Chapter 2: Escape on a Rainy Day (3)

“I… came to tidy up the room a bit.”

It seemed to be true—she had cleaning tools in hand.

Still preoccupied by his earlier observation, Terian asked without thinking,

“Have you been managing her chambers regularly, even lately?”

Susan flinched, as if the question were a rebuke, and bent even lower.

“No, my lord… I know it’s only an excuse, but… Her Grace was uncomfortable with my presence… I’m sorry.”

So Larie had been living in this kind of stifling, humiliating condition all along.

For someone born a noble daughter of House Tromperie—accustomed to a life of ease—it must have been especially cruel.

The grass stain on the dress had told him everything.

Like the fading edges of that stain, something had begun to seep into Terian’s soul as well.

“I have something to tell you, my lord.”

“What is it?”

Susan, who had been hesitating, took a deep breath. Her expression was heavy with concern.

“While I was searching for the madam yesterday… I noticed something strange about the dressing room.”

“What do you mean, strange?”

Terian’s brow furrowed. His gaze naturally shifted toward the wardrobe.

“Since I stopped assisting her… not a single proper dress has been added.”

“…”

That was strange.

Just days ago, invoices addressed to the Grand Duchess had been arriving.

Most were from luxury boutiques—for dresses, jewelry, and other indulgences.

Striding across the room, Terian flung open the wardrobe doors.

And sure enough, the inside matched Susan’s troubling account.

One section held the usual dresses fit for nobility.

But on the other side—there were simple garments, of noticeably poor quality.

He recognized a few from times he’d seen Larie wearing them.

They hadn’t seemed odd then, but compared side by side now, the difference was staggering.

Then what of all those invoices? Where had they come from?

The questions piled up like mountains, but the only one who could answer them… was gone.

“…”

Yes. It was all because Larie was no longer here.

So all he had to do was find her.

Once she was standing before him, he could ask—

Whether she’d used the money to run away, or if something else had been going on.

“Hah…”

But amid the swirl of questions, one realization grew more vivid by the second.

Whatever the reasons…

For someone born into a life of luxury and nobility, this manor must have felt like a prison.

Perhaps that was why she’d turned her back on him at all.

“…”

A realization so hollow it felt absurd slashed through Terian with cruel clarity—

sharp enough to leave a gaping void in his chest, like a perfectly round lake carved by a blade.

The grass-stained dress in his hand felt heavier by the second.

❖ ❖ ❖

Another two weeks passed.

And unbelievably… Larie still hadn’t been found.

Even after quietly expanding the search beyond the forest to the entire capital, there was nothing.

Terian had begun summoning the retainers he trusted most, in confidence.

Normally, it would’ve been beneath him to call such a gathering, but he had little choice.

Baron Tromperie was now publicly denouncing him—

claiming Terian had imprisoned the Grand Duchess.

“She has to be hidden by Baron Tromperie!”

“There’s no other explanation!”

The voice of one retainer, full of conviction, echoed through the chamber.

And they weren’t wrong.

If someone wasn’t deliberately hiding her, then how could she possibly have remained missing this long?

No belongings had disappeared from the duchy.

And Larie’s personal collection of jewels had always been unclear, likely quite limited.

“There’s been suspicious movement near a Tromperie-owned villa,” another retainer reported.

“She may be hiding there.”

Slowly but surely, consensus began to form—

this had to be another one of the Tromperie family’s schemes.

Terian agreed.

And yet… a gnawing discomfort clung to him, unshaken.

Whatever the truth was, the Baron clearly planned to weaponize it.

He’d even sent an official letter of protest—

addressed absurdly to Larie herself, as if she were the complainant.

But Terian…

he couldn’t get past the hollow feeling that had settled in him after standing in her empty room.

Even now, some part of him found solace in the thought that—

perhaps Larie was with her family.

That maybe it was safer for her there than wandering alone through the forest.

“My lord,” one advisor spoke hesitantly.

“Would you consider investigating your own guards as well? Their reports have been… far too convenient.”

The soldiers who had entered the forest multiple times found nothing. It was certainly strange that they couldn’t find even the smallest trace of footsteps.

Especially troubling was the report made by the captain of the guard with his head lowered. He said that every time they entered the forest, it felt like being bewitched by a nymph and they would end up circling the same spot.

Nymphs and similar mythical beings had long since vanished. Due to this absurd report, unpleasant rumors began to circulate among the servants.

“……Didn’t the madam collapse several times after taking the medicine herself? Could it be that she… used drugs on the soldiers she met in the forest…?”

A servant, dragged in under the butler’s questioning, spoke with an extremely disloyal expression. The loose tongues were strictly silenced, but the rumor still reached the Grand Madam’s ears.

Furious, the Grand Madam summoned the physician who had examined Larie at the time. She said he had prepared an analysis of the medicine’s ingredients just in case.

“The lady must have used the medicine recklessly without understanding it. She must have been in a great deal of pain.”

If she had intended to stage a temporary act, she would not have used such a cheap and dangerous medicine that only brought pain, the physician explained.

