Episode 20

“Brother! Are you crazy? Why are you doing this?”

“Blaire. This isn’t the Duke’s mansion. Mind your words.”

Suddenly coming to his senses, Lennaeus frowned at Blaire’s disrespectful attitude.

“Who should be minding their words right now? The Princess was helping me when I was being bullied by other ladies!”

“What… did you say?”

Blaire, furious at Lennaeus’ dumbfounded reply, continued to speak incessantly.

“The Princess did break the wine bottle, but it was an accident. How can you push her so hard without even listening to a proper explanation?”

Lennaeus’ head went blank.

“Why are you bringing that up now…”

“What are you saying? That’s why I said I would explain it earlier! But you didn’t listen to me and just kept talking. How am I supposed to face the Princess now, feeling so sorry?”

“……!”

Blaire was almost sobbing now. A deep confusion spread across Lennaeus’ face.

As soon as Blaire’s near howling criticism ended, Lennaeus hurried out of the powder room.

Some nobles clung to him as he tried to leave the Count’s mansion before the ball even ended.

Lennaeus ran down the corridor, decisively shaking them off.

“Damn. My mind must be a mess.”

Clenching his fists until they were white, he muttered a curse under his breath.

Reflecting on the time spent with Charlotte, he knew she was not the type to torment his sister.

He felt foolish for boasting to Rene Whitaker and Viscount Breguet just a moment ago.

It seems he was no different from those he despised.

“Huff, huff.”

Lennaeus gasped for breath as he reached the entrance of the Count’s mansion.

Charlotte’s staggering figure seemed unsteady.

Charlotte’s shoulders were clearly trembling as she passed him in the powder room of the Count’s mansion.

‘If I go now and explain the situation and say I’m sorry for the misunderstanding earlier….’

Charlotte would surely accept his apology.

Just as Lennaeus was about to approach Charlotte.

“……!”

Seeing the guard naturally embrace Charlotte, Lennaeus stiffened on the spot without realizing it.

His heart thumped noisily at the sight, as it did when he saw Charlotte with Killian.

Suddenly, Charlotte’s eyes turned towards him.

Anxiously, he called out to Charlotte in a hurry.

“Princess Charlotte…”

Whoosh-!

However, before Lennaeus could fully call out to Charlotte, she turned her head away, as if ignoring him.

It was a clear gesture of rejection.

“…….”

Regret, self-reproach, and a tumult of indescribable emotions poured into his heart like a noisy rain.

His chest ached from the rain that seemed to strike his heart.

Soon, the faint laughter of two people was carried by the wind.

Lennaeus stood still, biting the inside of his mouth. It tasted bitter, perhaps from the blood from the tender flesh inside.

All he could do was stare blankly at the silhouettes of the two people fading into the darkness.

*

For several days after the debutante ball of the Countess Mosston, Alfred had to work as if he was walking on thin ice.

This was because his boss, Lennaeus, had become extremely irritable.

The cold air around Lennaeus seemed to drop 5 degrees every time the maid who delivered letters to the Duke came twice a day.

Consequently, today, about four days after the ball, the air in the office was frozen solid like midwinter, despite it being early summer.

Unfortunately, the maid delivering the letters left empty-handed again today.

This made Lennaeus even more upset. He had already rejected the estate operation report submitted by Alfred eleven times this week.

And for ridiculous reasons.

“The decimal places aren’t aligned properly. And I don’t like the line spacing either.”

“Yes, Your Excellency. I’ll do it again and bring it back.”

Alfred, holding back his boiling frustration, left the office.

“Sigh.”

After Alfred left, Lennaeus sighed and roughly ran his fingers through his hair.

The sunlight streaming through the window shattered brilliantly over his lush golden hair.

It had been several days since he received any letters from Charlotte.

Charlotte used to send letters daily without fail, asking to meet after their engagement.

However, after the ball, she abruptly stopped contacting him, as if it was a lie.

