Chapter 55
Lüsenford Grand Duke Hyperion Sivbrand Ferraro.
To the nobles of the Kranian Empire, the man bearing the unheard-of surname ‘Ferraro’ was nothing more than the grand duke of the barren northern territories.
The only recent addition to his titles was that he was the son-in-law of the Ostein Duke and the future husband of the next Ostein Duke.
He had little to his name, and with his blunt, indifferent demeanor, he didn’t fit in with high society at all. People said his close relationship with Beatrice stemmed from their mothers’ friendship since they were very young.
So how good could things really be between this new couple? No one thought the grand duke would properly fulfill his role as a husband to the Ostein Duke’s daughter. Everyone seated at this table felt that way, and so did Kaella.
“……Wait a moment.”
Kaella, who had been pressing her napkin firmly against her mouth, finally rose from her seat. Even her voice asking for permission came out strained, as if squeezed from her.
Her face drained of color, she vanished straight through the exit at the back. This was a banquet to welcome the emperor’s investigator, so at least one of the grand duke’s couple needed to remain at the table.
The moment his wife left her seat, all expression vanished from Pheon’s face.
Isidore Dakiten chased after her diligently but couldn’t figure out where she had gone. He glanced back and forth between his grand duke cousin, who hadn’t discovered her whereabouts, and the direction his cousin’s wife had disappeared, then finally made up his mind. Better to hear from the victim than get caught in that brutal battlefield.
“I’ll take my leave for a moment as well.”
The table fell silent in an instant after the two slipped away. Beatrice glanced at Isidore’s retreating back, then let out a deflating scoff as if she couldn’t believe it.
“What the hell. Is he the husband?”
“Don’t cross the line.”
“No, this is weird. Since when have they been that close? I must have missed them sneaking around behind my back.”
“Beatrice.”
Murderous intent flickered in Pheon’s eyes.
“I said, don’t cross the line.”
“Why are you talking to me like that? Are you mad at me?”
“You know damn well, so don’t even ask. It’s stupid.”
“What?”
Beatrice’s expression twisted in an instant.
“You shouldn’t talk to me like that, right?”
She glanced around and then hissed in a low voice.
“Why do you think I’m here? I came all the way to this freezing place because I wanted to see you. You shouldn’t betray me.”
“You shouldn’t have come. I don’t even want to look at you.”
Beatrice didn’t back down and instead flashed a bright smile this time. A curse embedded in a golden prohibition spell crept up stealthily toward Pheon, one ordinary people couldn’t see.
“Oh? You ate well enough for someone who says that.”
“I wasn’t looking at you—I was looking at the rain, so at least I didn’t choke.”
Kaella looked like she had, though. Pheon tried to stay composed as he always had, but in truth, it grated on him terribly that Isidore had chased after his wife, driving him to the brink of madness.
Before their marriage, what had been that desperate look on Kaella’s face as she tried to pass through the Kline checkpoint by any means? And how close could she really be to Isidore, who had been the checkpoint commander back then? No, he had no right to know.
Beatrice smiled even wider.
“Since when did your tastes get so cheap?”
“Have my tastes ever changed? You’re the only one I’ve ever been with, so they’ve always been cheap.”
Cracks split across her smiling face. Her smooth pink lips trembled violently before twisting viciously to bite back.
“Ah, so that’s why you have eyes for her?”
Her silver hair shook roughly as she gestured toward where Kaella had gone with her chin and eyes.
“Yeah. She was so cute, so different from anything I’d seen before—it made me realize just how trashy my tastes were.”
“You’ve known her for a few years now, and you’re saying this after all this time? You think I’ll believe that?”
Chilled violet eyes slanted toward Beatrice, whose eyes were bloodshot with disbelief.
“What do you expect from a mongrel.”
There was no chivalrous grace or courtesy in the way Pheon looked at or treated her.
The man who used to say a lady like Beatrice should be treated with utmost delicacy was now regarding her with the crude attitude and gaze of the north’s conqueror, its strongest knight. She gritted her teeth.
“You son of a bitch.”
“Watch your mouth.”
His languid gaze and slanted posture were pure thug.
Everyone who knew Pheon—even the emperor—would be shocked. The man renowned for his impeccable etiquette, his refinement, and high esteem was suddenly acting like a lowlife street punk.
