Chapter 4

“A dangerous place? It’s a place someone has to go.”

Subjugation of magical beasts was a necessity for the Rutledge Kingdom.

When Diana pointed this out, one of Miles’s eyebrows twitched upward.

“Why on earth do you need to go? You are… Diana, you’re a woman!”

Miles’s values were something she hadn’t noticed before.

Even when he was Diana’s husband, Miles had expected Diana to be a good wife, to bear children, and to raise them.

He had never once wanted her to work as a female duke.

Rather, despite being a husband who married into the family, he had insisted that he, as a man, should be the one to step forward.

“So what if I’m a woman? I imagine there are plenty of men who fall short of my abilities.”

To Diana, Miles had been one of the rare people who didn’t compare her to Cordelia and with whom she felt comfortable being around.

He looked at her, not Cordelia.

It was precisely because she had felt that way that she chose him as her husband in her first life.

Now she understood.

Miles was just like all the other men.

No, in a sense, he was even worse than them.

The other men looked at Diana and thought Cordelia was easier to deal with, so they gravitated toward Cordelia.

But Miles was different.

Even after knowing Diana’s personality and nature, he still demanded that she act like a traditional woman and submit to him.

He only expected Diana to fulfill a woman’s role: to bear his children.

It wasn’t that he recognized Diana for who she was.

He wanted to control a tomboyish Diana, proudly showing off to those around him as a brave knight taming a wild horse.

“Even if I’m a woman, I have the strength to fight in the Forest of Demons. If so, I want to unleash that strength to my heart’s content.”

At Diana’s forceful declaration, Miles bit his lip.

“—Are you going this far for that man’s sake?”

“Huh?”

Diana blinked her amethyst eyes at the low, suppressed voice.

“What man…”

“Don’t play dumb! He was the only person you danced with at the graduation banquet.”

Miles’s face flushed red with humiliation.

As Diana’s friend, he had firmly believed that he would secure that position for himself.

But he was wrong.

The man she chose was seventeen years older than him—the King’s younger brother, Grand Duke Alan Rutledge.

As Diana’s friend, he had stayed closer to her than anyone else at the academy, save for Cordelia.

Diana’s husband would become the adopted groom of the prestigious Duke of Gazard household.

He had made sure those around him knew that seat belonged to him, keeping the male students who cast glances at her in check.

And yet, why had Diana chosen a man like that?

Why was she smiling intimately with such a man?

The expression Diana wore that night in the dance hall, cheeks flushed and eyes moist, was still burned into Miles’s mind.

An expression she had never once shown him.

It was like a girl deeply in love; he simply couldn’t accept that Diana would show a face like that to another man.

“There are men far more suited for you than an old man like him.”

Jealousy flared within Miles’s chest, scorching his heart.

Every time he remembered the look of happiness she wore that night, an unpleasant sensation twisted his stomach into knots.

At Miles’s words, Diana turned up her nose in cold dismissal.

“Who I choose is entirely up to me to decide. I have no business taking interference from outsiders.”

To Diana, she couldn’t understand why Miles was so stubbornly fixated on her.

As Diana’s closest friend, Miles had already assumed the seat of future adopted groom to the Duke of Gazard’s household was firmly in his grasp.

Yet, Diana had suddenly shown a womanly expression to another man.

Just how much that wounded Miles’s pride.

Diana had not an inkling of how he felt, as if something belonging to him had been snatched away by another.

“Have you forgotten? That man’s maternal lineage is looked down upon even by the royal family!”

That was precisely why Diana openly furrowed her brow at the criticism of Alan tumbling from Miles’s lips.

“That is treasonous, Miles.”

“It’s the truth.”

“It is not something for the likes of us to discuss.”

The mother of Grand Duke Alan Rutledge was a young lady of the formerly prestigious Pennington ducal house, which had since been abolished.

Because the Duke of Pennington’s younger sister had conceived the child of the previous king, the Duke had plotted the assassination of the current King Osniel, who was crown prince at the time, scheming to make the kingdom his own.

When the plot was exposed, the Duke of Pennington was beheaded, and the ducal house was dismantled.

Only the younger sister who had carried the royal child was spared execution, though she reportedly lived out the rest of her short life placed under house arrest in a detached palace.

(To bring up such a topic now of all times…)

It was all a matter from before Alan was born, and because an unborn child bore no sin, Alan had been raised in the royal palace as a member of royalty.

However, the eyes of those around him were different.

Especially among the elders who knew of those days, she had heard he was still looked down upon as a Pennington child.

(Lord Alan possesses not only strength, but an honest and earnest character as well. That is why I am so strongly drawn to him… Lineage, family background, none of those things matter at all.)

To Diana, who adored Alan, it was an unpleasant topic.

Understanding from Diana’s gaze that he had stepped on a landmine, Miles clenched his fists.

“I am simply doing what I can do. Lord Alan’s lineage has nothing to do with that.”

“Then why on earth do you care so much about that man—”

Diana glared down at Miles as he persisted further.

“Diana, you… could it be that man…?”

“That is none of your concern, Miles.”

She wouldn’t even allow him to press the matter further.

It was a dismissal that thrust Miles’s very presence aside.

“Once you understand, please take your leave. I am busy preparing for the expedition.”

“Diana──!”

Leaving Miles alone in the receiving room, the door slammed shut with a bang.

The unwelcome guest stared in a daze at the door through which Diana had departed.

(Why… Why won’t you understand, Diana…?!)

A trickle of red blood seeped from his bitten lips.

In the eyes of Miles, staring into the emptiness, a flame of agonizing hatred burned.

“I will never let you be taken by a man like that…”

The words spilled from lips painted like crimson vanished into the air, reaching no one’s ears.