twenty years without passing them to anyone, and that wouldn’t change.
“Thank you, Your Highness. As you know, furniture purchases must stay within the allocated budget. If you look at this page, you’ll see the numbers here, right?”
Kaella nodded vaguely while keeping her distance from the messy ledgers filled with illegible writing and numbers. There were several of them, and she doubted they were properly managed.
Her goal before dying had been to comb through those ledgers and documents, organize them, and check the suspicious parts—but she hadn’t even dared approach a single one before her death.
Now three ledgers lay before her, but she no longer had the will to sort through them all.
“I’m not familiar with this, but I’ll do my best.”
“Yes, please do. And you must appoint a head maid.”
The investigator was coming now. They wouldn’t arrive for a month, but with the notice already sent, they had to hurry preparations.
The steward planned to unconditionally pass the head maid duties that Doris Windgood had handled in step with him directly to the next head maid, bypassing the Duchess entirely. Of course, under the premise that he would mold whichever woman it was.
A Lüsenford noblewoman would become head maid anyway. With his influence, he could easily shape her.
“Understood.”
A head maid, huh. Even if she picked one, it would have to be someone less bothersome to make things easier later. But what was the point?
After the steward closed the door and left, Kaella stared blankly at the desk for a while without doing anything. Unlike the last time, when the Duchess’s office had no information shared and she knew nothing, this was a bit better.
“They even gave me the ledgers. How unusual.”
Still, the Duchess had no dedicated office. She would handle things briefly and then have all real power stripped away again.
“Well, I’m not staying here long anyway.”
The Emperor’s investigator coming was actually an opportunity for Kaella. She would finish everything before they arrived. If she handled this well, she could sneak the youngest, Mari, back to Ostein. She had to create that chance somehow.
So, don’t overdo it—just enough to get Mari out. Exactly that much.
Even after organizing her thoughts, Kaella remained slumped in her chair, unable to lift a finger.
*
Everyone visiting the Grand Duke’s office cast peculiar glances at the temporarily placed sofa.
“We’ll get rid of it soon.”
Pheon couldn’t help saying it, with everyone staring so much. Their faces visibly relaxed in relief.
He had thought the color was off, but for every visitor to recoil uniformly like this—Pheon felt anew a deep sorry for Kaella, who must have lived surrounded by such hideous furniture in his previous life.
“Is it that awful?”
“The color is just too…”
“It was in the Duchess’s bedroom.”
“Ah, women’s tastes are entirely different from men’s. Yes. It must look beautiful to a woman’s eyes.”
“It was done by the exiled criminal.”
“Honestly, the color is extremely garish.”
“Bi doesn’t seem to like it either.”
“You should replace it immediately. Staring at it daily will strain your eyes.”
Pheon gazed steadily at Knight Renar, who flipped his words so nimbly, and sincerely admired him.
“You’re quick to pivot, Knight.”
“My goal is to please my lord.”
“It would be better if you pleased me honestly.”
“I am a very sincere and honest person.”
He couldn’t argue with that. He wished he could make Kaella smile like that brazen Renar did.
“By the way, is this why Your Grace has been smashing furniture? Poor old man Anderson’s been clutching his stomach lately. Says his gut’s killing him.”
Knight Renar seemed to find the steward’s complaints about his aching gut quite amusing.
“I went a bit overboard.”
Knight Wilberg, who had been silent, spoke up. Pheon answered bitterly.
“It was deliberate.”
It had been from the start. How could Doris Windgood, who had always fretted over not providing him with better things, do such a thing? At first, Pheon felt betrayal, then rage toward the subordinates who had dared treat him like their own child.
“I personally couldn’t comprehend ignoring the diet related to Your Grace’s health, but now I understand. She was just an evil person.”
Knight Wilberg concluded simply and coldly. Pheon nodded. He was right. She had just been an evil person. But the problem was that there were too many ‘just evil people’ around Kaella.
And the most evil among them was Pheon himself.
“Still, wouldn’t it be best to smash moderately and wrap it up, Your Grace?”
Secretary Lezen, who had been receiving documents one by one for Pheon to sign while at his side, spoke cautiously.
“Why?”
Pheon was enduring a great deal right now. Every time he saw the state of the Duchess’s bedroom, his blood boiled.
To treat his one justice, his sole ally, his only truly honest wife this way—ripping it all out and smashing it wouldn’t even satisfy him.
“I thought Your Grace seemed a bit frightened earlier. Your face went pale seeing the torn sofa.”
Pheon froze in an instant.
“Here, strong men are popular, of course, but Your Highness is from Ostein.”
If her husband smashed household furniture every other day, it was perfect fodder for misunderstandings from others—and even more so from his wife.
“…Was she… scared…?”
Knight Wilberg couldn’t bring himself to answer Pheon’s question, his voice rigid, but Knight Renar replied in his usual way.
“If Your Highness is as brave as she is, wouldn’t she find her constantly trouble-making husband more annoying than scary?”
“Annoying…”
Pheon’s voice grew even heavier. He didn’t like either option—Kaella avoiding him.
