Chapter 33. Be Careful When Consummating Your Marriage
2023.10.03.
Watching the properly unlit cigar burn away with the firewood, Herdin headed for the table with the water pitcher. His throat was parched.
Beyond the glass he drank from, he could see Blair sleeping soundly. It was while he quietly observed that sight.
Along with a dizzying sensation before his eyes, a pale phantom vision unfolded.
The bed before him was dyed crimson with blood, and atop it lay Blair, collapsed. Bleeding profusely from her back.
Herdin's heart dropped at the sight. He felt as though all the blood in his body was draining away. The hand holding the glass lost its strength in an instant.
'What...'
At that moment, the phantom vanished.
Where the phantom had disappeared, Blair lay sleeping just as she had moments before.
Herdin quickly snatched the glass he had nearly dropped.
What was that just now.
Though the phantom had vanished, his startled heart couldn't easily calm down.
Herdin strode over to the sleeping Blair and placed his index finger between her lips and nose. He felt her exhaled breath.
When he softly brought his finger to Blair's cheek, he felt warmth. Perhaps sensing that, Blair faintly furrowed her brow.
"Mmm..."
Herdin only then released the breath he had been holding.
'I must be quite unsettled in mind.'
It was the same during the New Year's festival, and again today. Seeing things.
The phantom had disappeared, but the emotion he felt in that moment lingered unpleasantly like an afterimage.
Just as Herdin was about to withdraw his hand from Blair, her eyelids fluttered and she opened her eyes. Her violet eyes, catching the sunlight seeping into the room, blinked slowly.
Her gradually focusing gaze fixed upon him.
"...Herdin?"
The breath that escaped with her voice tickled his finger.
Gazing intently at Blair as he traced her lips with his index finger, he leaned down and swallowed her lips.
Trembling lips, a moan like a pained whimper, intertwined hot breath—feeling all of these, the unpleasant afterimage of the phantom finally disappeared.
The woman was alive. In his arms.
* * *
"His Excellency is still in the bedroom."
Arriving at the Delmark ducal residence at his usual time, Ruth heard this news from Mason before even exchanging greetings.
Knowing what those words meant, Ruth faintly furrowed his brow.
It had already been ten days. Since Herdin began spending the night in Blair's bedroom and staying until morning.
To be precise, it was since the day he was kicked out of the office around noon.
'I was glad then, thinking he'd finally have time to rest.'
At that moment, Mason asked Ruth as he headed to the reception room.
"Shall I bring tea?"
"That would be nice. I'll have the same as yesterday, please."
While Ruth, having arrived at the reception room, opened his personal notebook and reviewed Herdin's schedule and the key matters that needed to be decided by today, Mason brought the tea.
He set the tea down before Ruth.
"How about adjusting your work hours for the time being? You are newlyweds, after all."
"That won't be necessary. My commute hours are fixed anyway. Well, he'll tire of it soon enough."
Ruth spoke as if it were of no concern, but inwardly he felt anxious about Herdin's interest in Blair.
A lord who had never shown such interest suddenly taking interest in a woman.
Since he was from a family that valued bloodlines, it should have been something to celebrate, but the partner was the problem. Of all people, it had to be Katrina's daughter.
While Ruth was lost in thought with only his notebook open, Herdin appeared abruptly from behind and leisurely walked over to sit across from him. He was wearing a robe, as if he had just washed up.
'Startled me.'
Herdin usually summoned him to the office when he woke, so he hadn't expected him to come to the reception room in person.
Moreover, having lived on the battlefield for a long time, Herdin was unintentionally skilled at concealing his presence. Because of this, Ruth would startle whenever he appeared suddenly.
Especially when, like just now, he had been thinking about him.
"Good morning, Your Excellency."
At Ruth's greeting, Herdin, with his long legs crossed, merely gave a slight nod. A servant who had brought Herdin's tea and cigar at that moment lit his cigar before leaving the reception room.
Herdin inhaled and exhaled the cigar smoke, then picked up one of the documents Ruth had brought.
"Is this the magic stone mine development matter you mentioned before?"
"Yes. You can review and approve it by today. And I've selected these as well, thinking it would be good to review them together."
Ruth held out documents organizing the proposals for businesses linked to that project and looked at Herdin.
Through the loosely tied robe, a glimpse of his well-trained body, and a face that made one lose their senses in admiration. Combined with the cigar between his lips, the sight was sensual even to him, a man.
