A heavy silence hung between the two. Only their breathing filled the room. Finally, a brief question cut through the stillness.

“…An illegitimate child?”

Carlos asked again as if he still couldn’t understand Ines’s words. He seemed unable to believe the fact that she was illegitimate. Seeing his reaction, Ines nodded once more.

“…Everything known to the public is a lie. I’m not the Duke’s legitimate daughter. Naturally, my birth mother isn’t the Duchess either. I’m an illegitimate child born from another woman’s womb, not the Duchess.”

Ines poured out all her secrets to him, using her last bit of strength. Though her legs felt like giving out, she barely managed to hold herself up through sheer willpower. She didn’t want to show any more unsightly appearances to Carlos.

Unable to face Carlos’s reaction, Ines lowered her eyes.

Her hands gripping her skirt trembled slightly.

This was the first moment she faced him not as the noble Ines Claudia, but as the illegitimate child who had been despised by the entire family.

What must he be thinking of her now? Would he be angry that she had deceived him all this time? Or would he comfort her, asking why she hadn’t told him sooner?

Ines, who had been repeatedly clenching and unclenching her fists, finally found the courage to face Carlos and raised her head.

Once again, she met the eyes of Carlos, who had been staring intently at her. Unlike what she had expected, he neither got angry at her nor showed her pity.

Instead, Carlos…

“Now you’re even resorting to such lies.”

Was mocking her with eyes full of disbelief.

“I told you to at least put some effort into your lies. Ines Claudia, whom the Duke cherished so dearly, an illegitimate child? Did you think I would believe such nonsense?”

At Carlos’s sharp response, Ines let out a brief sigh.

‘He has no intention of believing me at all.’

He hadn’t believed a single word of the confessions she had made so far.

Instead, he dismissed her as a liar and denied everything she had said.

It felt like her blood was turning cold. It took immense courage to reveal her shame with her own mouth. Yet Carlos trampled on her courage by dismissing it as casual lies.

Ines murmured in a despairing voice.

“You… don’t believe anything I say, do you?”

“Say something that makes sense, and I’ll believe you. You might as well say you were r*ped by the Marquis’s son! Spit out the excuse that you had no choice but to suffer under the Marquis’s son because you couldn’t keep your chastity!”

That seemed to be the excuse Carlos had wanted to hear.

Ines weakly shook her head at Carlos’s relentless accusations.

“…It’s not an excuse, I… I just…”

It was just a small struggle to escape this hell-like situation.

She had no strength left to explain anything more to him. The moment he denied the truth she had kept hidden for so long, it was as if all strength left her body, and she could barely even speak.

‘Would he believe me if I showed him the scars on my back?’

Would he believe her then if she showed him evidence of how severely she had been abused as a child? She considered it briefly but soon abandoned the thought.

Of course not. He hadn’t believed her even when she had shown him the wounds on her body and explained how she got them. Perhaps he would even accuse her of getting those scars from the Marquis’s son too.

‘He won’t believe anything I say.’

Ines realized it. That she could no longer give him any trust. The distrust between them had grown too deep.

Carlos, who had been watching Ines standing there without saying anything, tightly clenched his fist. He assumed she was agreeing with his words.

He glanced at Ines’s body as she stared blankly into space. Unrefined words burst from his mouth.

“At least there aren’t more wounds than last time. Seems you behaved yourself today. Ah, or was it because you were hesitant to get serious injuries on the queen’s body now that I’ve returned?”

He seemed to be sneering about the rumors concerning Alfredo.

Having lost her spirit, Ines couldn’t give any response. She didn’t want to make any more excuses or have any more conversations.

Carlos, unaware of Ines’s state, took another step closer to her. Then he raised his hand. A thick ring was on his index finger.

“Do you remember what this is?”

Ines stared at it with blank eyes. It was a ring she knew well. And it was also something that Carlos shouldn’t have in his possession right now.

“Why do you have that…”

“Yes, it’s the royal ring that Joseph took. Do you want to know how it ended up in my hand?”

“…”

Carlos leaned down to Ines and whispered in her ear.

