24.
‘Right, I’m certain of it. That’s why the male lead leaves for a foreign country to find his older brother, while Karl uses every dirty trick in the book to try and claim the female lead!’
Two such specific, unique storylines couldn’t possibly overlap by accident. Judith swallowed hard. If her suspicions were correct, then the man standing before her—Hyude Lamis, whom she had pegged as a mere commoner—
‘He’s actually a Marquis’s son! He isn’t Hyude Lamis at all. He’s Hyude Shoden!’
In the original novel, the Duke and Duchess Mayous had traveled abroad after their deaths, searching for a place that paid as well as the Mayous Ducal Mansion. Meanwhile, the male lead’s actual parents, the Marquis and Marchioness Shoden, were also scouring the lands for their missing eldest son.
“That’s why, whenever I see Young Duke Karl, I end up thinking of my own younger siblings,” Hyude continued, smiling with a gentle warmth, completely oblivious to Judith’s internal revelation. “It sounds a bit pathetic, doesn’t it? Just a doctor chasing coin to keep his family fed.”
“Oh, no. Not at all.” Judith waved her hands, her expression grave. “You’re someone with incredible fortitude. I don’t know all the details, but a person wicked enough to plot the poisoning of the Duke and Duchess would have tormented you relentlessly. It must have been truly difficult to endure.”
At her words, the corners of Hyude’s mouth trembled.
“You’re someone who loves your family enough to bear all that, aren’t you? I don’t think it’s pathetic. I think it’s heartwarming.”
“Ah…”
“I know what it’s like, too—being chased by loan sharks, teaching classes for eight hours a day. I know how heavy the burden of money is. So, I would never look down on you for that.”
Hyude stared at her intently for a long moment, then smiled softly. His ears flushed a faint, embarrassed red. “In this mansion, where everything is so brilliantly, suffocatingly opulent… I never thought I’d be understood. This is such sudden, unexpected comfort.”
“It’s nothing. I’ve just been in similar shoes—I’m even pretending to be pregnant, after all.”
As she steered the conversation, she thought to herself: ‘If the biological parents of such a kind and upright young man are a Marquis, surely it’s only right that I help him, isn’t it?’
Judith was finally debt-free and on the verge of wealth. Besides, hadn’t this whole affair concluded much faster than expected thanks to Hyude?
‘Hyude, I’ll help you find your biological parents soon.’
She smirked and made a silent vow. ‘I’m the type of person who always repays what I owe.’
* * *
Ekian was currently navigating the secret passage.
Originally, he had intended only to listen to the conversation between Judith and the young doctor. Eavesdropping was a deplorable habit, of course, but—‘That room is my room. It’s only natural to listen to a conversation happening inside it.’
Still, interfering in Judith’s private affairs was wrong. But—‘Judith is my wife on paper. Isn’t it only natural that I should be concerned?’
The man named Hyude Lamis was, quite annoyingly, far too handsome.
Judith’s words from earlier echoed in his mind: that once the contract ended, she would actively consider remarriage; that she didn’t care if her future partner was a commoner; that she would be happy with anyone capable and hardworking.
To his immense irritation, Hyude Lamis fit every single one of those conditions.
‘She didn’t even call him “Your Grace”!’
Judith had even granted him permission to address her by her first name. Yet, in the three years he had worked with her at the Gray Information Guild, they had never once dropped the formalities.
Ekian felt deeply unsettled, his original intent to eavesdrop fueled by a growing restlessness. But what ultimately drew him deeper into the secret passage was not the doctor’s charm—it was his words.
‘The Duke’s interrogation has finally ended. Or perhaps not. Given his temperament, he might start again in an hour.’
According to Hyude, the Duke was currently away from the dungeon, leaving only Bart imprisoned there. There would be guards, but since he could neutralize them with sleeping incense, he had to get there. There was something he absolutely had to ask Bart. Even at seventeen, he had never truly questioned Bart’s loyalty.
