Chapter 4.4

“Commander.”

Butler Volteman finally spoke up, unable to make sense of anything.

“Yes?”

Caron was lounging in a chair by the window, leisurely watching the trees outside. The usually focused Knight Commander seemed somewhat different. He’d become quite distracted lately. He didn’t even go to the Imperial Palace as often as before. Wasn’t he once so passionate about training the knights?

“You just had your engagement ceremony yesterday, so why are you keeping your fiancée at a distance? Are you really marrying someone you don’t care for?”

He’d witnessed it himself yesterday. That proud Hariel had pleaded with the Duke. Her request hadn’t been unreasonable—she only asked to stay one night, but the Duke flatly refused.

There was no reason not to allow the soon-to-be bride to spend a few days at her future husband’s house.

“A marriage without affection. Well, whether I care or not, marriage is necessary to make things fair. I’d like her to be as anxious as she’s made me.”

The Duke laced his fingers together and smiled contentedly, lost in thought. Volteman felt so frustrated he could have jumped up and down.

“But why are you suddenly calling for the new maid? And what about the child? The Grand Duke was always so generous—he even hired maids with children.”

“I’m not that generous, so that’s a problem. Just the child needs to go.”

“What?”

Volteman wondered if he’d heard wrong and wanted to clean out his ears.

“Who is this maid, anyway…?”

A moment later, there was a knock, and Aness entered. Her face was stiff with tension as she approached the Duke and bowed.

“Your Grace, did you call for me?”

As soon as she entered, Caron’s face broke into a broad smile. Volteman saw this and his jaw dropped. Had the Duke ever smiled so widely? He wanted to rub his eyes just to check.

“Come in. Ah, Volteman. I’ll be having an important conversation with this maid, so please leave. Make sure you close the door tightly behind you.”

Volteman was even more dumbfounded at the Duke’s order. As he left, he carefully studied the new maid’s face.

It was a face he’d never seen before. A young woman with long brown hair and an ordinary appearance. But her expression was just as suspicious—her cheeks were flushed and she looked frightened.

Once Volteman left, Caron stood up and finally revealed his true intentions.

“Hm, I’m not sure if the head maid told you, but working here with a baby is against the rules. Our House does not permit it.”

“…Excuse me?”

Aness’s face froze at the shocking warning. She’d known he was petty, but she hadn’t expected him to use this as a pretext to expel her. He really was a petty man.

“So, you’d better choose carefully.”

“I understand. I’ll leave with my baby.”

Aness answered without hesitation, as if there was nothing to think about. This job paid better than any other, but it was better to leave than endure further harassment.

“What? I haven’t told you to leave yet.”

Caron frowned at her immediate answer. It was starting to seem true what others said: women were harder to handle than weapons on the battlefield.

“I’m not telling you to leave. If you just abandon your child, you can live well here. I’ll triple your salary. How about it?”

“!!!”

Aness was so stunned that her mouth fell open. How could he tell her to abandon her child? And to say it so casually—he didn’t even seem human.

“I could never do that. I’ll leave with my baby.”

“Hm, are you really so stubborn even when I offer you comfort and money? Do you love your child that much? Then I’ll give you another. If you abandon that child, I’ll let you have a prettier one with my blood.”

“!!!”

Aness realized something new again. This man wasn’t just petty and despicable—he was also out of his mind.

“I’m only marrying another woman to make things fair. You married another man and had his child. But I’ve decided to be more generous. I’ll marry someone else, but I’ll have a child with you. How’s that for mercy?”

“!!!”

Aness was so shocked her jaw nearly fell off. So this lunatic was using ridiculous logic to justify this bizarre situation.

‘What could possibly be in his head? How does someone grow up to be so arrogant and irrational?’

Aness shook her head and spoke firmly.

“No. I don’t need any logic to make things fair. Yes, I did take your innocence and hurt your feelings, and I’m truly sorry for that. To atone for that, I’ll quietly leave here with my baby. Is that enough?”

Aness was determined to leave the room without looking back. As she turned to go, the flustered Duke quickly moved and caught up to her, hugging her from behind.

“Don’t go. Did I do something wrong? Then let’s change the terms. Why are you refusing such good conditions?”

Caught from behind, Aness was startled and froze. The Duke’s hands gripped her waist so tightly she couldn’t move.

“Of course, because you gave me an absurd order. Abandon my baby? What kind of mother would do that for her own happiness?”

Aness raised her voice in resentment. She hadn’t known before giving birth that such love existed. No matter what, she would never abandon Ian.

“Hm, I see. So it’s absolutely out of the question to abandon your baby? Then let’s try another condition.”

Since his plan to make her give up Joseph’s child and have her to himself had failed, the Duke sighed and decided to compromise.

“Just sleep with me. If you let me have you as much as I want, you can stay here, work, and raise your child.”

Caron licked his lips as he made his second demand. In truth, he intended to take Aness as his official concubine. It was the best way to keep her by his side forever. And the child to carry on his line would not come from Hariel, his legal wife, but from Aness.

“Sleep with you…?”

Hearing such an outrageous demand while held tightly, Aness was dumbfounded. The man was about to marry another woman and yet was asking to have an affair.

She hesitated for a moment. Would she ever find another job that paid this well? She and Ian could live comfortably without starving.

Of course, there was the risk of Ian’s true identity being discovered, but if she hid it carefully, maybe he would never know. Besides, this man was about to marry someone else, and if she gave him a child, perhaps he wouldn’t care about Ian’s existence.

“…If that’s the case, as long as no one knows…”

“Hm? As long as no one knows?”

