Is regression a chance? Or is it a life on a different difficulty level, where—regardless of fortune—it’s a blessing if one simply manages not to make a mistake?
Peon would often fall into deep thought whenever he looked at Kaella’s calm face. It was a face that could bewitch anyone just by being seen. Clean, composed, and finely chiseled, her features held absolutely no expression.
That was why he couldn’t help but agonize over her. What on earth was she thinking?
The mere appearance of Beatrice Lavalle was enough to be a distraction, and he had to consider that her luggage, which should have been transported via magic tools, had been significantly reduced.
Yet, Peon pushed those thoughts aside and looked at Kaella. Offering the Grand Duchess’s bedroom? A woman who had run away saying she would rather die than marry him—or rather, that dying would be better—could not possibly have reached in, torn out her own liver and gallbladder, washed them clean, and put them back in to wear such a nonchalant expression. That was impossible.
“Your Highness.”
“Go ahead.”
The head maid, and even the butler, turned to look at Peon with expressions that asked if she had lost her mind. It meant Peon was the only one who could stop her.
But Kaella’s word was law. The man who, before the regression, had refused to listen to her, refused to meet her eyes, and had sealed his mouth and closed his ears, could not dare to do so again. To him, her words were a commandment. He could not show her defiance in front of Beatrice. Kaella must have had her own reasons.
So, Peon simply bowed his head, not adding a single word. In the end, Beatrice Lavalle decided to stay in the Grand Duchess’s bedroom, which had never been used by a Grand Duchess before.
“Show her the way.”
“I know where it is.”
With a stinging retort that suggested she had visited Lyussenford Castle more often than he had, Beatrice spun on her heel and walked away. Left behind with no other choice, the head maid whispered to Kaella.
“Your Highness. How could you…”
“It is fine. There is no better place than that room right now, is there?”
Cutting her off sharply, Kaella turned away.
Her stomach also churned at the sight of Beatrice Lavalle. Lady Monde had painted her as a pathetic person—someone envious, jealous, and full of wicked thoughts. When Kaella was not crossing paths with Beatrice, she was not someone obsessed with hating others, feeling annoyed, or wallowing in gloom; she was a person who sought out joy, took an interest in the circumstances of others, and looked for places in need of help.
No one had expected Beatrice Lavalle to appear, but in hindsight, it was no surprise. At least to Kaella, it wasn’t.
Throughout her marriage, she had seen too many times how Beatrice would briefly appear in Lyussenford, shake Peon, captivate Lyussenford, crush Kaella, and then vanish into thin air. So, there was nothing new about it. It was only the beginning.
“My wife.”
If there was one minor problem, it was that her husband was quite different from the one she had married before she died. Peon called to her with a complex expression—or rather, a face filled with dissatisfaction and annoyance. What had offended him this time?
“I did not dare to intervene because you were the one speaking, My Wife, but do you intend to keep tolerating that disrespectful attitude?”
Kaella looked at him, slightly surprised. She could never get used to it. No matter how many times it happened, a husband who shared her own thoughts was alien to her. She didn’t want to change her evaluation of the Grand Duke of Lyussenford, Hyperion Savrand Ferraro, but reasons to keep doing so kept popping up.
“Please tell me if I have made a mistake. I will correct it.”
“It is not that you have made a mistake, My Wife…”
She hated change. Kaella shrank back. She just wanted to sink into this place and quietly close her eyes. Peon watched her, then cut himself off.
“Never mind. I will handle this matter myself. You may do as you see fit, My Wife. However.”
However? Kaella looked up at him.
“There may be times when I intervene in what you are doing. I ask for your understanding in advance.”
Ah, she was familiar with that. Kaella nodded solemnly.
“You must do as you see fit, Your Highness.”
Then, did that mean she could kick Beatrice out of the Grand Duchess’s bedroom? Even if it was under repair, why… reaching that line of thought, Peon looked at Kaella. Could it be?
His wife was walking with a very demure expression, as she always did—elegant, soundless, and steady. Peon extended his arm.
“Take it. You must always be careful during the thaw.”
The memory of Kaella slipping on the stairs, breaking her bones, and having to be carried away by knights remained vivid in Peon’s mind.
In Lyussenford, many people were injured or died in much worse ways than that. So, honestly, the fact that the Grand Duchess had tripped and suffered a fracture wasn’t important. She wasn’t a soldier, and she would be cared for regardless.
