The man’s face was illuminated by a dim scarlet lantern carried by a servant.

“Raise her head.”

At the command, one of the servants stepped up to the woman and forcibly pulled her chin up.

The moment she encountered a pair of red eyes looking down at her, she froze.

“Do you remember me?”

Elvin asked her.

Light returned to the woman’s eyes, which had been dimmed by the low, cold voice she heard.

How could she not know?

The boy, who had been exceptionally pretty since he was young, had grown up before she knew it and had become an imposing young man.

The boy’s appearance became more prominent as he grew up, but his childhood innocence and playfulness were nowhere to be found.

His gaze looking down at her was so dark and overwhelming like an abyss.

“Looking at your expression, you seem to have recognized who I am, but why are you silent? Did you become mute?”

“Why did you come all the way to the countryside?”

“You really don’t know why I came. They said you were dead, but you’re alive, and I didn’t know you had been hiding all this time. It took me years to find you.”

Elvin lit a candle.

The room became brighter and the faces became clearer.

The middle-aged woman was dressed in shabby clothes and she had an unremarkable appearance.

Her haggard face looked older than she actually was, but on closer inspection she retained the pretty face of her youth.

“Isabel, you look very old. You definitely weren’t like this when you were my mother’s maid, but you must have suffered a lot to look like this. I wouldn’t have recognized you if I just ran into you on the street.”

Elvin’s voice was tinged with light mockery.

The woman worked as a lady-in-waiting for the grand duchess of the royal family, and then as a maid doing chores in the countryside, her situation fell into hell overnight.

Isabel was both embarrassed and afraid.

She feared that the new wife of the Grand Duke of Croix would know that she was alive and that she would try to silence her so she had been living in hiding miserably.

The fact that the grown young master came to find her meant that he already knew something.

This was the moment she had been looking forward to the most for years and hoped would never come.

Elvin looked at Isabel with a subdued gaze and instructed the servant.

“Let go.”

The servant let go of the woman’s chin and she fell to the floor.

Isabel lowered her gloomy face to hide her trembling gaze.

Elvin looked at her with a cold gaze.

“The day my mother died, I heard that you were by her side all day. Tell me in detail what happened that day.”

Isabel took a deep breath.

When she closed her eyes, it was as if she had gone back to the past.

A couple was walking in the garden.

The woman was very beautiful with her docile expression, and the man was outstanding and full of dignity.

Beside them was a little boy who looked like the woman, and the woman’s belly was full.

And in the high room, the Grand Duchess looked down at them, covering her coughing mouth with a handkerchief.

As she removed the handkerchief from her mouth, the white handkerchief was stained red.

And then she jumped out of the window of her own room.

Excluding the servants in the garden, the first to discover the body of the Grand Duchess was her young son, Elvin, who had just returned home.

“Young master seems to already know, so I won’t hide it anymore. After His Excellency brought his mistress home, the Grand Duchess became more and more restless and heartbroken.”

Isabel paused. Her complexion had deteriorated to the point where it couldn’t get any worse.

She hesitated for a moment, but then she spoke again with a miserable face.

“That day, the woman bribed someone to mix the Grand Duchess’s food with a drug that obscures her mind, and lied that the young master had died in an accident on the way home.”

After her words, Isabel closed her eyes tightly.

She couldn’t bear to lift her head.

She felt more afraid than relieved, even though she had told the truth, which she had long buried in her heart.

It was because of the young man in front of her.

“Everyone who was involved in it or knew the truth is dead. The mistress silenced them. I survived because I noticed earlier and ran away.”

After learning how his mother had died, Elvin was completely silent. The room was deadly quiet and heavy, only the sound of breathing was heard.

Only the sound of the second hand of the clock hanging on one wall echoed through the room.

Isabel felt as if she would suffocate at any moment in the dense air in the room.

A few minutes later, Elvin nodded calmly.

“I see.”

His voice was calm and there was no particular emotional agitation.

But he couldn’t be truly indifferent.

Recalling the image of the past, Isabel felt like a stone had been placed on her chest, and her heart felt heavy.

“One more thing. Was it you who mixed the drug with my mother’s food?”

“It wasn’t me. That lady-in-waiting is already dead.”

“How did you know the information?”

