24. The Duke’s Mistress

The duke, busy with his official duties, suddenly asked the chief butler as if remembering something.

“How is she doing?”

“She is attending basic etiquette classes.”

After the question, the duke turned his attention back to his documents, and Eric, the secretary standing beside him, felt like he would go mad with frustration.

Eric poured out the curiosity he had been holding back, as if he could no longer contain it.

“Your Grace. Is she really a commoner? I heard she has quite good manners ingrained in her for a commoner.”

The duke snorted at Eric’s words.

“Of course. She’s a woman I personally selected.”

The duke couldn’t hold back his laughter at the thought of Adeline receiving basic etiquette education as if she were a commoner.

‘She must be suffering greatly, receiving the same education again.’

And for a Marquis’s only daughter to act as a mistress. How humiliating this must be.

Casis shifted his gaze back to the documents with a satisfied expression.

“What? Could she possibly be an illegitimate child of a noble? Your Grace, what exactly happened?”

Eric moved even closer when the duke didn’t answer despite his continuous questions.

Eric felt incredibly frustrated by the unanswered questions.

“Your Grace. Are you really going to take a mistress?”

“Of course. The imperial family has been wishing for me to have a woman, hasn’t it?”

Eric felt like he had eaten a hundred sweet potatoes at the duke’s words.

“What the imperial family wanted was a duchess, not a mistress!”

“A woman is a woman all the same. I’m quite looking forward to presenting her. Don’t you agree?”

Eric momentarily thought the duke had gone mad. Presenting a mistress to the imperial family?

Wasn’t that asking to be openly mocked?

“Who would present a mere mistress to the imperial family!”

Eric raised his voice as if his frustration wouldn’t subside.

“Eric. You’re rushing my orders.”

Something seemed to have disturbed the duke’s mood. The duke’s eyes now held a murderous intent. Eric immediately closed his mouth with a gulp at the killing intent that enveloped his entire body.

Eric expressed sympathy for the commoner Del who had entered as a mistress, not for the luxurious life she would enjoy, but for having to endure the duke’s personality.

⁕⁕⁕

The duke recalled the past.

Before leaving the villa in Horn, Casis gazed at Adeline, who had fallen asleep exhausted in his arms.

For what aspect of her family would she throw herself at him without hesitation, even engaging in loveless acts?

The duke needed to understand all that had happened to him, and to do so, he had to return to the duke’s residence. It had been quite some time since the duke had lost his memories and stayed at this villa.

The Torpeo territory was eerily quiet despite the empire’s duke being absent for nearly a season.

Upon his hasty return, the duke confirmed that he had been disguised as having left on an expedition by His Highness the Crown Prince’s orders.

‘An expedition, is it.’

This made it even clearer that the crown prince had attempted to assassinate him.

The duke ordered the servants to keep his return to the Torpeo duchy a secret.

Being attacked and collapsing at the hunting ground was the crown prince’s plan. However, the duke’s escape to the villa in Horn when faced with death was not part of the plan.

‘How did she know to come to the villa?’

The duke couldn’t understand why Adeline had been at the villa.

‘She couldn’t have known I would come, was the villa her target?’

The duke suddenly remembered the only portrait left in the basement. If the Marquis Credion family knew his secret and that’s why they sought out the villa, the duke couldn’t let Adeline go.

“Now that you’ve come to me. I have no intention of letting you go, Adeline.”

The duke planned to give Adeline, who had deceived him, a taste of false hope. This was why he had left Adeline alone and headed to the duke’s residence by himself.

He intended to give her more hope and fear, expectation and despair than he had experienced.

However, if Adeline had discovered something at the duke’s villa, he needed to block all possible routes for Adeline to communicate with the Marquis as soon as possible.

For this reason, the duke quickly ordered Adeline to be brought to the duke’s residence.

When he ordered Adeline to be brought, the duke had only intended to imprison her and never let her go.

He would interrogate Adeline about why she had waited at his villa and use her to threaten the Marquis’s family.

The duke had expected Adeline to beg for her life, trembling in fear as soon as she was dragged before him. But contrary to his expectations, Adeline shamelessly continued to act as the commoner Del.

Seeing Adeline’s act, the duke came up with an interesting idea.

For the Marquis Credion’s daughter who had deceived and tricked him—the humiliation of being a mistress.

A brilliant idea to showcase to the crown prince that the woman who refused to become the crown prince’s consort and ran away was now merely in the position of a duke’s mistress.

⁕⁕⁕

One day, a spy that Crown Prince Trasi had planted in the Torpeo duchy sent a letter.

This letter brought a storm to the imperial palace, as if to offset the peaceful period.

