You Are Gentle, But You Don’t Love Me - Chapter 2

“Uh, so… Juliet?”

The first time Juliet saw Cassio was on the morning of their wedding day.

Their marriage had been hastily arranged. The engagement was decided less than half a year after the proposal, and within three months of that, they exchanged their vows.
Juliet hadn’t even been present for the marriage agreement. Her parents had signed the documents on her behalf, acting as her guardians.

When Cassio Bellanea was granted the title of Duke of Escalus upon their marriage, Juliet became the Duchess of Escalus. While she stayed on the island, detached and bewildered, everything unfolded without her input.

The wedding was held in Cagliari, newly renamed Escalus. Until that day, she hadn’t even seen the face of the man who would become her husband.

Early that spring, when she first saw him standing inside the chapel, she had been utterly taken aback.

Fiery red hair and strikingly pale skin. A height that towered over most men. The pristine white naval uniform that fit him as though it had been made for him alone.
“Cassio Bellanea.”

“Yes.”

An astonishingly beautiful man.

The story of how he had come all the way to Sardinia to marry Juliet was as complicated as it was infamous.

There had been a scandal—or perhaps a romance—so notorious that it became the subject of gossip not only in mainland Aragon but throughout Sardinia as well. A romance that left behind an illegitimate child, nearly cursed to be born unblessed by the heavens. An unfortunate child, yet a beloved one. Loved, but pitied all the same.

But to Juliet, it was all a distant tale, unconnected to her.
“I’ve barely spoken to him…”

Cassio Bellanea had stayed at Escalus for only five days and five nights after their wedding before departing for war.
“Take care.”

Not even the customary promise of a safe return.

“Maybe he never intended to come back in the first place.”
A place shared for only five days and five nights could hardly be called home—or a place one would long to return to.

“Surely, the place he belongs to isn’t here…”

“There!”

Someone among the gathered crowd shouted.

Lost in her thoughts, Juliet flinched and snapped out of her reverie.

In the distance, a single horse kicked up a cloud of dust, followed by several carriages.

At the head of the procession, the rider’s red hair caught the sunlight, glinting gold.

“It’s the Duke!”

It was Cassio.

The scoundrel of the Aragon royal court. The hero of the Aragon navy. The son of the northern provinces, born and raised in the mainland royal court.

Juliet’s husband. The current Duke of Escalus. And the lord of half of Sardinia, a land that only a few years ago had been known as Cagliari.

“Madam, do you see him? The Duke is returning!”

“Yes… I see him.”

Yet he was also the man who had abandoned his estate and his wife to roam the seas.

And now, he was coming back.

“The master of Escalus is returning,” Juliet murmured vacantly.
But could his journey to Sardinia—to Escalus Castle—truly be called a return? Was this really a homecoming?

‘Of course not.’

For him, coming to Escalus wasn’t a return but just another journey. Even if Sardinia and Escalus were now technically his land and his castle.

‘I hope his travels remain peaceful. For the sake of my own peace this summer.’

Juliet silently made a small wish to herself.

The dust cloud that had risen into the air began to disappear into the forest of silver poplars. Instead, the sounds of a horse’s whinny and the rumble of carriage wheels grew louder as they neared the hill.

A sound marking the end—or perhaps the beginning—of a journey. The sound drew closer and closer.

From between the tall, straight tree trunks, a large white horse suddenly burst forth.

Juliet immediately bent her knees and lowered her gaze, bowing not as a wife greeting her long-absent husband but as if welcoming an honored guest to the castle. It wasn’t much different.

‘Will he stay for a season and leave again? And after that, will he ever come back?’

She didn’t know. She didn’t need to know.
‘It’s not my concern…’

In her lowered field of vision, she saw the legs of the white horse stopping before her. The rider’s boots, fitted with gleaming silver spurs, caught her eye.

“Ah, come now. Everyone, lift your heads,” came a voice above her, uncharacteristically cheerful for a soldier.

A murmur spread through the crowd behind her like ripples on water. Juliet raised her gaze, belatedly, slowly.
“Hello, Juliet.”

He smiled.

Golden sunlight pooled atop his red hair, dripping onto his shoulders. The bandages wrapped tightly around his broad shoulders shone starkly white in the light.

＊ ＊ ＊

‘Should I go up or down?’

It was an afternoon three days after Cassio Bellanea’s return.
Juliet found herself caught in a brief dilemma.

Two floors above the corridor where she stood was the Duke of Escalus’s bedchamber. Juliet’s own room was on the same floor, meaning she climbed those stairs daily.

