Chapter 11

“And what is this about happening to meet the Duke?”

Since Ethan had his back turned, Adel strode over, wrapped the shawl draped on the sofa around herself, and closed the window she had opened.

“He said he was inspecting the waterway facility. We happened to run into each other there.”

“That was… a coincidence?”

“If you are worried I might have said something strange to the Duke, then….”

“It is not that.”

“Then that is a relief.”

Ethan’s increasingly incomprehensible attitude was strange, but Adel responded indifferently. Today had been no different from any other day, except that the Duke had appeared a day earlier than planned.

“Did the Duke… say anything else?”

“Anything else? No. We were both soaked the moment we met, so we came straight back to the mansion.”

“Soaked?”

She had meant to stay standing until he finished speaking, but Adel was terribly tired. Feeling a chill, she shivered once, took off her slippers, and perched on the edge of the bed. As her white nightgown rode up slightly, her ankles were fully exposed in the moonlight.

Startled by the word “soaked,” Ethan turned to look at her, and his gaze was helplessly drawn to her exposed ankles. As if light were radiating from them, her white ankles gleamed.

“What on earth do you mean, soaked?”

“Well… the water suddenly burst out, and… but do not worry. The Duke did not blame me much and simply let it pass.”

Adel yawned softly and tried to tuck her feet under the blanket. In that moment, Ethan, without knowing why, strode over and seized her ankle firmly. It was an instinctive act born of not wanting her ankle to disappear from his sight.

The moment her ankle was caught, the air in the room changed, and the two, their eyes meeting, could not move a muscle. Adel could not understand anything he was doing, but she assumed he would soon let go and step back.

But Ethan did not pull away; instead, he slid the hand holding her ankle down and stroked her calf.

Adel had no experience, but she could tell this was some kind of signal a husband sends to his wife.

“Ethan….”

He, who had been stroking her calf, pressed his thumb slowly into her knee, rose, and approached her slowly. The frantic pounding of her heart seemed loud enough to echo through the quiet room.

Adel was utterly beside herself at the sudden turn of events.

In a moment, their lips would touch. It was the first kiss since that wedding-night kiss that had crushed her lips until she could not breathe.

Ethan, his eyes fixed on Adel’s without blinking, slowly tilted his head. But in that moment, that voice rang in Adel’s ear.

〈Anna, Anna, my Anna….〉

Seized by sudden fear, Adel whipped her head away from him. Ethan’s movement stopped at once.

“Adel….”

In the name he called, countless emotions she could not quite identify came and went. But in this moment, the more flustered of the two was not Ethan but Adel.

Adel meant to apologize right away and, saying she had been startled and pulled away, try to wrap her arms around his neck. But the hand pressed against the bedsheet would not move at all.

“I’m sorry, Count. I am a little tired today, so….”

After a moment, feeling the strength drain from the hand holding her knee, Adel was relieved.

She knew that accepting her husband as a woman was a natural thing at any moment. But Adel, who had grown up denied and treated coldly countless times since childhood, never did anything she did not want to do, no matter how much people oppressed or struck her.

‘So this must be why I will never be loved….’

Even as sad self-mockery welled up, she could not turn her head back.

Even when the sound of Ethan straightening up and brushing off his vest reached her, she did not meet his eyes. Soon she felt his footsteps heading toward the door. Then, suddenly, his footsteps stopped.

“Tomorrow… tomorrow, I would like you to help Anna a little. She knows nothing about the waterway system, so please gloss over things appropriately.”

Adel did not answer, but Ethan soon went out.

When the door closed behind him, Adel let out a deep breath and raised her head. Her pounding heart made her head ache, but she shook her head to empty her thoughts.

If Susan learned that Adel had refused Ethan, she would—unable to speak harshly of her mistress—surely heave heavy sighs from morning to night.

But what could she do if she was pathetic? Love is something you receive only if you have received it before.

Mocking herself, Adel buried her face in the pillow, felt the pillowcase grow wet with tears, and fell asleep just like that.

