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Chapter 19
The main dish was a small bird said to be rarely caught in the south, deep-fried whole.
Helena frowned slightly.
“I told them I don’t eat fried food. It seems my message didn’t get through.”
Right in front of her, Benjamin deliberately tore the bird apart. He shoved the meat into his mouth and crunched down, bones and all.
After wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he spoke in a chilling voice.
“That’s enough.”
“If you eat greasy food, you’ll gain weight.”
“I’m not talking about the frying. I’m telling you not to cross the line.”
He pointed downward with his finger—more precisely, toward the ruined castle of the Ishpern Count’s family—and warned her in a lethal tone.
“You’ve already seen what kind of end awaits things that get on my nerves. Don’t provoke me and then blame me for it. Everything you’re going through is the result of your own actions. Wasn’t it you who ended up here because of those filthy rumors?”
The word “rumors” struck a nerve with Helena.
A vein bulged on her forehead.
Having lost her composure, Helena’s hands moved with precision as she began stripping the meat cleanly from the bird’s bones.
“Don’t bring up those rumors. It ruins my mood. You’re the one crossing the line.”
She spoke rapidly, her tone boiling over.
“Don’t mess with me. Behave yourself while I’m still pretending to smile. You saw what happened to Crown Prince Rufus, didn’t you? I didn’t exactly plan it, but not a single person who’s messed with me has ever been able to stretch out their legs and sleep peacefully.”
At her words, Benjamin sank deep into his chair, stretched out his legs, and glared at her crookedly.
There wasn’t a trace of a smile on his face. He looked as if he were daring her to try something.
In a low voice that sounded like it came from a cave, he said,
“Looks like the meal is over. Is that all you wanted to say?”
“Over…?”
Helena was about to snap back, asking what exactly was over, but she shut her mouth when she looked at her plate. Surprisingly, it was completely empty.
‘I didn’t even really taste it, and I hate nothing more than gaining weight…!’
By any reasonable standard, she should skip dessert. But she still had more to say.
Forcing her emotions down, Helena spoke.
“…What do you mean it’s over? There’s still dessert. You’re not going to leave me sitting here alone after our first proper meal together as a married couple, are you?”
Benjamin looked thoroughly displeased, but he didn’t get up and leave her behind.
Dessert was a large fig served with fresh cheese and candied chestnuts.
As it was brought out, Helena finally got to the point.
“I noticed a lot of locked rooms while looking around the castle, but no matter how much I searched, I couldn’t find the keys. Where are they?”
Benjamin answered immediately.
“I don’t know.”
“What? You don’t… don’t know?”
“This room is sufficient. Why would we need to open any others? Leave them alone.”
His careless, irresponsible response left Helena speechless.
Between them, a nearly melted wax candle dripped as if shedding tears.
‘What kind of person is he? What is he even thinking? Has it never crossed his mind that there might be something important in a locked room?’
Lowering her gaze, Helena chopped the fig into tiny pieces.
She had the sudden thought that once she finished eating, Benjamin might disappear like he had the night before.
‘Does he actually know and just refuse to tell me?’
The anger she had barely been holding back began to bubble up.
As she was nearly crushing the fig in frustration, Helena suddenly frowned.
Her eyes stung.
Looking ahead, she saw faint smoke rising from the almost-burnt candle in the center of the table, drifting straight toward her face.
‘If things are going badly, everything goes badly… Why is this coming at me, of all people?’
She blew gently, sending the smoke toward Benjamin.
Benjamin, who had already finished dessert and was waiting for her, frowned as the smoke reached him.
He looked at Helena. She quickly pursed her lips as if nothing had happened, and the smoke drifted back toward her.
Benjamin had never felt such a trivial yet absurd sense of disbelief in his life.
He demanded,
“What did you just do? Why are you deliberately blowing the smoke at me?”
She’d reached her limit.
Helena glared at him with resentful eyes and snapped,
“Because I felt like it…!”
Crack.
A vein rose on Benjamin’s neatly shaped forehead—he, too, had been barely holding his temper.
