Chapter 6

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Translator: Harry Potta

Chapter: 6

Chapter Title: Trivial Thing

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“Were you waiting for me?”

The low timbre of a man's voice filled the dark room, where the candles had already been extinguished before bedtime.

Were you waiting?

No.

She hadn't been. Yet Clodel nodded reflexively.

“Well, now. If I'd known you were this eager for the night, I would've come sooner.”

That wasn't true either.

Her insomnia had started the day her father passed away.

Every night, he'd sung her lullabies, missing the mother who'd gone to heaven first. They were the songs her mother had often sung to lull her to sleep in life.

But from the night her father died, she could no longer sleep at all.

Every night, she'd lie awake until dawn, when Hanna would slip into her room from the maids' quarters and hold her, stroking her back until she finally drifted off in that warmth, that touch.

Rumors spread through Valmond Castle that the young master's deceased daughter had lost her mind from shock.

When Duke Vermonte, who had planned to add Vermonte blood to the family register, flew into a rage at the prying eyes, the open whispers stopped. But the gossip never fully died.

In the end, Duke Vermonte turned a blind eye, allowing the commoner maid's child to sleep in the lady's chambers, settling the matter for the time being.

Even that he couldn't tolerate, so he paid off a baronet's family named Pebble to adopt Hanna—classic Duke Vermonte, ever obsessed with the family's honor.

A wife must always be ready for her husband.

It was different from her days as a mere lady.

Kaiyan entering her room was his right as head of the house.

He wouldn't notify her in advance or ask permission; he could arrive unannounced, like now. So it was absolutely forbidden for the lady and her maid to share the master's bed.

Still, I managed to sleep last night?

Hanna had worried about that too, but thinking back, Clodel wondered if she'd fallen asleep relying on his body heat after all.

An enemy's warmth was still better than nothing. At least for her.

Kaiyan led her to the bed and sat her down.

“No need to stand by the door like that. Lying down or sitting on the bed is enough.”

“Yes.”

As Clodel answered, he reached out, his fingers trailing gently over her cheek, her ear, under her chin, down her nape, caressing her delicate skin.

She tensed instinctively, clamping her mouth shut and hunching her shoulders.

“Come to think of it, you didn't answer properly.”

Did he always speak in these abrupt, unkind bursts?

Or did a man who looked cold and a bit angry even in bed treat a beautiful girl he fancied differently?

As she pondered silently, Kaiyan asked again.

“I asked if I was that bad.”

Clodel's eyes widened.

“Say the gift didn't suit your taste, fine. But did I please you?”

“How could I dare judge the duke like that...”

As she fumbled her response, Kaiyan raised an eyebrow.

“Cut the crap.”

Clodel flinched at his disregard for decorum.

What on earth am I supposed to say?

Earlier, it had naturally shifted to talk of the gift, letting it slide. But dragging it back and pinning it down like this—he must want a specific answer.

Yet her mind, taut with tension, went blank again.

“It... it was good.”

With those hard-won words, Clodel quickly added,

“Though I'm not exactly sure.”

Should I say you were good at it?

Did he want praise?

Confused, she managed an answer anyway.

“Hm.”

Close enough to the right answer, it seemed. Kaiyan lay back on the bed and extended a hand.

“Come here.”

When Clodel didn't move right away, he sat up again, pulled her into his arms, and laid her down.

“Guess I need to check if you're better than yesterday.”

Not the right answer after all.

Apparently, it was Clodel who needed to work harder to earn praise.

Clodel's body was honest.

As Kaiyan held her, he could instinctively tell she'd met their first night as a virgin.

He knew full well that such fortune wasn't granted to every man with a wife.

If every couple shared nights like this, there'd be no moth-like virgins fluttering into his bedroom.

He'd mocked her with Vermonte hatred, asking if she had some exceptional talent.

But she seemed utterly clueless about matters between men and women.

A naive woman who didn't know how to flirt, reacting to his every touch—it was intriguing enough to make him restless after sunset.

Should I head to the bedroom now? No, it'd look like I was just waiting for dark. Everything would be reported back to that vile Duke Vermonte.

He'd endured among his drunken retainers until true night fell and shadows deepened, only to head to the duchess's chambers and see the rooms and halls dark. Disappointment hit.

Can I wake a sleeping woman?

No one around him to ask such things.

Clodel was a quiet wife.

If she'd flitted about, he might've snapped about a vulgar redhead lording it over Rowen Castle.

But her detached yes-or-no responses left nothing to criticize. More talk swirled about her bold, fighting-cock maid.

