When the Baron finally returned home, he summoned his family to the study at once.

The atmosphere inside the room felt suffocating.

The stale scent of brandy lingered heavily in the air, soaked deep into old crimson curtains and dark wood polished by years of unwashed pride. For a long time, this study has served as the heart of the household ambitions.

It was a private sanctuary where Penelope’s future had been discussed, bartered, and arranged like she was a piece of livestock, but tonight, the same room felt smaller, like the walls themselves were slowly closing in.

When Baron James finally collapsed into his leather armchair, sleep was a distant luxury he could no longer afford. His mind was a frantic loop of the Marquis’s reaction and the cold, diamond-hard gaze of the daughter he no longer recognized.

Genevieve stood by the hearth, her frame visibly tensed, the firelight casting long, flickering shadows that deepened the bitterness settled upon her face.

Near the window, Mirabel paced anxiously across the carpet, twisting her fingers so tightly they had gone pale.

"What... What is going to happen to William, Father?" Mirabel asked at last, her voice thin with a desperate sort of worry.

Jame’s head snapped up, his eyes bloodshot and brimming with a bitter, simmering rage. "Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?" he hissed, the sound cutting through the room like a whip. "Look, just look at your sister! She now sits as the Marchioness of Aelgard, wielding a title that could crush us, and you are over here whimpering for a man who may never even inherit a Count’s title."

Mirabel flinched, her shoulders hunching. In the past, this was the moment her father would have turned his vitriol toward Penelope, using the "useless" daughter as a whetstone, a convenient target for his anger. But with Penelope gone, Mirabel realized with a sickening jolt that she was now the only target left in his line of fire.

But why was he yelling at her?

It’s not her fault that the Marquis only wanted Penelope. What was she supposed to do about it? But of course, she swallowed her retort and simply lowered her gaze.

"That is not what matters now," Genevieve intercepted, her voice a cold blade that sliced through William’s hysterics.

She stared into the flames as if seeing Penelope’s face in the ember. "What truly concerns us is Penelope herself... and this sudden metamorphosis."

Her lips tightened faintly.

"It is as if she grew wings overnight. If we do not snap those wings once and for all, we will never have her under our control again."

"But how?" James demanded, slamming his fist onto the arm of the chair. "The Marquis is a rabid dog! If we make a single wrong move, he’ll have our heads on the palace pikes before breakfast. That girl... is going to return in two days to complete the wedding rites. That is all the time we have left. If we cannot secure some kind of leash over her before then, we lose everything. How do we pay our debts?"

Mirabel stopped pacing, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully as she looked at her parents. "Isn’t it strange, though?" she butted in, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Her sudden, violent hatred for William? The way she humiliated him before the entire court, and then going as far as flaunting her new authority over you, Father? It’s too precise. I am certain she has somehow figured out our plans to seize her inheritance. There is no other explanation for her heart to turn to stone so quickly. She... she probably knows about my relationship with William’s too."

James squeezed his eyes shut, trying to erase the memory of the encounter. He didn’t want to remember the way Penelope stood tall before the court, or the way she had easily manipulated the empathy of the entire court to her favor

"If she knows about the inheritance," James muttered, his voice trembling, "then she knows we are hollow. We need more than a leash, Genevieve. We need a cage."

Genevieve’s gaze sharpened immediately, but she stayed quiet.

******

The journey back to the Marquis’s estate the next day had been surprisingly tranquil.

After the suffocating tension of the palace, the steady rhythm of the carriage wheels against the cobblestone roads almost felt peaceful. Rain-washed countryside stretched beyond the windows in muted shades of green and silver, while the distant sky hung heavy with approaching dusk.

But inside the velvet-lined carriage, Vincent’s mind was a battlefield.

He sat beside the window in near-total silence, one gloved hand resting loosely against the carved frame as his unfocused gaze lingered somewhere far beyond the passing scenery.

His thoughts were so distant that the familiar iron gates of the Devereux estate slowly opening before them went entirely unnoticed. He didn’t see the servants lining the drive, or the ancient oaks of his family land; Because all Vincent could see was the ghost of the man he used to be. He saw nothing else aside from that, and that disturbed him more than he cared to admit.

For years, he had buried that version of himself beneath war, discipline, and violence. He had meticulously carved away every weakness attached to the past until nothing remained except the ruthless creature the Empire knew now.

He had sworn long ago that he would never return to that Chapter of his life, to never allow himself to think about it. To never allow himself to feel like that helpless boy all over again.

So... what was the meaning behind this?

"Vincent, are you okay?"

The voice was like a soft light cutting through a heavy fog.

Vincent jolted, his shoulders tensing for a split second before he realized where he was. For a heart-stopping second,he forgot that he was married. That he was no longer the sole occupant of this carriage.

He turned his head slowly, finding Penelope watching him. She was leaning closer now, her head tilted with that devastatingly sincere concern that always seemed capable of catching him off guard, no matter how prepared he thought himself to be.

"Is your wound hurting?" she asked softly, her voice dropping to a whisper as if the question belonged only to the two of them.

