Liane slowly opened her eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling.

‘Where is this…….’

She pushed herself up in bed, and the damp cloth resting on her forehead slipped off and fell onto the blanket.

As Liane looked around the room, she remembered that she had felt unwell and stopped at a lodging right after getting off the carriage.

‘Where did Lucille go…….’

Lucille’s coat was nowhere in sight. Liane felt dizzy, but she forced herself up and climbed out of bed.

She walked to the small window attached to the room and looked out at the street below. The street had grown quite quiet, as though the evening had already grown late.

‘Lucille… could something have happened to her……?’

She waited in the room for a long while, but Lucille did not appear, and Liane’s anxiety reached its limit. She draped her shawl over her shoulders and stepped out of the room.

She asked at the lodging counter about Lucille’s whereabouts, but no one knew anything.

Liane’s joints ached and throbbed from the high fever, but the need to find Lucille drove her out of the lodging.

Stepping onto the street, the cold evening wind cut through her and she clutched the shawl tighter around herself.

There were not many people on the road, and no matter how far she walked, Lucille was nowhere to be seen. Dizziness washed over her and Liane stopped, pressing one hand against a nearby tree to steady herself.

A clear chime rang out as someone came out of a shop near where Liane was standing.

“Are you all right?”

Someone nearby spoke to her, and Liane lifted her head.

Liane’s face had flushed quite red from the fever.

A man in noble attire with silver hair that reached just below his ears looked down at her and asked after her with a concerned tone.

His bright amber eyes combined with his silver hair gave him a strikingly beautiful air.

“I’m looking for… someone…….”

Liane could not string more than a few words together before the strength left the hand bracing against the tree and she collapsed.

The silver-haired man startled and bent down just in time to catch her before she hit the ground.

“Miss, please stay with me.”

He shook her gently, but when Liane showed no sign of coming to, the man lifted her into his arms and spoke to the attendant behind him.

“Let’s get to the carriage.”

***

Tristan set down the documents he had finished approving, looked up at Neumann, and gave a slight nod.

He had heard the detective was highly capable, and the results were certainly swift.

The culprit had been caught in the very next village over, in a single day.

Tristan postponed his outside schedule and decided to meet the culprit in person.

A knock sounded, and a servant opened the door and entered the study.

Behind the servant followed a brown-haired woman with a haggard expression. Tristan checked to see whether anyone else was coming in behind her, but when he realized the servant had brought only that one person, he shifted his gaze to the woman.

Neumann spoke first.

“This woman was originally a maid in the household of Count Aspel. She says she was traveling with the count’s daughter when their travel funds were stolen, and she had been working here temporarily to earn enough wages to return home.”

Tristan leaned back in his chair and looked at the maid of Count Aspel, who stood with her head bowed low.

Neumann continued.

“The blonde-haired woman Your Grace described appears to be Lady Liane Aspel, the daughter of Count Aspel.”

‘Count Aspel, who had his funeral not long ago. I recall hearing he had a daughter. There was some strange rumor going around that she had not made her debut even well past the age for it…….’

“But…….”

The moment Tristan spoke, Lucille flinched with a start and clenched her fists.

“Why did the daughter of Count Aspel and her maid put something in the water I was going to drink?”

With both Tristan and Neumann’s eyes on her, Lucille trembled, her face gone pale, and slowly answered.

“Th… that… is a misunderstanding. The truth is, we believed Lord Cedric Blackburn was the one staying in that room…….”

“So the original target was Cedric Blackburn?”

“…Yes.”

Tristan’s expression shifted subtly colder, but Lucille had no room to notice.

“What were you planning to do by drugging my guest?”

“…That…….”

When Lucille hesitated, Neumann urged her on with a look.

“The truth is… Lady Liane Aspel had recently been pressured into an unwanted marriage. So… we wanted to make Lord Cedric Blackburn propose to her…….”

“Ha…….”

A disbelieving laugh escaped Tristan, and Neumann let out a short sigh and turned to Lucille.

“So, where is Lady Aspel now? I was told you were alone when they found you.”

At Neumann’s words, Lucille could hold back no longer and tears began streaming from her eyes.