But not once had she gone to the duke’s bedchamber. Not since their wedding night.

‘I’m sorry, as you can see, I’m in no shape for this… I just need some rest.’

Even when the Duke of Escalus, who had returned with injuries no one had foreseen, shut himself away in his chamber upon arrival.

‘Let’s greet each other properly once I’ve recovered from the journey.’

With those words, he hadn’t left his room for three days. The castle was quieter now than it had been when everyone eagerly awaited his return.

It was almost as though he had never come back at all.
‘But of course he has.’

Even today, several letters congratulating the Duke of Escalus on his return had arrived, along with invitations addressed to both of them.

Juliet had spent the entire morning reading and replying to those letters, one by one.

“As the duke is away at war, I must decline your kind invitation as his absence obliges me to remain discreet.”

It was a phrase she had written countless times while Cassio was gone, only slightly altered now:
“As the duke wishes to remain quiet for now, I must decline your kind invitation in deference to his condition.”

Though politely evasive, she knew people would understand. Everyone knew the Duke of Escalus had returned to Sardinia, and news of his injuries had likely spread as well.

That, at least, was a relief. For the time being, everyone would assume she was declining out of concern for her husband’s health.

“I look forward to the day we meet again.”

She had written those hollow words so many times they felt entirely routine. It didn’t take her long to finish the responses.

In fact, signing her name took longer than writing the letters themselves.

“Juliet Cagliari Escalus.”

Her name still felt unfamiliar.

‘I’ll go down.’

Juliet tore her gaze from the stairs leading upward.
She made her way to the rear garden as she always did. Her measured steps carried her slowly down the stairs.

After descending two more flights and passing through the gallery, sunlight spilled over her, dappled with the movement of leaves. A short, chestnut-colored shadow trailed at her feet as she walked.

Her thoughts wandered, weightless like the sunlight above.
‘Cagliari and Arborea?’

When Sardinia had been torn into factions over whether to submit to Aragon’s rule, Cagliari and Arborea had been the central powers, constantly at each other’s throats.
Their families bickered endlessly, with arguments and duels becoming almost daily occurrences. Swords were drawn with startling regularity.
The people of Sardinia used to say:
“They’re sworn enemies who’d eat each other alive if given the chance. Two wolves that can’t share the same sky.”
But all of that was in the past.

Just as tensions had reached their peak, the two houses had made a dramatic truce.

And, as if in a fairytale,

“Unbelievable, those two?”

The daughter of Cagliari, Rosalyn, and the son of Arborea, Romeo, had fallen in love.

It was unexpected, but their romance was undeniably passionate—so much so that even the servants spotted Rosalyn leaving Romeo’s chamber at Arborea Castle.

Everyone knew what it meant. The pair, clearly reluctant to part, exchanged farewells in full view of others, going so far as to share a brazen kiss for all to see.

“Well, aren’t young ladies bold these days.”

“Bold? That’s indecent! What will the Duke of Cagliari do now?”
“What else? He’ll have to arrange a marriage.”

Their wedding was arranged hastily but celebrated grandly, putting an end to the long-standing feud between the two houses.
And Juliet was left behind.

Left alone in this empty castle after saying goodbye to everyone she had ever loved.

Alone, with nowhere to go…

“Flowers,” she murmured.

Her wandering gaze caught sight of a bloom that had just opened.
At the cusp of summer, the orange and pomegranate trees had begun to flower, their white and crimson petals bursting into view.

Juliet reached out and gently touched the soft petals. The sensation brought her a brief moment of comfort.

“Beautiful,” she said softly.

She began walking again.

The rear garden of Escalus Castle had a unique charm.

Instead of paved stones, the ground was earth, wild with grass. Instead of ornamental trees, orange and pomegranate trees grew freely. Hidden among the sporadic trees were old benches and a small fountain.

It was a modest, unassuming scene, not what one might expect from the garden of a grand castle.

At the edge of the garden, past the silver poplars that bordered it like a fence, stood a white stone gazebo.

Juliet could find it with her eyes closed. In summer, she visited it almost every day.

Her dark green dress, embroidered with gold, swished against the wild grass, brushing against clusters of violet flowers as she walked. She kept her eyes down to avoid stepping on the delicate blooms.

“…?”

But as she neared the stone steps leading to the gazebo, Juliet instinctively raised her head—and her gaze met an unexpected visitor’s.

“Hello, Juliet.”