‘And…how would Edgar react?’

When her thoughts reached that point, her smile faded. Edgar had hugged her behind while she was enjoying scent of roses and whispered he loved her only yesterday.

Of course, that mood ended right after that when Rubica stepped on his foot in surprise…. But was she going to be able to divorce him?

“Huh?”

Rubica looked down on her skirt in surprise. There was a round smudge on it. And a few more smudges started form next to it. She quickly wiped her face with a handkerchief and blew her nose.

“Tears? Why am I crying?”

She felt so stuffy and gloomy as if she had had a huge stone on her chest. She tried to think of Edgar, but then more tears fell. She had usually felt proud or happy to think of her. So what was wrong with her?

Rubica reached to the embroidery basket on table and took out a ribbon she had been making in secret.

“Sewing is the best remedy for grief.”

She had read The Little Bird’s News thoroughly, and it seemed like Christopher was monopolizing royal blue fabric.

And he had also said to Gabriel that ‘although Claymore was a great family, Khanna was only a designer with not much experience who worked in countryside’, so he was trying to diminish Khanna and her work.

‘Well, we cannot lose to him.’

Their ribbon dress had been highly successful at the tea meeting. However, they couldn’t maintain the popularity by keeping making the same thing.

That was why Rubica had decided to make a more complicated and prettier ribbon. She started to sew with burning eyes. But her hands kept slipping as the fabric had good gloss but was quite slippery.

She struggled to sew on it and made it into a ribbon. The fabric that had glistened mysteriously in light made the ribbon look even prettier, but the sewing part hadn’t been done neat enough and it bothered her.

“Isn’t there a good way for it?”

Then someone knocked on the door. Rubica hastily put the basket under the table and greeted Edgar, pretending she had been doing nothing.

A servant came after Edgar and put down a document on the table.

“What is that?”

“What you asked for the other day.”

It was a list of weapons Claymore was inventing and was going to invent in close future. Rubica immediately took a look at it, but it was full of hard symbols and numbers. Edgar raised his chin high as if he had seen it coming.

“You will have to stay all night to go through it all.”

“It’s fine.”

Rubica started to read it patiently. But her hand stopped when she was about half through it. She spotted the word ‘Stella’. And Edgar didn’t miss that.

‘So that was it.’

Her face turned white. Then it turned blue, and then red. She asked in shaking voice.

“But why is this part empty? It has the weapon’s name only.”

“Because it’s classified.”

Well, even Rubica could demand to know about a classified project. She stared at the paper for long time.

“Which stage is it in?”

“I’m still designing it.”

“Do you really have to make this?”

Even though he had postponed its development to sort out the spy, he had made up his mind to make it someday. He nodded.

“I’ve promised to the king. I have to make it for this kingdom’s future.”

Rubica bit on her lips hard. If it was a promise he had made to the king, she couldn’t cancel it.

‘Would the king believe me if I told him Edgar can’t make Stella as it is going to bring war?’

She wasn’t sure. But she had to stop Stella from being made, then she could save the man in front of her. And she was prepared to do anything for that.

She made her decision and looked at Edgar. He had been reclining on his sofa only a moment ago, but now he looked quite nervous.

“Edgar, you like me, right?”

“Why are you asking when you know I do?”

“Then can you make something for me?”

She took out her basket again and showed him the ribbon she had been working on.

“I want to make ribbons with this fabric, but I cannot sew on it properly as it is too slippery. I can cut it and finish it with the heat of candlelight, but I cannot do it evenly. Can you find a way to finish it neatly?”

Edgar looked at the ribbon. If it could be done with heat, he could apply technology for cutting iron plates. But he would have to find the right temperature instead.

“It won’t be hard.”

“It won’t be hard? So you can make it soon?”

“I have a machine that works in similar principle, although it’s not for substituting needlework.”

Rubica crossed her arms. It was bad that it was easy. She had to distract him from making Stella and find a way to put a stop to it in the meantime. She turned to what she had been making.

“Khanna’s shop is getting too many orders and its tailor are working all day and all night. I think you can make a machine that can do needlework for them.”

He raised an eyebrow to hear that.

‘Why haven’t I thought of that?’

He had made the threader to please her, but even he had to admit it was too simple a machine and Rubica hadn’t thought much of it. He hadn’t thought of a machine that could do needlework.

“It will take some time, but it’s not impossible.”

“Then put your other works aside and make it first.”

He almost said he would gladly do that. Of course, he was going to make it if that was what Rubica wanted, but she was acting like as if she had had rights to make demands to him and he didn’t like it. Plus, he knew it could be what had made her fall for Arman, and he didn’t like that even more.

“Why should I make it?”

“Umm, because Madam Khanna is Claymore’s designer and her success would also be good for the dukedom.”

“But I have more urgent things to do. I must make things on that list and sell them on time.”

Rubica had known he would say that. He was a rational man. He loved her, but he wasn’t going to change priority of what he had to do because of her. She didn’t know he had already postponed his work more than once and took out the card she had been saving.

“If you make it for me, you can kiss me from now.”

“What?”

Edgar couldn’t believe what he had heard for a moment.

“Uh… Does that mean I can kiss you….”

“On my lips.”

Edgar jumped to his feet and came to Rubica in no time. He grabbed the armrests of her chair hard.

“Really?”

His voice was much lower than usual. It made her get chill in her back and her body turned feverish. He was leaning down to meet her eyes, and it made her feel like he was about to devour her like a beast. However, there was no going back now. She was willing to do anything to save him.

“Really.”

As soon as she said that, his lips were on hers. She couldn’t say he could do that only after he made what she wanted. She put her arms around his neck as if she had been waiting for it.

It was hot. Heat started from their lips and was hot enough to melt her down. But she had missed it. Even though she had said they couldn’t do it, she had glanced at his lips from time to time and recalled the kisses they had shared. When he smiled happily like a little boy to her, she felt impulse to kiss his forehead.

“Edgar.”

She panted and called his name, but then the pair of lips that had went away came again. It came again and again, but the burning thirst in their hearts wouldn’t go away.

‘I like him.’

In his arms, she realized why she had cried a little too late. Stopping Stella and saving the kingdom from war, that was only an excuse. She didn’t want to lose him.

Would she be able to leave him if she ever got to meet Arman again?

The answer was no. He acted like there wasn’t a thing he couldn’t do for her. He anxiously looked for her and smiled in relief when he found her. She wasn’t sure she would be able to leave him. He had everything people wanted, but he was going to be broken beyond repair without her.

“Rubica.”

“Yes?”

She rubbed her cheek on his chest as she replied. Although he was the one who was embracing her, she promised to herself again and again that she would save him.

“I love you.”

However, she couldn’t say, ‘I love you too’. Why was that? She couldn’t know why, not yet.