The Mark Left Behind
“That doesn't necessarily mean I'm exactly to your taste, though. I'm certain that's how I read it—” I had just opened my mouth to answer when Henrik, seated right beside me, caught my wrist and drew my back toward him with effortless ease.
“Y-Your Highness.”
Without a moment's hesitation, he pressed his lips to the nape of my neck.
“Nnh…….”
The quiet room began to fill with an odd mingling of breath and heat. This was precisely what I had wanted, so I simply resolved to endure the embarrassing moment.
There was no way this was something he wanted, so he'd probably do the bare minimum and be done with it quickly.
“…….”
I was wrong. Henrik said nothing, yet he teased and licked one spot with relentless persistence—almost like a boy tasting something sweet for the very first time. A strange warmth was smoldering up from the hand he held pinned and from my back pressed against him.
The fleeting thought crossed my mind that something was off. This was hardly his first time. Hadn't he been the one, back in the Kingdom of Francia, who teased me about whether I ever turned away my nighttime visitors?
Somehow I sensed that if I said anything now, in the middle of this, the atmosphere would only grow stranger.
I raised my free hand to cover my mouth and turned my gaze away from the man pressed so close against me.
That was the moment.
“My lady. Focus.”
Henrik's warning came low and almost courteous.
Then he clasped both my hands and set about tormenting me in earnest. The lips biting softly at my nape were wet and hot.
It was rather… stimulating.
Was it because this was my first time with Henrik?
My heart pounded violently.
The instant he bent his head lower to lick and nip at my collarbone, a dizzy rush pulled an involuntary moan out of me.
“Ahh.”
It felt as though I were about to be laid out beneath him just like this.
“Hah……”
His breathing at my ear sounded calm enough, but his actions were anything but. It was as if he had transformed into some passionate bridegroom—the composed, unruffled manner he'd worn earlier had vanished entirely.
Lost in confusion, I couldn't bring myself to do anything at all.
Then Henrik, who had been stoking me without pause, swept a smooth hand across my shoulder and lightly touched the string of my nightgown.
“Your Highness, just the marks, that's all we agreed—”
A surge of flustered panic made me pull my lips away at last, and with it came the great gasp I hadn't managed to hold back.
“Hah—didn't we? Ah, this much should be enough, the maids will—”
I knew without looking that his traces would be scattered all around my neck. It certainly felt hot and sharp enough to match.
After all, I had asked for it thinking that a few marks here and there would suffice for when the maids bathed me tomorrow.
“Ah. Did I agree to that?”
My words—and my thoughts—could not carry through to the end. Henrik gazed down at me with an odd smile on his lips, his amethyst eyes and both cheeks faintly flushed.
For an instant, I felt my breath stop.
His smooth lips, no doubt from all the tormenting they'd given me, glistened wetly.
I could say with certainty I had never seen him like this. No—no one would ever be granted an easy glimpse of this side of him.
In a flash, tangled and unfamiliar emotions wound themselves around me. I dragged in a ragged breath.
“Hah, Your Highness……. This is…….”
Attilenta, this is a transaction. Henrik is merely holding up his end.
He was a man I barely knew—I was the one who had begged him to take me with him in the first place.
Henrik surely had experience of his own, and I had done this much before. There was no reason for me to act like a fumbling innocent.
“It seems the marks are insufficient.”
Henrik drew down the strings of my nightgown as naturally as breathing. I could feel, vivid and immediate, the roughening of his breath below my collarbone.
At this rate I might get carried away myself. That could cost me my purpose, so I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my lips firmly together.
Surely this night was simply a wholly different case from anything I had lived through, and that was all my tension amounted to. Antoni, on the other hand—
“My lady.”
Henrik called to me again. I parted my lips slightly and let out a heated breath.
“Yes, Your Highness…….”
“You're failing to focus.”
This time, his voice was not courteous at all. My eyes flew open.
Henrik was already sitting upright, regarding me steadily—as if everything he'd been doing a moment ago had never happened. The unfamiliar warmth of skin, the heat, the breathless stir that had wrapped around my body all vanished like wind.
