Chapter 17: 17

“Why?”

The duke also felt that Leah and Diana had a slightly strange relationship.

But this is a mother trying to kill her child.

The duke couldn’t believe it at all.

Because he clearly remembers Leah, who said that she would wear evil clothes and have children.

 “That is…” 

“Because it looks like the lady is being abused by her mother.”

‘Edwin muttered inwardly. Edwin couldn’t be honest. Because there was no sympathy for his words.

He was just skeptical of his senses.

Edwin grew up being beaten up by his father countless times as a child.

If he didn’t listen, he wouldn’t be beaten or fed, so he had to go out and get something to eat.

 Edwin still vividly remembers that sad and lonely feeling at that time.

But the day Edwin first met Diana, the eyes of Diana crying on the cold ice floor were the same as those of his childhood.

So Edwin had forgotten that he was looking for the grand princess and reached out to Diana.

And when he happened to meet Leah, he was convinced.

She had a pretentious smile, but the look in her eyes did not show the slightest bit of affection.

No, it was to the extent that I could feel her life rather than hiding her affection.

However, since all of this was his heart, there was nothing he could say to the duke.

Edwin was speechless and bit his lip.

Seeing Edwin like that, a hypothesis that he wanted to ignore came to mind that could understand all of this in the head of the duke.

Diana’s skinny body and reasons to understand Diana who does bad things without a guardian.

The duke said with his hardened face.

“Edwin, do you think that Diana’s mother abuses Diana?”

 “…”

Edwin looked at the duke with a surprised expression on his face.

“I hoped…”

Edwin wasn’t the type of person to be sarcastic. If such Edwin had any doubts, he would almost certainly come true.

No, he too was expecting Leah’s abuse.

He just wanted to deny his strong unconscious.

The duke’s gaze turned to Diana on the bed.

She is smaller and skinnier than her peers.

When we first met, he thought she was like a war orphan who lost her parents.

“But my lord… Everything is just my suspicions, there is no solid evidence.”

“Edwin  bowed his head as if he was sorry.

The duke narrowed his brow at him.

It was also just a guess, and there was no solid evidence.

If abuse is right… Someone must have known

The duke immediately remembered the butler who behaved strangely the day he first saw the child.

-But she’s so small, she seems smaller than Seia. Is there any pain?

It has already been 50 years since the Grand Duke’s general butler took care of the Grand duchy.

A person who has been working since the time of the Grand Duke of the predecessors said that a person who was not so experienced could not answer that common question…

It was definitely weird.

A twinkle gleamed in the Grand Duke’s gold.

The duke looked at the door and said:

“Are you out there?” 

“Yes, my lord.”

The butler’s voice came from outside the door.

“Come inside.”

As soon as the duke’s order was heqrd, the door opened and the butler entered.

The butler bowed deeply to the duke.

“Did you call me, my lord?” 

 “Haron.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“How was your relationship with Diana and Leah in normal times?”

 “…Yes?”

The butler raised his head. The butler’s gray eyes were full of embarrassment.

In response, the duke felt his heart become cold for a moment.

The duke looked at the butler with a cool gaze and asked.

“Why can’t you answer me? Am I asking a difficult question now?”

 “…That is…”

“Tell me the truth. I’m already guessing.”

At the words of the duke, the butler fell to his knees and bowed his head.

“I’m sorry. Your highness. Everything is my fault. I should have paid more attention to managing the Grand duchy when you were not here, but I couldn’t.”

 “..Haron, have you ever seen her abuse Diana in person?”

At the question of the duke, the butler’s head fell even further.

“I’ve never seen it before… but the maids of the annex say that… they didn’t even take care of her meals properly. I heard that.”

The duke clenched his fists at the butler’s words.

It was because she was starving because she was skinny and smaller than her peers.

Starved in the grand duchy, the second richest in the empire after the imperial family.

The duke could no longer deny Leah’s abuse.

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“Hey, how could she to a child she gave birth to… a child that she struggled to give birth to…”

At the same time as the feeling of losing reason, the duke could not easily calm the anger that was boiling inside.

Why are you so angry?

Faced with the fact that she had been abused, his anger was too great now to be like this.

It was like finding out about Seia’s abuse.

He is well aware of the great upheaval that the child must have suffered, and that perhaps a child with no fault  must have suffered harm.

But he wasn’t too emotional to just get mad at them.

He acknowledged his sympathy for Diana, but it was just sympathy and no affection.

