Extra! The Duke Remarries!

"Extra! Extra!"

From early morning, young boys raced through the streets.

"The Duke of Bertis is remarrying!"

"His Grace is finally taking a new wife!"

Those two lines alone were enough to sell the papers. Passersby with nowhere particular to be, clerks on their way to work, noblewomen already bound for the morning salons—everyone thrust out a coin and snatched up a copy without a second thought.

"Has that girl lost her mind?!"

A noblewoman snapped the paper shut in one furious motion and flung it onto the table. The story sprawled across the front page and on through the next and the next after that, printed in type large enough to make her head spin before breakfast was even finished.

"Of all the young ladies in the realm—why her?!"

Among the nobility, marriage was never simply a romantic vow between a man and a woman. It was business. The single most powerful instrument for expanding a house's influence—a golden leash, if one preferred to call it that. And Bertis stood high enough that the Duke could have taken his pick from the most celebrated young ladies in high society!

"And he throws it away like this?"

Ha. Once already he had made a fool of himself by joining hands with a ruined house and turned everyone's stomachs. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined he would make so dull-witted a choice a second time.

"W-what are we going to do, my lady?"

Her aide stammered, white with fright.

Lady Pessant's dislike of Riena had never rested solely on the girl's fallen-noble origins. The girl was far too sharp-eyed for comfort—and her temperament ran so close to Herman's that nothing ever slipped past either of them half-examined. If she returned, she would try to reclaim every scrap of household authority.

"If we're not careful, what we've siphoned off might come to light…"

"No!"

Lady Pessant clenched her fist and spoke with iron finality.

"That will never—absolutely never—happen."

Authority she had seized with such difficulty! Hand it back already? When there was still so much wealth left to wring dry?

She had not the slightest intention of stepping aside. Lady Pessant ground her teeth.

"The seal is still in my hands, after all."

She would neither lose it nor surrender it.

"I shall have to pay the Duchess a visit."

At once she called for paper and a quill. The aide, who had been fretting in place the entire time, scrambled to lay out the writing things. Lady Pessant took up the ready pen and clicked her tongue.

To have to look at that detestable face again.

She already felt sick to her stomach.

"Wow…"

They really had gone all out with the coverage.

She had known the article would run today, but somehow the stir seemed even greater than before.

Well. Of course it would.

Divorce and remarriage might be common enough, but a reunion with one's former wife was rare enough to count on one hand. And when the man in question was the Duke of Bertis…

"The reporters must be having the time of their lives."

In any other house the story would have filled a single front-page column and been done. This time it sprawled across three or four pages in exhaustive detail—the circumstances of their first marriage, the political advantages it had brought, even the state of their marital relations. Digging up the entire past had been thrown in for free.

By now, there could hardly be a soul left in the Lonteberg Kingdom who had not heard of their remarriage.

"It will be noisy for a few days, I expect."

After breakfast, over tea in the conservatory, Herman murmured the observation in an even tone. Riena nodded and folded the paper she had been reading, setting it aside.

"I imagine so."

Coverage this heated was not going to quiet down overnight.

"High society must be in an uproar as well."

"Because you've come back?"

"Mmm—well, that is part of it, of course."

Riena lifted her teacup and slid a sidelong glance at the husband seated across from her.

"Because Your Grace is remarrying."

"I am?"

Herman echoed her with a blank look.

"You didn't know?"

At her words he tilted his head, genuine puzzlement written plain across his face. She had known he took little interest in society, but she had not expected it to run quite this deep.

"You're the most eligible groom in all of high society. After our divorce, I heard marriage proposals from young ladies arrived practically every other day…"

"Ah…"

Only after the fuller explanation did something seem to click; Herman let out a short sound of recognition.

"Proposals did come in, yes. But I never even opened them."

"Pardon?"

"I didn't bother checking where the letters were from, either."

Whenever a proposal arrived, he had simply instructed Tristan to send a courteous refusal. He himself had never once broken a seal. From the beginning he had not harbored so much as a sliver of intention to marry any woman who was not Riena.

"Th-that's still all right, then?"

"Better to draw a clear line from the start than to give them false hope. Kinder to them as well."

"Well, that's true…"

He was not wrong. Raising empty expectations was far crueler than a firm refusal at the outset. But that was only the outward view of the matter.

When I go back out there, it's going to be brutal…

By now there was not a soul who did not know that the person he had chosen—after turning down countless proposals—was her. She could already feel the young ladies' icy stares pricking the back of her neck.

"We're going to be very busy from here on."

By tomorrow, invitations of every sort would no doubt come flooding into Bertis. She had no intention of accepting them all, of course, but now that she had returned to society she would clearly be far busier than before. And there was still the matter of the household administration to settle…

"Your Grace."

"Herman."

"Pardon?"

When Riena looked up in question, Herman indicated the newspaper she had been reading with a tip of his chin.

"There is no one left who does not know the rumor that I am utterly, passionately devoted to you."

"…"

"And yet if you keep addressing me so stiffly, doesn't it seem a little strange?"

"Ah—well."

He was not wrong about that, either.

"In public, call me by name now and then. In private, whenever you like—comfortably."

"Are you sure that's all right?"

"Of course."

Narrow the distance between them by any means necessary. Having read his capable aide's romance novels through four times, Herman had set becoming closer to her as his first objective.

That was how it went in the books, too.

Begin by calling each other by name, and gradually close the gap.

"All right."

After a moment's thought, Riena nodded. In that instant, Herman's expression brightened.

"It would be a little odd to love each other and never use each other's names, wouldn't it."

Darling might be a stretch, but names at least ought to come easily. Finding the reasoning sound enough, Riena put it into practice at once.

"Herman."

"…!"

The hand holding his teacup jerked. He had asked her to say his name, yes—but he had not expected her to dive straight in. Feeling both cheeks burn, Herman hastily looked elsewhere. His counterpart's eye, however, was every bit as sharp as his own.

"Did you not sleep well?"

How did she—

"…Why ask that all of a sudden."

"Your face is a little flushed."

"…!"

His eyelids fluttered. Determined to hide his fluster as best he could, Herman blinked hard and deep.

"I did… sleep rather poorly, yes."

Not because he had been busy, of course.

Because I was far too nervous.

The thought that she was finally at his side had thrilled him so thoroughly that he had stayed awake straight through two nights. Knowing Riena was in this mansion, he had not even felt tired.

…How was he supposed to say any of that?

"Ahem."

Unable to confess the truth, Herman cleared his throat instead.

And then—

Scrape—

The sound of a chair being drawn back as she rose.

"—?!"

Sensing the movement, Herman lifted his chin on reflex. Riena had already stepped close and was reaching out. A moment later, the cool back of her hand settled against his forehead.

"Ri—Riena."

"You've been pushing yourself far too hard lately."

There had been the funeral, the remarriage, the counterfeit-currency affair on top of it all. Even from the outside, it was plain he had been shouldering far too much alone.

Granted, he and his father had never been on good terms.

They had been so cold and indifferent toward each other one might have doubted they were father and son at all—and yet blood was blood. Of course the absence would leave a hollow.

"It would do you good to rest today."

"…If you,"

Meanwhile Herman, heart threatening to burst, found the words slipping out unbidden.

"were here, I think I could sleep."