Chapter 9

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Translator: Harry Potta

Chapter: 9

Chapter Title: Sleepless Night

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“Just come out. I won’t let you get away with this.”

Hanna ground her teeth, waiting for the bedroom door to open.

Back in Valmond Castle, she had always slept with Clodel.

When she had suddenly lost her parents and younger sibling to a fire, Hanna had felt fortunate at least to still have Clodel by her side.

But Clodel had lost her mother to an accident and her father one after another—by his own choice, no less.

She had managed when she first arrived at Valmond Castle amid the chaos of the village fire, but after her father passed away too, her insomnia grew so severe that she couldn’t sleep alone at all.

An accident was just an accident.

To Hanna, it was a single tragedy that bound and smothered her, but to Clodel, it was a double blow: her mother taken by misfortune, her father by his own hand. And Evan had left Clodel behind to do it.

She couldn’t have things like they were back then in Rowen Castle.

Hanna’s room was off on the third floor where the maids stayed, and Clodel’s room was no longer just hers alone.

There was no way Hanna could slip into the lady’s bed, not when the lord might show up at any moment.

And that worry paled in comparison to the blatant contempt Clodel had faced since arriving in Rowen Castle.

“This can’t go on.”

Unable to sleep all night from sheer frustration as she lay there, she finally headed to Kaiyan’s bedroom in the early dawn hours.

“Living like this will give her a fit of anger she doesn’t even have.”

The one she was worried would fall ill from bottled-up rage was, of course, not Hanna herself, but Clodel.

Hanna fretted over how Clodel kept silent and claimed everything was fine despite all the vicious gossip.

Because anger and fury that don’t erupt outward just fester inside and eat away at the heart.

“I have to say something to the duke somehow. It’s too unfair.”

Seeing Clodel refuse to remove the ring from her finger—even now that she knew it wasn’t truly hers—made Hanna’s blood boil.

Clodel wouldn’t lie.

Though the details were unclear, if she said he had given it to her, then Kaiyan must have.

And yet, how could he humiliate her in front of all those servants by pretending not to know her?

A lady’s dignity as the lady of the house is upheld by her husband.

After yesterday’s events, Clodel had spent just three days in Rowen Castle and had nearly lost all the respect due to her as the mistress the servants should serve.

That was what had brought Hanna to stand here.

She wanted to see Clodel live happily, not be gradually ignored and broken down.

If speaking to Kaiyan today about her grievances brought no change or resolution, Hanna was even prepared to flee Rowen Castle with Clodel.

Clodel didn’t eat much, and a small woman like her could easily be supported by Hanna’s callused hands doing sewing work or odd jobs in some other household.

Besides, the wages Hanna had saved from Valmond Castle would be enough to buy a modest house in some quiet rural village.

As she mentally piled up the anger she planned to unleash on Kaiyan...

Click.

The bedroom door opened, and out stepped a woman.

With her abundant long black hair and large blue eyes, she had a voluptuous figure unlike Clodel’s slender one.

Utterly shameless about whose young lady she might be, she emerged from another man’s—Kaiyan’s, the duke and Clodel’s husband—bedroom without a hint of discretion about what had transpired the night before. Her hair was disheveled and unkempt, her sash loosely tied, leaving her attire in disarray.

Hanna flushed with secondhand embarrassment at the sight.

“Who are you?”

As if she hadn’t expected to run into anyone, the woman hurriedly pulled her shawl to cover her half-exposed bosom and swept her hair back with her hand.

“The duke is still sleeping.”

Hanna had once heard rumors from Valmond Castle that a different woman visited Kaiyan’s bedroom every day.

But over the past two nights, she had rested in Clodel’s room, and with her mind occupied by the castle maids’ malicious gossip hitting so close to home, she had momentarily forgotten.

“That’s what I should be asking you. Who are you?”

The woman’s eyes widened as Hanna, clearly a servant, spoke with bold confidence.

“As far as I know, there’s only one person in Rowen Castle permitted to enter the lord’s bedroom.”

“Ah. Hahaha.”

Only then did the woman point at her with an index finger, her face lighting up as if she’d just figured out who Hanna was.

“Ahh, right. It’s you. The mad fighting cock from all those rumors—the flower wilted by the rain.”

Hanna had never struck the woman.

But hearing Clodel so brazenly called a “rain-wilted flower” made her want to slap that smug face.

“You still don’t know who I am, do you?”

The woman extended her left hand toward Hanna.

On it gleamed a massive blue diamond ring.

And Hanna recognized it at once.

It was the very ring prominently featured on the portrait of the late previous duke and duchess hanging at the front of the main hall in the lord’s castle.

A simple thick band securing a blue diamond large enough to cover the finger.

The late duchess had been a beauty with lemon-tinted shimmering golden blonde hair, pale skin, and large blue eyes.