‘What the hell?’
Beatrice’s pink eyes shook wildly. This wasn’t the Pheon she knew. Not the simple wallflower whose answers came easily. She didn’t know who this man was anymore. The puzzle she thought she had solved was shattering.
Her pink lips curled into a sneer.
“So this is who you really are?”
Wasn’t it utterly alluring? Her trembling eyes gleamed.
“You’ve always been like this.”
He smelled like her own kind. Beatrice inhaled deeply the dangerous masculine scent wafting from the man who had become ‘like her’ for the first time, thrilling with excitement.
Yes. No matter how elegant the empress was, could she have passed on only her blood? Somewhere, there must have been an unnamed father who contributed a different temperament—a filthy one that had to be hidden.
“You must have worked hard to hide it.”
“It was tough holding back.”
The man who had never hidden it corrected her simply.
“So this time, you’re holding back in front of your wife?”
“I have to hide it from the rain. But she’s sharp, so it’s probably pointless already.”
“Her?”
A scoff, a twisted smirk rising, eyes full of contempt, shoulders shaking with mirth. Pheon etched every bit of it clearly into his mind. It was all the contempt and humiliation his poor wife had endured her whole life.
“Well, go ahead and do that. It’s convenient for now if your wife plays the chaste, virtuous lady. And when you get bored……”
Her eyes, devouring him as she swallowed hard, burned red with lust.
“Play with me.”
Her playful voice dripped with greed.
“Yeah. That’s your true self. It suits you to be a mistress you have to hide away, one you can’t proudly claim.”
His low voice sank, and murderous intent flowed through the quiet table where people came and went.
“You like that sort of thing. People should live true to their nature.”
“What?”
Pheon chuckled lowly at Beatrice’s instantly contorted expression. Even amid the self-mockery, his laugh looked utterly decadent under the dim lighting, and Beatrice couldn’t tear her eyes away.
“You keep living like that. Don’t change. Keep deceiving just enough, pretending just enough.”
“And what about you? You think you won’t get fooled?”
Acting all smug when she had nothing to back it up.
Beatrice couldn’t stand seeing Pheon brush her off, no longer blindly obeying her words. It irritated her, frustrated her; she wanted him, wanted to crush him flat.
“You think you know everything? You don’t know shit.”
“We’ll see. Check after it’s all over what I know and don’t know.”
“Check after what? Keep a better eye on yourself and your wife. Guys like you always underestimate quiet wives and end up regretting it. Isidore likes those pitiful types.”
Beatrice grinned.
“The ones who keep a pretty house, play piano, cry their eyes out when something happens—like Kaella. Did you see the way he chased after her? Anyone would think they were already deeply involved. Haven’t they crossed the line already?”
“You’ll never have a legal relationship in your life, so you interpret everyone else’s as affairs. Not that you’d understand.”
Pheon scoffed too.
“Divorce isn’t easy, especially for men. But do you know why husbands don’t divorce even if their wives cheat?”
They already knew one such man. Someone who knew anger, curses, sorrow, yet clung to his wife until the end.
“They can’t ignore the bond from years together. I didn’t understand how terrifying that was before—forgiving her even if she came home with another man’s child. But now that I’m married, I get it.”
He smiled toward the woman who desperately wished his marriage would shatter—whether she was the emperor’s mistress or a sorceress, he didn’t care.
“Marriage is too sacred. No matter how much you pray and beg for it to break, it never does. After all those years together, if she’s sick, you call in doctors, sorcerers, witches—whatever it takes to save her. And if she dies, you die the same day.”
Beatrice flinched.
“My wife, unlike you, has solid morals and ethics, so she wouldn’t do that. But even if by some chance she had another man’s child, so what? I was born that way too. It wouldn’t matter. I’d raise it. It’d be pretty, like its mother.”
“Are you insane?”
No one suffered more from the bastard label than Pheon himself, and Beatrice knew best how hard he tried not to hate his mother for it. And now he said it didn’t matter?
Her bloodshot eyes widened, trembling.
Why was he acting like this? Why had he ‘changed’ so much?
It was so absurd she needed to speak, but no words came. No, her words no longer reached Pheon.