* * *

The site Adel chose for the inspection was the area where she had struggled most to lay the waterway.

The ground was full of stones, and it was a low hill. The hill did not curve gently but repeated short ascents and descents, which was why it had been the last to succeed and the place she had labored over the longest.

She believed that if Jacques understood the waterway system installed in this area, water could be supplied this way anywhere in the Empire.

When they reached a point where the road was too rough for the carriage to go any farther, everyone got out to walk.

Adel stood a little apart from the group and looked at the Duke. She had wandered through dreams all night. And she had certainly seen that man in the dream. The man, holding a portrait of her in his hand and weeping like a child, was covered in blood.

Because the weeping figure kept overlapping with the man who seemed as vast as a mountain, Adel found it hard to take her eyes off him.

But the dream, faint as if shrouded in mist, would not let her recall it properly.

Jacques soon sought out Annaston to hear her explanation, and when he saw her press close beside him, he tilted his head slightly. Then he extended his hand.

She merely blinked her pretty eyes as if she did not understand his gesture. Then, realizing something, she placed her hand on his extended hand as if he meant for her to kiss the back of it. Jacques let out a soft laugh, and soon Ethan stepped forward.

“I apologize.”

“Not at all. It seems it is too much to expect noble manners from a commoner.”

And he reached his hand out to Adel again.

She recognized his intent and took Jacques’s hand. This place was not a banquet hall or a drawing room but a work site. It meant the Duke was not looking at Annaston or Adel as women, and was offering a handshake.

“Offering a handshake to a lady is not noble manners either, after all.”

The Duke gripped her hand tightly for a moment, then tilted his head once again.

Then he suddenly turned back to Annaston.

“By the way, can you inspect the site in clothes like that?”

“Pardon?”

Around the waterway facility, mud and dust inevitably fly. Since not all the facilities had yet been fully arranged, there had been no time to tidy the surroundings either.

Yet Annaston was wearing a flowing dress one might wear to a banquet hall. It was not excessively adorned, but neither was it suitable for the time and place. If she had truly worked as a maid in the mansion for a long time, she would have made a better choice than this—but she had said she had lived like a wanderer for the past ten years.

“This way, Duke.”

Just then, Ethan extended his arm to scatter Jacques’s attention and began to guide him. As the Duke took the lead, Ethan shot Adel a glance. Adel understood it meant to explain the facility and followed behind him with quick steps.

“Where does this water come from?”

“Ah, th-that is….”

Naturally, Annaston could not answer the Duke’s question. Seeing this, Adel inserted herself between the two at the right moment.

“Your Grace, it was Lady Annaston who first conceived of this system and first put the idea into practice, but there are several places I took charge of and carried out. One of them is this place, so may I explain it myself?”

Jacques furrowed his right eye and raised his left eyebrow. Then he soon shrugged. Taking it as permission, Adel drew closer to him.

“Not all the water in these waterways comes from one place. I connected the waterways by securing the shortest distance from which water could be supplied. This place draws water from a nearby noble’s estate.”

“Was there no opposition from the noble?”

“That is….”

When Adel could not continue, Jacques stopped walking.

“That is?”

“I did not… ask permission. That water was not the noble’s property to begin with.”

Jacques narrowed one eye. And then he burst into loud laughter.

After his father, the former Emperor, died suddenly, the current Emperor had seized the throne abnormally. Everyone hushed it up, but no one failed to find it strange. So the current Emperor was busy watching the mood of the nobles who had helped him ascend. Moreover, if the nobles who had not taken part in the matter raised the issue of legitimacy and criticized him in unison, there was no way the throne he had taken by force would remain unshaken. So this was now the age of nobles, an Empire centered on nobles.

“You do not watch the nobles’ mood.”

“I only watch the mood of the estate’s people more.”

Jacques let out a soft laugh and began walking again.

“At times like this, you do seem to resemble Her Highness the Crown Princess….”

Taking it as a mutter to himself, Adel did not answer, but she could not help feeling pleased at being told she resembled her sister.