The young duke, who was an exact reflection of the man he would one day become, pressed his pen firmly to the page as he wrote.

Having memorized the imperial alphabet, Bella learned the pronunciation of each letter and how these sounds came together to form words.

Even after that, she continued to learn from him.

“You’re wrong! How many times have I told you this reads ‘chair’?”

“How can I help it if I mix it up with ‘doctor’?”

“How can you possibly confuse ‘doctor’ and ‘chair’? Are you really that stupid?”

“I’m not stupid! I’m Isabella!”

“Then you’re Stupid Bella.”

The boy had been raised under strict discipline, and was expected to master anything he learned perfectly by the end of the day. However, teaching was not his strong point.

He had little patience.

Whenever she forgot what he had taught her the previous day, he would become frustrated. His words could be sharp and cutting, often more so than he intended. Yet, no matter how exasperated he became, he never gave up on her.

Sometimes, she would hide, unable to endure his stern reprimands any longer. But somehow, as if guided by instinct, he always found her and brought her back to the library.

Thanks to his relentless persistence, the girl began to improve.

Little by little, the letters stopped swimming before her eyes. Sentences began to make sense. At last, she was able to read a whole children’s storybook from beginning to end unaided.

While waiting for her parents, who worked on the estate and often stayed late, she would sit quietly with a book, filling the silence with stories rather than loneliness.

‘So…’

Despite never having received a proper education herself, it was none other than the young master who had taught her to read.

Bella watched her younger self, a child already accustomed to spending time alone. And beside her, always, was that boy: Logan Fraser.

“Isabella… was my first love.”

The first love he had spoken of—

Had been her.

***

Logan slowly opened his eyes.

He thought he had only dozed briefly in the chair.

But he was lying in the bed.

The familiar ceiling of his bedroom filled his vision.

‘Bella?’

He had clearly laid Bella down on his bed, before sitting down beside her and closing his eyes.

Logan turned his head sharply and scanned the room.

Bright midday sunlight streamed through the drawn curtains, illuminating the immaculate bedroom. The quiet room showed no sign of anyone being there.

“—Ugh.”

As he tried to push himself up, a sharp pain shot through the arm that was braced against the bed. He swallowed back a groan.

Thick bandages were wrapped around his arm and shoulder. The skin beneath was marred by scattered burns which still radiated heat.

On the bedside table were neatly arranged painkillers, a glass of water and spare bandages.

The doctor had been there.

But Bella was nowhere to be seen.

‘Where is she?’

The pain proved that this was not a dream.

A flicker of unease gripped him — had someone sent her away without his permission? Ignoring his body’s protests, he forced himself out of bed.

At that moment, the bedroom door swung open without anyone knocking.

Scarlet froze when she saw him awake, then hurried towards him.

Her crimson lips pressed into a thin line before her hand struck his cheek with a sharp crack.

“Have you lost your mind?”

Her voice trembled—anger and relief twisted together into something almost desperate.

“What is that maid to you, that you would throw yourself into a burning inferno for her?”

From the moment Scarlet heard that a doctor had been called to Logan’s rooms at dawn, she felt a cold sense of dread in her chest. The estate had already been thrown into turmoil over a maid, so she feared that Logan might have been harmed.

But the truth was far worse than anything she could have imagined. The maid that Logan had taken in had been abducted by a prisoner seeking revenge.

In an attempt to save her, Logan had run straight into a burning mansion.

Seeing him lying there, his body wrapped in bandages and with gaping wounds, tore open old wounds she had long tried to bury. It dragged her back to the hell she had once endured: the night Logan barely survived the flames, her young son struggling for breath in her arms as the fire consumed everything around them.

“Do you even know you were unconscious for two days?”

Her voice rose.

“Do you have any idea how terrified I was that you might not wake up—!”

Logan listened with his head turned aside, absorbing the storm of her words. Then he reached up and gently caught his mother’s trembling hand.

“I’m sorry.”

His voice was calm, but the roughness in it betrayed the state of his body.

“But I only did what had to be done.”

There was no hint of an excuse in his tone.

No regret.

Even if the flames were greater than before, he would still step into them to save Bella.

This certainty pierced Scarlet’s heart even deeper.

She had never understood Logan and how he could be bound to the past all these years over a single maid he could not forget.

Slowly, her hand fell to her side.

She resented the ghost that refused to let him move on, no matter how much time had passed.

***

Bella had been moved to the room next door to Logan’s.

After giving up his own bed for the maid, Logan’s mother found him asleep in a chair and quietly arranged for Bella to be moved there.

Only after confirming that Bella was safe did Logan allow the physician, who had remained at the estate to care for them both, to examine him properly.

With rest and treatment, his condition improved quickly. However, despite the doctor’s firm objections, Logan returned to his duties that very afternoon as though nothing had happened.

Jeremy, who had been managing affairs in his absence, entered the room carrying a stack of overdue documents and a newspaper filled with articles about the incident.

“With no official statement released while Your Grace was unconscious, unverified and speculative reports are spreading rapidly.”

Logan accepted the newspaper from him.

The bold, provocative headlines caught his eye at once.

[Escaped Convict Jack Hunter Attacks Duke Fraser. Retaliatory Crimes Against Nobility on the Rise…]
[Fraser Struck by Yet Another Misfortune. What Lies Ahead for the Newly Launched Hotel?]

The articles were rife with speculation.

The most widely circulated account claimed that Jack Hunter attacked the Fraser family in retaliation for their legal dispute after escaping from prison. It alleged that he attempted to set himself on fire after the attack and was subsequently arrested by the police.

Truth and conjecture were intertwined.

However, Bella’s name appeared nowhere.

“Shall we issue a correction?”

Logan shook his head.

“No. Let the press speculate as they please.”

The public loved a scandal.

The hidden lover of a nobleman would make an irresistible headline. Logan understood better than anyone that the moment the full truth came to light, the press would turn its attention to Bella once again.

For now, hiding her behind a veil of lies was the only way he could protect her.

“And… Sir Vincent asked that this be delivered to Your Grace.”

Jeremy handed him a thick envelope.

Inside were documents heavy with the passage of time. The paper had yellowed to a brown hue; the edges were worn, and the faded ink was barely legible.

“I understand. You may leave.”

With one swift movement, Logan cleared everything off his desk and spread the documents across its surface.

At first glance, they appeared to be unrelated: construction expenditure records from twenty years prior, account ledgers with erased names, and receipts for the sale of artworks. Yet they all belonged to the Everett family.

Certain items and names appeared repeatedly, however.

Logan studied them carefully. Then he opened a drawer and placed all the documents he had obtained from his informant on top of the old records.

A low breath escaped him.

“Ha.”

As the information he had gathered aligned with the documents Vincent had sent, the pieces that had previously existed only as suspicion fell perfectly into place.

All of Count Everett’s corruption was exposed on his desk.

After watching Amelia being taken away by the police, it seemed that Vincent had finally decided to confront the dark truths hidden within the family he once trusted.

‘So that’s why he returned to Rosedale in such haste.’

Logan gathered the documents and returned them to the envelope.

As he did so, he sensed that it would be a long battle.

Exhuming the past would come at a price.