The First Seed of Suspicion
By now, after enduring the catastrophe of a husband-and-wife brawl, every tiny mistake grated on Gareth’s nerves and set his teeth on edge.
“Sir Karin! Might I ask if you happen to know something?”
“...Hm? And what would that be?”
Karin looked up at me in confusion.
“Here in the Grand Duke’s Castle... if someone were to commit murder, what sort of punishment would they receive under the laws of the North?”
“...!?”
Karin’s eyes flew wide at the sudden talk of murder.
Still unable to read the room, she fumbled in visible embarrassment.
I’m not just saying this for no reason, Karin.
You never know. Better to remember your debts—and your grudges, too.
“W-What are you talking about? I’m from the southern Rivertri, so I don’t know much about northern law. Besides, what on earth is this sudden nonsense?”
While Karin floundered, unable to answer, the clever little princess standing by my leg stepped forward like a relief pitcher sent in to save the game.
Veronica, who had recently started studying law after learning estate management from Lady Rebecca, answered in a bright, clear voice, eager to show off what she knew.
“I-it’s execution, Uncle Bayle.”
“Oh, execution, is it?”
“Yes! If someone commits an unauthorized murder inside the Grand Duchy instead of a lawful duel, they’re sentenced to beheading. But... murder in vengeance for an immediate family member, or murder in justified self-defense to protect one’s lord, is exempt from punishment.”
At Veronica’s neat little lecture, I nodded several times with obvious satisfaction.
And then—
“Execution, huh... so revenge for immediate family and murder in defense of one’s lord are exempt...”
I muttered the penalties under my breath, as though I were a crow-eyed fool memorizing difficult words by sheer force, and slowly turned my head.
My gaze landed squarely in Helena’s eyes as she stood there wearing a gentle smile.
“I’m a crow-eyed fool who can’t read or write, so I’d better keep important laws like that firmly in my head.”
I raised my voice on purpose so she’d hear every word, and Veronica, chiming in cheerfully with what she knew, made sure Helena heard it too.
I made sure of it.
If you try anything stupid against our princess or Lady Rebecca here in the castle...
Even if I have to be executed for it, I’ll still kill you with my own hands, on the grounds of protecting my lord.
That was the meaning I slipped into the air, thinly veiled and unmistakable.
I saw Helena’s leisurely shoulders stiffen for a single instant.
* * *
...This ignorant brute.
A chill ran through Helena’s stomach.
It was a savage threat of murder, born from the bottom rung of society, where etiquette and refinement from the capital’s noble circles could be tossed straight in the trash.
Instinctively, she sensed that the large, scar-faced man before her was no barking dog; he was a mad dog who would tear out a throat without hesitation when the time came to bite.
But...
Even so, he’s still just trash from nowhere...
Like the venomous snake Gawain had planted, Helena forced down the flicker of fear and promptly pasted her false smile back on.
* * *
Ignoring me, Helena turned her target to Veronica and approached her with soft steps.
“My, my, our princess is so very clever. You’re only ten years old, and yet you’ve memorized the laws of the North as well. No wonder His Grace is always singing your praises... I can see why he—”
The moment Helena reached out, showering Veronica with flattery in hopes of winning her favor—
Swish.
Karin, standing beside me, stepped forward one pace with startling quickness and cut between Helena and Veronica like a sheet of ice.
“The princess has finished today’s swordsmanship lesson short and sharp. If her sweat cools, she may catch a chill, so you should return to the manor at once, Princess.”
Without even glancing at Helena once, Karin shut the conversation down like an iron wall.
Helena’s step and her honeyed tongue were utterly wasted.
“......”
For just the briefest moment—
Only for an instant—
The sweet mask on Helena’s face cracked beneath the insult, and a hideous, malicious expression surfaced before vanishing again.
No matter how carefully one hides it, one’s true nature always leaks through.
And then—
“Eep...!”
Coincidentally lifting her head at the wrong moment, our little princess caught that fleeting demonic look full in the face and flinched so hard her shoulders trembled.
Her innocent instincts seemed to have recognized that the woman before her was dangerous and vile.
Terrified, Veronica instinctively backed away.
And then—
Tap, tap, tap!
