―Thud!

As the carriage to Argenta left from the Alors’s territory, Vielle seemed to notice something was different about me right away since I could move freely now.

“Madam, this time…?”

She glanced at my back, so I answered lightly.

“This time, they said my condition didn’t change much, so I should just go.”

Her face lit up for a moment at my words, but then she continued earnestly, “That means you haven’t been able to rest properly for a month.”

She finished her words grimly.

“It’s our fault. When you return, I’ll tell Nias to examine you and…”

She began to worry at length.

She felt like an older sister, a sister who worried about me a lot. I burst out laughing as I looked at her anxious expression.

“It’s okay.”

My tense feelings from seeing the Duke of Alors had settled down, and I really was feeling better.

“I have to prepare for war, so when would I have time to rest?”

Vielle’s expression darkened at my words.

“That’s why you need to be in the best possible condition.”

“Well…”

She was right.

When I didn’t say anything, she gestured to the maids.

“We will make sure you are as comfortable as possible.”

It seemed like incense had already been burned in the carriage because every time I inhaled, I smelled something nice. In the meanwhile, the maids gently massaged my shoulders and arms again.

“Did the Duke of Alors inflict this wound?”

As Vielle asked, looking at the inside of my arm, I followed her gaze to see a slightly red, swollen wound.

“Huh?”

Only when I looked at the wound did I remember that the Duke of Alors had doused my arm with water. It would probably disappear soon.

“Yes.”

Still, I didn’t deny it. Vielle immediately began to bring all sorts of medicine.

“You won’t be in pain.”

She gave specific orders.

“The pain is already gone.”

Vielle didn’t bat an eye.

“I will treat it so that it doesn’t bother you and show it to Nias.”

Anyone who saw it would think I had been cut with a knife. My arm only had a red mark where something hot had brushed against it.

“…Okay.”

Nonetheless, I couldn’t refute when she looked at my arm so seriously and worriedly. In the end, I handed my arm over to the maids and Vielle, who were holding cloths soaked in medicine and fussing over me.

* * *

Diello looked at the empty office while Krua was gone. To be exact, it was an office where only she was missing.

“….”

Even though he had thought this would happen, it was worse than he thought. The empty space was huge, so much so that he wondered how he had lived without her.

His mouth twisted.

‘It’ll be okay.’

Even though she was going to get hurt, his wife tried to reassure him. Little did she know that the beast he held in his arms would become more ferocious.

“The carriage that went to Alors is returning.”

While Diello was distracted…

Krua’s carriage, and Krua herself, was returning to him quickly.

―Thud!

Before he knew it, Diello stood up and kicked his chair roughly.

“My lord?”

He ordered Rick, who had stopped in his tracks as if nothing had happened.

“Prepare to welcome the Madam. Call Nias secretly and treat her wounds―”

As Diello spoke, he frowned.

The words he had just spoken grated on him.

“….”

He quickly found the jarring phrase in his own words as something grated on his nerves.

“…No, have Nias wait and come up later.”

“Pardon?”

It was the first time Rick had ever seen Diello give such incoherent orders. As a result, his expression became somewhat blank.

“Prepare warm water so she can relax. Wait, no.”

‘It might not be good for her wounds.’

Diello muttered to himself and quickly brushed past Rick.

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Yes?”

Rick asked blankly for the third time. Regardless, his master had already passed him by.

“My lord! She won’t arrive for another three hours!”

Diello was already running down the hall by the time he said that.

“My lord!”

As Rick clutched his head and chased after him, he thought to himself that his master’s judgment was so clouded.

His eyes narrowed.

“This is getting difficult.”

If the Madam saw him like this…

What if his lord, in his madness, made the wrong choice? It was a concern that Rick, who was devoted to the head of the Argenta family, couldn’t help but have.

* * *

Diello waited outside for three hours.

He didn’t believe in God, but now he thought he might believe a little unless it was a joke of a transcendent being.

“…She’s late.”

“They say she’ll be here soon.”

Three hours had never felt so long.

It was as if someone was deliberately stretching out the time. As if all the clocks in the world were being forcibly turned back.

However…

—Thud!

The moment the carriage appeared in the distance, and when she jumped into his arms…

“…Krua.”

“Diello!”

This time, time seemed to flow by in an instant, as though it had been sucked into somewhere… as if it were never slow. Only then did he exhale a long breath. He had only been away for a short while, but now he felt as if he could breathe again.

“I missed you.”

Diello came to his senses only when he heard her voice.

Krua didn’t seem to be hurt. To be exact, she did not seem to be in great pain.

She did not shrink away when he touched her, as people who were in great pain often did. As his eyes scanned her sharply, his keen sense of smell detected the faint smell of medicine concentrated on the inside of her arm.

“It seems you’ve hurt a different part of your body today, not your back.”

He whispered in a low voice.

Krua nodded.

“Yes, but―”

She seemed to be about to say that she was okay, but Diello lifted her up instead of listening any further.

“….!”

Krua gasped and wrapped her arms around his neck. Diello clearly caught her flinching as she tried to grab him with the arm that smelled of medicine.

“…Are you in a lot of pain?”

A hoarse voice came out of him before he knew it.

Krua lowered her hand.

“No.”

A very small whisper came and went. To others, they would look like a very sweet couple.

Of course.

Smack.

Diello, who kissed her on the forehead, was sincere as a husband to her. Except for his wife, who looked at him with wide eyes and drove him crazy, they were a perfect couple, both on the outside and on the inside.

“Diello?”

Diello said to her, who was saying that she could walk.

“You’re hurt, so I need to treat you.”

However, Krua waved her hand.

“I’m not that hurt. This time.”

At that whisper, he gently rolled up her sleeve with his fingertips.

“I can’t be at ease when you have something like this.”

He was worried about her—worried and angry. Then, he turned his cold gaze forward and spoke.

“So please let me check it myself.”

‘Please reassure me, Krua.’

His gaze, which was looking down at Krua again, was gentle.

“Or else I might not be able to sleep.”

His voice echoed through the hallway of the mansion where the two of them had entered.

“….”

At those words, the maids seemed to misunderstand something and hid their faces while blushing. Diello raised an eyebrow at them. They seemed to think that he would not sleep with Krua but spend the night with her.

“….”

He wished that the misunderstanding was true.

His gaze looked down at Krua.

“Then…”

She seemed to have grasped the meaning of his words, that he would check her wound himself, close to the truth. She looked up at him, then raised her head slightly.

With a face that looked suddenly bold, she opened her mouth.

“…You’re just checking, right?”

Diello raised an eyebrow at those words.

“Don’t do anything else ‘naughty’.”

Diello paused for a moment at those words.

‘I won’t do anything more naughty than this.’

It was clear that she was quoting what he had said the day he had given her a massage. Unfortunately, his wise wife seemed to have seen through his intentions.

“…I understand.”

However, Diello eventually raised the white flag, as he wanted to examine her wound.

Only then did Krua smile broadly.

She either did not notice that her husband’s fingertips were trembling, or she trusted him too much. Reassured, she looked as if she was going on a picnic, even though she was being carried to bed in the arms of a beast.

“….”

And he was the fool of a beast who couldn’t devour such an innocent, rabbit-like woman.

He was going crazy.

He gripped the hem of her dress tightly under his hand.

—