In that instant, I made a judgment.
So this is where it ends? Yes—clearly I'm not to his taste after all.
If anything, this was a situation I knew all too well.
Antoni, who had cried love at me endlessly, had discarded me in the end. For a man with no interest in me, this reaction was only natural.
Which was precisely why his active hands had thrown me so off balance.
I had gotten what I wanted—proof of a night spent with him. My neck and collarbone still stung enough to prove it.
Only now did the night feel as though it were unwinding the way I had expected.
Letting out a long sigh, Henrik swept his disheveled hair back.
“If this were the night you truly wanted, I doubt you'd have made such a request.”
My eyes went wide. Until a moment ago I'd been flustered by strange feelings, but his words flustered me for an entirely different reason—it was consideration I had never once anticipated.
Consideration? I felt the back of my neck stiffen. Impossible.
This was a transaction, and in the end I would take the field and fight his war for him. It was an odd, singular arrangement for an ordinary prince's wife, but that was what I would do. To use him as I intended, I too had to prove my worth.
Don't trust him, Attilenta. All of this serves my purpose. What he said isn't kindness toward a nervous bride—it's just the leisure of a prince who has everything, flexing it.
It was better to look the fumbling new bride to him, anyway. Rather than lean on someone emotionally again and be thrown away like a worn-out rag.
Feigning composure, I took a sip of wine and spoke, as though mimicking his effortless ease.
“Thank you for granting my request, Your Highness. The matter I mentioned will be handled promptly by tomorrow.”
The next morning, the attitude of the maids who bathed me had shifted somewhat from the night before.
“Lady Attilenta, will you use this scented oil? It's a specialty from the southern provinces— wonderfully fragrant, I'm told.”
Yesterday, the maid who had handed me my nightgown so carelessly had looked at me as if I were some lowborn woman; today she was different. As she presented the gleaming bottle of oil with respectful deference, I merely gave a casual wave of my hand.
Clearly, the marks Henrik had left behind were doing their work. Breathing in the soft scent of oil and the rich fragrance of flowers, I sank deep into the bath. A pleasant languor washed over me.
“How is the water temperature, my lady?”
“Just right.”
Cradled in the maids' attentive care, I indulged for the first time in ages in a deep, unhurried ease.
It was true that yesterday's string of unpredictable moments had left me rattled—enough that even Henrik had noticed.
But I saw no need to be ruled by those feelings. I had gained something tangible. First, the maids who once sneered at me had changed their manner, which would make things easier going forward—no more wasting emotion on nothing.
Above all, I had learned vividly that Henrik was a man who strove to honor his bargains faithfully. Faithful enough to do such things for a woman his heart wasn't in.
Naturally, of course. He must have had his own desperate reasons for agreeing to the arrangement.
Henrik harbored ambitions of enormous scale, and he seemed the type to pull anyone capable into his orbit first and weigh them afterward.
In any case, it was a good arrangement for us both. Though I couldn't say how much more diligently he meant to pay his dues. I resolved that from now on, whenever I needed something, I would ask for it without hesitation.
“Lady Attilenta, this way, please.”
Following the attendant's guidance, I entered the dining hall dressed in the Bwendowska style—a great lace collar at my throat, ornaments of gold, a gown with a sweeping skirt. The prince's palace where I now lived carried the same air as these clothes: lavish, yet solemn. Gold ornamentation and black marble caught the eye everywhere.
“My lady, those clothes suit you.”
With his usual composed face, Henrik offered the praise in a somewhat dry tone—perhaps mindful of the maids and knights standing around us.
Had he greeted me with exaggerated airs, like a bridegroom thoroughly satisfied with his wedding night, it would only have been awkward. I gave a suitably measured reply.
“All thanks to Your Highness's care.”
The table was laid with refined dishes. Bagel-like breads perfect for morning, a warm stew, and a generous spread of fruit and vegetable salad made for an appetizing sight.
As we ate together, Henrik gave me the very words I had been waiting to hear.
“Once the funeral rites are done, your homeland will be sending a delegation. That's the tradition, I'm told.”