The child darted away and hid herself behind the biggest, most reassuring back in the world—the closest one she could reach.
Veronica’s tiny, trembling hands gripped the hem of my training shirt from behind.
“......!!!”
The little warmth pressed against my back, the desperate clutch of her hands tugging at my shirt—those things froze me in place.
Holy fucking—!!!!!!
Fireworks exploded in my head, and a crowd of hundreds leapt to its feet, roaring in applause.
Good God.
Our socially awkward little villain princess, who had been so frightened of me she called me a scarred monster—
At the moment of crisis, she didn’t run to her mother or father.
She didn’t even hide behind the instructor she adored most, Sir Karin.
She hid first behind my back, Bayle’s back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I won!! I beat Karin!! It’s meeeee!!
Unable to contain my swelling triumph, I turned my head sharply while still being grabbed by the shirt and stared straight at Karin.
Then I shot her a look so smug and satisfied it practically screamed, See that? The princess hid behind me first.
“......”
Karin’s brow furrowed fiercely at the sight of Veronica hiding behind my back.
But then she caught my pitiful, childish little challenge of a stare and shot me back a look of utter disbelief, as though to say she could hardly believe what she was seeing.
You damn idiot! Is that really what matters in a serious situation like this, when you’re in a staring contest with a dangerous woman!!
At Karin’s eye-criticism, I coughed and hurriedly fixed my expression.
“Now then, Princess. As Sir Karin said, the weather is cold. Let us go inside at once.”
Karin and I formed a protective box around Veronica, keeping her safely in the middle of us, and then thoroughly ignored Helena as we left the training yard and headed back toward the Grand Duke’s Castle.
Tap, tap, tap.
Helena stood alone in the middle of the yard until the sound of our three sets of footsteps faded into the distance.
* * *
“...Hah.”
Two lowborn knights who openly treated her as an enemy. A little princess who shied away from her as though she were a bug.
Helena’s clenched knuckles had gone white from humiliation and insult, but she soon drew a cold smile over her face and soothed herself.
“It’s fine. I’m better at enduring than anyone, aren’t I? As for those guard knights, once Lord Gawain takes over the North, I’ll have them hanged first thing.”
* * *
“......”
Grand Duke Gareth silently and very carefully washed the traces of vomit from Rebecca’s body.
His own clothes were filthy with the mess as well, but he paid them no mind and focused only on wiping clean his wife’s stained skin.
Yet not a single word passed between them.
The silence stabbed at both of them like a shard of glass.
Rebecca, standing beneath the warm flow of water, stared blankly at her husband’s broad chest.
The dreadful self-loathing she had poured out in the bedroom just moments ago—the accusation that she had pushed him toward murder.
And the pride that had collapsed under her husband’s naked confession of infidelity.
But at the bottom of that misery, a tiny, pitiful spark of hope began to lift its head in Rebecca’s heart.
Yes... maybe a miracle really has come.
Her husband had been functionally dead for ten years.
Could the horrific illness that had defeated every renowned physician in the capital and every medicine from the South have been cured at last, as if by a miracle?
Could his masculine instincts have surged back all at once, and in the grip of that uncontrollable desire, he’d ended up making a mistake with a maid?
If that was true.
If her husband’s body had really returned to normal...
Then maybe she, too, could receive his love again. Maybe she could still bear a son who would steady the family line.
“...Your Grace.”
Rebecca’s trembling hand slid around the back of Gareth’s wet neck.
Gareth jolted and froze.
Rebecca pressed her damp lips to his ear and the line of his throat.
At the same time, her slender hand traced the firm plane of his abdomen and then moved lower, ever so carefully yet unmistakably, to stroke his most sensitive and private place.
“M-My lady...?”
Gareth’s flustered voice echoed through the bath, but Rebecca did not stop.
She swallowed her shame and tried the most desperate seduction a woman could muster.
All the while, she prayed that the body beneath her fingertips and lips would heat up the way it supposedly had when it responded to that unfamiliar maid.
But—
“......”
“......”
Despite Rebecca’s frantic attempts, Gareth’s body did not move so much as a fraction.
No heat, no pulse, no sign of life’s response whatsoever.
His lower body was still dead, just as it had been on that day ten years ago.