“You did it because you felt like it? What exactly does that mean?”
“It doesn’t mean anything! I just felt like doing it!”
“And why did you feel that way? I sat at the table because you wanted me to, and I listened to everything you said. How much more do I have to accommodate you for you to be satisfied?”
“The keys. Give me the keys…!”
“I told you I don’t know where they are!”
“How can you not know? Aren’t you just hiding them? If you are, I won’t let it slide.”
“I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve said this—I don’t know.”
“If you don’t know, then that’s just pathetic.”
“Pathetic? Did you just call me pathetic?”
“If you’re pathetic, then you’re pathetic!”
“And who’s the one acting pathetic right now—!”
In the end, their discussion dissolved into a childish argument.
“Damn bastard!”
Back in the bedroom, Helena removed her makeup, quickly washed up, and changed into a freshly unpacked, fluffy pair of pajamas.
“I can’t even stand looking at him…!”
After neatly setting her soft slippers by the bed, she suddenly checked underneath it.
There was a bit of dust, but thankfully, no socks.
“Hmph.”
She had just settled onto the bed and was about to bury herself among the pillows when the bedroom door opened. Benjamin entered, freshly bathed and still smelling clean.
Helena shot him a hostile glare.
“What do you want?”
He calmly set the stack of papers he was holding onto the table and said,
“Is there a problem?”
“Why are you here?”
Why indeed.
Benjamin found it absurd.
“You seem to have forgotten, but this is my room. The place you’re supposed to stay is the annex. Since it’s my fault that the annex wasn’t prepared, I’ve generously allowed you to share my room.”
Helena was just as incredulous.
“Oh, is that so? Then where did you sleep last night, leaving your precious room behind?”
“…In the workshop.”
“Then why don’t you go sleep there again tonight? I really don’t want to look at you.”
“Don’t want to—!”
The sheer rudeness of her words left Benjamin speechless.
‘How can a woman like this—no, a person like this—even exist?’
This was nothing like any married life he had imagined.
The marriage was a strictly political one. Each of them only needed to get what they wanted from it.
He wanted money; Helena wanted a refuge from scandal.
Once they got what they needed, he had assumed their married life would be cool, distant, and perfectly indifferent.
But who would have thought every day would feel like a battlefield?
‘This is all because of her. She’s not right in the head.’
Yet there was something else he couldn’t believe.
He was getting used to this strange woman.
‘Do you go insane too if you live with someone insane…?’
Last night, shaken by the bathroom incident, he had gone to the place where he usually rested most comfortably.
But he hadn’t expected the coldness of that normally unremarkable bed to cut so deeply into his bones.
It had only been one day. Just one day of sharing a bed with Helena, and already, that deeply uncomfortable bed beside this insane woman had started to feel… comfortable.
‘This is ridiculous.’
Still, he was the one who regretted it.
Even after fighting like that and being told she couldn’t stand the sight of him, he wanted to stay here.
In the end, Benjamin said,
“No. There’s nowhere else I can sleep.”
After saying that, he turned his back on Helena and plopped down on the edge of the bed.
Helena was just as dumbfounded.
‘What is wrong with him? What kind of guy is this? Didn’t he say he never slept in his own bed?’
She was about to snap at him to move his plump backside out of the way, but she stopped herself.
She alternated her gaze between Benjamin’s broad back as he scanned through the papers while sitting on the bed and the dresser beside it.
‘That dresser gives me a really bad feeling.’
The side of the dresser Benjamin had brought in was slightly rough. Compared to that, Benjamin’s back was about a hundred times better.
“Hmmm…”
After a moment of thought, Helena lay down and gently tugged at the hem of his clothes with her fingertips.
Feeling something strange, Benjamin turned around and flinched.
Helena was buried deep between the blanket and pillows, only her face visible, expressionless as she tugged at his clothes.
“What is it?”
“Lie down.”
“…What did you say?”
“You said there’s nowhere else to sleep. Then sleep here. Hurry up and lie down.”
Benjamin’s eyes trembled when he realized what she wanted.
‘This woman… really…’
