By Zephyria 
Didn’t they say that holy stories about the sun always originate from places facing away from the sun?
“…and so.”
“I apologize, Duke. Young Master Hamilton hasn’t stepped out of the mansion even once today.”
However, stories with dark intentions to harm someone aren’t particularly holy, so they were being conducted quite brazenly in the Duke’s office on a dazzling summer afternoon with the sun shining brightly.
“How many times have I heard that exact same thing? He hasn’t come out, he can’t be seen, he can’t be approached!”
The Duke, whose hair had turned noticeably white in just a year, looked like an old man on the verge of death, even though he hadn’t fully entered old age yet.
Bang! The sound of his fist slamming down on the wide yew desk echoed loudly throughout the room.
“I told you, once he enters the Imperial Palace, there won’t be another chance, how many times did I say that? Even the courtiers who served Catherine the Great have all been expelled. This is the last chance!”
“…Yes, Duke.”
Who doesn’t know that, that they’re not carrying out the orders? The problem was that they lacked the ability to carry them out. A feeling of injustice welled up, but the Duke’s subordinate skillfully hid it. It was obvious that making unnecessary replies would only lead to a bigger scolding.
The skin of the middle-aged man with the face of an old man had lost its elasticity and sagged unpleasantly. The subordinate bowed respectfully in front of Duke Grachio, who was ranting and raving in anger, and simply counted the time until this tedious moment would end.
At that moment. A knock sounded, and the door clicked open.
“Dear, why don’t you have some tea and continue your work?”
“…I’m coming.”
The subordinate subtly stepped aside and bowed his head even more respectfully than before. The Duchess’s voice was clear as always. Her hair, still fine and pink even after all these years, was styled up, giving her an elegance like a deer. She suited the deer, the symbol of the Grachio family, even more than the Duke himself, who was a direct descendant of the family.
“You seem very upset these days, don’t you?”
“Ahem, well… it’s not that bad…”
“Oh, come on, I can hear you yelling all the way outside the door, you know?”
It was no secret among the nobles of the capital that this beautiful Duchess from the north had tormented her suitors for a long time in her youth and was not very kind to her spouse even after they got married. People outside the family mostly thought that Duke Grachio, blinded by his desire for power, deliberately groveled to the Duchess, a noble from the north, in order to borrow the prestige of the Grand Duke’s family, but those who watched them closely from the inside saw a slightly different reality. Of course, the Duchess’s noble origins could be part of the answer to the Duke’s attitude. But that wasn’t all. Ridiculously, the depraved Duke genuinely loved his wife. Perhaps from the moment they first met. Unlike the wife, who genuinely loathed her husband and her eldest son, who was the spitting image of her husband.
“Was it? I’m sorry, the discussion was a bit long.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m worried about your health.”
Unlike her usual cold attitude, the intention behind the Duchess’s smile, which was as gentle as a spring breeze, was very obvious, but whether he really didn’t know or was just pretending not to know, he simply added an unnecessary cough and acted dignified. It seemed that the invisible and insignificant thing called affection was definitely a special medicine for arbitrarily bewitching the human soul.
“Dear, but there’s something I’m curious about…”
The Duchess’s voice became even calmer. The Duke nodded without hesitation and sipped the black tea that his wife had personally poured for him.
“My dear, I’m wondering why our Riche doesn’t seem to be coming up at all. It’s strange.”
Ah, so this was the real purpose. The subordinate, who had ears but shouldn’t hear, remained silent with his head bowed and only self-evaluated inwardly.
The cold Duchess, who didn’t show much affection even to her eldest son, whom she had given birth to, showed love almost exclusively to Lady Beatrice, who was the spitting image of herself, within this mansion. This was regardless of the fact that the Duke, who was deeply immersed in rigid and outdated thinking, didn’t value the Lady, who couldn’t inherit the family, very much.
It wasn’t simply that she hated her eldest son because he resembled the Duke and cherished her youngest daughter because she resembled herself. No matter how similar their appearances were, if the Lady’s inner self, like Little Duke Grachio, had any aspects that resembled the Duke, the Duchess wouldn’t have felt much affection for the Lady either. But fortunately, the Lady inherited the Duchess’s nature, not only in appearance but also in her soul, which burned with righteous ambition.