“I don’t see how that concerns me.”

He muttered mechanically, not meaning a word.

Blaire said she went to Charlotte the next day after the ball and apologized on his behalf.

“Brother, you’re the biggest fool in the world! Princess Charlotte actually comforted me! It wouldn’t be strange at all if the Princess gets fed up with you and her feelings fade away. If it were me, I wouldn’t want to see your face ever again!”

Blaire, after returning from the Princess’s palace, sharply rebuked him.

“We were only supposed to see each other at the wedding, weren’t we?”

Lennaeus, troubled by Blaire’s words, deliberately muttered to himself in an attempt to shake them off.

Even if Charlotte was disappointed in him and no longer liked him, it wasn’t something to worry about.

After all, their relationship was merely one of a political marriage.

Therefore, Lennaeus wasn’t bothered by Charlotte at all. Not in the slightest.

He turned his eyes to the morning newspaper that the maid had just left, as if nothing was amiss.

His cool blue gaze coldly settled on the headline of the newspaper.

The terror of serial killings resumes after 10 weeks. The fifth victim, Commander Breguet of Cortina of the Imperial Army. The identity of the perpetrator remains a mystery. The Investigative Agency has vowed to take all necessary measures in their inquiry.

He read the article impassively.

It was the death of a vile and cunning person. Just the removal of trash from the world.

“Grand Duke Killian is so naive. One would think he’d entertain the women clinging to him, but he rebuffs them every time without a single touch. Ah, perhaps he’s had his fun without our knowledge?”

Recalling Breguet’s presumptuous behavior in front of him on the day of the ball, his brows furrowed involuntarily.

Naturally, thoughts of Charlotte followed.

“Damn.”

Lennaeus, feeling constricted, unbuttoned his jacket.

Rustle-.

A piece of paper rustled inside his jacket. He suddenly pulled out the paper from within.

“Just thinking of you, my lord, makes my heart warm. I would like to meet you quietly, just the two of us. Will you meet me?”

It was a letter Charlotte had sent before the ball. He had kept it in his jacket, reading it over several times to understand its meaning.

Lennaeus, staring intently at the letter, tapped his fingers nervously on the mahogany desk.

‘Surely she doesn’t say these things to other men as well.’

“I forgot about all those men in the light of your dazzling beauty, my lord. I fall in love quite easily.”

Charlotte herself admitted it. She was prone to fall in love quickly.

This meant that she could easily do the same with other handsome men, like Grand Duke Killian or the guard who escorted the Princess that day.

Snap! The high-quality fountain pen broke completely in his grip.

Bang! Just then, the office door flung open, and Alfred appeared with an urgent expression, looking for Lennaeus.

“L-Lord Duke!”

Lennaeus raised his head with an extremely annoyed expression.

“Alfred. That’s rude.”

A cold and gloomy voice flowed from his mouth. But Alfred, undeterred, continued speaking.

“L-Lord Duke. A letter has arrived from Princess Charlotte…!”

At these words, Lennaeus abruptly rose from his seat.

Finally, a letter had arrived from Charlotte.

Yes. The woman who looked at him with such fiery eyes couldn’t have left him over just that.

A faint joy crossed his face, but he soon sat back down as if nothing had happened.

“Making such a fuss over a mere letter.”

Despite his calm reprimand, his hand was already outstretched towards Alfred, demanding the letter immediately.

Alfred, visibly uneasy, handed the letter to his superior.

“Th-That’s… Princess Charlotte is currently detained in the Investigative Agency’s jail…!”

“What did you say…?”

The mahogany chair Lennaeus had been sitting in made a loud noise as it dragged across the floor, then tumbled to the ground.

Startled by Lennaeus’s abrupt rise, forgetting all decorum, Alfred hesitantly watched his reaction.

“So… they’re saying you should get her out, Your Excellency?”

A pale-faced Lennaeus rushed out of the office.