23. Caught in the Mad Duke’s Trap

“Me, Mel. The tea is overflowing.”

Adeline barely managed to squeeze out her voice. Only then did the duke’s hand stop pouring the tea.

“That’s not what I asked.”

He set down the teapot on the table with a clatter.

The duke stared at her with his arm half-draped over the sofa. His red eyes, looking at her sideways, were as vivid as if they contained blood.

Adeline’s shoulders hunched under his scrutinizing gaze.

This was certainly not the kind of look the man who had spent the summer with her would give.

“I asked why you have the seal. Bring it here.”

At the duke’s gesture, one of the knights standing by the door approached and placed the seal on the table.

Along with the luggage bag where Adeline had put the seal before being dragged to the carriage.

She had been worried about this. It seemed the knights who had taken her luggage had searched through her bag.

It had been her lifeline. But now that seal was placed right in front of the duke.

“Th-that!”

The knight quickly left the bedroom at the duke’s look indicating he should leave.

With just the two of them remaining, Adeline pleaded with an aggrieved expression.

“A s-seal? I just happened to pick it up while washing your clothes when you were injured and kept it safe. It looked valuable, so I held onto it. I was going to return it. I really didn’t know it was a seal!”

“……”

“Mel, try to remember. I nursed you back to health when you were nearly dead. Don’t you understand my feelings? I was sincere.”

Adeline squeezed out tears and began imitating a tragic heroine.

Yes, he was still a man. He would surely be weak to a pretty woman’s tears.

“Why are you so cold? We weren’t that kind of relationship. I was so shocked…… to find out you’re Duke Torpeo.”

She had only thought he had returned. She never imagined he would immediately send people to capture her.

Adeline pretended to wipe her tears with a handkerchief while secretly observing the duke’s reaction.

“Perhaps…… have your memories fully returned?”

The duke, who had maintained an expressionless face throughout, finally burst into a derisive laugh at her words, whose intentions were so transparent.

“Do I look like Mel to you now, or Duke Torpeo?”

Adeline flinched at his low tone.

The wariness that had momentarily subsided at being called ‘Del’ suddenly sprang back to life.

“Since you have Mel’s memories, isn’t that why you’re calling me Del?”

Adeline trembled all over while giving him a pitiful look.

“I only sincerely nursed the memory-lost duke. Then we became lovers, and ah…… don’t you remember promising me eternity in our home overlooking the beautiful sea?”

Though she continued speaking calmly, Adeline’s voice trembled slightly.

The duke’s gaze fixed on her had become as cold as frost even in midsummer.

“You still think I’m a half-wit who’s lost his memory?”

Adeline was speechless. Perhaps due to her extreme tension, strands of Adeline’s brown hair fell loose.

The duke straightened his upper body and approached her.

Then he brushed the fallen hair behind her ear and gently cupped her cheek.

His actions were as affectionate as if dealing with a beloved, but his eyes flashed as he looked at her.

“You said we loved each other and eloped. Because of our different social statuses, wasn’t it?”

“……”

“You said you were a commoner. Did you want to become a duchess by taking advantage of my memory loss?”

Adeline trembled, but her complicated thoughts suddenly became clear.

The man before her had regained his memories, but it seemed her true identity hadn’t been exposed yet.

Perhaps it was because she had changed her hair color.

She had only faced Duke Torpeo as Adeline Credion once during her debutante ball.

As this thought occurred to her, she felt as if she had found light at the end of a dark tunnel, and she could breathe again.

“You thought I would take you as my partner if you treated and saved me when I was injured.”

At the same time, a small hope began to sprout.

Adeline barely managed to control her heart, which felt like it would burst at any moment, and spoke.

“……No! How could a commoner like me dream of such a thing? Treating the injured duke was just a coincidence. But I did love you. I’m sorry for harboring feelings for someone so high above me.”

“……”

“I was going to return the seal as soon as your memories returned, but I became greedy. It felt like we had really become lovers……”

Adeline continued her act while shedding tears.

She wasn’t sure if this man with the crazed look in his eyes was truly the male protagonist as that reader had said.

But right now, Adeline had no option besides Duke Torpeo.

