Sighing in deep defeat, she weakly picked up the spoon. With actual tears of frustration and exhaustion gathering in her eyes, she took a bite of the plain, watery rice. Ironically, the taste itself wasn’t bad—it was clean and warm. But the real problem was the psychological trauma attached to it.

In her past as Seera, when she first came to this household as a low-born maid, that wicked old woman in the kitchen would only give her leftover, rotting vegetables on a good day. Most of the time, Seera had survived entirely on plain rice water.

And now, after searching for revenge, she was sitting on a bed in the capital, staring at the exact same food.

A few genuine tears silently spilled over her lashes, rolling down her flushed cheeks. Seeing those tears, Samuel instantly froze. He didn’t dare say another word, his playful demeanor completely vanishing into a wave of guilty panic.

He certainly didn’t dare tell her the whole truth—that when he had given the front desk that excuse, the old aunties had given him knowing, greasy glances, smiling and patting him on the back for being such a ’hardworking’ young husband.

If he dared mention the inn staff’s knowing smiles right now, Heena would genuinely drag her sore body out of bed and bury him directly into the floorboards—even if they were currently staying on the third floor.

Ultimately, Heena had to swallow her pride and surrender to her bleak reality. Recognizing that she was in absolutely no physical condition to navigate the upcoming storm at the Marquis’s estate with a completely seized-up lower back, she let Samuel give her a rigorous, full-body massage.

Of course, the bastard couldn’t help himself. As his hands worked out the knots in her aching thighs, his fingers casually tried to stray upward again, testing his luck.

*SLAP!*

Heena blindly swiped backward, her hand connecting sharply with his knuckles. "Get back to the massage and keep your hands where they belong," she hissed. Samuel immediately came to heel, clearing his throat and returning to a perfectly professional, soothing rhythm.

While she was furious with him, she was infinitely more furious with herself. It was all due to her own damn dirty mind. She had known perfectly well that she had high-stakes espionage to conduct, yet just because she had been feeling incredibly horny, she had taken the chance anyway—and now she was paying the price in pure physical agony. It felt so incredibly dirty and irresponsible to know she had life-or-death work ahead of her, yet she had completely let herself go.

Well, whatever. Damage control was her specialty.

By 5:00 a.m., the pale morning light cracked open the sky. Heena dragged her reluctant, throbbing body out of bed, pulling herself into the adjacent bathroom.

Bathing in this era was an administrative nightmare. There were no modern taps or running water. To get a hot bath, you had to summon the inn’s service staff to manually haul heavy buckets of steaming water up three flights of stairs to fill the wooden tub. Because the servers charged a hefty premium for the labor, you couldn’t exactly lounge around leisurely or ask for a refill. It was a quick, functional wash, but it managed to shock the last remnants of exhaustion out of her muscles.

Once bathed and wrapped in a modest cloak, she slipped out to a high-end capital salon she had scouted.

Entering the salon at dawn was a tactical choice. The Marquis’s anniversary banquet was drawing thousands of guests, meaning by mid-day, every high-end stylist in the upper district would be a chaotic warzone of noblewomen fighting over hairpins. Going early ensured she had the staff’s undivided attention and, more importantly, zero chance of running into anyone who might look too closely at her face before she was ready to reveal it.

Inside the salon, she was immediately struck by the quality of the mirrors. Everywhere she looked, the walls were lined with polished bronze. She was deeply impressed; the last time she had traveled through the capital, she hadn’t bothered to look at her own face, let alone notice the craftsmanship. These bronze surfaces were crafted with such immense skill that they were as flawlessly clear as any standard glass mirror.

The transformation took a grueling four hours of meticulous, painful work. Her hair was pinned into intricate, gravity-defying braids, her skin was flawlessly painted to accentuate the sharp, haughty lines of her jaw, and she was laced into the grand, imposing gown she had purchased. When the stylists finally stepped back, they collectively gave her an awed thumbs-up, openly stunned by the breathtaking, lethal beauty standing before them.

When Heena finally walked back into the inn room at 9:00 a.m., Samuel looked up—and his heart visibly skipped a chaotic beat.

Heena rolled her eyes, adjusting her heavy, gold-embroidered silk cuffs. "Come on. You saw me trying this exact dress on two days ago. What are you giving me that ridiculous look for?"

Samuel stared at her, his dark eyes intense, a heavy edge of possessiveness bleeding into his voice. "Every time you wear it, it feels like you are going to cut my heart right out of my chest."

Samuel had also changed. He had traded his scholar’s robes for the dark, tailored uniform of a high-ranked personal guard. The sharp lines of the leather and steel armor emphasized his broad shoulders, making him look exceptionally dangerous.

And the reason for it well....

Four days ago inside the inn....

From the very start of the conversation, Samuel had been vehemently against the idea of Heena walking into the Marquis’s mansion alone. But the moment she revealed that she wasn’t planning on letting *anyone* inside those walls know she was already married, his resistance skyrocketed into an absolute, extreme no.

"How can you even think of saying that?" Samuel demanded, his voice echoing in the small room.

For all his terrifying competence and scholarly restraint, the literal, raw sight of Samuel throwing a full-blown tantrum was something to behold. He crossed his arms, pacing the floorboards, flatly refusing to accept a single word of her strategy.

Heena remained entirely silent, calmly watching the storm break over him as he scrambled for alternatives.

"You can just tell them that I am the one who saved you from that mountain!" Samuel argued, stopping to glare at her, his dark eyes wide and frantic. "Tell them you fell, I found you, I took care of you—we can make up any story you want!"

Heena shook her head slightly, her voice a cool contrast to his heat. "If I do that, it will create an immediate legal mess with the inheritance and the succession rights. The court will pick our timeline apart. I need to enter that house with zero baggage."

"No!" Samuel snapped, the word sharp and laced with a sudden, suffocating desperation. "I am going with you. I want to be right there by your side. I cannot handle this, Heena."

What Heena’s intensely analytical, cold mind failed to fully grasp in that moment was the sheer, maddening depth of his jealousy. The mere, fleeting thought of another man laying a hand on his wife—or worse, what if one of those four adopted grooms tried to use their past history to force a marriage alliance?