Whoosh.

Despite it being winter, a flying insect from who knows where jumped into the candle flame, making a sound as it burned to death.

At that sound, Eloise looked up from the book she was reading.

“Oh my.”

Looking at the clock, she was surprised to see the hands pointing to 3 AM and closed the book she had been reading.

She didn’t mind closing the book. After all, she had just been staring at the same page as yesterday.

‘I wonder if Richard safely received my message?’

Eloise thought about the letter she had sent.

She had sent him the sentence she discovered in the Lenskian history book. In truth, she had many doubts while sending it.

‘I’ll be fortunate if he doesn’t think I’m insane.’

Who wouldn’t question the sanity of someone claiming that the owner of the house they’re staying in and her guests seem strange, and that something looks like a code that needs examination?

Eloise herself would suspect someone of being mentally unsound if they said such things.

‘I did explain the situation in my letter, but…’

That doesn’t change the fact that she essentially accused Lady Sinclair, a national hero, of being a spy.

‘I just have to trust my friendship with Richard!’

How much time had they spent together in Blissbury? And when Feltham was swept away by floods, Richard worked day and night for her and Ryan.

So even if he questioned her mental state, he would at least read it seriously once.

After reminiscing about the letter she sent for quite some time, Eloise went to bed and flopped down.

‘Did I send it for nothing? No, if I hadn’t sent it, I would have felt uneasy anyway.’

With her mind still in confusion, Eloise tried to fall asleep. But far from feeling drowsy, her mind only became clearer.

Finally giving up on sleep, Eloise got up again and sat at her desk.

She didn’t plan to read the book again. If she did, she would just end up like she had all day—not turning a single page and sinking into complicated thoughts.

She pulled out her bag from under the desk. It contained the book she had brought from her godmother’s house.

“I should continue solving this.”

As she opened that book, Eloise also opened the book she had taken from the study and placed it in the corner of the desk.

According to Sinclair, it was a recently published detective novel, yet the decoding method in that book applied to the decoding method in her godmother’s book.

‘How did she know?’

Perhaps it was a decoding method already in use somewhere?

With such thoughts, Eloise began to concentrate again.

Fortunately, decoding ciphers drew her focus much better than just reading a book. Thanks to this, she was able to concentrate on the task for a long time without other thoughts intruding.

What brought her back to reality was a voice breaking the deep night’s silence.

It sounded like someone shouting loudly, unable to contain their anger. Though the doors muffled the sound, making it unclear who was shouting or what they were saying, Eloise instinctively felt:

‘Sinclair?’

The voice coming from far below was definitely hers.

But no more sounds followed. The deep night’s silence enveloped everything again, with only the sound of birds chirping audible.

Perhaps those who heard the sound while half-asleep would have paid it no mind and gone back to bed, but Eloise, already awake, carefully got up and approached her door.

Even with her ear against the door, she couldn’t hear anything more.

She carefully opened the door, poked her head out, and looked around the corridor, but since it was such a late hour, no one remained on the second floor corridor.

Only the lamps lit by the maids who patrolled the corridor once an hour swayed very slightly in the breeze coming through the windows.

She should have returned to her room and gone to sleep.

Contrary to that thought, Eloise’s feet were already stepping into the corridor.

Her heart began to pound rapidly. Walking silently through the corridor toward Sinclair’s room in the dead of night, she would look suspicious to anyone who saw her.

But Eloise didn’t stop walking.

‘What am I doing since coming to this house!’

Who would have thought she would end up doing such spy-like activities?

But perhaps this too was addictive.

Despite knowing it was dangerous and suspicious, Eloise continued approaching Sinclair’s room.

‘Fortunately, she doesn’t seem to have noticed me.’

Otherwise, the idea that something was amiss might just be her delusion, and Sinclair might simply be a kind person with connections to Lenskian people.

With such complicated feelings, Eloise stood in the corridor, holding her breath.

A moment later, voices came from Sinclair’s room. Indeed, the sound she had heard earlier seemed to be her voice.

But with the door firmly closed, she couldn’t hear clearly. All she could tell was that Sinclair was talking with someone.

She put her ear lightly against the door, but the door was so thick that she still couldn’t hear properly.

She couldn’t keep trying to listen with her ear against the door like this.

A maid would patrol the corridor once an hour, and Sinclair might suddenly come out of the room.

If they were to meet, how would she explain her actions?

Yet she didn’t want to go back like this.

Even without decisive evidence, there were many suspicious aspects to Sinclair’s behavior.

Honestly, Eloise hoped all of this was just her delusion. She didn’t want to believe that a national hero who had extended a helping hand to her was plotting something with Lensk.

‘So this is to make everything certain.’

Rationalizing her deranged behavior this way, Eloise looked at the room next to Sinclair’s.

It was an empty room with no guests staying in it. The maids had left the door slightly open for ventilation, so Eloise could easily enter.

The room, with its fireplace unlit due to the absence of occupants, felt chilly. Rubbing her arms against the sudden cold, Eloise headed for the window.

After carefully lowering the window latch without making a sound, the moment she opened it:

“How can you not know why the military headquarters is moving?”

Sinclair’s irritated voice came through clearly.

‘Just as I thought.’

Rooms with lit fireplaces easily become stuffy, so even in winter, windows need to be opened frequently.

And Sinclair often ventilated when she was with Eloise.

So she had come to the window with a slight hope, and indeed, it was open.

Eloise approached as close as possible to Sinclair’s room and listened to the conversation leaking through the open window.

“Don’t be so anxious. Winter troop movements have been common, haven’t they?”

Then an unfamiliar man’s voice was heard.

“But not this year! Albion clearly said they were going to reduce winter movements to cut the budget for the military department!”

Sinclair’s voice rose again.

As she seemed to be walking back and forth while talking, her voice sometimes became clear and sometimes distant.

“Try to relax. By the way, how was the opera you went to last time? I heard the best singer from the north came.”

“Her voice was beautiful. Though the plot was terrible.”

Eloise, hugging her arms, crouched by the window and continued listening to the conversation.

For quite some time, Sinclair and the man with the unfamiliar voice continued their conversation. The snippets of conversation that came through were ordinary exchanges.

Meanwhile, Eloise felt increasingly cold and shivered.

‘I should have worn something warmer.’

It was a mistake to have come out in such a hurry without proper clothing.

When she was in Feltham, her mother would make a fuss if even a finger was exposed in winter, so she always dressed warmly.

‘I’ll get sick again at this rate.’

Just as she was thinking she should return to her room and sleep:

“By the way, does that woman still not know that Ryan Thornton is Ryan Wilgrave?”

Words that made her doubt her ears came through.