But upon finding Arnald by her bedside, the woman hadn’t even let out so much as an alarmed squeak—she’d merely sat up and quietly begun to question him. A fearless woman she was, indeed. And to so calmly discern who she was talking to… Had she truly been asleep at all?
Perhaps she’d just grown accustomed to having strange men in her room after all the wandering she’d done from lover to lover.
As Arnald had scrutinized her, trying to decide the best way to broach the subject of his wager, his wife had started saying things that signified her intent to go straight back to sleep. But as soon as he’d begun to sense that he was being shooed away, he’d dug his heels in.
She wasn’t going to comfort her husband, who was freshly back from the battlefield, was she? Her only intention had been to use him. Use him and leave.
Arnald knew it was foolish to have even expected that much, but no matter how many times he reminded himself of that, he couldn’t stop a dark feeling from welling up deep inside him.
Even an uncomplicated man like Arnald, unfamiliar with the inner workings of the heart, wasn’t so insensitive as to be unaffected by her treatment.
After the woman got over her surprise and accepted his wager, Arnald had pushed her down onto the bed. It wasn’t as if he truly wanted a child—he just wanted to make a fool of his wife. To see the look on her face when, after her countless trysts, he was the one who successfully impregnated her.
Of course, he had no plans to spend the rest of his life with her. Once he’d evened the score between them, he would set her aside. He had his own work to attend to, and no time to be preoccupied with a spouse. He’d only chosen the one-month time frame because that was the amount of leave he’d been assigned. It actually seemed silly to use it all just for this.
In the end, he found he wished his wife hadn’t accepted. Were the odds of her winning that much in her favor? It hadn’t even crossed his mind that she might not be able to have children. Could that be the reason she hadn’t wanted to be a wife? It was a possibility he hadn’t considered at all.
Yet he would still force himself on her.
How many men had she led astray? Arnald was but one. That fact didn’t particularly disgust him, but when he thought of lying with the same person as his father, his feelings grew a bit more complicated.
But the emotion was fleeting. Just a minor flicker.
Arnald had never been with a virgin. He’d always chosen to sleep with the women least likely to cause him headaches further down the line, which certainly didn’t include women with no experience. So when he’d felt the tightness of his wife’s body, he hadn’t thought much of it. She’d been wet enough that he encountered no difficulty.
Analyze information, then scrutinize it in detail.
That was what Arland had been taught to always do in his line of work. So why hadn’t he done so on his wedding night?
The right path had been directly in front of him, as had the truth. Looking back, he was struck with an indescribable feeling. But no matter how many times he brooded over it, he always arrived at the same conclusion: that he should’ve known better.
Then had come that heart-stopping morning.
Standing beside his wife, who was slumbering in the bright morning light, Arnald had been stricken by despair.
He couldn’t make sense of any of it. His mind had gone completely blank. It was not that he couldn’t understand the situation—he just couldn’t accept it.
He’d been returning from his bath, debating whether or not to go back to sleep, when he’d offhandedly traced the edge of the duvet with his eyes. They’d landed on the white sheets underneath. Or rather, the stain atop them.
The bloodstain.
It was around the same size as the medals that usually adorned his chest. Not likely to be from any fatal wound.
Arnald was used to seeing blood on the battlefield—not in his own home. The only time he’d experience such a thing was if he accidentally cut his own finger with some sort of blade. But what does a tiny bloodstain matter? he asked himself.
And yet, something about it disturbed him. Because that insignificant little stain was enough to turn his whole life upside down.
When Byletta opened her eyes, there was no sign of her husband.
The bedding beside her was already cold, so he’d probably gotten up some time ago. Perhaps he hadn’t even slept beside her at all. The sheets certainly didn’t seem messy enough to suggest such a thing.
At some point, it seemed she’d been changed into nightclothes and cleaned up. Perhaps Arnald had done it? Maybe he regretted the enraged state in which he’d spent their wedding night after all. Personally, Byletta didn’t think him so commendable, but he was the only other person around.
Still, even if the sheets had been neatened as if nothing had happened the previous night, she was unfortunately not under the delusion that what she’d experienced had just been a dream. Her throat hurt from all the moaning, and there was a foreign sensation between her legs. The feeling of being betrayed by her own body also lingered. Losing herself to his touch—and losing most of her memory of the event—was a blow to Byletta’s self-esteem.
But the wager meant that she would have to spend a full month with the man. And while Byletta was uncomfortable with the fact that she’d fallen for her husband’s smooth words, it was too late to regret anything now.
No matter how many times he asked, she would give herself to him. That was how much she longed for a divorce and her freedom. Her heart screamed at the thought of living life bound by a husband.
Whatever she did, though, the situation she’d found herself in was an uncomfortable one. It was going to be awkward to face her father and sister-in-law. After all that ruckus she’d made about leaving as soon as her husband returned, how was she supposed to explain that she was extending her stay by another month? Her heart was full of anguish just at the thought. Byletta sat up, her mind feeling even more exhausted than her body. That’s when she locked eyes with her husband, who was entering the room.