Chapter 56

Chapter 56

It was the first time in a long while that she’d enjoyed such a wonderfully restful sleep.

It wasn’t that she’d usually had trouble sleeping, but curling up with the warm, broad body of the man she loved had made sleep come especially easily.

It felt as though her daily life, which had been creaking along with one of its clockwork gears missing, had finally returned to normal.

“I’m so happy…”

“Are you awake?”

His low voice, tinged with a slight rasp, was barely audible.

If anything, it was closer to a whisper.

And yet, the pleasant remnants of sleep vanished in an instant, and her eyes flew open.

Irenea blinked rapidly as she met the orange eyes right in front of her.

“Ah…”

“Ah?”

Leonard lifted the hand that had been gently patting her back and brushed her forehead.

The tenderness with which he checked her complexion put her at ease.

Without even realizing it, Irenea let out a sigh of relief and closed her eyes again, as though she were about to fall asleep.

But Leonard wasn’t about to let her drift off again.

“It’s time to get up now, my lady. The moon is already high in the sky.”

“The moon? Not the sun?”

At Irenea’s absent-minded response, Leonard let out a quiet laugh.

“Look outside the window. Is the sun up, or is the moon?”

When she looked outside, it was indeed dark enough for the moon to be high overhead.

Irenea couldn’t help bursting into laughter.

“Ah, it’s been ages since I woke up at a time when everyone else is fast asleep.”

“Has that happened to you before?”

Irenea nodded, snuggling into Leonard’s arms like a spoiled child.

“When I went to Farodia by ship. I had such terrible seasickness that I kept taking sleeping pills and sleeping the whole time. By the time we arrived in Farodia, I’d gotten used to sleeping during the day.”

His hand traveled down from her ear and gently tickled her cheek.

Then his lips brushed her forehead, making her giggle and shake her head at the ticklish sensation.

Even so, Leonard continued pressing close to her face, so Irenea gently pushed him away and sat up.

“Yaaawn…”

After a brief yawn, she stretched both arms high above her head.

Leonard withdrew the arm he’d lent her, propped his chin on his hand, and watched her from a half-reclining position.

Apart from the occasional blink, his gaze never left Irenea’s body.

Despite being fully exposed to his persistent stare, Irenea made no effort to pull up the blanket that had slipped down.

As a result, Leonard’s gaze grew even more intense.

“Finished warming up?”

“Hm? …Hmm?”

Didn’t warming up mean loosening your body before doing something strenuous…?

Realizing what Leonard meant, Irenea shot him a sidelong glare.

“I’m pretty sure we agreed that was the last time before going to sleep, Mr. Beast.”

“That’s right. Before going to sleep. And I let you sleep soundly, didn’t I?”

Leonard tugged at Irenea’s arm, pulling her down on top of him.

“Now it’s time to start a new routine.”

Leonard immediately leaned in to kiss her lips, but she stopped him by placing a hand over his mouth.

His face twisted in displeasure.

“What?”

“I’m afraid I have something else to take care of tonight, Ray.”

“So you’re planning to leave your husband to sleep alone just four days after getting married?”

In truth, after spending four whole days sharing a bed, it was about time they started keeping their distance, if only because they would be too embarrassed to face their families otherwise.

But what did she care about what people thought?

If she had the time, Irenea could happily spend not just four days, but four months lounging around like this.

As though to ask whether he was seriously saying such a thing, she kissed the tip of Leonard’s finger.

“Leave you to sleep alone? You should come with me. Are you really going to let your wife go out alone this late at night?”

“No. I was thinking of keeping you locked up.”

What a joker.

Irenea giggled.

“Save that for another time. I really do have someone I need to meet tonight.”

As though soothing a sulking child, Irenea planted a quick kiss on Leonard’s cheek before climbing out of bed.

His expression was full of displeasure, but he didn’t try to stop her.

Instead, he followed her into the dressing room and helped her get dressed as he asked,

“Who on earth are you meeting that you made plans for such a late hour?”

“I didn’t make any special arrangements. Selen said I could visit whenever I wanted.”

“Selen?”

“My reliable business partner.”

True to the late hour of her visit, Irenea didn’t bother dressing formally.

She wore a pair of comfortable trousers and a hooded robe.

It was a rather unconventional outfit for a woman of such high standing, but Leonard wasn’t particularly surprised.

After all, if she’d gone somewhere as far away as Farodia or Illum dressed in a gown, that would have been far more surprising.

“Even if you have permission, visiting someone at this hour without warning suggests you’re quite close on a personal level, too.”

“Hmm… I suppose you could say that.”

Irenea chuckled softly as she pulled the hood over Leonard’s dazzling golden hair, making sure it wouldn’t attract anyone’s attention.

“You’ll become close to her, too, before long.”

Leonard wouldn’t understand what she meant until after he learned that the abandoned house where he’d first met Irenea was actually the headquarters of an information guild.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Marquis Consort. My name is Selen. I run this guild with the Marchioness’s patronage.”

A woman dressed in a splendid gown looked at him and performed a somewhat clumsy curtsy.

