Chapter 1. The fiancé is back
***
Kalian’s hand, which had just picked up a document, stopped.
“They said he’s been depressed because it’s been a long time since he’s seen you, Your Majesty.”
Kalian replied with a short sigh.
“…as far as I know, Duke Giltian goes there often.”
“Duke Giltian is a Duke and Your Majesty is Your Majesty.”
He’s right.
Kalian nodded.
“Thanks for letting me know. I’ll visit him soon.”
“And he’s also curious about Sir Thebesa.”
Kalian replied while picking up the document.
“It’s not the time yet. After a little more time, I’ll introduce her to him.”
“After Sir Thebesa becomes a baron?”
Kalian didn’t answer, but it was no less than an affirmation.
Well, that’s indeed the perfect time.
If it’s too fast, it’d be suspicious in other people’s eyes.
If it’s too late, it’d get another kind of suspicion.
Ver agreed with Kalian’s decision and took his leave.
“Then I’ll get going now.”
“Wait.”
Kalian gave the document he was looking at to Ver.
“Look into this, too.”
…even the devil would be nicer than this man.
Ver cursed Kalian inwardly and took the document he gave.
As he checked the document, Ver’s eyes widened.
At the top of the document, the words [Abolition of Slavery] were written in large letters.
*****
After hearing the news of her labor, Philen drove to the mansion without a break.
It was because he wanted to see his baby as soon as possible.
“What about the baby?”
After arriving at the estate in two days, Philen looked for his baby as soon as he entered the mansion.
The butler’s face darkened. It was the same with the other servants.
“What’s wrong?”
An ominous feeling hit his spine.
Philen grabbed the butler’s shoulders roughly and shouted.
“Answer me right now. Where’s the baby?!”
“…the undertaker is here to prepare for the funeral.”
The fact that the undertaker came…
“Is the baby… dead?”
The butler couldn’t speak, so he nodded.
“Hah.”
Philen stepped back.
His golden eyes trembled.
“The baby, my baby is dead…”
“Master!”
When Philen’s body staggered in great shock, the butler and the servants hurried to support him.
“Are you okay, Master?”
“…do you think I’ll be okay?”
Suddenly, his hardened eyes gleamed with murderous intent.
Philen grabbed the butler’s collar and shouted.
“How on earth did the baby die? What did the doctor do?!”
“Ma, Master, your hand…”
“No, I’ll hear it directly from the doctor. Bring Cecily’s doctor here!”
Philen met Cecily’s doctor in the drawing-room.
Cecily’s doctor, Mavel, was a doctor hired by Cecily, not the mansion’s doctor.
Of course, before entering the mansion, his identity had been verified thoroughly.
Mavel liked to gamble, so he owed some debt, but other than that, there’s nothing wrong. He was definitely a talented doctor.
Mavel, who faced Philen, bowed down with a tense look on his face.
“I, I see the Duke, the sword of the Empire…”
“Tell me the situation.”
Philen cut Mavel’s words and asked him as if pressing him.
Mavel didn’t dare to look directly at Philen and told him in a quivering voice.
From when Cecily’s labor started earlier than scheduled, to the baby’s stillbirth after a long period of labor, all of it.
“Stillbirth?”
Doesn’t that mean he’s already dead when he’s still in the womb?
I thought it went wrong after he was born, but stillbirth?
“When I left the mansion, didn’t you say that the baby was healthy?”
“Ye, yes.”
“Then why did the baby die? What happened to Cecily?!”
Mavel replied with trembling lips at his murderous intent that pierced his skin.
“It, it looks like I need to check the details a bit more, but the situation is caused by… poison.”
“Poison?”
Philen’s face turned awfully.
“Who poisoned her?”
“I, I don’t know that far, but it is certain that Young Lady Cecily took a deadly poison and it had an adverse effect on the baby.”
As soon as Mavel finished speaking, Philen jumped up from his seat and called the butler.
“Harchen!”
He called him by his name instead of ‘Butler’ as usual.
It was proof that he was very angry.
The butler, who had expected this ending from the moment Philen said he wanted to meet Mavel, rushed into the drawing-room.
“Did you call me?”
“Bring the chef and maids who were in charge of Cecily’s meals and snacks to the hall right now!”
Since Cecily couldn’t have poisoned herself to harm the baby, someone must have poisoned her.
To harm her or the baby.
In this case, it was most likely that her food was poisoned, so Philen summoned all the servants who were in charge of Cecily’s food.
“Everyone had gathered in the hall.”
Hearing Harchen’s report, Philen nodded.
“Alright. Mavel, follow me.”
Philen headed with Mavel and Harchen.