“Because I killed Joseph.”

At that moment, Ines drew in a sharp breath. Carlos continued speaking, unfazed.

“If I could kill my own brother, do you think I couldn’t kill the Marquis’s son?”

His voice penetrated Ines’s ear. His right hand caressed her protruding belly. As if he had never spoken informally, he suddenly switched back to formal speech with her.

“I don’t care whose child is in this womb. As long as you’re my wife, this child will be mine too. You cannot escape from me.”

An obsessive fixation could be felt in the man’s voice.

With those words, Carlos gently stroked her exposed shoulders with his fingers.

The scars scattered across her white skin bothered him. Seeing this, Carlos gritted his teeth.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to embrace Ines. But because she was pregnant, because he had to protect and guard her, he had suppressed his s*xual desires again and again.

Yet some man whose face he couldn’t even remember had not only ravaged her but also hit and broken her as he pleased. As his thoughts reached this point, the anger he had been suppressing suddenly surged up.

He twisted his lips as he muttered.

“Come to think of it, the doctor said that since you’re well past the stable period, conjugal relations wouldn’t be a problem at all.”

Carlos, who had been gently stroking Ines’s cheek, pulled her head closer. Then he devoured her lips right there.

“Mmph.”

Ines’s defenseless lips began to be ruthlessly plundered by Carlos. The relentless assault made it difficult to breathe. Just when she finally parted her lips to try to breathe, Carlos’s tongue invaded her mouth as if he had been waiting for this moment.

As his hot, wet tongue began to freely stir inside her mouth, his other hand that wasn’t supporting her head suddenly grabbed her br*ast. Thanks to her already being partially undressed, he didn’t have to bother with removing clothes.

Carlos, who had been kneading her br*ast that overflowed from his hand, slightly pulled away his mouth.

“Haa, haa…”

Just as Ines was taking some rough breaths now that she could finally breathe, Carlos taunted her.

“Your br*asts seem bigger than before. Ah, did they grow because the Marquis’s son touched them?”

It was vulgar language that the usual Carlos would never use. Each time he spoke, his hot breath tickled her face.

Seeming disgusted by Carlos who still kept mentioning the Marquis’s son despite her explanations, Ines closed her eyes.

The tongue that had been toying with Ines’s mouth moved past her white neck and reached her br*asts.

Like biting into sweet fruit, his teeth bit into Ines’s br*ast.

“Ahh…”

An instinctive moan burst from her lips. He didn’t stop there but continued to nibble on her *rect n*pple.

“St-stop…”

Though Ines weakly resisted and tried to stop him, his tongue showed no signs of stopping. Instead, Carlos pushed her against the wall and his hand immediately reached for Ines’s womanhood.

His fingers suddenly invaded between her unprepared folds.

“Hngh…!”

“For someone asking me to stop, you’re quite wet. Your lower mouth can’t lie even if your upper one does.”

The movement of his fingers that had invaded without hesitation quickened. The inside was tight, though another man had surely been entering and leaving just hours ago. He moved his fingers rapidly as if trying to train the passage.

“Hngh, ah…”

The wet, squelching sounds echoed through the room for a while. As her head tilted back, moans of pleasure escaped Ines’s lips.

Ines’s body trembled with her climax. The moment Carlos stepped back to lower his pants, seeming unable to hold back any longer, Ines twisted her body trying to escape from him.

But her resistance was stopped by his hand that didn’t miss that moment.

“Hnn…”

“We haven’t even started yet.”

Ines, who was fully showing her back to Carlos, sobbed.

Just as Carlos, who hadn’t heard her sob, was about to kiss Ines’s back again.

Carlos’s body suddenly stiffened as he discovered something.

Like someone who had seen something they shouldn’t have, Carlos furrowed his brows and moved away from her. Then he brought over a candle that had been hanging on the wall and held it close to her back.

That’s when he saw the scars he hadn’t noticed before.

“These are…”

He stroked the scars on her back with his finger in disbelief.

He knew well what these wounds were.

They were whip marks.

Ones that had faded after being inflicted a very long time ago.