“Ah. Beatrice, is that why you came?”
The Duke’s voice also turned cold. It was just funny how he seemed to be secretly hurt, perhaps thinking that his wife had finally opened her heart to him, or perhaps he was just pretending not to know.
It had been over a week since Lady Beatrice had disappeared from the mansion. The servants in the mansion, who had been watching with satisfaction as the Lady, who had been despondent due to the loss of her friend, regained her vitality after Noah Hamilton’s return, were also very worried, but the Duke had cut them off, telling them not to make a fuss.
“…She’s been deprived of the Empress’s position that she’s been aiming for all her life, so how heartbroken must she be? I thought she might be uncomfortable in the capital, so I took the liberty of preparing for her to leave for a while, so don’t worry, my dear.”
“……”
The subordinate skillfully swallowed the rising sigh this time as well. His words were eloquent. Was it really the Lady who had been aiming for the Empress’s position all her life, or was it the Duke himself? The Duchess’s clenched hand trembled with humiliation. The Duchess quickly hid her trembling hand under the elaborately draped sleeves of her dress and smiled brightly.
“Is that so? You should have told me. Ah, I can’t bear the worry, so if you tell me where she is, I’ll go and be with her.”
“Hmm, there’s no need for you to do that. I can’t tell you where she is, so go and rest.”
The Duke was unusually firm with his wife. Well, he would be. From the way he spoke, it sounded like he had sent her to a secluded monastery or villa, but the truth was that the Lady was currently in the basement prison of this mansion, wasn’t she? She had overheard her father’s dirty plan to assassinate her friend and tried to stop him, but she was caught by her brother and dragged away like a criminal. The Duke said that he couldn’t ruin the affair just because of his daughter and that he would keep the Lady locked up until he had completely taken Noah Hamilton’s life.
If he was caught, he would of course die. He had no intention of hiding the mastermind. Since he was already a formally engaged fiancé who had received the status of a quasi-royal, it would be appropriate for him to be charged with treason and die, not just the Duke himself. The elegant neck of the Duchess, whom he loved so much, would also disappear as dew on the guillotine.
The Duke knew. He knew all of this, but he couldn’t help but suppress his blind rage in this way.
The one he truly wanted to kill and take revenge on wasn’t Noah Hamilton either. The Duke’s target was always only one person. Adrian Pearson. But now, Adrian Pearson was too high for the Duke to reach. So, if he couldn’t harm him, he decided to kill the future Empress, whom the noble Crown Prince, the future Emperor, cherished so much that he went crazy when he found out she was missing. Before she became the complete Empress and disappeared behind the iron walls of the Imperial Palace. While he could still barely plot her death.
‘Tsk… that’s why you shouldn’t get caught up in love affairs that don’t suit you.’
The subordinate still muttered such thoughts insolently to himself. The Duke didn’t know, but the subject of the sentence “caught up in love affairs that don’t suit you” wasn’t just the Duke. It also included the Crown Prince.
‘Haa, how long do I have to endure under this incompetent man? I’m bored to death.’
He was a spy that the Crown Prince had planted in the Grachio family early on. The Duke, who didn’t know that and considered him the most useful and trustworthy of the men under his command, was pathetically foolish.
In fact, he and many others had long advised the Crown Prince to crush the Grachio family to its roots. If it had been the original Crown Prince, the Crown Prince whose only goal in life was to repay the humiliation he had suffered from the late Empress and Duke Grachio, he would have done so without hesitation. However, the Crown Prince, who was in love, couldn’t be so ruthless. It wasn’t that the world looked soft and sweet to him now that he was like a toothless tiger.
‘…My Bea is very close to Lady Beatrice. She seems to have quite a bit of interaction with the Duchess as well. Bea will be very sad if the Lady loses something.’
“Yes, I understand.”
“M-My dear…!”
While he was thinking to himself, the Duchess, who had not achieved her purpose, turned around and disappeared again with a cold wind, and the Duke reached out his hand with a desperate look, as if his heart was aching terribly.
Here and there, really… The problem was those who were blinded by damned love.
‘The family will be maintained. It would be good to allow the Lady to inherit the Dukedom after a suitable period of time.’
Recalling the Crown Prince’s earnest voice, the subordinate was still bowing his head.