But while reason thought so, his heart did not.

The duke immediately had the urge to thrust a knife into the woman’s neck. Is it because Diana resembles Ariel?

I wanted to deny it, but I couldn’t deny that I could see Ariel’s face vaguely every time I looked at Diana.

Leah’s daughter is carrying Ariel’s face. What kind of god’s trick is this?

 “Sigh.”

The duke took a short breath and wiped his face with his hand.

But even if Diana resembles Ariel, he should not be swayed by his emotions.

‘That child is… not my child.’

The duke glanced at Diana and he saw the butler still on his knees.

“It was my fault for not taking good care of the Grand duchy”

He said, asking for forgiveness, but in fact, I could understand the feelings of the general butler.

He was the general butler who was particularly good with Ariel.

But since Ariel died so vainly, he probably didn’t even want to look at Leah and her daughter, Diana.

He must have been aware of it, but he was just ignoring it.

Yes, he can understand his mind.  Because the duke himself gave them a reason not to care.

But he also had a reason.

Since Diana was the woman’s daughter, they wanted to kill them all with his own hands, so she thought it wouldn’t matter what happened.

I hoped that my child, who was born so far behind Ariel, could not even make it up the family tree and was treated like a dirty illegitimate child and cried out in pain.

If it were him, it might be right to laugh instead of getting angry now.

Because I was destroying my own daughter, whom I risked my life for.  But the duke couldn’t help but laugh.

Just when the duke’s head was about to explode, he heard the servant’s voice outside the door.

“Your Majesty, Grand Duke.”

“What’s going on?”

“That’s… it seems that the lady’s mother is making a fuss at the entrance of the mansion.”

“What?”

As soon as he heard the servant’s words, his mind returned as if someone had poured cold water on his head.

She said the woman had come herself, the duke said in a cold voice to the servant outside the door.

“Bring her here right now.”

Shortly thereafter, a knock on the door was heard.

“Your Majesty, sweetheart”

 “Come in.”

Since there was only one person coming anyway, the duke cut off the servant and spoke coldly.

The door opened and Leah entered the room and saw two men kneeling inside the room and bit her lip.

The atmosphere in the room was unusual.

When Leah’s face turned pale, Leah and the duke’s eyes met for a moment, turning their gaze away.

Leah hurriedly lowered her eyes and bowed her head in the sad gold that seemed to tear herself to death.

“I see you, Grand Duke.” 

 “…”

After several minutes passed, the duke did not accept her greeting.

Leah’s waist began to tremble.

The moment she thought that her back would break if she held on any longer, the duke’s cold voice rang out.

“Raise your head.”

Leah’s face turned white with her head raised.

The duke opened his lips as he looked at the disgusting woman who couldn’t meet his own eyes.

“Why did you come here?”

“…Your Majesty, I…I’m here to pick up my daughter.”

“Did you come to know what happened to your daughter today? No, the question is wrong. You must have made it that way… Then, did you come to check to see if your daughter is still alive?”

Leah, who was bowing her head at the duke’s cold words, raised her head.

“What…you mean, coming to check if my daughter is alive? No matter how much I waited, Diana didn’t come, so she wandered around looking for the market where she had come. As soon as she heard that she was here, she ran away, but how… How could you say that… your majesty, do you know why our Diana is lying there and what happened to her…?”

Leah wiped her tears over Diana lying in her bed.

Leah’s face, looking up at the duke with tears in her eyes, was the face of a mother worried about her child.

But, in case anyone else knew, the duke never believed Leah’s tears.

Because he already knew that she was a wicked woman who shook Ariel’s heart by telling lies with her tears.

The duke looked at Leah’s tears with disgust and said,

“I’ve already heard from the butler that you were abusing Diana and raising her. Moreover, the mercenary who attacked Diana today was a mercenary who had been in and out of the inn where you had been working for a while. Did you mean to kill her? Are you human?”

Leah trembled at the sight of the duke who was tightening her whole body.

The duke, who had been looking at her with his eyes as if he would cut her throat right away, withdrew his gaze with a harsh sigh.

At that, Leah exhaled a choked breath and shouted in pain as if it were painful.

“No abuse! I have never abused Diana! She’s my only daughter. Did the butler have said all of that, Your Majesty. You are human. But how can you believe such a man!”

“I didn’t see the butler, I heard what the maids of the outbuilding had to say! You didn’t even feed the little girl properly!”

The duke raised his voice in disbelief.

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