Chapter 115

‘Kai Hardeion, three months old.’

“My lady. Slowly, please.”

‘Thud thud thud thud.’

Emily’s voice was swallowed by the sound of my footsteps. I was flying down the corridor like the anchor runner in a relay race.

“My— lady—!”

“Hihihi! I’m fine! The physician said moderate exercise is perfectly all right!”

“This is ‘not’ moderate—!”

Emily’s voice faded behind me as she called after me with her hands cupped around her mouth. I kept running, grinning to myself.

“I’m fiiiine! I just want to see my baby so badly! I have to get my fill while my husband’s away!”

Three months had passed since Kai was born.

My body had recovered remarkably fast. I almost felt like I had more energy than before. Was that the effect of having my little angel?

‘Thud thud thud thud.’

I galloped from one end of the corridor to the other.

The staff members I passed turned pale and tried to stop me, but there was nothing to be done. I needed to see my Kai too badly.

I darted through the open doorway.

“Hihihi, Mother! I’m here!”

“Goodness, dear! Kael must have just gone out—would you please stop running around like this—”

“Ivelina! Be careful!”

“Sister-in-law! Please! A mother should be resting for a full six months after giving birth—”

The nursery was in full commotion.

Both sets of parents had jumped to their feet at my entrance—not to mention Jacqueline and Kayrin, who were both there as well.

My mother pressed her fingers together with a worried look.

“Oh, honestly! What are we going to do with her!”

I tiptoed carefully toward the bundle in Kael’s mother’s arms so as not to startle him. I covered my face with both hands, then slowly parted them a few seconds later to meet his eyes.

“Peek-a-boo! Kai’s little darling, Mama’s here!”

“…!”

His lips worked in little movements and his eyes lit up. Small fingers wiggled. Those ruby-red eyes—the very image of his father’s—curved into crescents of pure delight.

“Mmhh! Did our little one miss his mama?”

“…!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Papa locked the door and it took a little while to get out. But Mama managed a successful escape—as she always does, since this is far from the first time she’s been locked up, isn’t it?”

The baby broke into a gummy, drooling smile. That tuft of jet-black hair at the crown of his head was unbearably, perfectly sweet.

“Oh, it hurts, my heart. Kai! Is it even allowed to be this cute?”

I could hold a full conversation with Kai. It’s a gift that comes with motherhood.

“Shall Kai come to Mama?”

I smoothly relieved Kael’s mother of the bundle.

“Your papa is so mean, you know! Not letting Mama walk around on her own!”

“Abuww!”

“You think so too, don’t you? There there!”

I cradled him with one hand supporting his neck and used the other to poke at the cream-puff softness of his cheek with one finger.

Those sparkling red eyes really were like pure rubies.

“How did our Kai end up looking so exactly like his papa!”

“Abp!”

“Kai is so lucky! To be born and find out your father is the most handsome man in the empire! My goodness!”

“Mbp!”

Kai drooled and his round cheeks trembled.

Oh, it aches, how sweet he is.

“What am I going to do with you! You can’t be this cute, Kai!”

I pressed my cheek against his and rubbed gently. The velvety skin wrapped softly around my face. Warm and impossibly soft.

‘Kiss kiss kiss.’ I showered his cheeks and forehead in a flurry of little kisses.

He made happy little sounds—’hehe, mbp’—and squirmed with pleasure.

“You sweet thing! My treasure!”

I had to enjoy this while I could.

My husband had been relentlessly fixated on my recovery since the birth.

Until just last week, he had refused to let me walk around at all, and I had been essentially confined—allowed to see Kai only during limited visiting hours. For three months I had lived like someone awaiting a prison visit.

And today—

My husband had finally, for the first time since the birth, left for an outside appointment.

“Heheh. Kai. Who do you like more—Papa or Mama?”

Kai blinked up at me with wide, bright eyes.

“Goodness! You like Mama more? Heheh! I like our Kai more, too!”

I pressed my nose to his cheek and breathed in that warm baby smell.

The soft, creamy scent of milk and warmth filled my lungs.

My world these days was the most vivid shade of pink. Shimmering and sparkling in every direction.

