A Way to Confirm Your Husband’s True Feelings - Chapter 31

Not long after Beatrice sat quietly in bed with the blanket pulled over her, the bedroom door opened once again. Under the dim light of the lanterns, Caesar’s shadow stretched long across the floor.

“Beatrice.”

His voice, calling her name with seriousness, trembled slightly at the end. He seemed just as nervous as she was.

Beatrice was hardly calm herself, but she tried to act composed, patting the space beside her with her palm.

“Caesar, come sit here first.”

After hesitating for a moment, Caesar did as she said and lifted the blanket on the opposite side before sitting down. Dressed in a light tunic shirt and comfortable indoor trousers, he still looked wonderful.

With his hair damp and hanging over his forehead from a recent wash, his appearance gave a different impression than usual. More boyish, more approachable, like someone she could be at ease with.

“Have you… had experience before?”

Caesar’s shoulders jerked noticeably. It was the biggest reaction she had seen from him so far.

“None at all!”

From the perspective of commoners, the Tyrenia Empire wasn’t especially conservative about s*x. Depending on one’s values, premarital experience didn’t carry serious stigma for either men or women.

So Beatrice had prepared herself to accept it if she wasn’t Caesar’s first. Given his background, she believed she could understand even if he had a rough past.

But upon hearing his answer, she felt an unexpected sense of satisfaction and was slightly startled by her own double standards. Even so, her heart soared with joy.

That they were each other’s firsts—wasn’t that incredibly romantic? He truly was the ideal husband she had imagined.

“It’s alright. I’m also a first-timer.”

Overcome with emotion, Beatrice placed her hand over the back of Caesar’s hand. His shoulders jumped for the second time that evening. The fact that her husband’s ears had turned as red as her own cheeks was a great comfort.

That was why she decided to take out the guidebook she had kept with her for reference. If Caesar was just as inexperienced as she was, she thought it might be helpful to have a little guidance.

“If you’re really nervous about our first night… how about we go slowly together, step by step?”

Of course, she wasn’t entirely ignorant. She’d heard here and there that men usually had a great interest in such things and that even the most clueless among them typically knew how to make love to a woman.

But Caesar’s innocent reactions were enough to throw her into delightful misunderstanding. And now, first time. First time!

She had heard that men who wandered as mercenaries were usually promiscuous, so the fact that he wasn’t made him all the more admirable—and pure in her eyes.

Well, just one look at that ascetic face of his, and it wasn’t hard to imagine he had lived a chaste life. Come to think of it, even their earlier kiss had left him trembling as he barely got through it.

When Caesar, flustered, accepted the book she offered and opened it, his complexion turned pale, then flushed bright red—a chaotic display. Watching this only deepened Beatrice’s belief in him.

“Then, I’ll lie down first, and you come over me. Ah, should we turn off the lights first, as per etiquette?”

“Th—”

“Yes?”

“…No, I’ll go turn them off.”

Caesar extinguished the few lanterns in the room, and darkness quickly enveloped the spacious bedroom.

According to the book, the marital union between husband and wife was a sacred ritual meant for the creation of children. One was to wear clean sleepwear, conceal their shame by darkening the room, and approach each other with respect, conducting the act as modestly as possible.

That’s what it said… but despite her efforts, Beatrice couldn’t calm her nerves. She lay quietly, trying to steady her breathing.

It was supposed to be a reverent, beautiful act like the wedding ceremony, so why did it make her so anxious and nervous?

If she’d known it would be like this, maybe she should have read a few of those bold novels always lying around her sisters’ rooms. But the moment she recalled her parents’ warm gazes and the exemplary figure of her beloved sister Freya, any such rebellious thought quickly vanished.

A little while later, she felt Caesar slowly slip under the blanket and move over her. Even in the pitch darkness, he moved without difficulty.

“May I… kiss you?”

He leaned down without placing his weight on her and whispered in her ear. As a shiver ran down her neck, Beatrice gave a small nod.

Caesar gently cupped her chin with one hand and brought his lips to hers. The kiss was short, but hot and wet, somehow completely different from the one during the day.