The Grand Duchess Trusts His Inhumanity
The soft, thin fabric rippled with a faint whisper.
It was plainly a garment designed less for comfortable sleep than to emphasize a rather sexual allure.
So what kind of confidence does he think I have, being alone in a room with a man while wearing this?
Chloe lowered her head, looked down at the shimmering fabric that traced the lines of her body, then lifted her gaze again.
Naturally, their eyes met.
In the dark room, watching the shade of pink in her eyes shift with the flicker of candlelight, Curtis felt something unfamiliar.
What is this feeling?
And immediately afterward, he realized what that unfamiliarity was.
Regret.
What Curtis had just said was the sort of frivolous joke he had never once made in his life.
And yet, at a time like this, it was also the sort of joke anyone else might have made at least once. An ordinary person probably would not have found it especially strange.
Besides, he and she were both soldiers.
The Navy might have more women, but once one stepped inside it, the ethos that ruled it was still masculine. The Army was even worse. Jokes that belittled femininity were not merely common; they were routine.
So Chloe, too, must have heard ordinary lewd banter dozens of times among her colleagues. She might even be numb to it.
Yet for some reason, he felt that he, of all people, should not have done it.
Of course, what Curtis had just said was overwhelmingly better left unsaid than said. He knew that, and still he had said it because he wanted to.
But the reason he regretted it was not because his words had been unethical, or because they were inappropriate for a superior officer.
It was simply that…
After a silence that lasted only an instant and yet felt like an eternity, Chloe opened her mouth.
“I trust Your Grace.”
She was still staring straight at Curtis.
Curtis’s mouth twitched. He was trying to smile.
But for some reason, putting on the sneer he wore as naturally as a habit felt unbearably difficult.
Instead of laughing, he asked again.
“Isn’t three months too short a time to consider me a trustworthy superior?”
What exactly have you seen that makes you say you trust me?
At that, however, Chloe lifted the corners of her mouth with unmistakable, deliberate slowness.
Curtis frowned slightly.
What had settled at the edge of Chloe’s lips was, in other words, the very thing he had been trying so hard to summon just moments before.
A sneer.
“Forgive me, but may I dare to say something?”
“…Say it.”
“Rather than Your Grace’s humanity, I trust Your Grace’s inhumanity.”
One of his eyebrows rose of its own accord.
Chloe’s calm smile was a strange expression that revealed all manner of complicated thoughts at once.
How to put it?
It seemed to say, I am sorry to have the audacity to say this to a bastard like you in my lifetime, and yet I am also positively delighted, though I am a little worried about the consequences… but I simply cannot stand not saying it.
Something like that.
“Your Grace is the sort of person who worked a mere three-month aide half to death with overtime, then wasn’t satisfied with that and made her lie in front of His Majesty, then even proposed a fake marriage… In short, you are rather too shameless to be considered human.”
“…”
“You are also perfectly clever enough to know that if you ruined everything you set up over a brief impulse, your own corpse would end up buried in Glintland.”
Curtis, without realizing it, lightly bit the edge of his upper lip.
This time, for an entirely different reason than before.
Until a moment ago, no matter how hard he tried to laugh, no laughter had come. Now laughter was trying to force its way through his lips.
“Ha.”
And in the end, he failed to hold it back.
Chloe Amboise.
No, the woman who had now become Chloe Le David Berk had no idea how impulsively he had behaved today.
“I could still ruin it, couldn’t I?”
At his words, threaded through with laughter leaking out in little cracks, Chloe raised her hand without expression.
On her finger, the amethyst ring still gleamed brilliantly.
“I’m sorry, but this is nonrefundable.”
“I’m not quite that shameless a human being… More importantly, is the refund what matters here? What about your personal safety?”
Curtis glanced toward the dark window across the room.
He could see his own face reflected there, grinning like an idiot in front of his aide.
But Chloe, who was facing him head-on, showed no trace of laughter and did not even blink before answering.
