Chapter 10

In a territory like this, like some clan village where every other house was related to the next, it was no easy matter for an outsider to gather information. They did not reveal their family shame to outsiders.

If an outsider learned their shame, they often killed that person and made them disappear. Since each of them was both accomplice and witness to the others, even if they knew who the murderer was, they would never speak.

So if one went around poking into things carelessly in a place like this, one could end up disappearing without even a body to be found, so caution was necessary. There probably would not be anyone trying to commit murder and silence witnesses while the fleet was here, but even so, there was no harm in being careful.

“But Commander, does this really need to go this way? Earlier, we could’ve just brought in those bastards, the gravekeeper and the coachman, and then dragged in this Lord Breslow or whoever and punished him.”

Normally one did not interfere in another family’s affairs, but this could be seen as something of an exceptional case. After all, Admiral Ishiel and several of his men had directly witnessed the attempted abduction of a noble lady.

At times like this, it would not have been a problem even if the admiral himself interrogated and punished the criminal. But Ishiel had not done so. He likes the wife of the Marquis, and yet he won’t help her actively? Lenore simply could not understand Ishiel.

“I have a separate plan. So stop talking nonsense and do your investigation properly.”

In truth, there was no plan. If Adeline had asked him to get rid of Lord Breslow or whoever it was, Ishiel would have done it at once. After that, he would either have taken Adeline’s hand and gone up to the capital for a wedding, or set up a new household with her in Hartmann territory.

But Adeline, despite having her life threatened, pushed him away. Even though her husband was dead and in the ground.

Had her feelings truly cooled, and was that why she left? But even on what turned out to be the last day, though neither of them had known it then, Adeline had looked at him with eyes full of love.

That was why, back then, Ishiel could not believe the fact that Adeline had married Marquis Hartmann and left him forever.

Everything became empty. One day he felt as if he would go mad hating Adeline for abandoning him and leaving, and another day he felt as if he would lose his mind missing her.

He had told Adeline that he enlisted in the navy because it seemed she liked men who fought well at sea, but that was not true. In reality, he simply could not endure it while sane.

Thinking that perhaps it might help if he at least pushed his body to its limits, he volunteered for the place deployed to the most dangerous and difficult conflict zone. It just happened to be the Ocean Fleet. Whether it was sea or land did not particularly matter to Ishiel at the time.

After entering the fleet and fighting with his life on the line, he rose to the position of admiral at a young age. Having his achievements recognized, he was granted the title of Earl despite being illegitimate. Somehow, he even built ties with a Prince.

And yet he was not happy. Even if he became an admiral, even if he became friends with a Prince, he still could not have Adeline.

He had thought that if he spent months unable to leave the ship, repeating battles day and night, he would eventually forget Adeline.

But even when his own life was hanging by a thread, even in the very moment he took someone else’s life, Adeline always followed Ishiel.

Resenting her, longing for her, crying and laughing as he recalled his memories with Adeline. There was no other word for it but madness. His nerves were so worn raw that he had no way to endure life in his right mind, and so he tried to end his life.

At the moment he stood atop the railing of the deck, above the vast open sea, one question lodged itself in his mind.

Why did Adeline leave me. If I find out why she left me and fix it, couldn’t I win Adeline back?

Until then, Ishiel had done nothing but blame heartless Adeline, but from that moment on, he began to search for the problem in himself.

What did I do wrong? What part of me made Adeline leave? Since there was no one he could ask, he answered the question himself.

‘No matter how I think about it, it must have been that I looked like I would never be able to shake off the label of illegitimate child. Yes, that was the problem.’

That was the conclusion Ishiel reached. Though both of them had lived trapped inside their estates, their situations had been very different.

Adeline had simply not been able to go outside the estate, but she wore fine clothes, ate good meals every day, and was attended by maids. She had been every inch a proper noble young lady, not someone fit to associate with an illegitimate child.

Then later, when she finally entered high society, perhaps she learned there what sort of treatment illegitimate children received, and that made her grow cold toward him.

Or perhaps, from the beginning, she had only intended to love Ishiel and later marry some proper man with a title and territory.

Yes, that was possible. Ishiel too found his own birth contemptible. A child born from a man who left his wife and lay with another woman, was that not filthy?

In a society where even remarriage was taboo, there was no need to speak of how illegitimate children were treated. As a child born out of wedlock, Ishiel was the shame of the family. Usually, other illegitimate children did not receive their father’s surname and lived outside the estate, receiving only financial support.

But Ishiel’s mother, who had been the Duke’s mistress, had deliberately sent Ishiel into the Duchy of Estevan, and the Duke, who doted on his mistress, accepted him.

It might have been different if the Duke had no sons, but he had no less than three strong sons born of the Duchess.

So it was hardly surprising that the Duchess and her sons reacted violently to Ishiel’s existence.

Ishiel lived surrounded by violence, hunger, and confinement. The three Estevan brothers treated Ishiel like a toy. A toy they could break as much as they pleased, so long as they did not kill it.

