“Do you happen to know who JM is?”

While Bella was at the festival, Logan received new information from his informant.

It was a report about the Everett family’s orphanage, an institution he had long suspected was used to manage funds and taxes. According to the informant, the ledgers contained a record of a substantial anonymous donation.

However, the benefactor could not be identified. The initials listed were repeated and common enough to offer no clear answer. Unable to determine the source, the informant sought Logan’s opinion. A donation of that scale would require wealth accumulated over many years, likely from a powerful magnate or noble. As someone firmly positioned within the upper ranks of society, Logan might recognize the name.

However, only partial copies of the orphanage’s records remained, as the institution itself had closed many years earlier. Although the information had not yet been fully verified, Logan agreed to investigate further.

After ending the call, he murmured the initials quietly to himself.

J.M.

They were common enough within the Empire. Several names came to mind. He began writing them down at random on a sheet of paper.

Then his pen stopped.

Jeorge Millan.

He lightly tapped the tip of his pen against the paper, then rose and made his way to the study in his home. There was one possibility he could not ignore.

His hand felt unexpectedly heavy as he pulled a dust-covered box from the back of a bookshelf that had been untouched for years.

Inside was a stack of darkened, partially charred papers — among the few belongings salvaged from his father’s office after the fire that reduced it to ashes.

When he came of age and inherited the position of head of the family, he had gone through these documents. At the time, none of them had seemed useful for managing the estate.

Now, as he carefully sorted through the aged pages, a familiar set of initials caught his eye.

J.M.

They were written neatly in cursive at the end of a leather-bound notebook.

Jeorge Millan.

This was the alias that his father, James Fraser, had used outside his official dealings.

It was not unusual for a nobleman to have an alias if he wanted to keep certain affairs discreet. When Logan first discovered it among his father’s possessions, he did not think much of it. It had probably been used for private art acquisitions or the handling of discreet funds – nothing more.

Logan opened the ledger that recorded transactions conducted under the name Jeorge Millan.

Unlike Logan, who conducted his business openly under his own name, his father had often worked behind the scenes, making investments without attracting attention.

The entries ranged from modest sums to amounts large enough to cover the annual expenses of a lesser noble. Every transaction was recorded with meticulous care, reflecting James Fraser’s precise and methodical nature.

Logan had examined these documents once before, but he skimmed through them again now until a single figure made him pause.

It was identical to the amount donated anonymously to the orphanage in Rosedale.

Unlike the other entries, which clearly stated when and where the funds had been used, this one offered no explanation.

There was only the number.

Nothing more.

Recalling the reports he had gathered over the years, Logan’s eyebrows slowly drew together.

The initials matched those of his father’s alias. It was the same figure recorded in the orphanage ledger that he had received.

If he not compared the documents so carefully, he might have overlooked the discrepancy entirely.

His father had never been known for his interest in charity. Given his connection to Count Everett, it would have been easy to dismiss the donation as routine.

However, once suspicion took hold, Logan found he could not shake it off.

The orphanage was being used as a conduit for the Countess’s funds. A large, anonymous donation. Not to mention the unsettlingly close timing of the orphanage’s closure and the fire that had consumed the ducal office.

Logan gathered every document he had uncovered and returned to his office. Spreading the reports across the floor, he began cross-referencing papers from different sources, searching for a single thread that might bind them together.

Too much time had passed. Most of the evidence had disappeared. What remained came from uncertain origins.

All he had was a suspicion — nothing concrete.

And yet the feeling would not fade. It was a quiet, relentless sense that he was overlooking something vital.

***

As the sun set, lights began to flicker on across the streets one by one. The glow of dozens of bulbs brought the warmth of the festival to the night-time streets. People gradually gathered around the bonfire at the center of the square and danced together to the cheerful rhythm of the band.

“Thank you for coming with me today, Joshua. I really enjoyed myself.”

Bella said as they paused at a spot overlooking the square. Despite being busy with school, she was grateful that he had spent the whole day with her.

“It’s nothing. This is your first time enjoying the festival in the capital, isn’t it? And I promised I’d show you around someday.”

Joshua shook his head as he answered. Spotting an empty bench, he removed his jacket and spread it over the seat for her.

“Shall we sit for a moment?”

“Yes.”

Bella sat down beside him. After politely asking the guards who had been following them all day to step back for a moment, she let out a quiet sigh.

Although they had been assigned to protect her, their constant, watchful presence — never letting her or Joshua out of their sight — had left them both exhausted.

Couples who looked unmistakably like lovers passed by in the street. Hand in hand, they gathered near a railing overlooking the square and tied ribbons onto it. The iron bars were already draped in layers of colorful ribbons, each one blending into the next.

It was a custom: If a couple pledged their love during the festival and tied a ribbon together, their bond would endure forever.

And so, year after year, lovers came without fail.

“…What are you to Duke Fraser?”

Joshua asked carefully.

Bella, who had been watching the other couples, turned to look at him.

Unlike in Rosedale, she could not answer immediately.

Not her guardian.

Not her master.

Not anything clearly defined.

And yet he was the person with whom she spent the most time.

What was she supposed to call that kind of relationship? How could she explain the subtle shift in the distance between herself and the Duke?

Bella lowered her gaze to the shoes he had put on her feet.

“I don’t really know.”

It was not an attempt to avoid answering. She truly could not define what they were to each other.

“His Grace is very kind to me.”

She no longer denied that he treated her differently. He had shown her far more consideration than was necessary — more than she deserved.

“He’s so kind that sometimes… it confuses me.”

She understood that his actions went beyond mere goodwill towards someone who had only served him briefly. It would have been strange not to suspect the feelings behind his gaze and gestures.

And yet, even in such moments, he had never openly expressed his feelings.

Nor had she asked.

They behaved as though there were feelings between them, yet they never acknowledged them.

It was this ambiguity that unsettled her.

Now that she could no longer draw the line as she once had, the uncertainty felt heavier than ever.

“But… he has a fiancée.”

There was a hint of resignation in Bella’s voice.

It wasn’t just his status that held her back.

From the outset, it had been the wrong choice — a feeling that should never have taken root. And yet, the time she spent with the gentle duke made her want to forget that truth. There were moments when she wished time would stand still.

Whenever such thoughts surfaced, she was overcome with fierce self-reproach. She despised herself for being unable to accept an engaged man’s kindness as nothing more than goodwill.

“And still… I keep wavering. Even though I know I shouldn’t…”

With a strained expression, Bella confessed what she had never dared to say aloud.

“When he comes to see me, when he looks at me with that gentle expression, when he takes on troublesome matters because of me and makes them seem like no big deal, my heart won’t stay still.”