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Yelena let out a sigh.

She tried to find the old lady again due to this, but the tent back then had already vanished and she couldn’t find the old lady no matter what she did.

Yelena gradually felt depressed because of worry.

At that moment, her eyes landed on her husband who was sitting on her opposite side.

Duke Kaywhin Mayhard.

Yelena stopped thinking for a while and stared at him.

She wondered if it was because of his large physique, but her husband was radiating presence even when he was just sitting.

It was a delicate feeling.

Suddenly, Yelena got the impression that the adequately large carriage was crammed.

‘What is it?’

The tips of her fingers were tingling.

Yelena glanced at her husband.

Unlike the widespread rumors, the Duke Mayhard that she saw personally didn’t seem really particular.

If she had to say, he was just taller than average, had a -probably- nice body, was wearing a mask, and…

‘His eyes.’

His eyes were blue.

Yelena liked blue eyes.

The reason was simple.

‘Because the ocean doesn’t change.’

Yelena’s eyes were pink-colored.

When people complimented her eyes, they would always say that it was like they were dyed with cherry blossoms.

To be honest, Yelena wasn’t quite fond of that comparison.

‘Don’t flowers wilt?’

It goes without saying for the plucked flowers, but the flowers on the fields were also unable to withstand the harsh winds of winter.

But the ocean wasn’t like that.

It could be said that his eyes were the complete opposite of hers—the color of the blue ocean.

Whether it be in winter, spring, summer, or fall, the ocean was unchanging.

In Yelena’s memories, the ocean was always the same.

It doesn’t change.

‘Everlasting.’

That was why Yelena liked blue eyes that reminded her of the ocean.

To the point that she could be said to yearn for it.

In that respect, the Duke’s eyes were really perfect.

They were the ideal shade of blue that she had been dreaming of.

As Yelena was thinking so while taking glances at Duke Mayhard’s face, he opened his mouth.

“There’s no need to worry.”

‘Huh? Worry?’

“I will not take my mask off in the carriage.”

Yelena blinked, but she soon realized what he was talking about.

She shook his head frantically.

“I wasn’t looking at you because of that…”

Her voice faded as she went on.

She first denied to get rid of the misunderstanding, but she suddenly felt embarrassed at the thought of having to tell him honestly why she was staring, if he’d asked.

But the Duke didn’t ask Yelena why she was staring.

As if he didn’t care whether Yelena’s denial was true or not, he silently averted his gaze somewhere else.

Silence then hung in the air.

Yelena fidgeted and pursed the hands she placed on her lap.

It was somehow an unbearably uncomfortable silence.

The carriage traveled for around a week with breaks in-between.

Then finally, the fief that Duke Mayhard owned came into view.

Yelena immediately received the service of the maids of the Lord’s Castle and got rid of her travel fatigue.

When the maids started to wash her in rose water and massage her with great care, Yelena felt nervous.

When they put a slip that was fluttery yet not exposing on her and led her to a fancy room, her tension went to an extreme.

Yelena couldn’t stay still and paced around in the bedroom. She then uncorked a bottle of wine and drank it.

She felt a bit calmer since she drank alcohol, but her head was still chaotic inside.

‘Will it hurt? Of course it will. Everyone said the first time always hurts. But as long as I can hold it in for the first time…’

The things she heard about the first night was messing up her mind.

With tension and fear, as well as a slight mysterious excitement, she waited for the approaching Duke.

However, even after the day passed, Duke Mayhard didn’t show up.

chapter 2 . The right attitude to cope with difficulties

Only when the next day came that Yelena finally acknowledged reality.

“So I got deserted.”

Moreover, on the first night of marriage.

Yelena was waiting for her husband all night in the bedroom and fell asleep at one point.

It was due to the exhaustion that piled up during the long trip and the wine she drank. It couldn’t be helped.

At first, Yelena forced herself to stay awake by pinching her thighs.

There was no way to wake her up until morning came once she fell asleep.

She herself knew that, so she was planning to stay awake no matter what until her husband arrived.

However, as if putting her hard work to shame, Duke Mayhard didn’t show himself until the end, and Yelena fell asleep as if she fainted when she saw dawn broke.

And when she came to, it was already afternoon.

‘Ha.’