At first, her meekness seemed fine, but it grated too.

Grated?

Kaiyan questioned the sudden thought.

There were no set hours for a noblewoman's bedtime or how long she'd wait for her husband.

So what if a woman who'd endured rain on a long journey and barely slept the night before dozed off early? It wasn't some grave sin—why should he feel this way?

About a mere Vermonte woman, no less!

As petty thoughts of waking and tormenting her sleeping form bubbled up, Kaiyan opened the bedroom door and locked eyes with Clodel standing right there.

Her golden eyes, sharper than a normal person's in the gloom, gleamed like the moon in a black sky. Even just bathed in the room's moonlight, her pale skin took on a soft glow.

He was pleased to find her barefoot in her nightgown, awaiting him.

The woman who'd suffered in the rain yesterday looked even more beautiful today, perhaps from resting all day.

He couldn't pinpoint what, exactly, but if Kaiyan felt it, then it was so.

Facing their second night, he finally understood the ascetic vows laid on his forebears.

He felt the same triumph and catharsis as on the battlefield—shields and spears shattering amid flying flesh, riding hard till breath burned his throat, knights roaring as he plunged his blade into the enemy commander's heart—multiple times atop Clodel.

Lightning from head to toe, severing him from the world.

Clodel's fevered body didn't cool easily, so Kaiyan held her contentedly, catching his breath.

As their ragged gasps subsided, silence fell.

Yesterday, she'd fallen asleep right away, so this moment hadn't come.

Today, she'd met him head-on, bodies syncing overnight; she looked alert, no trace of sleepiness.

Unable to bear the awkwardness, Clodel quietly rose from the bed.

She slipped on thin undergarments, then gathered his disheveled formal attire to tidy it.

In the pitch-black bedroom, Kaiyan thought the white-clad woman with bared shoulders, padding lightly about, resembled a fairy. As he watched languidly,

Ting, ting, ting-a-ling-ling.

A small metallic clink rolled across the floor. Clodel looked at him in panic.

She hurriedly scooped something up and, like a child who'd committed a grave error, held out her palm to Kaiyan.

“This fell from your clothes.”

It was the bezel encircling a gold button from his coat. With his heart mellowed like a sated lion, Kaiyan brushed it off.

“Just a decoration that came loose. Happens sometimes. The seamstress will fix it—no need to worry.”

But Clodel peered at it closely.

“Why?”

She looked lost in thought, like back in the crypt gazing at the tombs.

What could make her eyes burn with such longing for a tiny gold trinket?

Suddenly, Clodel slipped her finger into it.

“Can I have this?”

“What?”

“It fits perfectly.”

Oddly, the ring-shaped bezel fit her left ring finger like it was made for her.

Even knowing it'd just fallen from his clothes, it looked like a real ring.

Who wants something like that?

Kaiyan replied casually from his reclined position.

“Sure, whatever.”

Clodel's face lit up.

Does Valmond not know of Rowen's wealth?

Valmond's drought had lasted a full decade.

The desperate serfs began fleeing around five years ago.

Meanwhile, Kaiyan had cut off food exports north; Vermonte diamonds weren't worth a sack of beans.

But shipped abroad, those diamonds bought a ship full of grain—so Temneth had long surpassed Vermonte's assets.

He'd planned to raze them with that wealth.

He had funds ready for a full territorial war—years' worth of royal budget. Nothing was too precious to punish his family's enemy.

Just imagining his tombstone reading “The lord who ended Vermonte” made his blood boil.

Yet here was Clodel, spurning the blue diamond he'd given her for a slender gold bit from his clothes. What an odd woman.

Then realization dawned on him alone.

Ah, right... it probably doesn't suit me.

Red hair, yellow eyes, plus a big blue diamond? Too tacky, maybe.

Even he, no expert in noble adornments, could see clashing bold primaries looking off.

But happy over that?

Valmond was once a hub of precious metals and gems. Like Rowen restricting food yields, Valmond controlled its mines' output value.

She must've grown up with refined tastes in Duke Vermonte's house.

Maybe just the thrill of wresting something from Temneth.

Settling on that, Kaiyan closed his eyes.

At that moment, he couldn't have dreamed

“Oh my. Did the duke really give you this?”

“Yeah. Pretty, right?”

That early next morning, Clodel would proudly show her “trivial” prize to her maid with a beaming face.

Nor that rumors would spread through the castle: the snubbed Vermonte woman had secretly pried a decoration from the duke's coat and stolen it.