Chapter 87
It wasn’t that it was a light, fleeting desire to share a bed—it was more complicated and frustrating than that. She had said she wanted to be friends, so he thought it would be simple, but it turned out she was seeing him seriously as a man, which made it burdensome.
Yulia stood close, linking arms with Cayente. Even if a fleeting thought had crossed her mind, she hoped he would give up just by seeing this scene.
She had thought she might become good friends with Cain, and now the idea of losing someone like that felt disappointing.
“Are you treating the lady well? In this day and age, divorce isn’t a shame, but you still need to be careful not to get abandoned.”
“I know my marriage well enough on my own. Being overly interested in someone else’s business must be part of your nature, Dines.”
“Calling a precious lady ‘someone else’s business’…”
Whether she was teasing him or trying to anger Cayente, the talk of divorce felt a bit too much. Yulia tugged at Cayente’s arm.
“Brother, shall we head back? We need to quickly place the order for the things the workers requested. Excuse us for now, Cain, Marquis Ber.”
She bowed politely and stepped aside, yet Cain’s gaze followed them until the end, making it impossible not to notice.
“You, you know…”
As they walked toward the carriage, Yulia’s eyes glanced toward Cain several times, and Cayente, standing near the carriage, grabbed her arm firmly.
He had intended to tell her not to look at Cain, but with her arm in his grasp, Cayente could only simmer with frustration, unable to lash out. It would have been unreasonable to scold her for talking to him without permission, and he had to admit that if Yulia could choose someone for marriage, Cain might have been the better option.
“No, it’s fine.”
As they walked back to the carriage, Yulia did not glance back at Cain again, but Cayente knew that a fragment of her consciousness still lingered on him. He had nothing to say to that either.
It was true Cain had many women in his life, but he had never linked any of them to marriage. Clearly, Yulia had caught his attention; even a man who casually dirties a bed might change when he meets someone he truly loves, and Cain seemed to be that kind. He was frivolous in action but not thoughtless.
Even if he could never regain his senses, he was incomparable to his own married self, who had planned to make Yulia cry.
“What are you thinking about so much?”
At least Cain would have surely fallen for Yulia’s warm golden eyes and loved her.
“Why are you sighing like that?”
Not long after the carriage started moving, Yulia, concerned after noticing Cayente’s quiet sighs, asked him gently. Watching her large, blinking eyes, he felt an overwhelming urge to kiss her—not just her eyes, but her balanced nose, lips, and smooth cheeks.
Even though he had no intention of loving her.
“Any news about the child yet?”
“Not yet…”
Love… loving Yulia was something Cayente could never do. He could inform her of the baron’s news, raise the wages of the staff, or do countless things he could do for her but didn’t—yet loving her was absolutely impossible.
“Still… since you’ve been… often… it’ll happen soon, I think.”
Yulia’s expression softened into a small smile, though a tinge of bitterness lingered. She assumed Cayente’s sighs reflected his concern about the uncertainty of when a child might come.
“Do you have urgent matters to handle when we get back?”
“Work?”
Cautiously asking about the day’s schedule, Yulia made him consider the futility of wondering who she might have preferred. After all, he was the one who had Yulia in his grasp, and he was the only one who could hold her.
“More attempts might increase the chances… and a child isn’t only conceived at night. If it’s alright, shall we go straight home?”
No matter how faintly Yulia’s lips might smile at this, the truth would not change.
The next morning, Yulia struggled to get out of bed.
“Madam, are you okay? Are you uncomfortable anywhere?”
“I’m fine, Lucy. Is the bath ready?”
“Yes, I’ll guide you to the bathroom.”
She had eaten dinner in her bedroom and, until the early morning, she lost count of how many times they held each other. Though her strength was slightly lacking, each time she was in his arms, she couldn’t refuse, feeling only pleasure.
At first, it had been about having a child quickly, but later, she just liked being in Cayente’s arms.
“Really….”
While Lucy stepped out briefly to get the bathing brush, Yulia stretched out in the bath, letting out a long sigh. Despite enjoying being in his arms, she felt inexplicably empty. In that moment, Cayente’s embrace, which seemed full of love, felt hollow.
“It’s because of the child….”
It was clear Cayente had suggested going home immediately for the child, but she wanted to find some meaning in his actions, however forced.
Moreover, it wasn’t just about passing on the family lineage. Yulia realized this from the deep sighs Cayente let out while holding her. Their bodies were perfectly aligned, but his heart felt as distant as her own emptiness, and she sensed profound loneliness in him.
Her father had died in some tragic accident. Her mother was broken by it and hadn’t left the island. Her younger sisters used studying abroad as an excuse to stay away. Cayente had lived alone for so long that a child carrying his blood might be the only one capable of rekindling the meaning of ‘family.’
Even Yulia, with a family prone to accidents, felt suffocated just by thinking of Cayente, who seemed utterly alone. She could understand his obsession with having a child.
The more she thought of his loneliness, the lonelier Yulia felt herself. Not just out of empathy, but also because she couldn’t get as close to him as she wanted.
From the beginning, Cayente had claimed he couldn’t consider Yulia or her family as his own. His attitude had changed over time, but loving her as his wife was not the same as seeing her as family.
I could become part of his family…
“Madam, it’s Lucy. I’ll come in now.”
Lucy returned with the bathing brush, and Yulia smiled as if nothing had happened.
“Where was the brush?”
“Anna cleaned the bath yesterday and took it with the scrub brush.”
“I see.”
“You’ll be going out to the market today, right? The weather has cooled slightly, but it’s still warm during the day, so I prepared a dress of similar thickness to what you wore yesterday.”
“Alright.”
Mood aside, duty still had to be fulfilled. Just as it had been all along.
After the busy sheep-shearing season, factories in the Duchy of Esacudia operated at full speed. As a result, Cayente’s desk was piled with new paperwork daily, and yet one more task was added to his workload.
“Did they really quit all of a sudden?”
“They said the entire family plans to move to the Casad Kingdom and work in the mines.”
At the cotton farm he visited with Yulia, the manager suddenly announced that he would quit. They had heard about a new pink diamond mine recently discovered in the Dines-owned Human Mountain, and the wages there were very generous.
Henry, placing tea on Cayente’s desk, asked if he couldn’t have raised the pay, but Cayente shook his head slightly.
“Money aside, they were originally from Casad.”
If the pay was similar, they preferred to live in their hometown, so without raising the wages significantly, there was no way to keep them.
Thinking about where to find reliable replacements gave him a headache. As Cayente rubbed his throbbing temple with one hand, Henry, carrying the processed paperwork, cautiously suggested:
“Why not send Ian?”
“Ian?”
