Mason immediately acquiesced to Blair's words.
"I will have the documents ready for you to review by tomorrow."
"You must see many shortcomings in me. Please teach me a lot from now on."
Mason was inwardly surprised by Blair's attitude.
He had thought the princess, raised in the lap of luxury, would avoid complex and difficult matters altogether. Moreover, unlike what one might expect from someone so delicately reared, she did not hesitate to acknowledge her own deficiencies and willingly sought to learn.
Some might think showing such a side diminished her dignity, but in his eyes, it made her appear even more noble.
"I should be the one asking for your kind guidance, Madam."
The Mason that Blair knew was not one to readily show emotions. Yet for a fleeting moment, his eyes seemed to soften.
After Mason bowed and withdrew, Blair finished her bath and returned to her bedroom. It was still too early to sleep.
Blair decided to organize her future plans.
She had proposed a one-year contract marriage to Herdin, but in truth, the time she conceived Asiel was around early summer.
Herdin must not notice Asiel's existence, so everything had to be wrapped up by at least the early stages of pregnancy.
'Half a year ahead.'
She needed to resolve three things before then.
First was recovering the memories of the fire incident.
Herdin would take the lead on that, so she had no separate plans to make.
Second was preparing for divorce.
To divorce in the Empire required the Emperor's approval. But Ivan, who had pushed this marriage aiming for Herdin from the start, would he truly consent to their divorce?
He would absolutely never approve it on the basis of Herdin's fault.
'It must be undeniably my fault, and through public opinion, he must have no choice but to approve the divorce.'
The clever scheme she devised for that was a 'scandal.'
Creating a scandal with another man.
But if such a scandal broke, that man would be punished. So Blair decided to escalate the scandal's scale.
If there was only one man involved, the arrows would point to him, but if there were several?
Then, people would naturally direct their arrows not at the men who committed adultery with the princess, but at the wanton princess who played around with multiple men despite having a husband.
That was the development Blair desired.
And if things went awry and Asiel's existence was revealed, she could even pass him off as one of theirs.
'For that, I need to bribe several men first.'
After a divorce due to an unsavory scandal, she wouldn't be able to live in the Empire—at least not in the Capital. In the worst case, she might even be confined by Ivan or Katrina.
But as long as she was legally the Duchess of del Mark, not even the imperial family could touch her, so she had to leave the Capital the moment the divorce was finalized.
Thus, she needed a new identity and residence prepared for that time. One that no one knew.
The place that could provide all of that was the guild.
'I should visit the guild soon.'
And finally, the third: finding the mastermind behind her murder before her regression.
The probability that the intruder had killed her out of personal grudge was low. There must surely be someone behind it.
She had to uncover the mastermind and learn the reason for her death. In this life, she absolutely did not want to leave Asiel alone.
'First, let's start from the closest place.'
Blair planned to visit the knight order's training grounds tomorrow morning and lay down in bed. At that moment, memories of the previous night and the contract suddenly came to mind.
Blair rose from the bed and took out the contract she had placed in the drawer. The signature line was still blank.
* * *
After his bath, Herdin was in his office, cigar in mouth, reviewing documents.
He had already handled the important documents before the wedding, so there were no urgencies, yet he chose work over rest. To forget the persistent thoughts tormenting him since morning.
In the quiet study shrouded in darkness, only the rustling of turning pages echoed. Then—
Knock knock—
The sudden knock shattered the silence.
'Mason, probably.'
He had sent Russ home early, as the aide had been complaining of excessive work during the wedding preparations, so he wouldn't wander back to the office on his own.
"Come in."
But the one who entered the office was neither Russ nor Mason—it was Blair.
Herdin's eyes paused upon seeing the unexpected visitor.
Blair held a rolled-up paper in her hand.
She coughed softly at the cigar smoke filling the office, approaching him only after the coughing subsided.
"I suddenly remembered that we didn't finish the contract yesterday amid all the chaos."
Herdin looked at the paper Blair placed before him with somewhat bewildered eyes.
What could this scrap of paper possibly mean?
She acted as if this paper guaranteed everything.
Naive and obsessive woman.
With the intent to sign quickly and send this naive wife back to her room, Herdin picked up the quill.
At that moment, Blair grabbed his hand to stop him.
"Wait a moment, Herdin."
The woman's hand gripping his was cold. Annoyingly so.
