[Three months at most.]
Baroness Cassia Greze quietly closed her eyes as she recalled the physician’s words.
It had been four months since she was diagnosed with an incurable illness whose cause was unknown. She had somehow managed to survive one month longer than expected. During that time, she had accomplished more things for the people she would leave behind than she had in all twenty-seven years of her life combined.
Perhaps, at the very end, it would have been all right to live for herself.
But she had no regrets.
Even this was not enough if she wanted to leave behind a territory where her son and daughter could live comfortably. All she could do now was place her trust in Butler Paul, who would take over the role of lady of the estate.
Had I ever lived for myself during these twenty-seven years?
At seventeen, she had been sold as a sort of war trophy to Baron Greze, a war hero branded with the dishonorable title of the Emperor’s ‘dog.’ Her father, Count Ruberno, unable to resist the threats disguised as imperial persuasion, had married off his daughter and said:
[You should have been a little less beautiful.]
With her beautiful appearance and noble status, she had once been praised as the finest bride in the entire Empire.
Yet in the end, her fate was to be sold to an appointed nobleman who had once been nothing more than a commoner mercenary.
Still, that much had been fine.
She had stepped into Greze Territory with excited footsteps, dreaming of a happy married life in her own way.
But there had been no fluttering, romantic marriage life.
Her husband was not merely the Emperor’s dog. He was everyone’s dog—as long as they had money.
Whether he was a war hero or a mercenary was difficult to tell. From large and small civil wars to national wars and even reinforcement campaigns for territorial conflicts in distant regions, he went wherever there was money to be made. He practically never stayed at the castle.
Was it because he had grown up poor as a commoner and was obsessed with accumulating wealth?
Or did he simply enjoy beating, cutting down, and killing people?
Whether it was the former or the latter, Baron Jester Greze was never a good husband.
Even on the rare occasions when he stayed at the castle, their relationship was nothing more or less than that of a couple bound by duty.
Naturally, throughout their ten years of marriage, there had never been a single expression of affection such as I like you or I love you.
Even for a couple who had entered a political marriage, it had been far too much.
“Ugh… M-Mother… Please… don’t die…”
“Mommy… Waaah…”
The baroness swallowed her sorrow as she looked at the two children sitting beside her bed, crying so hard that their tears and runny noses covered their faces.
The only reason she had been able to endure that hellish marriage was because of her precious children—children she loved so dearly that she could never bear to see them hurt.
Her eldest son, Rael, looked exactly like his father but had a completely different personality. Her youngest daughter, Lucy, was so affectionate and adorable that everyone in the castle adored her.
They were eight and five years old, respectively.
They were far too young to be left behind.
Even the things she had done while burning through the last of her strength had all been for her children.
She had searched for a private tutor for Rael and a nanny for Lucy. She had instructed the servants to treat the young masters with the utmost respect. She had even left her husband what would likely be her first and last final request:
Please love the children.
“My… my babies… Even without Mommy… cough!”
“Kyahhh!”
“Mother! Mother!”
Just as the baroness had been trying to leave behind a touching final farewell, a lump of blood suddenly spilled from her mouth.
Rael and Lucy clung to her in shock, tears streaming down their faces.
“My lady… You mustn’t leave us like this…”
“My lady! Please don’t speak! Save your strength! Please!”
Her beloved maid Clara and Butler Paul were crying as well.
Only the four of them were there to witness the baroness’s final moments.
Her heartless husband had not shown his face until the very end.
He had been away for a month, serving as a reinforcement force in a territorial war in Viscount Biche’s domain, and still had not returned home.
If I had told him that I was dying, would he have refused to go to war and stayed by my side?
As the baroness entertained the question, she shook her head inwardly.
If she had told him, I don’t have much time left, his reaction would have been obvious.
That’s unfortunate.
And then he would probably have said:
I’ll be participating in another territorial war soon. By the time I return, you’ll probably be dead. I’ll say my farewell in advance. You’ve worked hard until now.
Of course, it was only her imagination.
But it was a remarkably realistic reaction.
Anyone who knew Baron Greze well might have nodded and said, That sounds about right.
The baroness nodded to herself, convinced that not telling her husband she was dying was the best decision she had made in her short twenty-seven-year life.
She already disliked her husband enough.
She did not want to leave this world with the unpleasant memory of his face burned into her mind until the very end.
“Was I a good mother to my children?”
“Mothereeee!”
“Mommy! Mommy!”
“No, my lady! Of course you were! Where in this world could there possibly be another mother who cared for her children as much as you did?”
Maid Clara answered as she embraced Rael and Lucy.
“Was I a good master to you?”
“There’s no need to even ask, my lady. There could not be another lady of the house who even memorized the name of a new kitchen apprentice. If you pass away, there are countless people who say they won’t remain here. I would be one of them too, if not for your last wishes…”
“Sniff…”
Butler Paul, who had barely been holding back his tears, finally began to cry as well.
He removed his monocle and wiped the corners of his eyes, looking rather awkward doing so.
“And to the people of the territory… Was I… a, a good… cough… acting lord…”
“Oh, my lady! What do you mean, ‘acting lord’? You know the people of Greze Territory call you ‘Lord,’ not your husband!”
“It was you who ruled Greze Territory, my lady!”
In the end, Clara and Paul fell to their knees, clutching the bed and sobbing like children.
“Come to think of it… I don’t remember ever living for myself…”
“My laaaady…”
“Mommyyy!”
