Chapter 110

The duke devoted those two days to the careful and thorough tending of his baby rabbit.

He refused to let her feet touch the floor. He fed her continuously and well, and made a point of periodically checking whether she was gaining weight—running his broad hands over her in frank assessment.

He had her entirely to himself.

He had no desire to be separated from her for even a moment, so he conducted his work and took all his meals in the bedroom as well.

There was a particular pleasure in watching the baby rabbit starttle every time she caught his eye while sitting properly in the middle of his bed.

Best of all, though, was sleeping with her in his arms.

Ivelina lay on her back with her hands folded neatly over her chest, rigid as a board. The sound of her swallowing—dry, repeated—was entirely audible.

‘As if I’m going to devour you.’

The duke smiled quietly and drew her deep into his arms, tucking his face against her fragrant throat.

“You smell good.”

“Oh… yes.”

He pressed his nose to the curve of her neck and let himself laugh, muffled and low. She grew stiffer with each breath, until she had gone completely rigid—solid as stone.

He very much wanted to do something about that. The medication, fortunately, helped him resist.

He took his suppressant dutifully every day, and contented himself instead with her warmth and her scent and the small sounds of her breathing.

On the final night of confinement.

The duke conducted one last inspection—checking whether the baby rabbit had put on sufficient weight. He ran a broad hand over her stomach and her chest in succession, gauging carefully.

“‘Hup.'”

Ivelina stopped breathing and went rigid. The duke was entirely serious about it.

‘About two kilograms, I’d estimate.’

He concluded the two-day luxury confinement and personally delivered the baby rabbit back to her family’s estate.

“You’re not coming in…?”

“I’ll stay until you’re inside.”

“That’s not necessary—it’s under five minutes’ walk from here, you could just—”

“If you stumble or show any sign of a relapse, treatment would need to be resumed immediately.”

“…’Treatment.'”

“What was that?”

“N—nothing.”

“Go on, then. I’ll leave once I’ve seen you through the front door.”

“…’Tch.’ Thank you for seeing me home…”

The rabbit, who had been expressing herself eloquently through her eyes, made her escape at a full sprint.

He stood there watching her go—and then she suddenly burst into a tirade.

“Oh, ‘please!’ Treatment! Ha!”

“As if I couldn’t see straight through it—locking me up again the moment you got the chance!”

“‘Hmph!’ I am never, ever pretending to be sick in front of you again!”

“Even if I’m in real pain, I’ll keep it to myself! Even if I’m about to drop dead, I won’t show a single sign of it!”

“‘You insufferable, virginity-obsessed man!'”

“Going around looking like ‘that’—like you’d charm the whole empire without even trying! And on top of everything, you just ‘had’ to be a virgin! ‘Unbelievable!'”

“I am going to get dumped by you. I swear it. I will make ‘Kael Hardeion’ dump ‘me.'”

Ivelina, absolutely incensed, was rattling all of this off without pausing for breath, not five steps from the gate.

There was something Ivelina did not know: the duke’s five senses were extraordinarily developed, to an almost uncanny degree. Of all of them, his hearing was the sharpest. He could, without any particular effort, catch her voice at a considerable distance.

He stood with his arms folded, pressing his tongue against the inside of his cheek.

Ivelina was still well within his line of sight—facing the sky, yelling at full volume.

He watched her from where he stood, and let out a quiet laugh.

‘Dumped. By whom, exactly.’

The baby rabbit was hollering the most spectacularly misguided things at the top of her lungs.

Not a single intimate encounter, a course of suppressants dutifully endured, and genuine, careful attention given throughout—and this was what he got in return. Spoken ill of, and the fact that he had been a virgin turned into a jab on top of it.

‘Wretched rabbit. I’ve fattened her up. Time to enjoy her properly.’

He watched her with steady, intent eyes.

Ivelina soon stumbled into an emotional reunion with her devoted lady’s maid. Their conspiring was well within his earshot.

“Emily. We’ve both been had.”

“Pardon?”

The lady’s maid looked entirely at a loss.

Ivelina exhaled a deep sigh.

“Both of us. We were completely and thoroughly had.”

“Good heavens. Another failure? It didn’t work?”

“Total disaster. As punishment, I was locked in the bedroom for two days.”

“Lord above.”

Emily shut her eyes and crossed herself.

Ivelina glanced back over her shoulder and said:

“Emily—is the big black carriage still at the front gate?”

“…Yes. Still there.”

“Let’s go inside quickly! Come, come.”

The duke shook his head slowly.

Ivelina was stubborn to a degree that bordered on remarkable.

He climbed unhurriedly into the carriage.

* * *

Back at the manor, the duke let out a dry laugh as the voice surfaced in his memory.

‘I am going to get dumped by you. I swear it. I will make Kael Hardeion dump me.’

Terrified to say his name aloud in his presence, demanding he promise not to get angry, trembling over the smallest things—

He still didn’t know why she was so excessively frightened of him. But the way she cowered before him while secretly puffing herself up into a small, proud cloud of bluster the moment she was out of sight—it was perfectly, endearingly absurd.

“Brazen little thing.”

He opened his eyes slowly.

The impudent baby rabbit deserved an appropriate consequence. One that would make her think twice before planning another escape.

“Hugo.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Have a notice drafted.”

“A notice? What kind of notice, Your Grace?”

“My engagement announcement.”

The duke directed that the words ‘first love, first woman, first sweetheart’ be included explicitly.

And so:

* * *

‘Your Grace! Shall I release this as written?’

”Duke Kael Hardeion, to Wed.”

The Duke of Hardeion has announced his forthcoming marriage.

His intended is the eldest daughter of Count Florence, whom the duke is said to have met through entirely natural and unplanned circumstances.

According to witnesses, the young lady of House Florence possesses a beauty so dazzling as to cause temporary blindness merely by looking upon her.

Her smile is said to be like flowers in full bloom; her voice, as graceful as a butterfly in flight. She is reputed to be the most beautiful woman in the empire.

The two are said to have gone from their fateful first meeting straight through courtship to the announcement of their engagement.

According to the duke, she is his first love, his first woman, and his first sweetheart.

One source close to the duke reports that he has gone so far as to declare her the first and last woman he will ever know.

The two are expected to wed in the late spring.

* * *

The brazen rabbit had been immortalized in the imperial press.

Following the announcement, wedding preparations moved forward swiftly and without incident—

Until the incident of the ‘father’s shirt.’

* * *