* * *

While Ivelina danced through her pink-tinted world—

The duke’s situation was considerably less rosy.

“Your Grace. It seems you didn’t sleep again last night.”

“…”

“The circles under your eyes… they keep getting darker.”

The duke rubbed tiredly at the corners of his eyes.

“Was it nightmares again, Your Grace?”

“Yes.”

The duke had witnessed his beloved wife’s first labor in person—and it had left its mark.

The symptoms were not mild.

He heard her screams as phantom sounds at odd moments. The image of her struggling through the hours of labor replayed in his sleep.

During all of it, he had been powerless. That helplessness—and the terror that he might lose her—had taken root in him and refused to let go.

‘My precious baby rabbit.’

He pressed slowly at the throbbing in his temple, brow creased.

Hugo, who knew the duke’s state better than anyone, had no words to offer.

What could he possibly do about anxiety born from too much love?

“Y—Your Grace… but the Duchess did come through safely…”

“She nearly died.”

“A—and the young lord was born in good health…”

“He nearly came into the world without his mother.”

No reassurance reached him.

Hugo could only stare, dry-mouthed, at the deep shadows drawn across his master’s face.

“‘Tch.’ And I can’t exactly cut it off.”

Hugo recoiled in alarm, waving both hands frantically.

He had a vivid, horrifying sense that his master, given his extreme devotion to his wife, might genuinely do it.

“W—what a thing to say! Absolutely out of the question, Your Grace!”

“…”

The duke said nothing further.

So Hugo played the one card he knew would work.

“I—if there were blood in the manor, the Duchess might faint! You know how delicate and frightened she gets, Your Grace!”

The duke’s brow furrowed with immediate irritation at the thought.

Hugo, still pale as paper, hastily offered a more sensible alternative.

“I—I misspoke. Your Grace, might it not be better to consult the physician? Perhaps there’s something he can do?”

“The physician?”

“Yes! He’s tremendously capable—he might even be able to compound a one-hundred-percent reliable contraceptive! He’s a man of extraordinary abilities!”

“Hmm.”

The duke summoned the physician immediately.

The physician had been walking on thorns lately, given the duke’s sustained dark aura. He arrived looking somewhat drawn, dabbing at his forehead carefully.

“I—I beg your pardon, Your Grace… but a contraceptive that is one hundred percent reliable is not, practically speaking, something I can produce.”

The duke raised one eyebrow.

“N—ninety-nine percent, I can manage with considerable effort, Your Grace!”

“Is that a joke.”

The physician swallowed repeatedly. Cold sweat ran down his spine in a thin stream.

The duke pointed out the flaw with something approaching patience.

“You’re telling me, quite calmly, that it fails once out of every hundred times.”

“A—ah! That being the case—there is precisely one method that would work!”

“Tell me.”

“Abstaining from intimacy with your wife!”

The physician cried this at the full volume his lungs could produce.

The study went silent.

“‘Abstaining from intimacy,’ you said.”

The duke repeated it slowly, as though tasting the words.

“A—as the longtime physician of this household, I say with all due deference: there is no such thing as a one hundred percent contraceptive in this world. The only true solution is to eliminate the possibility of pregnancy entirely…”

“‘Eliminate the possibility.'”

The duke tapped his desk once—twice—with his index finger, considering.

He loved sleeping with his wife. It was one of the deepest pleasures of his life.

And it wasn’t only the intimacy itself.

He loved holding her in his arms as they slept, loved waking beside her—loved every moment of it. The problem was simply what his body did in all those moments.

It was not as though he were a beast in mating season. And yet: he would fall asleep with her warm against him and come to his senses already bearing her down.

“…”

Cold light moved through the duke’s red eyes.

He would not let something as trivial as desire endanger his precious wife.

He had to protect her.

He knew perfectly well that her slightest touch, a single glance from her, would set him off at any hour—but there were other ways to manage it.

* * *

My husband did not come home until ten o’clock that night.

I had been waiting, and I rushed out to meet him with a bright smile.

“Kael! You’re so late tonight! You must be exhausted—”

“From now on, no more sleeping together.”

“…?”

* * *