“Ah...”
Rebecca’s hand lost all strength and fell away.
The only thing made plain, cruelly and without mercy, was that this man who could not react to her in the slightest had apparently responded to another woman’s body like a beast.
Her attempt, in which she had pinned a sliver of hope, became the worst possible final confirmation—one that tore her miserable wound open and raked through it from end to end.
Gareth shut his eyes tight and turned away as well.
Even before his wife’s desperate touch, he could not respond, and that made him ashamed of his own useless flesh.
Neither of them could meet the other’s eyes as they hurriedly pulled on their robes.
Gareth finished dressing as if fleeing, swept wet hair back from his face, and silently headed for his study to clear the tangled thoughts in his head.
“Father!”
When he reached the corridor on the fourth floor, where the study was located, he saw Veronica and Bayle emerging from the training yard in the distance.
Spotting Grand Duke Gareth, Veronica came trotting over.
Watching Veronica dash off from where she had been standing by my leg, I let out a short breath of relief inwardly.
I’m sure that woman is one of Gawain’s people, and sure, the atmosphere in the castle is a total disaster right now... but at least His Grace really does care about his family.
I had already signaled Veronica to greet her father as usual.
But Veronica, tucked into her father’s arms, did not look entirely bright and cheerful.
The moment she saw her father, she had been excitedly planning to beg him to move Sir Karin’s room from the third floor to the fifth.
But even with the eyes of a ten-year-old, she could feel the suffocating chill that had just blown through between her mother and father.
I don’t think I should say it now...
Veronica bit her lip and forced down her whining, simply burying her face in her father’s broad chest as she always did.
“Father, welcome home...”
“Oh, yes. My lovely daughter. You’ve grown again already.”
Gareth loosened his stiff face by force and patted Veronica on the back.
But as he held his daughter and rubbed her back, his hand suddenly faltered.
A faint crease formed between his brows.
...She says she just finished sword lessons, but she hasn’t even worked up much sweat?
Of course, it had only been basic training for a ten-year-old princess, so she wouldn’t be drenched, but for a child who had supposedly just been swinging a sword in the yard, her clothes and body seemed far too dry and neat.
Yet Gareth’s mind was already tangled with nothing but negative thoughts.
He swallowed his suspicion and, after a brief greeting that they would meet at luncheon, entered the study.
* * *
Sitting at his desk in the empty study, Gareth exhaled harshly and pressed his temples with both hands.
In front of him lay the estate’s administrative papers that Rebecca had handled in his absence.
Gareth began turning the pages one by one.
Rebecca’s work was generally impeccable and meticulous.
But—
...The placement of the approval seal here is slightly crooked. And the figures in this budget proposal are more scattered than usual.
In ordinary times, these would have been trivial mistakes he’d laugh off with, My wife must have been tired, and let pass without a second thought.
But now, after the wreckage of a marriage quarrel, each and every one of those tiny errors struck him as irritating and needling.
Scratch, scratch.
Gareth’s grip tightened on the pages as he turned them.
“How could you... How could you make a mistake? How could you make the mistake of embracing some strange woman outside the house!!”
That resentment.
The furious cry any wife would naturally be entitled to make.
But Gareth’s broken mind, already trapped by the ugliest inferiority complex in the world—the agony of having lost his manhood—twisted that cry beyond recognition.
How could you make a mistake...?
Blue veins rose in Gareth’s eyes.
Right... You, who couldn’t even get hard in front of me for ten years, you half-man who can’t even function properly as a male... so that’s what you mean. How could you possibly have the ability to finish in another woman and get her pregnant...!
Crack.
The quill in Gareth’s hand snapped cleanly in two.
The worst possible misreading, born from a wounded ego.
What should have been a perfectly ordinary grievance had been transformed into a sneer that mocked him for not being a man, and the black, festering pus of his resentment was leaking up from the very bottom of his heart.
Gareth’s massive shoulders trembled.
But since he was ultimately the one who had created this entire disaster, he could only force those filthy emotions down and swallow them inside himself.
Thump.
After checking the time, Gareth closed the scattered documents, rose with a hard expression, and left the study, dragging his heavy steps toward the first-floor dining room where luncheon had been prepared.