“I know you look down on me because I’m from the Navy, sir, but I have learned at least the basics of self-defense.”
“Then you must also know the first major premise they teach in military self-defense.”
“That women can’t beat men in strength, yes. Do you know the corollary that follows from that premise?”
“I don’t.”
“You can’t beat them with strength, but if you kick them in the groin as hard as you can, you can more or less win.”
As she said that, Chloe lightly mimed driving her knee upward.
Once again, the soft fabric rippled, briefly revealing one long, straight leg.
“The instant Your Grace lays a hand on me, I will kick you by any means necessary and jump out that window. If I fall from the third floor, I’ll probably break a leg or so, but if the Grand Duchess breaks her leg on her wedding night, word of it will most likely reach His Majesty’s ears.”
“…”
“And I will sell him the story of a rapist with a grand ducal title without the slightest pang of conscience.”
Curtis finally buried his face in his hands.
It was the first time in his life he had felt like he might sob from laughing.
Only after quite some time did he answer in a muffled voice.
“Damn it. That won’t happen, so drop it.”
“Thank you.”
Chloe bowed neatly, then went to the four-poster bed and lay down on the right side.
The bed was extremely wide, more than enough for two people to lie on.
But now that matters had come to this, Curtis had little intention of letting her simply sleep.
“What are you doing?”
“Pardon?”
Chloe, who had just been about to pull the blanket over herself, froze.
Curtis picked up the robe hanging on one side of the bedroom and threw it to her.
Chloe caught it deftly.
He strode over at once and, with deliberate showmanship, opened a door on one side of the bedroom.
It was not the door leading to the sitting room.
It led to his office.
“You said you trust my inhumanity.”
Chloe’s face twisted as if to say, Surely not.
Curtis jerked his chin toward the mountain of documents piled on the desk in his office.
“Time to reward that trust.”
Who was it that said dawn comes even if you wring the rooster’s neck?
For someone, it had been an extraordinary day on which she had gone so far as to marry a superior officer she wanted to beat senseless, but morning arrived again with perfect composure, as if nothing at all had happened.
“…I’m Chloe.”
Her head hurt.
Chloe mumbled.
“Leah, let me sleep just a little longer….”
Her whole body felt as if it were falling apart.
The muscle pain was tremendous, as though someone had beaten her thoroughly and left. On top of that, she had not been able to sleep until dawn.
“I’ll sleep just a little longer. Besides, I had a nightmare yesterday….”
Whatever else one might say about Leah, she was extremely weak to the eldest sister, who worked on behalf of all three siblings, asking for just five more minutes in bed.
Just five more minutes…
When she muttered it, the person beside her clicked his tongue.
“I’m sorry to hear you had a nightmare, Warrant Officer Amboise.”
Her eyes flew open on their own.
“On your feet.”
“On my feet! …Damn it.”
The latter half was a curse Chloe spat at herself for springing upright by reflex.
The person looking down at her with his arms crossed snorted, then opened his mouth.
“It seems my Grand Duchess still believes Warrant Officer Amboise is her own name.”
“…I was half-asleep.”
“The wedding was only yesterday, so I suppose that’s understandable.”
After answering briefly, the Grand Duke jerked his chin toward the maids standing behind him.
“The Grand Duchess still appears tired. Take good care of her.”
“We will devote ourselves to it.”
Smiling brightly, Julia lightly massaged Chloe’s arm, then wrapped her in a robe and helped her stand.
Chloe naturally climbed out of bed and walked forward, looking around.
Beneath an unfamiliar ceiling, the maids bustled about opening the curtains and stripping the bedding.
Morning.
The beautiful blond man, as if his scolding her only moments ago had been a lie, was receiving his morning attendants with an indifferent face.
Curtis Shan Berk.
The man who had shared a bed with her last night, and her superior officer.
Chloe rubbed her face hard with her bare hands.
Damn it.
It hadn’t been a dream.