Chapter 14

Chapter 14

As soon as morning dawned the next day, my eyes snapped open.

Prince Hye lay sound asleep beside me. Trying not to disturb his deep slumber, I carefully lifted the blanket and made to sit up.

But the instant I pulled back the blanket, his heavy arm coiled around my waist.

It was only a single arm, yet how could it be so firm and solid? No matter how I strained to push it off, it didn’t budge. It felt like trying to move a huge boulder.

His body was truly uncanny. There was no way to withstand it, and it yielded not an inch of room.

When that impregnable bulk came bearing down and pushing in, the only one to suffer was my frail little frame.

“…Your Highness?”

“Let’s sleep a little longer.”

His voice was thick with sleep. Did he sleep more than he looked like he would?

“But… we must get ready to go and pay our respects.”

“Do it any way you like. What’s so important about it?”

From his standpoint, he was only going to see his own parents, so it hardly mattered. For me, it was a meeting with my parents-in-law, an audience with the sun and moon of the empire.

I could not go with a light heart. I ought to dress with great care and prepare myself, but he showed no sign of letting me go, and the arm around my waist did not slacken.

“Aren’t you tired? You should rest a little more.”

Ah, so he was doing this out of consideration for me.

It was true that my body felt as heavy as a thousand pounds, as if I were coming down with a fever, but I was the sort who did what had to be done, so I was fine.

Aches and pains were nothing new to me. Lying sick in bed after a beating from Father had been an everyday occurrence. So I could gladly bear this much fatigue.

“I’m fine.”

“…Are you?”

“Are you tired, Your Highness, perhaps?”

I had said it out of some concern for him, but how on earth had he understood it? His eyes turned sharp.

His look, as though he might cut me down on the spot, filled me with bewilderment.

“It seems you think your husband lacks stamina.”

“That’s not what I meant…”

It was like tugging the whiskers of a sleeping lion. He pressed his lower body against mine, quietly. This was bad.

I was still throbbing down there, yet after spending so much energy, he was apparently still brimming with vigor. He could rightly be called a monster.

“Then your husband must prove that his stamina is robust. Only then will you, Hwacheon, not take me lightly. Isn’t that so?”

“I-I have never taken Your Highness lightly! Nor have I doubted your stamina!”

I struggled desperately to escape the predicament, but Prince Hye seemed to have already made up his mind.

* * *

In the end, I was thoroughly chastised for two more hours.

Having to go through such an ordeal to have proven a stamina I had never doubted was infuriatingly unfair. Was I mad, to doubt him after going through that?

He surely knew it all perfectly well and had stirred up this trouble on purpose to tease me.

He had already finished his grooming and was leisurely watching a servant set ornaments in my hair.

I pouted, and then, aggrieved at my aching body, my eyes welled up. Prince Hye paid no mind, merely gazing at me in the mirror with a look of smug satisfaction.

When a maidservant was about to powder my face, Prince Hye came over.

“Leave us.”

The maid holding the powder was dismissed without understanding why.

It was plain she wondered why she was being sent away when she had made no mistake, but she didn’t dare to question it and meekly withdrew.

Prince Hye took the powder puff the maid had set down. Wondering what he meant to do, I looked up at him with a disgruntled expression.

“We have to finish getting ready in a hurry, so why are you doing this?”

“You seem to be sulking at me. Why?”

Why? What do you mean, why! He couldn’t possibly not know why I was sulking, yet he asked for the reason anyway.

He was truly a foul-tempered man. To send me such a man as a husband, Heaven was truly heartless.

He began applying the powder to my face himself. After the powder, he put on the rouge, and then he even drew my eyebrows.

Powder and rouge were one thing, but what talent was it to draw eyebrows so skillfully?

Surely the number of women who had passed through his hands came to some three thousand. How dissolute…!

“This is my first time doing it, but perhaps because my hobby is painting, the result isn’t bad. Whether on paper or on a face, a brushstroke is a brushstroke in the end.”

Why bother lying that it was his first time? Did he think I would fall for such an obvious lie?

I wasn’t that naive. But he apparently thought me dull enough to be fooled by such a flimsy trick.

My lower belly stung again, and tears welled up. I had finished my makeup and mustn’t cry, but I had no way of containing my overflowing sense of injustice.

