Heroine Popularity Vote Winner: Benelia

Spring of the following year.

“Your Majesty, it's Theorad Deharem.”

Benelia lay in bed, clutching the covers to her neck.

She had summoned Theorad on the pretext of being ill, but now that he stood outside her bedroom, she didn't know what to say.

Beneath the covers, she wasn't wearing a stitch.

She had chosen that herself, of course. The thought of Theorad discovering it was still mortifying.

For a long moment she said nothing.

“Your Majesty?” His voice came through the door again. “If you're asleep, I'll come back another time.”

Cold sweat gathered on Benelia's brow.

If she sent him away, she might not see him again for three days. That would be intolerable.

She summoned all the calm an emperor ought to possess.

“Come in. I only just woke up.”

Theorad opened the door and entered, carrying books and papers on astronomy as he usually did.

He bowed. Benelia acknowledged him with a nod.

Theorad brought a chair to the bedside, placed his materials on a nearby chest and sat down.

Even such ordinary gestures seemed graceful to her. In the soft light of the room, she found herself watching him more closely than was wise.

“Have you been taking your medicine?”

His eyes softened with concern.

Benelia nodded, her heart beating faster.

“Yes. I have.”

“I'm glad. I heard you had a cold. May I check whether you have a fever?”

“…Do as you please.”

Theorad smiled faintly at her averted face and placed a hand against her forehead.

It was warm.

Benelia closed her eyes before she could stop herself.

“Hmm…”

He withdrew his hand.

“You're a little warm, but it doesn't seem serious. If you keep yourself comfortable and warm, you should recover soon. Are you dressed properly for bed?”

Benelia opened one eye.

This was the moment.

After a struggle with her own embarrassment, she lowered the blanket a little.

Her bare shoulders and collarbone appeared above it, while the thin fabric still covered the rest of her body, revealing the outlines of her breasts beneath the blanket.

“As you can see… I'm not wearing anything.”

She couldn't bring herself to meet his eyes. Even her voice trembled.

It had been easy to plan this. At the time, she had imagined herself fearlessly seducing him. The reality was considerably harder.

Still, the plan ought to work.

A man who knew the woman before him was naked would surely be tempted to pull the blanket away. If she merely waited for Theorad to show his desire, then encouraged him to be honest about it, they could finally become intimate.

Yes. A flawless plan.

It was her first attempt at deliberately seducing a man, but she had prepared thoroughly. She had read romances and explicit stories and listened with great interest to accounts of other people's wedding nights.

Surely that was enough.

Well, Viscount Theorad? What will you do now?

She peered at him from beneath her lashes.

Theorad considered her for a moment, then reached toward the blanket.

Already?

Benelia's face burned.

She hadn't expected him to act so quickly. Yet this was what she had wanted. She steeled herself.

“Your Majesty.”

Theorad drew the blanket up.

Rather than pulling it away, he tucked it securely around her neck.

“There's nothing wrong with sleeping without clothes, but when you have a cold, you must take care. Getting better means maintaining a suitable environment for sleep.”

“W-what…?”

“Fortunately, Your Majesty's cold seems mild. I don't believe it will interfere with your astronomy lesson. That's something to be thankful for.”

Benelia stared.

Theorad reached for a book, opened it and settled comfortably into the business of teaching.

“Last time we studied the constellations. Today we'll consider how the heavenly bodies move and the principles governing that movement. This should make it easier for Your Majesty to understand—”

“Wait.”

What was going on?

The emperor of the Empire was lying naked right in front of him. How could he be so utterly composed?

Benelia pushed herself upright, hugging the blanket against her chest.

“…Theorad. May I ask something?”

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

“You do understand that the woman in front of you has nothing on beneath this blanket?”

“Certainly.”

“Then why don't you desire her?”

She heard the sharpness in her own voice.

After all the trouble she'd gone to, Theorad appeared completely oblivious to her intentions.

“Your Majesty…”

Theorad sighed and closed the book.

“It's not that I feel no desire. I simply choose not to show it.”

“Why?”

“You told me you were unwell. I wouldn't be so shameless as to press my desire on someone who's sick.”

Benelia's shoulders trembled.

It was a perfectly reasonable answer. She couldn't find a single word with which to argue.

Her mouth went dry. She gripped the blanket tighter.

At last she spoke.

“…The truth is, I don't have a cold.”

Theorad did not look particularly surprised.

He regarded her with the patient expression of a teacher waiting for a pupil to finish admitting a mistake.

“Fine,” she said, turning her face away. “The cold was an excuse. I wanted you to come to my bedroom. Usually we have our astronomy lessons in my office.”

After she and Theorad had reaffirmed their feelings for one another, Benelia had appointed him as an imperial tutor in astronomy and arranged lessons twice a week.

The emperor could hardly request private visits from a man she loved without inviting gossip. A formal course of study provided a respectable reason to see him.

Theorad, however, had taken the position seriously.

He read extensively on astronomy and prepared properly for every lesson.

At first she had found his diligence frustrating. In time, she learned to enjoy it. When the lesson ended, they had a little time together.

But the places where they could meet were limited.

Since he visited the palace as her tutor, they usually spent that time in her office or the gardens. Neither offered much privacy.

Inviting Theorad straight into her bedroom would have started a scandal.

So Benelia had devised the illness.

She informed the palace that she was too unwell to attend to official business, though still fit for light study, and that the tutors responsible for her lessons should therefore come to her chamber.

She had been careful not to single out Theorad.

There was one other precaution: when her other tutors visited, she received them fully dressed and seated in a chair.

Only Theorad had found her beneath the blankets, unclothed.

“If you aren't ill, Your Majesty…”

Theorad closed his astronomy book and set it aside.

It seemed he had decided the lesson could wait.

“May I ask why you invited me here, then?”

He asked with an air of innocence that Benelia found almost intolerable.

She glared at him. Then, swallowing her pride, she answered.

“Theorad, I may be a sovereign, but I'm also a woman in the prime of my life. Is it so strange that I'd want the man I love to hold me? You're always so careful to keep your distance that I had to do something myself.”

Two weeks earlier, after Benelia's persistent courtship, Theorad had finally told her he loved her.

She remembered that moment perfectly: the two of them standing by the garden fountain, the smile on his face, the words she had wanted to hear for so long.

It was a memory she would treasure for the rest of her life.

But even after they had spoken their feelings aloud, Theorad's conduct had hardly changed.

They studied astronomy. After class, they shared refreshments and talked.

At parting, there might be a gentle embrace or a brief kiss.

Theorad wasn't deliberately denying her affection. He knew how many eyes and ears were trained on the emperor, and he was careful for her sake.

There was something else.

Benelia was the ruler of the Empire, a person of dignity and authority. Theorad couldn't bring himself to be the one who first suggested taking their relationship further.

And Benelia, waiting for him to make that suggestion, had grown increasingly impatient.

That was how they had ended up here.

Understanding finally dawned on Theorad. He gave an awkward smile.

“I see. I was wrong. I thought I was being considerate by guarding Your Majesty's reputation. I didn't realize my caution could feel selfish to you.”

“If you understand what you did wrong…”

Benelia reached out from beneath the blanket and took hold of the brooch at his chest.

She drew him forward, slowly, until their foreheads touched.

Her face burned with embarrassment, but she made herself finish what she'd begun.

“…Then you'll have to put it right from now on.”