It was instinctive aversion, the root of the fear consuming him. After a smooth divorce, he wanted to remain in her memory as a good brother at most. But Kaella didn’t even seem to see him as a brother.
“They wouldn’t replace things unless I smashed them.”
“Our household isn’t that poor—aren’t you worrying too much based on appearances? Try talking to her. Isn’t communication key between husband and wife?”
Knight Renar, never missing a beat in times like these, advised diligently. His lord’s happiness was his own welfare.
“Yes. At this point, a conversation should suffice to replace the rest. Honestly, Your Grace has already smashed plenty…”
With even Lezen nodding, Pheon had nothing to say.
Kaella being scared of him or seeing him as violent was no different from his previous life. But conversation? For him, who had desperately pretended not to see her all those times, it was far too difficult.
*
How on earth was he supposed to talk to Kaella? This worry had occupied a corner of Pheon’s mind all day while he worked.
Starting from the marriage preparations, she had drawn even stricter lines, acting as if their shared childhood had evaporated into nothing.
Just as she had in his previous life before his regression, she acted the same now. It felt unresolved, and at the same time, brazenly hurtful and painful. Yes. It hurt. It should hurt even more viciously.
Lost deep in thought, he had come outside and now stared for a long while at his bedroom, where the light still flickered. Kaella hadn’t gone to sleep.
Pheon ultimately ascended to the bedroom. Lüsenford Castle’s stairs were all treacherously steep, especially dangerous for a noblewoman with long dress trains trailing behind.
He remembered Kaella struggling after slipping on the icy stairs.
Yet the resilient woman who always seemed to tenaciously overcome everything had broken so futilely. No, since the crudest, most brutal hand had snapped her, perhaps it was inevitable. With a heavy heart, he stood before the tightly shut door.
“It’s me. May I come in?”
Pheon knocked cautiously, and hearing no sound from within, his expression changed in an instant. His heart plummeted. Flashing before his eyes again was Kaella lying on the tower floor with her eyes open.
No time to fetch a maid and send her in. What if she had already collapsed like that? The weight of her, absurdly light in his hands as he recklessly pushed the door open, still lingered vividly.
As soon as he opened the door, he looked toward the desk where light pooled. On the small desk he sometimes used for work in the bedroom, Kaella was slumped over.
Pheon rushed to her, first checking if she was breathing. Warm breath touched his fingers.
Ink stained her small hands, her starlight-like hair, shimmering in the lamplight, hung loose. Her eyes, so clear and piercing that he could hardly look straight at them, were peacefully closed. She was asleep.
‘She might not know a scary husband, but a husband who keeps making work for her—that she does.’
She could have done just enough, but did Kaella not know moderation? Or did she enjoy the work?
On the desk lay the three ledgers the steward carried everywhere, spread open, with Kaella scattering a few sheets of paper and diligently noting numbers, dates, items, and such atop them. Was doing this enjoyable for her, or—as Renar said—annoying and bothersome?
I should do my own work, Your Grace.
There had been a time when the woman who kept appearing, insisting the Duchess’s duties be left to the Duchess, had irritated him.
Mechanically ignoring someone was never easy. No matter how he avoided places and times he might encounter Kaella, she appeared with infuriating persistence.
Then go do your work—why beg me for tasks?
Even when Pheon finally insulted her pride out of frustration, Kaella endured and asserted her rights. He had considered yielding a little, but praised himself for holding back when it turned out she was proven to be the Emperor’s spy.
Foolish wretch. He pulled back, widening the narrowed distance without thinking. After spewing such nonsense, did he even deserve to gaze at the brazenly sleeping Kaella?
Averting his eyes, he looked at the papers she had been writing on. Circles marked numbers, question marks drawn beside them.
Pheon stared at the numbers and ledger pages for a long time before reflexively glancing at the fireplace. Scraps of paper Kaella had written and burned remained unburnt. She must have been in the middle of burning them away.
Quietly taking the poker, he tossed the remaining bits fully into the flames, leaving no trace.
*
“Your Grace, Your Highness. You should sleep in bed. You’ll catch a cold sleeping at the desk.”
Startled by the touch waking her, Kaella jolted awake. Maid Mari was removing the pen from her hand.
“You must be tired. It’s too late.”
“Ah, I must have dozed off without realizing. I’ll tidy up. You go to bed.”
“Aww, but still. I should see Your Highness to sleep.”
While Mari fetched water to clean the ink from her hands, Kaella neatly burned all the papers where she had noted the ledger’s suspicious points.
“Oh no, it’s stained.”
Mari lamented over the ink that wouldn’t wipe off no matter how she rubbed.
“It’s fine. It’ll fade in a few days. Hurry and sleep. I’ll rest too.”
“Yes, Your Grace. Good night.”
After seeing Kaella extinguish the lights and get into bed, Mari quietly closed the darkened bedroom door and stepped out. Outside the bedroom, Pheon—who had sent Mari in—waited silently.
“Her Highness has retired.”
“Good. I understand. Don’t mention I was here.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Securing her silence once more, Pheon quietly left the area.