Vincent stared at her for a moment longer than necessary.

She looked unbearably beautiful like this.

Not because of the jewel or gowns, but because of the expression written plainly across her face.

Her delicate brows were slightly furrowed, and those large, shimmering brown eyes searched his face with a tenderness that felt novel. She was frowning, yes, but it wasn’t the bitter, downturned mouth of a woman who despised him, but the instinctive crease of someone who genuinely cared for his well-being.

The realization still felt foreign enough to unsettle him.

Without meaning to, Vincent found himself overlaying this image with the one burned into his memory: the Penelope who stared at him as if he were the root of every misfortune in her life. He admitted to himself, with a silent, sharp pang of guilt, that he had been.

After all, he married her despite her refusal. She wanted absolutely nothing to do with him, but he never gave her the choice of backing out. But he was certain that William would not treat her well. He had been in the same space with that "twig" long enough to know.

Regardless of what Penelope had said last night, he still could not fully believe she was into him. It wasn’t possible. There had to be another reason for this behavior.

But what could it be?

Realizing she was still patiently waiting for his response, Vincent opened his mouth automatically, prepared to offer the same practiced dismissal he always gave.

I am fine.

But the words died in his throat, choked off by the sheer earnestness in her gaze. He stopped and closed his mouth, his jaw working as he searched for a response that wouldn’t feel like a lie.

"It’s nothing," he managed at last, finally averting his gaze.

He had spent a lifetime perfecting his solitude. No one has ever asked if he was okay; people, most of the time, usually assumed that he was and only ever asked the important things, like whether the mission was complete, whether the enemy was dead, whether the bloodshed had achieved its purpose.

Pain, exhaustion, fear, those things never mattered enough for anyone to care.

And Vincent himself had ensured it remained that way. He had guarded his heart with such ruthless vigilance that no one had ever truly witnessed him falter. Mostly because he had never allowed anyone close enough to notice the cracks in the first place.

But Penelope...

She seemed different herself.

She was the reason he had survived certain years of his life at all, though she had never known it. A simple smile from her in passing once had been enough to carry him through months of misery, and that pathetic truth had haunted him straight into adulthood.

Somehow, without much effort, she had become the axis upon which his entire existence quietly turned.

And yet, over these years, Vincent had grown so accustomed to her fear... her resentment... her cold avoidance... that he no longer understood what to do with her kindness now that it was finally being offered to him willingly.

How was he supposed to accept warmth from someone he had already convinced himself would always hate him?

It unsettled him profoundly.

Because every gentle look from her felt dangerous.

Every touch threatened to unravel years of carefully maintained restraint.

And worst of all—

He liked it.

Far more than he should have.

It was suffocating, terrifying, yet utterly addictive.

He sighed, a deep, weary sound that seemed to rattle in his chest, and let his head fall back against the velvet cushion. His eyes drifted shut, the lines of exhaustion finally etching themselves clearly onto his face.

Penelope’s heart gave a nervous little skip. Seeing him so still, his skin looking pale under the carriage’s dim light, her mind immediately went to the physician’s warning about the possibility of infection, fever, and exhaustion.

Unable to help herself, she reached out, her hand hovering for a split second before she moved to press her palm against his forehead. But before her skin could even make contact,his fingers clamped her wrist like a shackle, halting her movement.

He opened his eyes, looking at her.

"What are you doing?"

The coldness in his eyes caught Penelope off guard, stinging more than the grip on her arm. She had thought— hoped– that after last night, the walls were down. But sadly, his instincts were still to treat every touch like a threat.

"It is what people do when they check for a temperature, Vincent," she explained softly, her voice steady despite the tremor in her heart.

The suspicion in his expression didn’t completely vanish; instead, it turned into a profound, genuine look of puzzlement. It took another long, silent moment before awareness finally dawned on him. His grip on her wrist loosened instantly, his fingers sliding down to her palm in regret.

He had acted on blood-memory, and he was clearly judging himself for it.

"I didn’t know..." he started, his voice trailing off into an uncharacteristic stumble.

"It is fine," Penelope reassured him, her heart softening at his confusion. "I was just worried about your health. You look a bit flushed."

Vincent didn’t say a word. He simply stared at her hand, which was still resting in his. Then, in a move that was as clumsy as it was heart-wrenching, he didn’t let go. Instead, he slowly lifted her hand, guiding the back of her palm up until it pressed firmly against his own forehead.

He held it there, his eyes searching hers with a desperate sort of earnestness, as if this manual correction could rectify his earlier hostility.

"Does this... lessen your worries?" he asked quietly.

He looked so completely lost, like a man trying to learn a language he didn’t know existed.

Penelope stared at him, her eyes wide, her mind momentarily short-circuiting. For a second, she looked at him as if he had grown two horns—or perhaps wings.

Vincent couldn’t help but curse internally, wondering if he had messed things up.

But before he could spiral into a darker thought, Penelope suddenly used her free hand to cover her mouth, her shoulders shaking as she stifled a soft, genuine chuckle.