The words that had cast the prohibition lost all power.
“The only insane one here is you, Lady Lavalle. Denying plain facts, rejecting laws, etiquette—everything—and not even thinking about the price you’ll pay later.”
Pheon spoke quietly and rose from his seat.
“Well, as the host, I need to properly entertain the investigator. Excuse me first.”
Beatrice, left alone at the table, watched the grand duke leave without a backward glance. Trembling in the empty space, she finally turned to the only person nearby—the butler.
“What the hell is wrong with him?”
He had to pretend he hadn’t heard or seen, but butlers knew all their masters’ secrets. He simply hoped the investigator’s visit, which he had subtly arranged, would be good medicine for Pheon.
But far from medicine, the butler’s face paled more than Beatrice’s at the shocking words he’d overheard.
Unable to speak properly, he stood awkwardly, shaking his head. Even the butler didn’t know. The grand duke who had just passed by him wasn’t the child he had raised. Not his son.
*
“Oh my, Your Highness.”
Cecil was startled to see Kaella drenched in cold sweat, clutching her stomach, unable to straighten her back.
“Do you feel like vomiting, Your Highness?”
Kaella, too weak to speak, just gestured for her to step back. The symptoms were worsening, and worst of all, they were progressing too quickly. Her stomach clenched painfully.
“Her Highness has indigestion. Is there no medicine?”
Knight Isidore Dakiten, supporting Kaella, asked urgently, and Mari answered.
“The doctor’s on his way. He’ll be here soon.”
“How long will that take? Kaella, sit down first.”
Indigestion was no joke—it could be fatal. Having seen people die suddenly from it while stationed at the checkpoint, Isidore urged them to hurry with the doctor as he helped Kaella into a seat.
“No…….”
Her hoarse voice refused him. Kaella didn’t want to sit right now. She couldn’t even straighten her waist—what good would sitting do? The stabbing pain in her gut was growing.
“Moving around will only make it worse, Kaella.”
Isidore gently forced her to sit despite her protests and waited anxiously for the doctor. They sat in silence for a while, waiting.
Lüsenford Castle was still cold and desolate. Seeing Kaella suffer after finally getting southern food made Isidore recall the incident report, fueling his fresh anger.
‘Either clean it up properly before marriage, or at least don’t show it in public!’
Beatrice and Pheon were both the same. Only kind, soft-hearted Kaella kept getting hurt in between. After waiting and waiting, Isidore exploded after just a minute.
“Where the hell is that doctor?!”
“With so many people to tend to, he might be out in the outer areas.”
“There are no resident doctors at all?”
“That one is the resident doctor.”
“Isn’t there anyone else?”
“He’s the one who handles all of Her Highness’s food and medicine, so more than any other doctor…….”
Just then, Kaella shot to her feet.
“Where are you going? You’ll fall. Kaella!”
Shaking off Isidore’s hand, she clamped her mouth and stumbled off. She didn’t even have the strength to run—it was more like staggering quickly.
Nausea surged up, but her obsession with not showing an ugly side in front of a man drove her on.
She barely made it to the door, slammed it shut, and retched immediately. But nothing came up properly. No matter how hard she wrenched her stomach in agony, it didn’t help.
“Urk…….”
Tears blurred her vision. Why had she eaten so much? But she had wanted it so badly.
She had vowed to eat everything she wanted before dying, to die full, no matter what. And Beatrice, who had poisoned her food, had pointed it out. Right in front of Pheon.
She must have looked so desperate and sloppy wolfing it down. Her position must have shrunk that much more. Could she still eat everything she wanted before dying? When would this pain end?
Then the door opened again. If it was Isidore, she needed to tell him to leave. But the shadow that loomed was far larger and darker than Isidore’s—it bent down immediately and began patting her back.
“Vomit it all up.”
Kaella, gasping, shoved her husband away. She didn’t want to show him anything uglier, even if she died. He wasn’t allowed to see.
“Vomit. It’s faster that way. Hurry.”
He grabbed the arm pushing him with his other hand, never stopping the pats on her back. Her stomach twisted violently again.
Pheon stayed by her side until she finally emptied everything. Patting her back, helping her rinse her mouth, carrying her limp body back—it was all his husband’s duty.