As someone who wasn’t a noble to begin with, Leonard had little interest in how accurately she observed aristocratic etiquette.

There was only one thing that left him utterly stunned.

Irenea’s so-called ‘reliable business partner’ was none other than the master of the information guild Shadowmoon.

‘No matter what kind of patronage she offered…’

Well, he could accept her support of a Royal Wizard from Farodia.

As for Shadowmoon, he’d heard about it from Bin before.

Apparently, the guild had split apart the assassin organization that once ruled the capital’s underworld, crushed its remnants, and become the new master of the criminal underworld.

There were two main reasons behind Shadowmoon’s success.

The first was that it had brought down the arena, the largest source of funding for the Swamp of Silence, and turned the fighters there into allies.

The second was its enormous financial resources, whose origins were unknown.

‘So the source of that wealth was the Marchioness of Blair all along.’

When Irenea had first told him about the information guild, he’d wondered how she’d managed to bring its master over to her side.

But in reality, it had been the other way around.

‘The more I hear about her, the more astonishing her exploits become.’

While Leonard regarded Irenea with renewed amazement, she, too, was looking at Selen with a similarly curious expression.

“Why are you wearing a dress for once? You hate how uncomfortable they are.”

“We’re going to be seeing each other often from now on, and I thought it might be inconvenient if the Marquis Consort mistook me for a man.”

“Hmm?”

“We might have occasion to meet alone late at night again, and it would be troublesome if he mistook those meetings for secret rendezvous.”

Selen gave him a sly wink.

Leonard stared at her for a moment before speaking.

“Just because you’re a woman doesn’t mean that meeting my wife alone late at night ceases to be a secret rendezvous, does it?”

“Eek.”

A strange sound escaped Selen’s lips.

She blinked blankly for a moment before taking out a small hand mirror and examining her face.

“Good heavens, this absurdly handsome face of mine… A dress really can’t hide it after all.”

Her tone was genuinely mournful.

The gazes Irenea and Leonard directed at her grew noticeably colder.

Oblivious to their reactions, Selen shook her head, lamenting what a terrible sin it was, then put away her mirror and reassured Leonard.

“I understand why you’re worried when I’m this handsome. But there’s no need to worry! I have a lover who’s as graceful as a little fawn.”

“…I think you’ve misunderstood something. I’m worried about my wife. She’s already someone who barely sleeps at night, so why would you insist on meeting her in the middle of the night?”

He understood that their relationship wasn’t one they could openly display in broad daylight.

But if they wanted to, they were perfectly capable of avoiding other people’s eyes.

So why was there any need to sneak around and meet at such a late hour?

“If you can send your subordinates, then do so. And if something unavoidable comes up that requires you to come here in person, call me from now on. Don’t summon my already busy wife to a dangerous place like this.”

“Hahaha! A dangerous place, you say? The Marquis Consort may not know this, but we have the entire underworld firmly under our control. Besides, our elite members are guarding the Marquis around the clock, day and night, so there’s absolutely nothing to worry about! Not at all.”

“By elite members, do you mean those guards who get beaten up even by mercenaries?”

Leonard looked at her with open distrust, as though asking whether she seriously expected him to trust such a ragtag bunch.

Selen waved her hands and burst into hearty laughter.

“Hahaha! That’s rather harsh toward both sides! How can the three commanders of the Iron-Blooded Mercenary Corps, who survived Crow’s Pass in Roem, be called mere mercenaries?”

“Crow’s Pass in Roem?”

Irenea, who was sitting beside Leonard and had been listening to their conversation with sparkling eyes, asked in a puzzled voice.

Roem was a region within the Baldwin Duchy, located in the eastern part of the Empire.

Was there a hill or mountain there that could be called Crow’s Pass?

‘I’m sure I’ve heard that name somewhere before…’

As she strained to recall, knitting her brows in concentration, Leonard gently rubbed the space between them with his index finger and popped a piece of chocolate into her mouth.

“If their opponents are stronger than they are, I suppose it’s only natural that they can’t protect the person they’re guarding.”

His touch was so tender that Irenea felt utterly content.

She chewed and swallowed the chocolate, never noticing that Leonard had brushed past the matter without offering her any explanation.

“My goodness, they obviously know the Marquis is our guest. How could our people possibly fight back against him? Anyway, fine. Since our Marquis Consort is worried about his wife…”

Selen nodded before turning to Irenea.

“If there’s anything I need to report to you in person from now on, should I tell the Marquis Consort instead?”

She asked for permission as though it were no big deal, but beneath her casual tone lay genuine concern about whether that would really be all right.

Irenea knew why Selen was being so cautious.

Much of the information she collected was secret and dangerous.

“It’s fine. You can tell him anything.”

Irenea truly didn’t mind if Leonard knew everything.

The only thing she needed to keep from him was the story of her previous life.

‘Will there ever come a day when I can tell him that, too?’

…Probably not.

The reason Irenea had never revealed her past wasn’t that she feared he wouldn’t believe her.

It was because the person she had been back then was simply too pitiful.