Hearing this, the Grand Madam seemed deep in thought.

The mention of her enduring pain left Terian feeling increasingly strange.

“Your Grace.”

The retainers called out to him, lost in thought for a long while. Terian, barely returning to the present, lifted his head. The eyes of his trusted men weighed heavily on him.

One of the retainers, after exchanging glances with the others, cautiously opened his mouth.

“……At this level of scandal, it would be grounds for divorce.”

It was an expected statement, but no less unpleasant.

Terian cast a cold gaze around the room and asked indifferently,

“And?”

It wasn’t something he didn’t already know. In fact, even if there had been no issue with the Grand Duchess, divorce would never have been a problem. He was the Duke of Avnir.

Still, he didn’t want to do it.

……He couldn’t understand why, but from the beginning.

“It was a marriage you never needed to accept in the first place… Why are you doing this?”

One of the retainers, seemingly frustrated, finally voiced the question.

From the beginning, the retainers had doubted why the Duke so easily agreed to the emperor’s feeble scheme at the time of marriage. Of course, there had been political compensation gained by marrying into the Tromperie family, but it had hardly seemed sufficient.

Some of the retainers had even speculated that perhaps the Duke had always intended to divorce soon after. But recently, Terian’s relentless pursuit of the missing Grand Duchess was anything but ordinary.

Though Terian continued to refuse it, his retainers — those pushing to elevate him as the next emperor — were growing uneasy. That unease continued to mount until it finally began to erupt.

“Surely… not for someone with such filthy blood…”

“Enough.”

A voice colder than any before sliced through the meeting hall.

The agitated retainers quickly sobered and looked to Terian’s expression.

With a gloved hand idly resting against his chin, Terian’s gaze drifted far, toward the surface of the table — as if staring through it.

At the mention of “filthy blood,” a certain day vividly returned to him. The day Larie began to truly withdraw from him. That day.

“To take the filthy blood of Tromperie as a wife — how pitiful. If it were me, I’d be sickened just to be near her.”

Enviaji Marquis’ daughter’s words had been nothing short of arrogant.

He’d only attended the meeting because she claimed to bring a message from her father. The message itself had been disappointingly trifling, making her sudden, insolent remark all the more baffling.

“Does it look like I’m enduring it?”

It was laughable. If someone asked whether Terian detested Tromperie blood, the answer would be yes. The hatred tangled in that family name wasn’t something that faded just by being buried deep inside.

But whether that meant he had been enduring Larie…

That, even to himself, had been a surprising question.

Rather, what he truly found unbearable — what he was merely enduring — was the Marquis’s daughter, who dared to draw too near in a way that was almost obscene.

“Of course. Everyone knows how much His Grace, with his well-known obsession with cleanliness, loathes that woman every single day. …Oh my.”

But it was precisely then that he saw Larie.

She never attended such social gatherings, and yet she stood there, like a nymph suddenly emerging from the forest.

Parting the blooming tulips as she stepped into view, her presence harmonized almost painfully well with the scenery.

She vanished like a mirage shortly after.

At the time, he had thought it only a mildly unfortunate moment. Surely she hadn’t heard the conversation from so far away — or so he’d hoped.

So instead of following her, he turned a chilling gaze toward the Marquis’s daughter, his tolerance already worn thin as he took a step back.

“Are you aware that the person you’re insulting is the Grand Duchess of Avnir?”

“W-what…?”

“The Marquis should be made to answer for the offense of insulting a member of the ducal family.”

“W-wait, Your Grace—!”

Afterward, he sent a firm warning to the Marquis.

To ensure they would never again dare approach him in such a manner, Terian quietly bankrupted one of the trading companies secretly run by the Marquis. The retaliation was so effective that the Marquis’s daughter never approached Terian again.

And now, the retainers before him wore the same expression she had on that day.

Returning to the present, Terian finally turned his gaze toward them.

They tensed immediately under his cold sneer.

“Do you not understand who it is you’re speaking so carelessly about?”

“…Our apologies.”

The retainer who had spoken of “filthy blood” bowed deeply, his face pale.

The apology came quickly — but Terian had no intention of forgiving the offense. Even if not dismissed immediately, a reckoning would follow.

Anyone who dared disgrace Larie in front of him had always received what they deserved.

Even so, it had never been enough. Realizing that anew, Terian lowered the arm he’d been resting his chin on.

The longer her absence stretched on, the more his unease wrapped around him like a forest — thick and suffocating, as if the towering trees would soon blot out his entire field of vision.

“…Your Grace, what should we do now?”

At the attendant’s question, Terian came to a decision — he would officially declare Larie’s disappearance.

Tromperie clearly intended to blow the matter out of proportion, and it was only a matter of time before word reached the entire capital anyway.

“Your Grace!”

Just as Terian opened his mouth to speak, the doors to the meeting hall burst open and the steward rushed in.

“His Majesty… has passed away.”

Terian and the gathered retainers all shot to their feet in shock.

It was news they had never anticipated.