Curtis, who was as cold as he was ruthless, allowed Yoris to speak freely while keeping an eye on the time.

At least he didn’t seem like the “fool” Count Diharman had complained about.

More importantly, until Yoris delivered the “crucial” message – one that couldn’t be conveyed by letters – he would continue to talk, no matter how much Curtis tried to silence him.

After all, this time had been set aside for Yoris. Whether he wasted it or, as Count Diharman hoped, gained some valuable insight depended entirely on what he chose to say and how he said it. 

While Curtis remained silent, Yoris continued to speak.

How long had it been?

He swallowed hard. Lost in his string of seemingly convincing stories, he gulped unconsciously.

As Yoris continued to speak, weaving together various stories, he unconsciously swallowed hard. Finally, the moment had come – in front of Duke Fraser, he would say the words he had wanted to say for so long. Or rather, the words Irvelyn had wanted him to say. 

“Duke Fraser.” 

“I’m listening.” 

“After all I’ve told you, I hope you’ll have some sympathy for Lady Romand. If you could meet her in person, just once…”

As expected, Yoris’s words inevitably returned to Irvelyn. Nothing had changed. He had wasted his time again. 

It took only seconds for Curtis to tire of the conversation. The patience he had shown out of respect for his connection to Diharman had finally worn thin. Yet his expression remained as unreadable as ever, giving Yoris no hint of his growing frustration. 

“So there’s really no reason for you not to meet her. Once you do, you’ll understand everything I’ve said…” 

“Stop.” 

With a single, short command, Yoris immediately fell silent. Curtis turned his eyes to him and asked, 

“Why should I pity Lady Romand? There are countless others far more deserving of pity than she. If we are to speak of noble blood, shouldn’t those of the highest rank be considered first?” 

“Y-yes, but that is only a matter of principle!”

Caught off guard by his own words, Yoris hurried to reply. 

But Curtis cut him off mercilessly. 

“Haven’t you learned that those at the top must always uphold principles for the good and peace of the Empire?”
“Of course! Of course the welfare of the Empire’s people is important, but aren’t the lives of those around us just as important? Isn’t it against principle to sacrifice the small for the greater?” 

Yoris spoke without pause, his voice filled with urgency, but Curtis’s gaze only grew colder. Had he not yet learned that not everything that is said is worth saying? Or did he know that and still continue to speak recklessly? 

There was no reason for Curtis to meet Irvelyn Romand. Pretending something existed when it did not, twisting falsehoods into truths – it was no longer just absurd. It was irritating.

When Yoris fell silent, a silence heavier than a grave settled over the room. For the first time in his life, he felt with every fibre of his being how suffocating silence could be. How much time had passed? A second? An eternity? The weight of that silence stretched time unbearably, pressing down on him like an invisible force. 

Then, just as the suffocating silence threatened to consume him, Curtis spoke. 

“Yoris Diharman.” 

“Huh? Y-yes!” 

Yoris jumped at the sound of his name, his body shaking as if he had been doused with ice water. The voice calling to him was colder than a collapsing glacier, deeper than any well he had ever looked into. 

Curtis sat with one leg crossed over the other, his elbow resting on the armrest, fingers pressed lightly against his temple. His expression was unreadable, his gaze sharp as he watched Yoris in silence. 

“What exactly are you trying to say?”

Although the question was ordinary, with no particular tone, the moment Yoris met Curtis’s eyes – deep purple, like the mysterious sea at night – he felt as if all his secrets had been revealed. A cold shiver ran down his spine. 

“Uh… I… I mean…” 

Under Curtis’s piercing gaze, Yoris felt frozen in place, as if jolted awake from a dream. It was like being splashed with cold water – his mouth was open, but no words would come. 

But Curtis gave him no time to gather his thoughts. 

“We’ll end our meeting here for today.”

Unable to disobey the order, Yoris walked to the door, the creak echoing in the silence. Meanwhile, Curtis, still staring down at the tea he didn’t care for, muttered slowly, 

‘Is she Romand’s bastard?’ 

For Yoris Diharman, Irvelyn Romand was like a saint descended from heaven. There had been no significant interaction between them, yet somehow he had idealised her to an almost incomprehensible degree. Curtis neither understood nor cared, but the reality remained. 

What disturbed him even more was the sheer desperation of this so-called love. The man who claimed to love Irvelyn was doing everything in his power to ensure that she met another man – Yoris. 

Curtis, who had never known love, found this profoundly strange. What kind of man, supposedly in love with a woman, would go to such lengths to introduce her to another man?

As Curtis’s violet eyes narrowed like a hawk’s, a deduction formed in his mind – still a hypothesis, but dangerously close to the truth. 

‘So she’s the daughter of the Romand family.’

In reality, it wasn’t difficult for Irvelyn to manipulate and indoctrinate Yoris. But her ambitions were so great that complications inevitably arose along the way. 

Curtis had no interest in or knowledge of Romand’s illegitimate child, but the heir to the Diharman family was someone he had to keep a close eye on. 

‘Anyone manipulating the Diharman heir cannot be ignored.’

Although Yoris was only an heir, it wasn’t yet a pressing issue. However, the fact that an illegitimate child from an obscure family had the power to influence someone from a prestigious household warranted further investigation. This wasn’t just a case of Yoris being blinded by love – his words didn’t add up. 

It was as if he was mindlessly saying whatever came to mind, grasping at any argument to achieve his goal without even understanding the meaning behind his own words. 

‘Was it Irvelyn Romand?’ 

At that moment, for the first time – really, for the first time – Irvelyn Romand entered Curtis’s field of consciousness. But that was all. She was nothing more than a task, a matter neither urgent nor important. Soon the matter of her disappeared completely from his mind. 

What unsettled him more, like ripples disturbing the surface of a calm lake, were other matters.

Dalia. Dalia Fraser. His late wife.

One day Curtis asked Sebastian to tell him everything he knew about Dalia.

Unexpectedly, Sebastian knew quite a lot about her. Or rather, he was expected to. It wasn’t unusual for Sebastian, the Duke’s head butler, to be close to Dalia, the Duchess.

However…

“I don’t know what food or colours Madame preferred. She always chose everything based on what you liked.”

Curtis couldn’t tell if the pain he felt was in his head or in his chest. He looked down at the cold tea and sank into the past.

“I only want to give you the best.”

Dalia, with flushed cheeks, wide eyes and a beaming smile. What had he said then?

He probably didn’t answer. He probably just heard the sound of the passing wind, like a breeze. But she didn’t.

“The Duchess did everything for you, everything. She knew you better than I did, even though I had served you since the day you were born.”

“The Duchess personally arranged everything according to your schedule. No detail was overlooked. Anything that caught her eye, she never missed. Even the things I missed, it seems the Duchess noticed them all.”

Sebastian then said that the feeling of discomfort and unease that Curtis had felt in his daily life was due to Dalia’s absence.

“I apologise, I am unable to serve you properly, Duke.”

Sebastian, his expression calm, offered an apology – but no promise to do better. And Curtis understood why. 

He knew that Sebastian was already doing the best he could. But for all his efforts, he still fell short of Dalia. It wasn’t just a matter of competence, it was something beyond that. 

Wasn’t that level of care only possible if someone gave him an almost obsessive amount of attention – so much that it felt unsettling? 

And at that moment, a new wave of unease washed over Curtis, something he hadn’t quite noticed before.