“This is…”
Kai frowned as he stopped his horse. Aidan, dressed in black clothes and wearing a black mask, dismounted and looked up at the building.
It was Marquis Belmont’s mansion within the capital. The same place he had visited last night to meet Marquis Belmont.
“Marquis Belmont must have moved already.”
Kai was right. After negotiating with Aidan last night, he had moved to a place where his safety could be more securely guaranteed.
“He said he would leave something here.”
Aidan tied their horses in an inconspicuous spot and entered the mansion. Kai followed behind him.
The paper Belmont had shown last night was an old letter. It contained a promise to give Marquis Belmont whatever he wanted if he became her ally. The name signed at the bottom was Lilith McCoy — the name of the current Empress before she became the Emperor’s official companion.
‘What if I show you my hand first and Your Highness doesn’t keep your promise?’
Belmont never let his guard down completely. He had already been thoroughly betrayed by the Empress whom he had trusted. It was natural that he wouldn’t trust Aidan, who was practically an enemy. Having expected this much, Aidan remained unfazed.
‘Once my safety is guaranteed, I’ll tell you what I received from Her Majesty the Empress.’
‘I don’t trust you either. How can I be sure you really have leverage over the Empress? Once your life is saved, who knows how you’ll act?’
‘I’ll leave it here. Your Highness can return to check it as soon as I’ve left and reached safety.’
‘What if you’re lying?’
‘My life is in your hands now anyway, isn’t it?’
That was true. Even after safely extracting Belmont from here and moving him elsewhere, they planned to keep watching him. Though they intended to protect him from the Empress, they had no intention of letting him go free.
Around evening, they received word that Belmont had safely left the place. They had properly thrown off the Empress’s pursuit, so she wouldn’t be able to find him for a while. Now it was time to verify whether Belmont had kept his promise.
They went down to the basement storage as he had instructed. It was dark and musty, with dust thickly accumulated everywhere.
“It seems this hasn’t been used for a long time.”
Kai said, waving his hand to clear the dust in front of him. He was right. Various objects were piled up haphazardly, making it unclear what they were supposed to find. The basement storage was in such disarray from lack of human contact that Aidan wondered if Belmont had played him for a fool.
Kai transferred fire from the lamp he brought to light all the lamps on the basement walls. The brightness made it easier to look around, though the thick layer of dust remained everywhere.
Looking around at the items, Kai sighed. He too seemed to increasingly suspect they had been deceived by Belmont.
When he reached the innermost part, Aidan stopped in front of a large box. As he examined it, his eyes narrowed. This box alone had no dust on top. Belmont had clearly opened this box recently.
When he lifted the lid, it made a creaking sound of metal grinding. Kai approached at the noise.
“What’s inside?”
Kai examined the contents of the box. It had seemed excessively large, and indeed it contained all sorts of things. Among them were what appeared to be women’s dresses.
While searching through it, Aidan pulled out several letter envelopes. The seal impressed on the outside of each envelope was that of the McCoy family. These were letters that Lilith McCoy had sent to Marquis Belmont. He opened the envelopes and checked the contents of each letter one by one.
“Ha!”
A sharp breath escaped Aidan’s lips. Kai looked back and forth between Aidan and the letters in his hands, curious about their contents. After checking all the letters, Aidan handed them all to Kai.
While Kai verified the letters, Aidan continued searching through the box. He saw several old accessories as well. Those too seemed to be items that Lilith McCoy had used.
To think he collected things like this… Belmont was a perverted bastard too.
His brow furrowed more as he checked the contents of the box. Perhaps Belmont had collected them in preparation for when his relationship with the Empress soured, but gathering even such trivial items seemed like excessive obsession.
Look who’s talking about obsession.
He smiled bitterly at the thought that crossed his mind. Shaking his head, he continued searching the box and found a notebook the size of his palm. The McCoy family seal was drawn on the front of this as well. It seemed to be another of Lilith McCoy’s possessions. He set the notebook aside to examine its contents carefully later.
Looking up to survey his surroundings, Aidan noticed a curtain half-drawn on one wall. Finding it strange, he approached and pulled the curtain aside.
“This is quite a sight, really.”
A sigh escaped involuntarily. Kai turned and swallowed hard. For good reason — behind the curtain was a large painting of the current Empress, Lilith McCoy, lying n*ked.
“Could it be… someone who looks like her?”
Kai, perhaps finding it irreverent, couldn’t even bring himself to mention who it resembled. Aidan snorted at his question.
“You can still say that after seeing this?”
When Aidan gestured to the name inscribed at the bottom of the painting, Kai swallowed another groan. She looked much younger than the current Empress. It was probably from her early twenties, before she became Empress or while she was the Emperor’s mistress.
“Couldn’t it have been painted from imagination?”
“Must have been painted by someone with god-tier imagination then. Look how realistically they captured even that mole.”
The woman in the painting was depicted vividly down to a mole on her inner thigh.
“His Majesty might have ordered it…”
Kai frowned deeply, trying somehow to make sense of the Empress’s n*de painting.
“Are you suggesting the Emperor has such perverted tastes? It’s becoming horrifying to think I’m that man’s bloodline — what do you think?”
Having the n*de painting of the woman he loved made for Marquis Belmont? Nonsense. At Aidan’s remark, which even branded the Emperor a pervert, Kai’s face hardened as he corrected his mistake.
“We should check where this painting’s background is. Though I’m not sure if we can tell after so long.”
“It should be possible. Whether in the palace or Marquis Belmont’s mansion, the furniture and structure haven’t changed much.”
Hearing Kai’s words that while small accessories might have changed, the basic atmosphere remained largely the same, Aidan took a small breath.
“But this… does this mean… what I think it means?”
Kai hesitated as he carefully asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well… between Her Majesty the Empress and Marquis Belmont…”
He couldn’t even finish his sentence.
“Who knows.”
From what they could see, there clearly seemed to be something beyond the widely known cooperative relationship between the two. The question was how much the Emperor knew about their relationship. If he had known and still made Lilith McCoy his Empress, this wouldn’t be particularly controversial. After all, Lilith McCoy had already been a widow, and at the time, the Emperor himself was having an affair while his Empress was still alive. If the Emperor were to make an issue of Lilith McCoy’s purity, it would be like the pot calling the kettle black. At least then, Lilith McCoy had been single. She shouldn’t have been criticized for seeing anyone. That he was a married man and the Emperor was only tolerated due to this world’s nature — it absolutely didn’t mean the Emperor deserved less criticism than Lilith McCoy.
But Belmont was confident he held leverage over the Empress.
Did that mean it hadn’t ended as just that kind of relationship?
The corner of Aidan’s mouth curved up slightly as he stared intently at the painting.
Perhaps they had obtained even better leverage than expected.
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Aelthia
While the painting alone doesn’t prove Lloyd’s parentage, it casts a whole lot of doubt. If it becomes known that Belmont has this portrait, in addition to the rumors regarding his relationship with the empress, it may be impossible for even the emperor to save them.