Enraged by the letter, the crown prince summoned the man who had orchestrated the duke’s assassination.

“What will you do?”

A man limped urgently toward Crown Prince Trasi at his call.

He was the one who had failed to assassinate the duke at the hunting ground. The man knelt and bowed his head in protest.

“Y-Your Highness. There’s no way he could have survived falling from that cliff…!”

The man couldn’t continue his words.

Before he could finish speaking, his throat was cut, severing the voice that was speaking.

All the furniture in the crown prince’s office was black.

This was because the crown prince, in his madness, couldn’t replace the furniture every time he saw blood.

A pool of blood on the white carpet placed in the office where everything was black.

That grotesque sight further stimulated the fear of the servants.

“Ah. Because of this worm, I have to change the carpet. Useless even in death.”

The crown prince showed no emotion about the soiled carpet.

The crown prince, who merely needed a trash bin to vent his anger, continued to stab the man whose head and body were already separated.

“Hubert.”

He called for the chamberlain standing guard at the door.

“Send a letter to the ducal castle immediately to confirm if the duke has returned.”

A week had passed since the duke had locked the doors of his residence and issued a gag order.

The crown prince, who had been persistently tracking the duke’s life or death, finally discovered the truth just a week after the duke’s return.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

The chamberlain hurriedly left at the crown prince’s command, hoping that the knife wouldn’t be directed at his neck.

As the chamberlain departed, the crown prince burst into a crazed laugh.

“Hahahahaha!”

The crown prince, roughly brushing back his hair, exploded with anger.

The duke who should have died had returned alive!

‘He hid well like a rat. Tough bastard.’

The crown prince, unable to contain his anger, turned the corpse before him into rags and flashed his eyes savagely.

Due to the duke’s uncanny ability to find spies, the crown prince couldn’t know the detailed circumstances. He was merely frustrated.

He needed to clean up the mess he had made in his haste to eliminate the duke.

He had to figure out how the duke had survived and returned, and how he would react.

Trasi, who had become extremely sensitive, pulled out all the fingernails of a trembling maid because the sound of her nails bothered him.

Also, when the temperature of the morning washing water wasn’t right,

he dunked the maid’s face into a basin of hot water, finding fault with the servants every hour.

The letter that would change the icy atmosphere of the crown prince’s palace arrived two days later.

For the servants of the crown prince’s palace, those two days felt like an eternity.

As soon as the duke’s letter arrived, the crown prince tore open the envelope as if he would rip it apart.

Upon reading the letter, the crown prince began to laugh, clutching his stomach.

The contents that could be confirmed from the letter were as follows:

‘The fact that after going to the hunting ground, he lost all memories until waking up after the accident.’

‘He heard he had left on an expedition by the crown prince’s order, but due to an unexpected accident, he had no memory of that entire period.’

‘During that lost time, a commoner woman who had saved and sincerely nursed the memory-lost duke had been taken as his mistress, and he asked for understanding that he couldn’t yet visit His Majesty at the imperial palace because his body was not fully recovered.’

“Hahaha. The duke took a commoner as his mistress? After losing his memory, has his refined taste changed?”

The crown prince, unable to contain his laughter, called for his chamberlain with a satisfied expression.

“Hubert. It’s truly unfortunate that the duke is still unwell. Tell him not to worry about the expedition I ordered. Since the duke has suffered a misfortune, I should understand with a generous heart, shouldn’t I?”

“……”

“Ah. Tell him he has my permission to rest fully in his duchy until his body is completely healed.”

At the news that the duke had lost his memory, the crown prince pretended to be magnanimous, as if the assassination attempt had not been ordered by him.

“A commoner woman. The only duke of the empire was saved, but he takes her as a mistress because she’s a commoner. Isn’t that a terrible thing to do to someone who saved his life?”

The crown prince’s eyes flashed as if he had thought of something.

“As a central noble, one must surely repay kindness. Tell him the imperial family wishes to personally express great gratitude to the commoner who saved the duke. Instruct him to definitely accompany that mistress when he comes for an audience later.”

“Yes, I understand.”

The crown prince found the commoner who had saved the dying duke somewhat annoying, but thanks to that woman saving the duke, he felt he could arrange something interesting.

“A duke and a commoner, what a fitting combination.”

The crown prince couldn’t stop the laughter that kept escaping.

“I shall personally bestow a great favor upon this commoner.”

Such a precious woman who even saved the duke’s life couldn’t be left as just a mistress.

Trasi intended to push the duke to make the commoner woman his duchess.

Trasi greatly anticipated the duke’s distorted expression when ordered to welcome the mistress as his duchess.

All while having no idea that the woman was the Marquis Credion’s daughter to whom he had sent a marriage proposal.