"Where have you been?"
"...I went to see a play. It was stifling staying home. Were you waiting?"
"I thought we could have dinner together after so long, but you weren't in your room."
His voice, lower than usual, seemed to press down even the surrounding air.
Blair first sent the awkward Rina between them to have dinner, then entered the room with Herdin.
"I was worried since you even ditched the carriage and knights."
Herdin's words sounded like genuine concern at first glance, but his eyes held suspicion rather than worry.
The moment their eyes met, a voice she had once heard echoed in her mind.
'How can I trust you?'
He was doubting her again.
Realizing that, a surge of emotion welled up.
This man, who hadn't shown his face in a fortnight, now openly displaying such suspicion over one outing—it evoked the past.
"Not because you can't trust me?"
A sharp tone slipped out uncontrollably.
In the past, Blair had watched his reactions, fretting if she had upset him, but not anymore.
Ignoring his feelings, she continued in a cynical tone.
"Anxious about what scheme I might be plotting behind your back?"
Herdin's brows furrowed slightly in response. It was the first time seeing such a sharp side of Blair.
Meeting her resentful violet eyes, he let out a hollow scoff.
Someone who knew that so well, yet acted so suspiciously?
The accumulated suspicions sharpened into blades, bursting forth unchecked.
"If you know that, then from now on, take the knights wherever you go. So I won't feel anxious anymore."
Each word spat out like chewed grit, but seeing Blair's reddened eyes, Herdin swallowed the rest.
He sighed, covering his eyes with a large hand before slowly opening them. His Adam's apple bobbed as he heavily suppressed his emotions.
"I―"
Before Blair could raise her voice further, Herdin spoke in a forcibly restrained tone and turned away.
"...Go wash up and come down. You'll catch a cold."
Blair watched his retreating back as he left the room without giving her a chance to grab him. Suddenly, a memory from the past overlaid his figure.
He was always like this.
They would raise their voices at each other, then at some point, he would stop and walk out. As if avoiding the deepening emotional chasm before it grew worse. Leaving his own heart stifled without resolution.
Unaware that such actions only carved the chasm deeper.
Blair could only watch his back as he turned from her. His broad back receding, the door closing coldly.
That was the insurmountable wall between them.
Before regression, she had turned away from opening that door out of fear. Afraid that grabbing him, yelling, crying, and clashing would leave only their end in the aftermath.
So she had never opened that door in the end. But....
'I don't want that anymore.'
Swallowing tears on the verge of spilling, her eyes fell on the unlit fireplace. After staring for a moment, Blair slowly approached it.
* * *
Herdin, who had come down to the dining room first, was awaiting Blair while downing aperitifs. Already his fifth glass.
Wetting his burning throat, he recalled the scene from moments ago.
Reddened eyes, trembling body, ragged breaths, a woman who seemed she'd collapse at the slightest touch.
Unable to press her further lest something happen, why had he revealed his emotions? Foolishly.
Amid it all, the urge to check if another man's scent clung to her made him scoff pathetically.
So what if there was another man?
That thought chilled his blood. He downed the aperitif like whiskey and set the empty glass down.
But Mason, waiting behind, showed no sign of refilling it.
Herdin called him in an irritated tone.
"Mason."
Only then did Mason approach and skillfully refill the glass. A worried remark followed.
"Drinking on an empty stomach will ruin your health."
At his nagging, Herdin finally let out a scoff since entering the dining room.
"In your eyes, I must still look like a reckless twelve-year-old."
"At twelve, you couldn't drink, so I wouldn't have to worry like this."
"...You're such a humorless old man."
Herdin chided Mason for taking his joke seriously, but his voice held no anger.
Remembering his efforts in raising an orphaned twelve-year-old boy into the head of a household.
But just as he lifted the refilled glass, ignoring the concern—the dining room door burst open without warning, and Russ burst in.
"Your Excellency!"
Urgency laced Russ's voice.
Herdin paused the glass midway, narrowing his brows at him. A foreboding premonition struck.
"Madam... has collapsed."
And that premonition proved exactly right.
* * *
Melly waited in the bathroom for Madam, standing in for Rina who had gone to change out of her outing clothes. Madam had said changing attendants were fine and to wait in the bathroom.
But even after a long while, Blair didn't come.
'Maybe struggling with hard-to-change clothes?'
Worried, as she left the bathroom to return to the room, Herdin's expression from exiting Blair's room earlier flashed in her mind.
Herdin usually exuded a chilling aura difficult to approach despite his handsome face, but moments ago, it was icy enough to freeze. Enough to hush the very air.
And when Melly entered to attend Blair, she hadn't shown her face, back turned. Yet that silhouette seemed precarious. The voice telling her to wait in the bathroom had trembled, too.
The belated uneasy premonition quickened Melly's steps.
Arriving at Blair's room almost running, she knocked, but no response came from within.
Unable to wait longer, she opened the door—and warm heat touched her skin. The fireplace, unlit until she left, now blazed fiercely. And before it....
"Oh my god, Madam!"
Blair lay collapsed before the fireplace, unconscious.
Herdin rushed up upon hearing, followed by the family physician.
"Seems she lost consciousness from mental shock. No other issues, so rest should recover her."
After the examination, the physician left, and silence fell over the room. Rina's sobs broke it.
"Your Highness..."
Rina couldn't approach Blair's side where Herdin steadfastly sat, sniffling with tears and snot.
Herdin's expression hardened at the title from Rina's lips.
It had been over a month since Blair became his wife, yet still "Your Highness." Even her sniffling grated.
Without turning, Herdin commanded.
"...Russ. Take her out."
Russ, sensing Herdin's foul mood, quickly escorted Rina and Melly out. Finally, only the two remained.
Perhaps imagination, but Blair's pale face looked even more pallid than usual. Yet her expression was serene.
Seeing the woman sleeping peacefully after turning the mansion upside down infuriated him.
A woman too afraid of fire to even approach the fireplace—why had she collapsed before it? It made no sense.
'Could it be....'
As Herdin pondered the reason, Blair's closed eyelids fluttered, then opened.
Her slowly blinking eyes turned to Herdin beside her.
The moment their eyes met, the first emotion was relief. The anger surging until moments ago vanishing hollowly.
Gazing at him wordlessly, Blair spoke.
"...Did I faint?"
"You knew this would happen and approached the fireplace anyway?"
"I wanted to recover my memories. Can't keep pretending I don't know forever..."
Hearing "memories" from her lips made his heart sink.
A woman terrified even to light the fireplace in winter's chill had done it herself.
Because of that memory.
Because he had doubted and pressed her.
Her voice was calm, devoid of resentment. Or perhaps too exhausted from the earlier incident to be angry anymore.
Herdin ground his teeth, clenching his fist until veins bulged on his hand.
"That doesn't mean you need such a reckless method. So, never do this again."
Over his cold voice overlaid a memory from her past life.
It had been the same then.
When she learned he had feigned love to extract the truth, and when it seemed hopeless and he distanced himself.
Blair had stubbornly undergone hypnosis on her own, fallen ill from the aftermath, and Herdin had scolded her upon waking. Just like now.
'Don't do anything anymore. Just stay put, like you always have.'
The memory of that day, when fear of their end had made her stop clashing with him.
But now, she didn't want that.
"...What if I never recover them in my lifetime?"
"There'll be other ways. Isn't Lady Lorellaine working on it?"
"Believing memories gone for ten years will return from a few talks, while enduring your suspicions all the while?"
Blair's calm voice rose subtly. Her breathing quickened with it.