‘Judith was right about everything. I knew nothing.’
Just as he had been blind to Sarah’s true nature, he had been blind to Bart’s. Everything Judith had said had proven true. As Ekian hurried toward the dungeon, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. She had been nothing more than a clever, hardworking client…
‘For one thing, she saved my life.’ He bit his lower lip beneath his mask. ‘She saved Karl, and she saved my parents, too.’
He froze at the thought. Before he had even realized it, he was referring to the Duke and Duchess as ‘parents.’
Well, naturally. How could he not? They were the ones who provided a stable home, the ones who sent messages that they were waiting for him, even going so far as to forge a marriage certificate to protect him.
‘I trusted Bart,’ he thought, his eyes lonely. ‘I trusted his loyalty to the Mayous. I thought leaving was the right thing for everyone.’
He had been seventeen then. The memory of the Ducal Mansion’s physician, Bart, speaking in the dead of night, still haunted him:
*“Young Duke. I am a body that swears loyalty to Mayous. Therefore… although I respect and am fond of you as a person, for the sake of the Mayous, I must bring this to your attention.”*
That night had been filled with thunder and crashing rain. The Ekian of that day had been a boy with golden hair and dark red eyes—a boy who resembled Ben and Karl perfectly.
*“If you do not believe me, try not drinking the tea I bring you in the morning. The tea I prescribed contained a reagent that alters the color of hair.”*
*“…What?”*
He hadn’t drunk the tea, and within days, he had seen the black strands sprouting at his roots. The devastation of that discovery—the sensation of his world collapsing—remained vivid.
*“Tell me, Bart,”* he had asked in a low voice. *“Then who are my biological parents?”*
*“That is…”*
When he heard that answer, Ekian realized why Bart had urged him to leave. That was why he had defended Bart to Judith, claiming the man was loyal to the Mayous house.
But conversely, if Bart was *not* loyal to the Mayous… why tell him to leave for their sake? Why reveal the secret at all?
Questions piled up, one after another. He had to know the truth. Returning to the Ducal Mansion for the first time in five years, Ekian’s gaze darkened. His entire existence was being dismantled by Judith—the woman who had, by some twist of fate, become his fake wife.
* * *
Bart lay panting on the cold stone floor of the dungeon.
The Duke’s interrogation had been vicious. He had expected it, but the reality was agonizing. Still, he had already swallowed the poison. They didn’t know it yet, but once it took hold, he would be dead.
‘To think that wench worked at a pharmacy…’ Bart gnashed his teeth, gasping for air.
If he had only been able to dose them for one more year, he could have wiped out the Duke and Duchess entirely. No, since he had been drugging Karl’s tea as well, he could have eradicated the entire Mayous bloodline. That was his greatest regret. To him, the name Mayous was synonymous with pure hatred.
‘Your Majesty,’ he muttered in his heart, his malice burning. ‘Please, ensure the Mayous line is destroyed.’
It was a personal vendetta, a hatred that transcended simple loyalty.
Then, it happened. The Duke had stepped away to check on the Duchess, and the guards outside the cell slumped silently to the floor.
‘What is this?’ Bart frowned, lifting his head. As he looked at the figure standing silently outside his bars, his breath hitched.
“Long time no see, Bart.”
A man with a sturdy, powerful build stood among the unconscious guards. Even through the mask, Bart knew exactly who it was.
“Ah, I suppose this is the first time you’ve seen me like this.”
The man removed his white mask. The moonlight filtering into the dungeon revealed him: jet-black hair, cool, dark-red eyes, and a physique that moved with a lethal, noble grace. He was a man who could make anyone tremble with a single look—an elegant beast.
“Ha…”
The Ekian that Bart remembered had been a seventeen-year-old boy, standing on the threshold of adulthood. The man before him, forged by the storms of the world, possessed a terrifying, fathomless aura.
Bart’s knees trembled. Without realizing it, he whispered, “Ekian… Young Duke.”