But that memory kept following Peon, both before his death and now, after his regression. Back then, there were many things he could have done. He could have checked how badly she was hurt and carried her to her bedroom himself. Had he done that, he would have discovered the terrible state of that bedroom and could have changed it while he was at it.
Those were things he would never have done back then, so he chewed on them over and over again. The things he hadn’t done were the things he absolutely had to do, and the things he had done were useless.
“Yes. Thank you.”
Kaella—who since childhood had lived with ‘Brother, go together!’ on her lips—did not lean on him further. Just as she would accept help getting off a carriage or mounting a horse, she held his arm lightly, putting no weight into it. It made him doubt he could provide any proper assistance this way.
Peon had no choice but to press closer to her. But even when he got just half a step closer, Kaella would walk a few paces and subtly distance herself. It seemed she was uncomfortable with him approaching her.
Even though they were finally walking side by side, Peon was walking alone. Just as Kaella once had, he walked in loneliness.
“Bring the horses.”
At Peon’s command, a knight immediately ran toward the stables. Since the Emperor had sent Beatrice, the investigator might also arrive soon. There would be much to do.
Kaella let go of Peon’s hand, intending to send him off. But a large hand clad in a black glove covered her limp hand.
“Shall we get some fresh air for a moment, My Wife?”
What did that mean? Kaella was surprised several times by words Peon would never have spoken. It seemed that since she had died and come back to life, Peon had acquired a new talent.
“A guest has arrived, Your Highness.”
“A guest’s arrival should not cause such a great change in the master’s daily life. Above all, you are still recuperating, My Wife.”
There were several stables within Lyussenford Castle, so horses were easily available at any time, anywhere. This was all to be prepared, never knowing when a battle might begin. Thanks to that, a massive black horse approached Peon.
“You said earlier that it would be fine to slowly begin horseback riding again; let’s just start now.”
After saying that, he grabbed Kaella’s waist with both hands and lifted her up in one motion. In an instant, she, draped in a heavy winter dress and fur, floated into the air and settled onto the saddle.
Just as Kaella caught her breath, surprised by his immense strength, Peon had already leaped up behind her and taken the reins. It felt like a brief glimpse of what kind of power and speed he possessed when he fought.
“No escort is needed.”
“Go ahead, Your Highness.”
Contrary to its massive height, the horse began to walk very gently. Even so, it was faster than a person, and the desolate, drab Lyussenford Castle quickly faded behind Kaella’s back. She looked back at the castle and tilted slightly.
“Do not tense your body, lean back.”
Kaella, a flower leaning against a wall that men wouldn’t even look at. She rode horses alone because she had never ridden one with a man.
Every time she behaved clumsily or made a mistake while with Peon, she would recall the whispers she had heard before she died. Most of it had come from Beatrice’s mouth, and Duchess Monde had fueled the fire. So, people lower in rank than Kaella said things they shouldn’t have, things that only noble ladies who could face Kaella might have said. That was the extent of the honor and treatment she had left after losing her father and her title at the same time. These were words she had heard so often they now reflexively triggered memories.
Peon must have heard them, too. They were quite loud, after all.
“Your Highness, where are you planning to…”
Kaella didn’t answer the command to lean back and asked something else instead. As she did so, she swayed unsteadily between his arms while struggling to keep her own balance.
Peon simply pulled her in. The small woman, carrying the faint scent of flowers, fell into his arms. It was a bright, summery fragrance that was unthinkable in Lyussenford. The noble lady must have been startled, but he was a mongrel anyway, a base man without a father, so acting rudely actually suited his temperament better.
Lest anyone see, he tucked Kaella further inside the cloak he was wearing. He had no face to meet her own as she kept trying to look at him, so he hid her cold eyes close to his pounding heart.
“You haven’t seen the surroundings yet.”
The horse picked up speed, *clippity-clop*. The sound of hooves hitting the hard stone path from time to time was cheerful.
“Let’s take a short look around.”
Since, in any case, his wife would be leaving this place before long.
He increased the speed, traveling far, very far away from Lyussenford Castle. Each time they moved further away, he felt he could breathe, and he felt only the light density of the small warmth in his arms. His shoulders felt lighter. Yes. He wanted to run like this. Holding her in his arms, wanting to run away from the world.
The horse, moving cheerfully and rapidly, headed not to the village below the castle, but in the opposite direction. The loyal warhorse went as its master directed. Only the small Grand Duchess trapped in his arms didn’t know where they were going, her blue eyes darting here and there.