"You need to review the contract carefully."
"Didn't we do that yesterday?"
"What if I changed it to something completely different in the meantime?"
Like a mouse worrying about a cat.
The woman seemed to think she held power capable of inflicting tremendous harm on him.
Despite having wrists that seemed they would snap if gripped.
'I thought she was a naive princess. She'll never get scammed out there.'
Thinking that, Herdin reviewed the contract again.
"There's an added clause."
Blair pointed to a clause in the contract with her slender finger.
"When this contract ends, please write a recommendation letter so Rina can find a good job."
"You mean that girl you brought from the Imperial Palace?"
"Yes. She's sociable and hardworking, so she'll more than earn her keep anywhere she goes."
Herdin's eyes narrowed as he looked at Blair.
'She's even planning to abandon her sole confidante and leave.'
Planning to elope with a hidden lover?
Over twenty years ago, in the neighboring Kingdom of Derant, a princess had fallen in love with a knight, rejected the marriage arranged by the king, and fled.
The knight was executed for it, and the princess, bereft of her lover, starved herself to death.
Scandals arising from highborn women and lowborn men were not common, but neither were they exceedingly rare.
Blair could be the protagonist of such a scandal. Though last night seemed to have been her first time spending the night with a man, so perhaps not.
'...Either way, it has nothing to do with me.'
As long as he achieved the purpose of this contract marriage, he didn't care.
Herdin signed both copies of the contract and returned one to Blair.
"It's quite late. If you're done, please return and rest."
It was a polite dismissal.
But Blair seemed to have one more matter.
"As you surely know, there's a luncheon at the Imperial Palace tomorrow."
On the first day of marriage, dine with the groom's family; on the second, with the bride's. It was custom, and Herdin knew it.
"I remember."
"You don't have to attend other banquets or appointments, but for ones involving my brother or the imperial family, I hope you'll join me as much as possible."
It was a request based on memories from her previous life.
In her past life, after he began distancing himself from her, he had rarely attended banquets or imperial family meals.
"That way, with no faults whatsoever as a husband on your part, my brother will have no choice but to approve the divorce when this contract ends."
Herdin del Mark was a war hero, but ultimately a subject of the Emperor.
Without the Emperor's permission, he could not dare remove the Emperor's only sister from the position of duchess.
Thus, the end of this marriage had to be tied off completely as Blair's fault. For that, it was best if Herdin showed no flaws.
To his impressions of Blair—pretty, small, naive, obsessive—he added one more.
Determined woman.
"That's a valid point. I'll keep that in mind as well."
With the business concluded, Blair withdrew as if she had been waiting. Remembering his dismissal moments ago.
"Then... good night, Herdin."
Blair carefully rolled up her copy of the contract and quietly left the office.
Herdin let out a scoff as he looked at the contract left by his fake wife.
"Ha."
He had come to the office to shake off the thoughts tormenting his mind all day, only for the source of those thoughts to walk in on her own.
That source was Blair.
All day, his mind had been occupied by his fake wife.
Her snow-white, soft skin, her tearful face and voice, her voluptuous breasts unfit for her slender frame, and...
Even the dizzying pleasure her body had plunged him into, an endless sweet mire.
Unlike him, she seemed to have completely forgotten last night's events, boldly coming to see him at this hour—wearing a nightgown that revealed her figure fully.
Oblivious to the indecent thoughts she stirred in his mind.
Yet at the same time, a filthy desire urged him to make that innocent face cry and soil it once more.
What am I, some bitch in heat?
He had thought devouring her to his heart's content through the night would quench his thirst for the woman. But he had been wrong.
What he had swallowed was not water, but seawater. The more he drank, the greater the craving.
It had been the same last night.
At first, it was curiosity. Wondering what expression that doll-like woman would make in bed.
But the moment he embraced her, the curiosity vanished, leaving only desire for pleasure.
Thus, he had ravaged her through the night, only regaining his senses at dawn. Shocked at himself for still harboring lust upon seeing her fainted in sleep, he had fled the room.
A woman he should despise. The daughter of an enemy he should loathe. He must never forget that fact.
Yet even in this moment of reaffirming that fact, the heat of his body, recklessly recalling last night, refused to cool.
"...Am I going mad?"
Herdin exhaled a pained breath and rose. Then headed back to the bathroom.