She was speechless.

So speechless she didn’t know what to speak of it.

She wasn’t sure she would feel refreshed if she put what she was currently feeling into words.

Yelena just sat up on the bed while biting on her lip and tugged on the dangling rope by her bedside.

The door opened straight away and a maid entered.

“Yes, Madam.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“Pardon?”

“Judging by the sun’s position, it’s already past afternoon. I’m asking why you didn’t come and wake me up in the morning.”

The maid waking up her master every morning and taking care of their needs were the basics of the basics.

Yelena wouldn’t wake up easily once she fell asleep, but she would still wake up if someone had woken her up.

For her to be dead asleep until this hour, it meant that nobody came to wake her up.

At Yelena’s criticizing, the maid looked flustered like she didn’t expect to hear that and said,

“The Duke told us to not wake you up…”

“What?”

“He said that since you would be tired after a long carriage ride, we shouldn’t wake you up and let you rest today. So…”

The maid humbly held her hands together and kept on checking Yelena’s reaction.

She didn’t seem like she was lying.

Yelena found it outrageous.

‘What?’

That sounded as if the Duke was taking her into consideration.

But that was weird.

If he were so considerate to his wife that he would give such orders, why didn’t he come to her bedchamber the entire last night?

‘Did he actually come but returned after seeing me sleeping?’

Yelena shook her head.

No.

If her memory served, she definitely fell asleep after seeing the sun rising.

‘Or did he order to not wake me up because he knew I was waiting for him all night?’

She shook her head again.

That would be too blatant of an insult.

There was no reason for the Duke to act that harsh towards her.

It wasn’t as if they got married despite being from rival families. In fact, they just met face to face recently.

‘No, I guess we haven’t met face to face yet…’

Suddenly Yelena remembered that she hadn’t seen her husband’s bare face yet.

She only saw his face covered by the mask.

Yelena mulled over it before setting herself up.

“Where is he?”

“Pardon?”

“Lead me to where the Duke is.”

I need to see his face.

She felt like she needed to see his face with the mask taken off and have a talk with him.

But the maid showed unwillingness.

“Uhm, the Master is… currently outside.”

“Outside where?”

If he was just outside, then she could just follow him out.

As Yelena thought that, the maid added.

“He’s in the middle of a monster subjugation.”

“What? Monster?”

“Last night, monsters suddenly appeared in the fief, so…”

Yelena blinked.

That was the first time she heard that.

“I’ve never heard of this.”

“I-I apologize. It seems that the maid who was supposed to inform you forgot to. Uh, she’s prone to forgetting usually…”

“Nevermind that. So are you saying that the Duke wasn’t in the castle since last night?”

“That’s right.”

The maid lowered her gaze when she answered.

Leaving the maid—who didn’t know where to gaze at because she felt apologetic—aside, Yelena saved her breath for a moment.

‘I see.’

Yelena’s lips loosened up.

‘Once again, I.’

Almost misunderstood unreasonably.

I see. Of course there’s no way.

Yelena then spoke in a voice that sounded obviously much softer than before to anyone who heard it.

“Does it happen often?”

“It’s not often… But it does happen once in a while.”

Yelena suddenly remembered the stories she heard about this place, the fief of Duke Mayhard.

Although the land was fertile, the crops grew well, and it had the right conditions for commercial development due to its good location, it had one flaw.

One of the surrounding mountains was very tall and dangerous, and monsters would descend from it from time to time.

‘It was an old story, though.’

Monsters appearing ‘from time to time’ was an old saying.

It had been a while since the phrase changed to ‘once in a while’, like what the maid said just now.

‘It was all changed by the current Duke Mayhard.’

Although it was a land with unparalleled wealth at present, it used to be just a fertile, troublesome land with no one living in it in the past.

The reason was, of course, the monsters.

And the one who cleared most of the monsters and turned the fief to how it was currently was Duke Kaywhin Mayhard.

First of all, from the moment he was born, the number of the monsters that descended from the mountain evidently decreased.

The people, even after seeing that, chattered away.

That the devil and monsters were like oil and vinegar, so the monsters were avoiding the place because they felt the devil’s energy.

‘Nonsense.’

From a common-sense point of view, that was just a coincidence.