While hugging her from behind and burying his nose in her nape, savoring her scent, the Duke asked in a mesmerized, low voice.

“Please let no one know about me being with you at night. If rumors spread, it would be difficult for me to keep working here, and it wouldn’t be good for you either.”

Having resigned herself to her fate, Aness sighed as she spoke. She was granting him a night together. They’d already been intimate once—what harm was there in a second time?

“Alright. I’ll make sure no one knows.”

Finally satisfied, the Duke let his hand slip away and released her. Aness, her face flushed red, quickly darted away as if fleeing, and Volteman, who’d been pressing his ear to the door outside, hurriedly entered.

“Commander, I heard everything from outside!”

Now he understood. He realized why the Duke had been so out of sorts lately, like a broken doll. It seemed he’d been obsessively lusting after a single maid.

“Well, if you heard it, that’s enough.”

Caron stood by the window, his gaze fixated as if bewitched on Aness’s figure, who was now running across the garden. The sight of her hair streaming behind her as she ran was unbelievably captivating.

‘Hm, she really is beautiful…’

Beside Caron, who stared blankly, Volteman was left speechless.

“No, what is it about that maid…”

He couldn’t understand and protested in a disgruntled tone.

After having forcibly sent away his newly betrothed right after the engagement ceremony, the Duke was now utterly smitten with a mere maid. It seemed all the stranger, considering the Duke had never even glanced at other women.

“As a fellow man, don’t you see? She’s beautiful.”

The Duke rested his chin on his hand, gazing intently at Aness’s retreating figure. His eyes looked just like those of a man in love.

“No, if we’re talking about beauty…”

Was there any woman in the Empire who could compare to Lady Hariel? She possessed the most overwhelming beauty and power, and yet the Duke reacted like this. Volteman simply couldn’t understand.

“When did it start, Commander?”

Lately, he’d been neglectful with paperwork. He rarely went to the Imperial Palace. Even knight training had been left entirely to the vice-commander. If the cause of all this was that plain maid, it was a serious problem.

“From the first moment I saw her, I was drawn in. It’s strange, women…”

Even after Aness’s figure disappeared, the Duke couldn’t shake off her lingering presence, his dazed eyes chasing after her afterimage.

It was true that, that night, under the influence of a mild drug, he’d spent the night with her, but the more he saw her, the more he was drawn in. Her clever, sparkling eyes and slightly frozen expression were adorable. He longed to stroke her fragrant, soft hair and fall asleep by her side more and more.

“Commander, I think you should hurry up and get married, and call that maid to your bed in secret.”

For high-ranking nobles, keeping a concubine or two was nothing unusual. For a Duke like Perschtman, even having ten wouldn’t be an issue. In fact, it was almost strange that the Duke had never shown interest in women until now.

“Of course I’ll call her. I threatened her a bit, so she won’t be able to refuse.”

The Duke grinned slyly as he lifted his teacup. At this, Volteman let out a deep sigh and spoke to him gently.

“I heard everything. I truly don’t understand. Why bother threatening such a lowly maid? You could simply order her.”

To threaten her with the expulsion of her child—such a petty threat was unbecoming of a Duke. Yet Caron, fingers interlaced, was lost in deep thought.

‘If she abandons the child, she’ll think of it every day. If I k*ll the child, she’ll resent me even more. If I want her to look only at me, I have to deal with that child first. If it’s Joseph’s child, all the more reason to get rid of it, though the fact that it’s a little kid does bother me a bit…’

The Duke of Perschtmann wanted to have the first love he’d finally found all to himself. The child she’d had with Joseph was nothing less than a rival to him. He had no intention of going easy on even a child.

“Ah, Volteman. What’s going on with Joseph?”

Remembering, Caron looked up and asked the butler. For the past month, he’d been sending people to the neighboring country of Grevis to track Joseph’s whereabouts in earnest.

“There’s a bit of a problem.”

“What problem?”

If Joseph was alive, he’d either cleanly eliminate him, or use him as bait to fully claim Aness’s body and mind.

“As you know, a few years ago Joseph tried to establish trade ties and even dared to seek an audience with the King several times. Apparently, the first Princess Jennifer secretly watched and fell for him. It seems she used the recent fur trade as an excuse to call him out and has confined him somewhere. His whereabouts have been unknown since entering the palace.”

Hearing this, Caron clapped his hands in delight.

“Ah, I remember now. That first Princess—she’s famous for her looks and her temper. I heard she married the Prime Minister’s son, but couldn’t control her anger and tried to strangle her husband, breaking up the marriage. Right, that’s it. Out of loneliness, she set her sights on Joseph.”

Listening to the Duke take such pleasure in another’s misfortune, Volteman continued his report with a sidelong glance.

“The King dotes on the Princess so much that kidnapping and confining someone is nothing to him. The problem is, this could become a diplomatic issue. The Marquis of Arpis will find out soon enough, and a request for your help will come directly to you, Commander.”

It was only natural, since the Duke of Perschtmann also served as Foreign Minister. He was obligated to intervene in this diplomatic matter.

“Hm, there’s nothing to gain from angering the King of Grevis. This needs to be approached carefully. And if Joseph ends up with Princess Jennifer, wouldn’t that be good? It would help diplomatic relations between the two countries.”

As he spoke, Caron smiled darkly. He had no intention of helping Joseph. In fact, he wanted to use Joseph’s crisis to banish him from the country forever and bind Aness even more tightly to himself, making her his woman alone.

“Oh, and there’s one more thing to investigate. Find out immediately.”

With renewed resolve, Caron’s eyes gleamed as he issued another order. Hearing this, Volteman’s face twisted unconsciously.