Her personality was foul, but her looks were undeniably stunning—enough for even the Duke of House Temneth to acknowledge whose blood she came from.

The blue diamond on her finger suited her so perfectly, like a third living eye, that the portrait left quite an impression whenever Hanna passed by.

The duchess herself must have known in life how well it complemented her.

“Remember me. My name is Antyone.”

Sensing Hanna’s gaze, the woman flashed a bright smile.

“You recognize this ring. It was the duchess’s, but Kaiyan gave it to me.”

Normally, passing down a mother’s heirloom like that was taken as a vow of lifelong fidelity and pure devotion.

“Tell your lady this: Kaiyan already has someone he promised to marry. Whether she weds or not, you’ll never set foot in his bedroom.”

“How outrageous. Then what gives a virgin who hasn’t even married yet the right to strut so boldly in and out of a man’s bedroom?”

“You’re the ridiculous one. What’s some scrap of paper with a name on it? The problem lies with your worthless mistress, who can’t claim even a sliver of his heart.”

“……”

Antyone patted her waist and massaged her neck and shoulders as if to boast of last night’s exertions, then sauntered down the corridor.

For the first time, Hanna was so furious and appalled that words failed her.

A husband bringing another woman to his bedroom on the third day after his wife arrived in the territory!

“What are we to do? Our poor lady.”

It was a complete disaster.

Hanna’s thoughts turned firmly toward escaping Rowen with Clodel.

Clodel’s bedroom was quiet.

“My lord.”

Kaiyan, who had stood vigil through the night, turned at the butler’s voice as the faint light of dawn filtered into the corridor.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Who knows. I don’t.”

“Are you regretting it?”

Regret?

Regret.

It was a word that didn’t exist in Kaiyan’s dictionary, where everything he did was right.

“No.”

“Don’t be stubborn. The quickest time to correct a mistake is right now, no matter what it is.”

The butler, deep wrinkles etched under his eyes, let out a short sigh.

“Treating the lady this way—how will you handle the heir’s education? Discipline in the castle is in shambles.”

The butler was right.

If Clodel, treated with such disdain, bore a child, even that child’s position would be precarious.

A child raised amid constant scorn and torment could never become an heir admired by all like Kaiyan.

“No one in House Temneth ever imagined a bride from House Vermonte would come, so the uproar is inevitable. But you, my lord, must bolster the lady’s standing. Only then will they accept her.”

The butler’s nagging rang especially sharp today, every word painfully true.

“Come inside.”

Kaiyan shook his head at the butler’s words.

“No. I’ll just go today.”

With the three-day wedding banquet over, work had piled up that Kaiyan needed to attend to.

Besides, he still hadn’t sorted out what to say to Clodel or what he should do.

Facing her in this state would only tangle things further, so he decided to step back for now.

“Will you rest?”

“No. Straight to the office.”

“I’ll escort you.”

The butler knew why Kaiyan had paced outside Clodel’s bedroom all night without sleep, but he couldn’t instruct his master on such matters.

Soon enough, he’ll realize it himself.

The butler had no inkling that a day would come when he’d rue and lament this judgment.

Clodel had spent a sleepless night.

“Not a wink of sleep.”

Lying in bed with the covers pulled up, she roused her disheveled body as dawn broke.

“He didn’t come after all.”

Kaiyan hadn’t visited her bedroom last night.

He had turned away telling her not to cause a scene, looking quite upset.

She’d thought he wouldn’t come tonight either, but since he had on the second night—which wasn’t required for consummation—she’d held out a sliver of hope.

As if. Holding out hope. Even so. Maybe. Why am I thinking like this? He’s Temneth, and I’m Vermonte.

He had never been someone within the bounds of expectation from the start.

The two houses were like water and oil.

Enemies that could never mix, no matter how they tried.

“……I want to sleep.”

If only, at a time like this when her heart ached so, she could forget everything and sleep deeply.

Her body still throbbed where Kaiyan had touched her over those two prior nights, and staying awake through yet another made the sadness swell relentlessly.

I thought that on the first night. After consummation, I’d never see him in the bedroom again.

So why did this sense of pathos and emptiness keep creeping in?

“Must be from lack of sleep.”

As Clodel rubbed her head, where a dull ache had set in, and sighed deeply...

“Eup. Cough. Cough.”

A rough breath scraped through her chest, and when it brushed something deep inside, a squeezing pain gripped her lungs.

“Cough. Cough. Cough.”

The coughing wouldn’t stop, tormenting Clodel for a long while.

“Haa.”

She lowered the hand she’d clamped over her mouth. Warm, fishy liquid trickled down her wrist and dripped onto her nightgown and the covers.

Seeing it, Clodel murmured.

“……Blood.”