Even if she had not been happy, she had lived her life diligently and properly in her own way.
She had faithfully fulfilled every duty given to her.
The only thing she regretted was that she had never once taken care of herself.
Perhaps if she had been a little lazier, a little more selfish, a little worse of a person, she might have been happier.
But her life was already racing toward its end.
What use was there in regretting it now?
Baroness Cassia Greze reflected on the life that had somehow left her with nothing but emptiness.
She decided to quietly accept the death that was soon to come.
And closed her eyes.
“……Cassia!”
That was when it happened.
An unexpected intruder suddenly appeared in the baroness’s modest deathbed scene.
“……My lord?”
Butler Paul stared in surprise.
There was no mistaking it.
Baron Greze had just returned home.
His face, still clad in armor, was covered in dust and dried blood. It seemed that he had heard about his wife the moment he returned and had rushed straight to her room.
The baron’s reaction was strange.
He staggered over and knelt beside the baroness’s bed, his eyes vacant as though his soul had left his body.
He looked like a man who had been deeply shaken by his wife’s death.
But that couldn’t be.
“Why…”
Everyone understood what he had left unsaid.
He seemed about to demand why she had never told him that she had been diagnosed with a terminal illness.
But the baron simply swallowed the unfinished words.
“Urgh!”
“My lady!”
The baroness vomited blood once again.
Everyone cried out in alarm.
“My lady! Since my lord has come, please say everything you haven’t been able to say until now. You always told me you had so many things you wanted to say!”
Clara could feel that the baroness’s death was very near.
She wanted to make her mistress’s final moments just a little more satisfying.
Although she knew the baroness no longer had the strength, a small part of her secretly hoped that she would at least slap her awful husband across the face.
“Yes. Say whatever you wish.”
The baron muttered with a blank expression.
“……Whatever I wish?”
“Yes.”
“Then…”
The baroness closed her eyes.
A tear that had gathered at the corner of her eye fell with a soft drop.
“I… really want… a pearl necklace…”
“Why do you need my permission for that? If you wanted one, you could have simply bought it!”
“You… you work yourself to death… How could I… cough… spend money on something so extravagant…”
The baroness had grown up in a wealthy family without ever lacking anything.
Yet she had tried to live frugally, always conscious of her husband, who seemed obsessed with accumulating wealth.
Even though fashion changed every year, she owned only the five dresses she had been fitted for when she first married and two coats.
Everyone knew just how little like a noblewoman she had lived, despite being a noblewoman herself.
The baron shouted with bloodshot eyes.
“Why is buying one lousy necklace considered extravagant? Damn it, why do you think I worked myself to death in the first place?!”
“Cough!”
“Ah! My lady!”
The baroness vomited blood again.
By now, judging only from her appearance, she looked little different from a corpse.
Her skin was deathly pale, without a trace of color, and her lips were stained red from repeated bouts of vomiting blood.
“And… I wanted… to visit the capital… just once…”
“Then we can go!”
“You’re always… away at war… and… how could I… cough… leave the territory…”
“Haa…”
“There’s… one more thing…”
“Tell me.”
“If I… if I die… the new… new lady of the house…”
“There won’t be one!”
“……If you bring one in… you’ll die… You’ll live… live alone for the rest of your life… you… you horrible man…”
It seemed she had been holding in quite a lot.
The baron was utterly dumbfounded by this unfamiliar, honest side of his wife, who normally did nothing but shyly lower her head before him.
“You’ll grant all of them?”
“Of course. I’ll buy you a hundred damn necklaces if that’s what you want. And the capital too. Damn it, I’ll take you there myself. And in the name of Greze, there will never be another wife in my life but you.”
“Y-You’re so… kind… now that I’m about to die… I… I like it. Then… grant me this too.”
“Just say it.”
The baroness stretched out her thin, corpse-like arm and pulled a sheet of parchment from the bedside table.
She had wanted to thrust it at her husband for a very long time, but she had endured and endured.
For the sake of her beloved children.
For the sake of the people of the territory she was responsible for.
And for the sake of her position as Baroness Greze.
“P-Please… stamp it…”
The baron hurriedly took the parchment she weakly held out and scanned it.
His face stiffened.
They were divorce papers.
The worn-out document seemed to have been sleeping in the baroness’s drawer for quite some time.
Even though she must have known that handing them to him now was meaningless, the baroness struggled to open her eyes wide, as though asking for her husband’s permission.
Perhaps she simply wanted him to understand.
She wanted him to know, even if only in this way, that the life she had never been happy with had ultimately been caused by him.
“Urgh…”
“Mother!”
The baroness vomited blood once again.
Rael seemed to sense something was wrong and grabbed her shoulder in alarm.
“……Mother?”
“My lady!”
“Ugh… My lady! Please don’t leave us like this!”
“Mommyyy!”
It was truly a heartbreaking death.
Perhaps because she was resentful that she had never managed to hear her husband grant her final request, the baroness could not even close her eyes.
And so, Baroness Cassia Greze ended her short twenty-seven-year life.
The baron stared at his wife’s lifeless, wide-open eyes with dry, empty eyes.
While everyone else bowed their heads to the floor and wept, mourning the baroness’s tragic death, the baron slowly straightened his knees and stood.
Riiip.
The divorce papers in his hand tore vertically in one long rip.
Then, in a cold, subdued voice, the baron answered his wife’s final request.
And, just as he always had, he turned his back first and walked away.
“This… I can’t allow.”