“Do you hate me?”

“…What kind of answer do you want?”

“Just be honest.”

Since he told me to be honest, I answered with complete honesty.

“You’re not lovable.”

“Why, earlier you said it was good.”

Shocked by that vulgar remark, I looked around. Though I knew we were alone, I feared someone might have heard.

This man didn’t know the meaning of shame; he said such things in broad daylight and remained utterly brazen.

He must have five or six sheets of iron plating laid over his face.

“You seemed to like it so much, and now you say you hate me. Doesn’t that make your husband’s wholehearted efforts to treat you well all for nothing?”

“Your Highness!”

Unable to bear it any longer, I shouted. I had flared up, but belatedly fearing the consequences, I clamped my mouth shut. Rough breaths leaked out over my pressed lips.

“It’s broad daylight. If someone should hear…”

“Let them. Even if someone hears, I believe whoever eavesdrops on a couple’s private conversation is a hundred times more in the wrong.”

If only he couldn’t speak, if only he would shut that mouth, my heart would be so much easier.

What was I to do with him? I couldn’t pummel him and couldn’t vent my anger as I pleased, so I had no means of fighting back.

If I’d had my way, I would have slapped those lips, curved into such a pretty arc as he smiled, with the flat of my hand, but I couldn’t very well injure an imperial prince’s face.

“Please, don’t put me in a difficult position. Every time Your Highness toys with me like this, my heart pounds. At this rate, I can forget about a long life.”

“You think I toy with you? To be described as a ruffian is dismaying.”

Prince Hye held out his hand. It seemed to mean I should take it and stand. Glaring, with as defiant an air as I could manage, I took his hand and rose.

Then he pulled the irritable me in and locked me in his embrace. Wondering what trick this was now, I shot him a glare.

He only looked at me, without a word. His persistent gaze swept over my eyes, then down below them, and further down.

Realizing where the gaze would finally land, I hurriedly shoved at his chest.

I had thought he wouldn’t budge, but this time he gave way easily. It wasn’t that I had grown stronger; he must have stepped back for me.

“No.”

“What is it that’s not allowed?”

“No more. I can’t. We still have to go and pay our respects, and there’s no time to waste.”

“So what exactly is it that’s not allowed?”

Did he think I wouldn’t know? No matter how he feigned ignorance, he couldn’t fool my instincts. He had most certainly run his eyes down my chest with the most lecherous look.

I knew the meaning of that look now.

But if I yielded any more here, I would be not merely ruined but in tatters. A person ought to keep things within limits; this was too much, far too much.

He was no different from an assassin who had come to kill me.

“I am merely a new bridegroom cherishing his wife. Is that a reason to receive such a harsh look? How sad.”

“I’m the one who’s sadder! I couldn’t be any sadder. You are truly too much to me.”

“It seems we’re finally getting through to each other. Is the process of analyzing what kind of man I am finished now? You were on guard all day.”

Startled, I stumbled back.

“Did you think I wouldn’t know? You were bristling like a kitten that had lost its mother, so wary, and I’d be dull indeed not to notice.”

I had thought I was hiding it in my own way, but it had been meaningless. Was there any way at all to escape that man’s gaze?

“Stop being on guard now, and let’s go. As you said, we can’t delay any longer.”

He took my hand and led me along. I was dragged out like an ox with a rope around its neck.

On the way to the carriage, he whispered in my ear.

“Or shall we continue in the carriage?”

He was like that to the very end. When I tried to shake off his hand with bloodshot eyes, he gripped mine even more firmly.

“It’s a joke, a joke.”

If he was going to joke, he should at least make it sound like one. Who would believe him, when he spoke as if in earnest and then brushed it off as a joke?

“We couldn’t even eat because of all the preparations, and yet you must already be full.”

“Your Highness!”

“Well, I said it’s a joke.”

You perverted nine-tailed fox!

I would not forget this humiliation; I would remember it forever. It was too sad to bear.

I kicked an innocent pebble by the roadside.

He glanced at it, shrugged, and grinned. He must live for the pleasure of teasing me.

Honestly, what a wicked wretch. I had been tied to exactly the type I never wanted to be entangled with.

And terribly so, in a knot that would never come undone.