“A dangerous place? It is still somewhere someone must go.”
Subjugating monsters was necessary for the Kingdom of Rutledge.
When Diana pointed this out, one of Miles’s eyebrows twitched.
“Then why must you be the one to go? You’re—Diana, you’re a woman!”
It was only now that Diana recognized the values Miles had always held.
Even when he had been her husband, Miles had expected Diana to be a good wife and bear and raise his children.
He had never once expected her to fulfill her duties as a duchess.
Despite being the man marrying into her family, he had instead insisted that he should be the one to stand in the public eye because he was a man.
“And what of it? There are plenty of men whose abilities fall far short of mine.”
To Diana, Miles had been one of the few people she could feel at ease around because he never compared her to Cordelia.
He saw Diana herself instead of her sister.
That was precisely why she had chosen him as her husband in her first life.
But now, she understood.
Miles was no different from all the other men.
No—in some ways, he was even worse.
The other men had decided Cordelia would be easier to handle than Diana and had therefore sought to ingratiate themselves with her.
But Miles was different.
Even after learning Diana’s personality and true nature, he had expected her to behave like a proper woman and submit to him.
The only role he had wanted Diana to fulfill as a woman was to bear his children.
He had never truly accepted her for who she was.
Instead, he had wanted to flaunt his ability to control the headstrong Diana—to present himself as a valiant knight capable of taming a wild and unruly horse.
“Even though I am a woman, I possess the strength to fight in the Demon Forest. If that is so, then I wish to use that strength to its fullest.”
As Diana declared this firmly, Miles bit down on his lip.
“…Are you going this far for that man?”
“What?”
At his low, restrained voice, Diana blinked her purple eyes.
“That man…?”
“Don’t play innocent! The only man you danced with at the graduation ball!”
Miles’s face flushed with humiliation.
As Diana’s closest male friend, he had never doubted that the place at her side would eventually belong to him.
But he had been wrong.
The man she had chosen was seventeen years older than him—Grand Prince Alan Rutledge, the king’s younger brother.
As Diana’s friend, Miles had always been closer to her than anyone at the academy apart from Cordelia.
The man who married Diana would become the husband of the future Duchess of Gazard.
Miles had made it known to everyone around them that the position belonged to him, intimidating every male student who dared cast their eyes upon her.
So why had Diana chosen a man like that?
Why had she smiled and laughed with him so intimately?
The expression Diana had worn in the ballroom that night remained seared into Miles’s mind—her cheeks flushed and her eyes glistening.
It was an expression she had never once shown him.
She had looked like a maiden in love.
Miles could not accept that Diana would show another man such a face.
“There are far more suitable men for you than that old man.”
Jealousy burned hotter within Miles’s chest, scorching him from the inside.
Every time he remembered the blissful expression she had worn that night, a sickening sensation rose within him, as though his stomach were twisting itself into knots.
Diana recoiled at his words.
“I alone will decide whom I choose. No one else has the right to interfere.”
Diana could not understand why Miles was so obsessed with her.
As her closest friend, Miles had already believed he had secured his place as the future husband of the Duchess of Gazard.
Then, without warning, Diana had shown another man a side of herself as a woman.
She could not begin to comprehend how deeply that had wounded Miles’s pride—or that he felt as though someone else had stolen something that already belonged to him.
“Have you forgotten? The royal family despises that man because of his mother’s origins!”
Diana’s brows drew together openly at his criticism of Alan.
“That is disrespectful, Miles.”
“It is the truth.”
“It is not something people in our position should speak of.”
Grand Prince Alan Rutledge’s mother had been the daughter of the once-prestigious House Pennington, a ducal family that had since been abolished.
When his younger sister conceived the late king’s child, the Duke of Pennington plotted to assassinate Othniel, the crown prince at the time and the current king, intending to seize control of the kingdom for himself.
His scheme was exposed, and the Duke of Pennington was beheaded. His entire house was stripped of its title and abolished.
Only his sister, who carried the king’s child, escaped execution. However, she was confined to a detached palace, where she died at a young age.
(To think he would bring that up now…)
All of it had happened before Alan was even born.
Since an unborn child could not be held responsible for such crimes, Alan had been raised in the royal palace as a member of the royal family.
Yet the people around him did not see it that way.
Diana had heard that even now, the elderly nobles who remembered those events continued to scorn him as a child of House Pennington.
(Lord Alan possesses not only strength, but also an honest and sincere heart. That is precisely why I am so deeply drawn to him… His origins and lineage mean nothing to me.)
It was an unpleasant subject for Diana, who cared so deeply for Alan.
Realizing from her expression that he had stepped on a dangerous subject, Miles clenched his fists.
“I am merely doing what I am capable of doing. Lord Alan’s origins have nothing to do with it.”
“Then why are you willing to go so far for that man—?”
Diana glared at Miles as he continued to press her.
“Diana, you… Could it be that you feel something for him…?”
“That has nothing to do with you, Miles.”
She would not even permit him to question her.
Her words rejected Miles as though she were casting aside his very existence.
“If you understand, then please leave. I am busy preparing for the expedition.”
“Diana—!”
The door slammed shut, leaving Miles alone in the drawing room.
The unwelcome visitor stared blankly at the door through which Diana had departed.
(Why…? Why can’t you understand, Diana…?)
A thin line of crimson blood seeped from the lip he had bitten.
As Miles stared into empty space, his eyes burned with a maddening flame of hatred.
“I will never let that man have you…”
The words slipped from his blood-red lips, only to fade away without ever reaching another person’s ears.
