"At last, you've become my national treasure. I've loved you all this time."
Those were the first words the duke spoke in our bedchamber on our wedding night.
I sat frozen, unable to grasp what they meant.
National treasure. Loved. All this time—?
"U-um, perhaps you have me mistaken for someone else... I believe today is the first time we've met."
"I don't suppose you'd remember."
Claude swept back his silver hair and lowered his eyes slightly. His expression was nothing like a monster's—he looked more like a bashful boy.
"Three years ago. At the ball for your debut in society, there was a girl who helped a young lady who had fallen. Everyone else pretended not to see. She was the only one. That girl was you."
Something came loose in the depths of my memory.
It was true—I had once held out my hand to a girl crying by the wall.
"And so I searched for you. It was I who proposed the match to the Fordrick family, too."
"B-but the rumors said... that Your Grace has no interest in women, and that you kill..."
"Ah."
Claude gave a soft laugh. It was a strange smile, like ice beginning to melt.
"Those rumors—I spread every one of them myself."
"What?"
"Beautiful young ladies attract pests. But if word got around that I was 'a murderer who prefers men,' no one could get near you. Until I could bring you to me, I didn't want a single soul who might hurt you to come anywhere close."
In other words—the rumors of a cold and merciless duke were all lies to keep the pests away.
I simply froze, my mouth hanging open.
From the next morning on, my life changed completely.
"You're awake. Aren't you cold? What would you like for breakfast?"
That was the first thing I heard upon waking.
Fresh flowers arrived in my room every morning.
My wardrobe filled with more dresses than I had ever seen.
My jewelry box held more every time I opened it.
"Lord Claude, this is too much... I can't accept all this."
"Not enough? I'll summon a jeweler at once."
"It's the opposite! It's far too much!"
"The concept of 'too much' is beyond my understanding. All the jewels in the world wouldn't be enough to gather the things that suit you."
He said it with such a straight face that I was the one left embarrassed.
At meals he served the choicest portions onto my plate, and on cold days he quietly draped his own coat over my shoulders.
At night, when I woke from a nightmare, I would find him already sitting by my pillow, stroking my hair.
"A bad dream? It's all right. I'm here."
Hearing that voice, I somehow always managed to fall back asleep.
Hanna—now head maid, the duke having hired her away from my family's house—whispered to me in secret.
"Miss—no, my lady. They say that from the day it was decided you'd marry him, the master couldn't sleep a single night for all his preparations. The colors of the dresses, the kinds of flowers—he chose every one himself."
"The Ice Duke did that...?"
"Yes. Among the servants, they're saying, 'Ever since our princess arrived, spring has come to the castle.'"
Outside the window, Claude was giving the gardener some instructions.
He was making a rose garden for me, I'd been told. He had remembered that I'd once mentioned, in passing, that roses were my mother's favorite flower.
That profile, which should have been terrifying, looked only gentle now in the morning sunlight.
A slow warmth spread through my chest.
In the place I had come to fully expecting to be killed, for the first time in my life, I was being cherished.
Then, one day.
Hanna came running in, pale-faced, holding a letter.
"My lady, this is terrible. Lady Berta and Lady Sophia—they say they're coming 'to see how you're getting on.'"
The letter read:
"You must be quite worn down by now. We are coming to gather your bones."
A small laugh slipped out of me before I could stop it.
Gather my bones?
Mine—as I am now?
When Claude heard about it, he set down his teacup and narrowed his eyes.
A gaze far below freezing.
It was the first time in a long while that I'd seen the face of "the duke of the rumors."
"—I see. So the people who sold you are kind enough to come all this way."
He smiled, so gently it sent a chill down my spine.
"How convenient. I'll repay them in full for what they did to my wife."