The only place she could hide from the crown prince’s eyes was this ducal castle.

“Just let me look at you from afar. I don’t even dream of being your lover. If you let me stay, I’ll even work.”

Adeline wanted to stay here even as a maid.

Since the duke with his recovered memories didn’t recognize her, she planned to stay here for a while and look for another solution.

‘Yes.’

Let’s contact Hailo while staying here.

If I can find a ship to leave for another country, this might somehow be resolved. Just as she was making these plans.

Adeline lifted her head abruptly at the monotone voice seeping into her ears.

“Would your father want that?”

Adeline stammered with a momentarily blank face.

“F-father? What do you mean……”

Adeline felt her vision blur for a moment.

The duke stroked her light brown hair and lowered his gaze.

With a chillingly cold look, the duke moved his finger downward, tracing her collarbone, and eventually pulled on the metal chain around Del’s neck.

“Adeline Credion.”

At the end of the metal chain Adeline was wearing, a pendant with the Marquis Credion family crest glittered.

“What is the Marquis Credion’s daughter plotting now?”

Only then did Adeline realize. This man knew everything.

That she was the only heir to the Marquis Credion family.

Having been completely exposed, Adeline fell to her knees and began pouring out words.

“D-Duke. I was just trying to escape my engagement with His Highness the Crown Prince and ended up in Horn while running away. I was living there because I heard no one lived there. I really……”

Adeline’s voice trembled as she cried out to the duke.

“I never imagined it would be a Torpeo family villa. You know too, Duke. What happened to His Highness the Crown Prince’s previous fiancées……”

Adeline trembled all over as she thought of the fiancées who had died horribly.

If she were dragged to the crown prince like this, she would end up buried in cold ground like those fiancées.

She didn’t want that to happen.

“Please help me just this once. I’ll stay quietly and then leave. Please let me stay, even if just for a very short time.”

The duke’s lips curled into a sneer at Adeline’s excuse that wasn’t really an excuse.

“If you want to stay here that badly, there is one way.”

Seeing Adeline’s pleading appearance, a mischievous feeling bloomed in the duke’s heart.

As Adeline’s expression turned pale, a cold, sneering smile gradually frosted the duke’s lips.

“Mistress.”

The duke slowly approached Adeline and roughly lifted her chin.

Adeline shook her head, wanting to avoid it, but the more she tried to escape, the more strongly he gripped.

“How about that?”

Telling a Marquis’s daughter to become a mistress.

Adeline’s entire body froze in shock at the words she could never have imagined.

But he gave a bleak smile as if Adeline’s reaction didn’t matter to him at all.

“I’d rather not do something crazy like interfering with the crown prince’s fiancée. So you can’t stay in my ducal castle as the Marquis Credion’s daughter.”

“……”

“But as the commoner Del, it’s possible. Especially if you’re my mistress, no one will object to your staying in the castle.”

Adeline’s entire body trembled.

Though he tossed the words out lightly like a joke, Adeline knew the man wasn’t joking.

“But to stay as a mistress……”

‘I would have to do even more shameless things without hesitation.’

She swallowed the rest of her words, unable to add the thought that came to mind.

As Adeline lowered her gaze, a large hand hazily entered her field of vision.

The man still hadn’t released his grip on her chin. The duke stroked Adeline’s hair with his free hand.

“It shouldn’t be difficult since we’ve already been intimate, right? I find you quite appealing.”

Adeline’s brown hair, caught between his long fingers, fell softly scattered.

Her eyes met with the man who was staring as if he wouldn’t miss even a single strand of her hair.

His red eyes, like the sun, were steeped in madness.

“Become my woman.”

Adeline’s shoulders trembled.

She felt something was seriously wrong. The man she had saved to survive. This man she had saved without knowing anything, this ducal castle had been a trap.

She needed to escape.

But contrary to her mind, her body wouldn’t move as she wished. Adeline, who tried to stand up, lost strength in her legs and plopped back down on the sofa.

“Then I’ll save your life. From the crown prince.”

Trying to avoid the crown prince, Adeline had fallen into a trap. Into the hands of Duke Torpeo, who was even more insane than him.