Peon looked down into his arms once and let out a scoffing laugh. A pale face looked up at him. You are so small, pretty, and lovely. He confirmed it anew.
“I thought you would like a place without people.”
When he lifted the edge of his cloak slightly, she poked her face out and peered around. Kaella’s blue eyes examined the scenery carefully, one by one, as if absorbing her surroundings. She looked exactly like a child visiting a place for the first time.
No, it was true, it was her first time. Peon felt like he had been struck on the back of the head. It was indeed Kaella’s first time visiting here. It was her first time going outside after being married off.
“This is the north of the castle. The border is near… and it is a good forest for hunting. A stream flows through it, and since it has begun to thaw, it is at least worth looking at.”
His throat felt stiff and it was hard to speak, but he forced his mouth to move. Even the dead Grand Duchess must have seen what was outside the castle only when she was finally dragged to the northern tower after being unable to move an inch within Lyussenford Castle. Come to think of it, if one went far past this forest, that northern tower appeared. Peon flinched once more.
If only cute, herbivorous animals resembling Kaella, like rabbits or squirrels, had come to the stream to drink water, Kaella would have been happy to see them. However, in the forest still tinged with cold air, there was nothing but the rugged mountain range towering in the distance with snow on its peaks, the grayish stream, and the densely packed trees. There was no colorful, pretty scenery that suited her. This bleak landscape was all he could give her.
“It really has melted.”
A small voice chirped from his arms. The sound of the stream melting and flowing down was quite vigorous.
“Yes. It has melted quite a bit. It is spring.”
Kaella watched a large bird she didn’t know at all flap away in the distance. The sky was clear and refreshing.
“That’s true. It is spring.”
She had arrived in winter and thought she would die in winter, but she had welcomed a new season once again. At the stream she was visiting for the first time, Kaella looked around for a long time and breathed in the fresh air. So this was in Lyussenford, too. After keeping it in her eyes for a long time, she tapped the arm that was wrapped tightly around her waist.
“Let’s go back now.”
This was enough.
･ ｡ﾟ✧: *. ꕥ .* :✧ﾟ. ･
In Kaella’s view, Peon was a fairly indifferent person. To those he disliked, that indifference was maximized, and even toward those he liked, the indifference wasn’t entirely absent. No, he was kind, but he was sometimes indifferent toward Beatrice. And Kaella had struggled to get even a little bit of that kindness.
“Your Highness, Lady Lavalle is looking for you…”
“Kaella, what is this!”
It was when they returned to the castle; Peon had helped her off the horse, and they had walked into the castle together. Beatrice, who had cut off the head maid even as she was offering a formal word with an exhausted expression, rushed at her.
Of course, she probably didn’t intend to physically grab Kaella, but Peon blocked Beatrice before Kaella could be startled by the face suddenly thrust at her. Beatrice flinched at the sight of Peon standing like a wall.
“What is the matter?”
“The room, the state of that room! How am I supposed to sleep there! There isn’t a single curtain, and the bedpost is broken! And why has the head maid been changed? Where did Doris go?”
The Grand Duchess’s bedroom that Beatrice faced was so desolate it looked like a ghost might pop out. The furniture, mixed with hideous bright pink velvet, was cheap; there were no curtains; and even the posts of the four-poster bed were all broken, leaving no way to hang the curtains one would draw when lying in bed.
“That is the best room. Sister, you were the one who wanted that place.”
Looking at Beatrice, Kaella mimicked her exactly as Beatrice had always done. She widened her eyes and tilted her head.
It must have looked strange and awkward because she was less attractive than the flower of the social world, but it worked regardless.
“You… you…! Kaella, you…!”
Beatrice had lost her words. The sight of her mouth just flapping open was ridiculous, and at the same time, hollow.
She had spent four years fighting against someone so easy and insignificant. If one just discarded the desire to look good to Peon, she was someone who was easy to handle and, in a way, far beneath her.
It didn’t matter anymore how Peon thought of Kaella. She was used to his coldness anyway.
“It is ‘Your Highness’, not ‘You’.”
So, Kaella was shocked when Peon, with his brow furrowed, pointed it out quietly but clearly.
Again? He was taking her side again? Not Beatrice’s, but Kaella’s?
Even if it had ended there, Beatrice might have been able to laugh it off. But Peon drove the nail in.
“There is no one in Lyussenford of a noble enough status to dare call the Grand Duchess by her name, yet Lady Lavalle seems unaware of the etiquette regarding one’s status.”