“I was standing outside the door then. I… I didn’t know that woman could be so vicious.”

A look of pain crossed Isabel’s gaze.

“I have committed a mortal sin against the young master and the Grand Duchess. This sin cannot be repaid even in death. If you punish me, I will accept it sweetly. But make that evil woman pay for her crimes.”

“I thought so even if you didn’t say that.”

Elvin responded coldly, without any emotion, and turned around.

He ordered the men to lock the door and keep an eye on Isabel so that she would not escape, and then exited the building.

This place was bought from a local aristocrat’s villa as belonging to the Hermes organization.

He didn’t have to worry about running into anyone else.

Elvin walked slowly through the large garden.

A pendant made of white silver hung around his neck as usual.

His complexion was dark and his gaze was deeply sunken.

His imposing and expressionless face was bathed in the cold moonlight, and he looked as lonely as the empty night.

***

“Ahhhhhh!”

A loud sound of something falling to the floor was heard, and one of the servants screamed.

The blood that flowed from the corpse with its limbs bizarrely broken stained the green grass red.

Elvin, who had just returned home from his swordsmanship lesson, ran towards the sound.

The room of the Grand Duchess of Croix was on the third floor.

It was not a very high floor, so if you’re lucky, you might not die if you fall.

But, of course, the flower bed under the window was covered with a sharp fence made of bars.

Elvin stood right in front of the body.

The face of his mother, who always had a gentle smile, was covered with tears and had an unknown expression as if she was smiling.

What was so unfair was that she died without even closing her eyes.

A sickness had been cast over her bright and lively face for some time, but she was still beautiful.

But now, her blood-stained face looked so terrible that one could believe it was once beautiful.

“Young master, don’t look!”

Immediately, servants came running and covered Elvin’s eyes, but it was too late.

He had already seen something he shouldn’t have seen, and the memory of that day was still vivid even now, nearly ten years later.

Everyone said that the death of the Grand Duchess of Croix was a suicide, but he always had doubts.

After his father brought his mistress home, his mother fell ill from neglect and heartbroken, and her health began to deteriorate.

However, she was worried about her son, who would be left alone when she passed away, and feared that he would lose his things to the illegitimate son, and tried to keep her place in the midst of her illness.

But in the end, the Grand Duchess of Croix passed away, and it was Elvin’s birthday that day.

She had prepared a nice birthday present the day before and looked forward to it, but she committed suicide that day for unknown reasons.

Even if everyone believed the absurdity, Elvin was no fool.

However there was no clear evidence.

But he put in a lot of effort for a long time, he finally found the witness and heard the truth of the day.

It seemed that the fog that had obscured his vision for a long time lifted, but the truth was too cruel for him to bear.

Elvin lifted his head and looked up at the sky blankly.

Stars were shining in the dark night sky prettily.

The sky was dark like this and the moon was bright the night he said goodbye to the princess at the residence of the Marquis Flynn.

Her luscious platinum-colored hair was as soft to the touch as silk, and smelled so nicely.

Her white face reflected in the moonlight was beautiful, and unlike her nonchalant expression, her cheeks had slightly blush were lovely.

That day, she was obviously sad to hear that he was leaving.

The emotion in those beautiful eyes was definitely ‘disappointment’.

How precious to witness her emotions like she cared about his departure.

The thought of her comforted his lonely cold heart.

***

Over the past few days, the sky had changed from hot to cold on a whim, and today the heat seemed to have reached its peak.

On a day like today, people refrained from going out and rested at home unless there was a special occasion.

As a result, even during the day, the streets were quiet and the vegetation was dry with heat.

“What should I do?”

Claire was sitting in her room, biting her nails.

Her complexion was dark and she seemed to have lost weight.

After the incident, Baron Dana was furious that Claire had disgraced the family and put her under confinement in her room.

Except for three times a day when her maid brought her meals or came in to clean, she was alone in her room all day.

She had no contact with her nanny, and all the maids who brought her meals or came in to clean were strangers.

The Dana family was not as wealthy as other nobles in the capital, so there were not many servants they could hire.

Nevertheless, the fact that Claire was unfamiliar with the maids’ faces proved that Baron Dana was willing to go all out to isolate his daughter.

As if they had been instructed by him, the maids did not speak to Claire, and they just went about their business in silence.