Ishiel suffered under cruel violence, and was often locked away in a storeroom for three or four days at a time.

Of all those things, the most dreadful was hunger. The three brothers could not bear the sight of their half-brother eating anything, and Ishiel had to steal from the kitchen just to stave off his hunger.

There was nowhere he could ask for help. The Duke had no interest in his illegitimate child, his biological mother was too busy indulging herself with the money the Duke gave her, and as for the Duchess, there was no need to even mention her.

Only summer, when everyone left on holiday, was Ishiel’s one salvation. When the estate stood empty, Ishiel wandered outside it. He intended to leave the estate once he turned sixteen and was recognized as an adult.

To do that, he needed to at least learn the geography outside and the prices of basic necessities. It was while wandering here and there for that reason that Ishiel lost his way.

Somehow, he ended up even entering a low forest and simply walked toward the estate he saw in the distance.

And that was when he met her. Ten-year-old Adeline.

‘…Hello?’

He could still see clearly before his eyes the image of her making a timid little greeting with those small hands, utterly frightened. At the time, Ishiel did not need a friend.

Even so, he went to that estate every day to see Adeline, because he was hungry. Adeline would bring him plenty of food that was hard for Ishiel to get. There was no reason not to go if he could fill his stomach for free.

As he went often, affection grew, and somehow, the following summer he found himself going to see Adeline again. Ishiel had never once imagined that he would end up spending every summer with Adeline like that.

At some point, Adeline’s existence took deep root in Ishiel. I don’t want Adeline to hate me. I want to see Adeline smiling. He had never felt such emotions before in his life.

Adeline, who had been raised rather delicately inside the estate, was timid. Perhaps the cruel nature of the three brothers of the ducal house ran in the blood, because Ishiel’s own temperament was rough as well.

But it felt as though if he showed his true nature, Adeline would never come out to see him again. So he hid it thoroughly. More tenderly, more gently, never roughly. Fortunately, Adeline never came to know his true self.

If possible, he had not wanted her to ever know. Because he had not wanted to see Adeline afraid of him. And yet last night, Ishiel had ended up exposing his true self to Adeline.

‘It’s because you kept pushing me away, Adeline.’

He could not know what kind of reaction Adeline would have after seeing his true self. But whatever that reaction might be, it did not matter. Because now, even if Adeline tried to push him away, he had not the slightest intention of letting himself be pushed aside.

Winning Adeline back was the only goal of his life.

‘You can’t leave me anymore by using my birth as an excuse.’

Now he was no longer the shame of the Estevan family. He was the master of the fleet, and an Earl. He had even bought a residence in the capital. And just in case even that was not enough, he had prepared an alternative as well.

That plan too was proceeding steadily, and by the time he married Adeline, it might already be complete.

‘It should make a good wedding gift.’

The corners of Ishiel’s lips, which had slowly lifted as he imagined Adeline’s delight, stiffened again. Would she truly be delighted? He had thought Adeline would welcome him if she learned he had become an admiral.

The moment he arrived in Hartmann territory and heard news of Marquis Hartmann’s death, Ishiel had imagined nothing except gathering Adeline into his arms. In that imagining, there had been no Adeline pushing him away.

Because every condition that would allow Adeline to return to him had now been met. He had money and status, and Marquis Hartmann, the only obstacle between them, had conveniently died on his own before Ishiel even needed to act.

Then why was Adeline rejecting him? Had she loved that old man, despite all the unsavory rumors about him? Had she given him both heart and body?

Resentment, jealousy, and the base emotions hidden deep within him surged upward. That was why, even while knowing Adeline had fallen into trouble, he had not helped her actively.

He wanted her to reach out first and ask him for help. Though he could not even wait for Adeline to ask for help before forcing himself to seize her hand.

Even so, he did not regret it. His life revolved around Adeline. Now that he had regained his center, Ishiel had not the slightest intention of letting Adeline go. Even if she cried and screamed that she hated it and tried to push him away.

【 Thank You For The Meal, Madame 】

It won’t be noticeable, right?

From the morning on, as she ordered bathwater to be prepared, Adeline fretted endlessly over whether last night’s intimacy would be discovered. Thankfully, it seemed Ishiel had tidied things up before leaving at the end, because it had not been noticed.

“Is that the only outfit…? No, never mind. Just bring it.”

Adeline, who had been about to ask for a dress other than the black mourning clothes she always wore, shook her head again. In any case, whether mourning clothes or not, Adeline had nothing but dreary dresses.

After marrying Marquis Hartmann, Adeline had never once been allowed to choose her own clothes. Her mother-in-law always chose them for her. Even her undergarments.

‘Yesterday Ishiel said my undergarment wasn’t much good……’

Her mother-in-law’s taste in undergarments was, certainly, far from pretty. Put kindly, they were neat. To be honest, they were the sort of design only an elderly old lady would wear.

Thinking that Ishiel had seen those exactly as they were made late-arriving embarrassment wash over her.

It was the same with her dresses. Perhaps, compared to dresses steeped so heavily in her mother-in-law’s taste, mourning clothes might actually be better.