The servants, who were suddenly summoned while working, showed signs of tension on their faces.
It was because they could guess what Philen called them for.
“He does think we did anything to make his baby stillbirth, doesn’t he?”
“I think so. Other than that, there’s no reason to call us like this.”
The people, who were buzzing, shut their mouths in an instant. It was because Philen appeared in front of the railing of the long hallway connected to the central staircase.
He was quite far away, so it was hard for them to see what kind of expression he was making, but they could clearly tell that he was furious.
Of course, he was. Because it was the baby he had been waiting for.
The servants who knew that fact better than anyone else put their necks in like a turtle and read Philen’s mood.
“If you turned yourself in, I wouldn’t have done this. So, I’ll ask another question.”
Philen came down the stairs, unbuttoning his shirt that was tightening his neck.
“Have you ever seen any of these people do anything suspicious?”
And then, he said while looking at the servants, who looked at each other.
“Anything is fine. I’ll reward those who give me information.”
Despite Philen’s words, the servants remained silent and looked into each other’s eyes.
Their behaviors made Philen feel even more irritated.
BANG-!
Philen hit the railing hard. As a result, the wound on his right hand ripped open and the bandage was dyed bright red.
Mavel looked at Philen’s hand in bewilderment.
“Duke, your hand…”
“The important thing wasn’t my hand right now! But my stillbirth baby!”
Red veins were clearly visible in Philen’s eyes.
“My first child was a stillbirth. And he was poisoned by someone!”
Poison?
All the servants were surprised and took deep breaths.
They knew that something went wrong with Cecily’s child, but they didn’t know that she had been poisoned.
Before Philen spoke, the only people who knew about it were her doctor, Mavel; the butler, Harchen; and her exclusive maid, Ellie.
“Co, come to think of it…”
At the sound of someone muttering quietly, all the eyes of the servants turned to her.
Philen also looked at the person who said that.
Common brown hair with freckles.
It was Ellie, Cecily’s exclusive maid.
Ellie, who received everyone’s attention at once, was bewildered and covered her mouth with her hands.
“I, I apologize. I said something weird… ”
“I guess you have seen something?”
Philen, who had completely come down the stairs, approached Ellie and asked.
Ellie couldn’t look directly at Philen, so she hurriedly bowed her head.
Her face turned white like a blank sheet of paper.
“I don’t know if I could say I saw it, or not…”
“Anything doesn’t matter. Tell me everything you know.”
As Philen urged her, Ellie hesitated before opening her mouth.
“That day, I saw the chief maid sneaking into the kitchen with a strange vial.”
“Misa?”
When an unexpected person was mentioned, Philen frowned.
Ellie shook her hands and hurriedly added.
“O, of course, I didn’t mean that the vial was a poison. I just saw her carrying it in, and I had no idea what was inside.”
“Come to think of it, wasn’t the chief maid the one who brought Young Lady Cecily’s snack that day?
The words that the servant suddenly spat out began to stir up the other servants.
Of course, no one said that Misa would be the culprit.
Everyone said there must be some misunderstanding, and that Misa couldn’t be the one who did that.
“The chief maid, there’s no way that Misa did that.”
It was the same with Harchen.
He spoke to Philen seriously.
“Doesn’t Master also know that Misa is not someone who would do that?”
“…it’s not something I can guarantee.”
After thinking about it for a moment, he said something that didn’t make sense and looked back at the maids.
“Where’s Misa now?”
At Philen’s question, the maids looked at each other.
“Come to think of it, the chief maid, I haven’t seen her since yesterday.”
“I thought she was out of town.”
“Harchen, where’s Misa?”
If Misa had gone out of town, Harchen, the butler, would have known.
So he asked him, but Harchen didn’t know either.
She went into the kitchen with a suspicious vial.
And that day, even though she was not in charge, she brought Cecily’s snack.
And after the incident broke out, she didn’t show up.
Many things were suspicious.
Misa was the maid who had been managing the mansion even before Philen was born.
For Philen, she was like family.
So, if possible, he didn’t want to doubt her, but under the circumstances, he couldn’t help but doubt her.
“Find Misa immediately.”
Philen ordered the servants. The servants moved busily, looking for Misa.
“Harchen, lead me to Misa’s room. I’ll search her room myself.”
“Yes, Master.”
Harchen led Philen to Misa’s room with a solemn look.
It was right under the room Leila used to use.
Her room was firmly locked.
“Open it.”
Harchen opened the door with the master key he had.
As soon as he opened the door, the smell of fishy blood hit them.
“…!”
Misa was lying on the floor with a knife stuck in her heart.
****
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