Wherever he went, there were many women who wanted to exchange even a single word with him. That was a fact that gave Ruth considerable pride as well.
His relationship with Blair should have been like that with any other woman. A relationship where the other person liked him one-sidedly, and he remained indifferent.
But their relationship seemed a little different from what he wished. Since he was not one to share personal matters, he couldn't know everything, but Ruth sensed it instinctively.
Perhaps, when he had told Herdin to marry a suitable woman before the imperial decree fell.
The uneasy feeling that Herdin's inaction might have been related to that as well.
"Your Excellency."
Herdin raised his gaze from the document and looked at Ruth, using that as his answer.
"I'm sure you'll handle it well, but... just in case. Be careful when consummating your marriage."
At the mention of Blair from Ruth's lips, Herdin's eyes turned ice cold. It was the eyes of a beast seeing a meddler touching its prey.
"Are you telling me to be on guard in case she's hidden a dagger and stabs me?"
"Your Excellency would surely fall for such a sloppy attack. What I mean is, not that..."
Trailing off and clearing his throat, Ruth added in an even lower voice.
"Contraception. The imperial family might be waiting for your wife to bear Delmark's heir."
This meant that after Blair bore Delmark's heir, the imperial family might kill Herdin and absorb Delmark's power through her maternal family.
That was why Ruth had previously suggested he rather sire a bastard before that happened.
He had no personal grudge against Blair. The woman he had actually met seemed like a different kind of person from her mother.
But blood is thicker than water.
From Ruth's position, serving Delmark, the mere fact that she was of the imperial family made her someone he could never let his guard down around.
He knew that siring a bastard was immoral and would shake the family's dignity, but to Ruth, Herdin's safety was more important than anything else.
The late duchess, who had given him a second life, would have wished for that as well.
Listening to Ruth's words, Herdin recalled Blair. The contraceptives that always sat on her bedside table.
She was a woman who only thought about somehow ending this contract marriage and leaving his side. So if a child were conceived, it would be problematic for her as well.
But Ruth didn't know what kind of contract existed between them, so his worry was understandable.
Herdin swept back his still-damp hair, extinguished his cigar, and declared.
"That won't happen."
It would end cleanly with Blair. For the sake of the lover she passionately loved, if nothing else.
Though he didn't know why that fact left such a foul taste in his mouth.
* * *
Blair barely opened her eyes around noon.
It had already been ten days since the day he held her in his office. For the past ten days, she had barely been able to step outside her bedroom.
The clause stated in the contract, "a maximum of twice a month," had proven completely ineffective.
He had interpreted the contract as he pleased.
'Since only consummation is specified, kisses don't count, do they.'
With that logic, he would kiss every part of her body, leaving her aching with desire, and then—
'It says "if the other party desires it," so cases where both parties desire it aren't subject to the frequency limit stated in the contract.'
Having made it so that Blair had no choice but to want him, he embraced her as if he'd been waiting for it.
Blair, who had protested at first, eventually gave up.
Like that every night, from as early as late afternoon when his work ended, she was tormented by him throughout the night. She would fall asleep as if fainting, and even when she barely came to, she was still in his arms.
And then it would start all over again...
He tormented her so persistently through the night that now she even felt empty when she couldn't sense his warmth.
After being tormented by him all night, she couldn't gather her senses even during the day when he went to attend to his duties.
It felt as though he had drained all her vitality.
'How can human stamina be like that.'
Come to think of it, it was the same in her past life.
In her past life, Herdin, after their marriage, didn't let her go until late spring when their relationship fell apart, just like now. He had coupled with her like a beast every night.
'I thought that was acting too...'
Since this time was a contract marriage, she thought he wouldn't spend nights with an unwanted wife anymore. But his desire visible on her body seemed to be genuine.
She knew this too would be a fleeting interest that would soon cool, but there was no need to antagonize him unnecessarily. Their current cooperative relationship was good.
Besides, she'd already been feeling unsettled by the lack of visible progress in recovering her memories of the fire incident. Thinking that she could give him what else he wanted made her feel much more at ease.
'Since I decided not to doubt him anymore, I should be able to move more freely now.'
Blair, forcing her sore body upright, pulled the call bell cord.
She couldn't just lie around all day again today. There was much to do.
Planning for after the divorce, and tracking down the stranger who had killed her.