“The thing is… my lady… I had left her alone at the lodging while I went out briefly to buy food, and while I was being held here… when I finally got back to the room after so long, my lady was gone.”

Lucille wept and sobbed.

“The lodging owner told me she had gone out into the street looking for me, but no one has seen her since. My lady was in very poor health that day, running a high fever… and she went out alone at that late hour, and I have no way of knowing what has become of her…….”

Neumann’s expression darkened sharply at Lucille’s words.

The situation had suddenly changed. From an attempted poisoning of the Duke of Granville to the disappearance of a count’s daughter.

Neumann studied Tristan’s expression. The brief laugh from moments ago was gone, and Tristan looked at Lucille with an expressionless face before turning to Neumann.

“Find Lady Aspel.”

Tristan gestured for them to go, and Neumann led Lucille out of the study.

“Sob… please, you must find my lady.”

Neumann let out a sigh at the sight of the weeping Lucille.

Nothing good could come of the Granville ducal household getting tangled up in the disappearance of a count’s daughter.

This whole absurd mess was something that reckless Lady Aspel had brought on herself, but they still had to find her.

Neumann instructed Lucille to remain here for the time being, then walked quickly to his own office to put out a search.

Tristan sat lost in thought, tapping the rim of his water glass with the fingers wrapped around it.

‘She ran away from home because she didn’t want an arranged marriage, and the best she could come up with was Cedric Blackburn? A young lady who hasn’t even made her debut, what connection could she possibly have to Cedric, the third son of a viscount family…….’

Yet the story still didn’t add up.

Having their travel funds stolen had to have been an unlucky accident they stumbled into.

If that was what led them to work at this estate, then it made no sense at all that she had chosen a marriage prospect from here.

Hadn’t she run away because she didn’t want an arranged marriage, wanting to choose her own partner? And yet she settled on someone this impulsively? And of all people, Cedric, who was notorious for his way with women. Did she not even have that much information on him. This seemed less like naivety and more like foolishness.

For a count’s daughter to think of throwing herself away on such an impulse and sneak into a man’s bedroom……

There were too many loose ends to simply take the maid’s word for it.

Thinking he needed to look into Liane Aspel separately, Tristan rose from his seat to attend to the outside schedule he had put off.

***

“Lady Aspel, are you awake?”

“Oh, yes.”

Liane looked at the maid who had approached her bedside and offered an awkward smile as she sat up.

“How are you feeling? I’m glad your fever seems to have come down completely.”

Liane smiled softly at the maid’s gentle touch as she checked her forehead.

“Thank you for worrying about me.”

“Not at all.”

The maid walked to the window and straightened the curtains, speaking in a bright voice.

“You were bedridden for both full days since you arrived, so we were truly worried. Lord Emilio, who brought you here, must have been very worried as well.”

At the mention of the name, Liane lowered her gaze.

Out on the street searching for Lucille, Liane had lost consciousness and collapsed from the high fever. Emilio had found her just before she fell and carried her to his carriage, bringing her to his estate.

Emilio Hartfield. He was the second son of the Hartfield marquis family.

Because Emilio’s grandmother had health concerns, the family physician lived at the estate full-time, so Emilio had brought Liane straight back to his home.

Liane had remained unconscious for the entire day, and after waking the following morning, she had told the maid her name was Liane Aspel.

Emilio, who had saved her, had been away from home on business and she had not yet been able to meet him to offer her thanks.

Since she had lost consciousness the moment she encountered Emilio, her memories of the time before she collapsed that day were almost entirely hazy.

What she did remember clearly, despite everything, was Emilio’s silver hair, unmistakable even under the yellow light of the shop, his face with lines so beautiful they could be mistaken for a woman’s at a glance, and those amber eyes. Even in her disoriented state, Liane had retained a clear memory of his face. He was that rare a beauty among men.

“Lord Emilio is said to be returning to the estate today, so you should be able to meet him.”

At the maid’s words, Liane fidgeted with her fingers, her expression tense.

It was one thing to have received help, but of all people, the one who had rescued her off the street had to be the son of a prominent noble family……

Having never made her debut, Liane worried about how her name might end up circulating in social circles.