A Mad Lady’s Confession

The Empire’s official wallflower and the center of every scandal, Eleanor Brynhill returns to the capital, this time as the bride of the Empire’s most eligible bachelor, Matthias Nielsen.

“We’ll only be together for a year, as a formal couple. There won’t be any more time beyond that. Let me make that clear.”
“Still, I’ll do my best to be a good wife, for a year.”

The new bride he took on like a bothersome burden meets none of Nielsen’s conditions. He thought the paperwork was merely a formality, something he could ignore. But—

“I came here to warm your bed.”
“…Do you even know what it means for a woman to warm a man’s bed?”
“Of course. …I was taught that it’s a wife’s duty.”

He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the woman who blushed as she spoke of a wife’s duty.