Chapter 70

No, that doesn’t make sense.

‘She cannot possibly worry about a man she abandoned like that.’

There was no way she would not resent him at least a little, without even a trace of pride. Estelle Buchanan was appalled by the sight of him in his current state.

And yet she had worried.

Neither the Academy staff who soured his insides, nor the members of the ducal house, nor even his own mother, watched him with nothing but concern in their eyes.

That woman’s gaze was especially bothersome. Concern turned into harsher criticism.

It was as if she was saying he had done something wrong.

As though she were telling him not to expect that Estelle might hold any intense emotions like resentment or hatred toward him.

It felt like unnecessary advice to face his current miserable self and keep living.

But he couldn’t look away either.

He wished he had observed Estelle’s movements more. Every moment from the past was full of regret.

Buchanan’s movements sometimes resembled Estelle, but in other ways, they were ambiguous.

Was his desire to find her now just an excuse to designate someone as “Estelle” and end his weary search? He was full of doubts.

He watched her leave, unable to turn away until she disappeared.

Even as he denied it, he ended up watching her vanish. He couldn’t help but feel ridiculous.

Theodore pressed the hollow between his eyelids and nose. His gaze sharpened.

“Give her extra money under the scholarship name for personal use.”

“Especially for Miss Estelle Buchanan, Your Grace?”

The aide quickly understood.

“And follow her.”

“It does not seem you mean right…… this instant, but when exactly do you mean?”

“Tell her to submit the documents needed for the scholarship. You can make up a reason.”

“So you mean, use that to find out where she lives?”

He answered with silence.

Estelle Buchanan, Estelle Muhamot.

When he looked up, the sky was already filled with sparkling stars. Dizzying starlight poured down. The waves of light seemed to reach even here.

* * *

“I found it.”

The aide placed the documents on the desk and began briefing.

“The information matches what was submitted at admission. There were no suspicious or intentionally altered items.”

Details were listed, even the trivial ones.

“We haven’t confirmed the husband’s appearance, but according to witnesses, a man occasionally comes and goes. Presumed to be the husband.”

Theodore’s dark brows furrowed as he scanned the documents.

He glanced at the aide, then returned his gaze to the papers.

“Is he a noble?”

“He’s confirmed to be a commoner. But their residence is in the noble district. The husband may be a noble or a wealthy commoner.”

It was a high-end residential area, called the nobles’ neighborhood, but anyone with money could live there. Theodore lightly turned the next page.

“She was beaten.”

His handsome face twisted as soon as he read the first line. He looked at the aide with disgust.

“What’s this about being assaulted by her husband?”

“I heard it from the admissions staff. Miss Estelle Buchanan wears a hat or scarf at school. It’s not against the rules, but it’s not proper.”

The aide cleared his throat and continued.

“I found it odd, so I looked into it while investigating. The staff who handled her admission said her face was bruised.”

Theodore tried to recall the face he had seen.

But after confirming she was not Estelle, he had not looked very closely. It was a face he could not remember at all.

“Unbelievable.”

He bowed his head slightly and pressed his brow with his knuckles. Being beaten was absurd, and it must have happened more than once.

“Hitting a woman much smaller than himself—what nonsense.”

It was a vile thing. To hit one’s wife.

He felt disgusted for a new reason. As he read further, his gaze stopped again.

“…What’s this?”

“It says she has a child, Your Grace.”

The aide read and answered kindly.

“A child?”

“Yes, it says the child is about four years old. That’s confirmed by a doctor.”

He roughly swept a hand over his face. If this woman was Estelle, there was no way she could have a child.

A child…

To be honest, there was no reason she could not.

But having a child meant she truly loved another man. And not just any man, but one who hit her—a lowlife.

Estelle would never love someone like that.

This woman couldn’t be Estelle.

His grip on the papers tightened, crumpling the sheets.

‘She shouldn’t be with a man like that.’

If she escaped her hellish home and got away from a fool like him, even if she didn’t find heaven, she should at least have a decent life.

Otherwise, it was too cruel. The amount of misfortune one woman could endure was too much.

This wasn’t right.

He handed the papers to the aide. Estelle Buchanan. She was just Buchanan. The name Estelle wasn’t important.

Theodore’s blue eyes churned beneath the surface.

* * *

“Frederic! Just one glass of water! A whole bucket of cold water!”

The former Grand Madame of Giselleberg, who had walked gracefully up to the Empress’s palace, now stomped her feet.

“Oh! There’s no water! Ha!”

She fanned herself faster than a butterfly’s wings. It was more like a fly buzzing than graceful.

After being escorted into the carriage, Grace removed her gloves and rolled up her sleeves. Her face was flushed.

Frederic cautiously handed her a piece of chocolate, which she swallowed in one gulp.

The Grand Madame, always boasting girlish beauty, rolled her eyes.

“Thank you! Frederic! You knew exactly how I’d feel coming out of the palace?”

“Haha…”

Grace and Frederic were close in age.

When she first married into the Duchy, she made many mistakes, and Frederic was the one who secretly helped her.

That’s how Grace and Butler Frederic became close friends. After having children around the same time, they bonded over the hardships of raising them.

But why was Lady Grace Giselleberg so angry?

“That fox of an old woman!”

“Did the conversation with Her Majesty the Empress not go well?”

“As if it were only that the conversation didn’t go well? When she was beating down our son, that was one thing, but now she comes fluttering around trying to coax him? Pah!”

Most people didn’t know, but Grace was actually very bold and outspoken.

As the Marquis’s daughter, she had been raised strictly to imitate the perfect lady, but she couldn’t hide her true nature forever.

With her usual confidence, Grace protected her young son in the struggle for succession, showing her keen insight.

That’s why she didn’t like the youngest princess, the Empress’s legitimate daughter.

“When it suited her, she tried to make the collateral branch of the Giselleberg family—the one that took her nephew’s daughter as a daughter-in-law—into the ducal line, and now she says the Imperial Princess has fallen for my son and is trying to entice him.”

“But Grand Madam, marrying the princess wouldn’t be a bad strategic choice.”

“He doesn’t want it.”

Grace firmly rejected Frederic’s words.

“You think so too. Why say something you don’t mean?”

When her son returned from the battlefield, she didn’t care that he was a defeated soldier. The problem was that his spirit had rotted.

Wounds of the heart couldn’t be washed away. Grace knew how much Theodore valued pride as a noble.

He knew nothing but living as a noble.

The suffering that hit him couldn’t be easily shaken off.

So when Theodore quietly said he’d go to Barrenfield to recuperate, she thought, “Fine, if it brings him peace, let him do as he wishes.”

But when she realized he’d actually moved there to give up on life, she felt like going mad.

She wished she could have died in his place. Theodore was the precious fruit left by her early-dead husband, and his existence alone was precious to her.

Even with wealth, honor, and power, she felt despair when she realized she couldn’t do anything for him.

Then Theodore suddenly declared he would marry a commoner.