🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 55
That day, after finishing a light lunch, we collapsed and fell asleep right away.
And we slept like the dead until the next morning.
Ideally, I wanted to rest here for a few more days, but we didn’t have that kind of leeway.
The fatigue hadn’t fully worn off, but no one suggested resting longer or complained.
And I once again felt relieved that Edmund had stubbornly insisted on treating my foot yesterday.
‘If my foot had been in the same condition as yesterday, I wouldn’t have been able to walk properly.’
I was truly glad I wasn’t a burden to the group.
We walked another full day, detouring east before turning north.
We ate coarse bread and water bought from an inn while walking.
We needed to save time.
Because we chose roads with few people, the endless walking was painfully boring.
So chatting idly was the only enjoyment of this journey on foot.
We cracked jokes.
And we discussed what lay ahead.
“Do you think Aunt noticed that we escaped?”
“Maybe the Duchess hasn’t noticed.”
“But Uncle might be different.”
I nodded while wiping the sweat from my forehead.
“Well, if they check nearby villages even a little, they might find out that we bought a corpse from the gravedigger.”
There simply hadn’t been enough time to erase traces that thoroughly.
Willis deliberately offered an optimistic outlook.
“But since the Duke and Patrick went to the imperial capital, won’t it take at least a few weeks before they arrive at the villa? The Duchess probably won’t report it immediately either, if only to minimize the situation.”
Scratching my cheek, I replied,
“Ah, about that… I think the Duke might find out sooner than you expect.”
“What?”
“Actually, as soon as the Duchess arrived, I sent a carrier pigeon to the Cohen main house.”
“What did you say?!”
“What?!”
“My lady! Why would you do something like that?!”
The three of them screamed in unison.
They were so loud that even the tits perched atop the spruce trees scattered in alarm.
But I answered calmly, smiling without the slightest shake.
“Well, if they start fighting among themselves, we’ll be safer.”
Question marks floated in all three pairs of eyes.
I explained in detail why I had done it.
‘I hope it works out well…’
The result was something I could only leave to the heavens.
Exactly two weeks after Edmund and Kasia’s escape.
The Cohen ducal villa was still steeped in a gloomy atmosphere.
That was because the Duchess, who should have been handling and directing the situation, had shut herself in her room, denying reality.
And faster than anyone expected, the Duke’s private carriage—adorned with dazzling crests—arrived at the villa.
The Duke, accompanied by his son Patrick and the head butler, stormed in, smashing the door to his wife’s bedroom in a rage.
Crack!
After just a few swings of axes wielded by the strongest servants, the thin wooden door was destroyed.
“What on earth have you done?!”
The Duke roared, trampling over the broken door.
The Duchess, who had been cowering under her blankets on the bed, went pale.
“My dear! What is this barbaric behavior?!”
“You’re the one who committed barbaric acts! You knew I was coming, yet you didn’t even step outside?”
The Duke pressed his brow as if a headache were forming, growling irritably.
“No—before that… why are you even here? I told you not to interfere with matters at the villa!”
“But! I—I did it for you and Patrick…!”
The Duke waved his hand, cutting off his wife’s excuses.
Then he asked Madam Lillipen, who was sitting beside the Duchess’s bed,
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
At that, the Duchess immediately glared at the head maid.
“Did you tell my husband?!”
The Duke’s arrival at the villa this quickly was unexpected.
‘They said it would take at least two or three months!’
Just traveling to and from the imperial capital alone took a month and a half.
On top of that, he was discussing marriage negotiations with the imperial princess—something that naturally took time.
‘Unless someone tipped him off beforehand, there’s no way he could arrive this fast!’
It was as if he had turned his horses around mid-journey and rushed here at full speed.
And in truth, that was exactly what had happened.
The Duke furiously pressed his wife.
“Is now really the time to be quibbling over that? Where is Edmund?”
Faced with her husband’s volcanic rage, the Duchess shrank instantly.
“Well, he’s… in the storage shed…”
The Duke turned on his heel.
“Where are the bodies stored? Lead the way, immediately!”
Madam Lillipen staggered ahead, guiding them to the shed where the half-burnt corpses were kept.
The flustered Duchess followed closely behind.
Inside the shed where the four bodies found in the carriage had been placed, the stench was overwhelming.
“Ugh!”
“What is this?!”
The corpses had been left unattended for two weeks and were already half-burnt.
The acrid smell of burning and the nauseating stench of decay mixed together, making it feel like one’s nose would fall off.
Patrick, who had a weak stomach, ran outside and retched.
The Duke could only enter after covering his nose and mouth with a handkerchief infused with incense, handed to him by a maid.
The sight of the burning, rotting bodies was horrifying.
It was impossible to make out even a trace of their living appearances.
Only the charred remnants of clothing and a few clues allowed identification.
The Duke examined the scorched silver hair remaining on what appeared to be a boy’s corpse.
“This… this is Edmund’s hair color… no doubt…”
The Duke’s voice trembled with shock and rage.
That snow-dusted silver hair was a distinctive trait passed down in the northwestern Lambert ducal family—rare even in the northern regions where silver hair was more common.
At present, aside from the old Duke, Edmund was the only one who possessed it.
The Duke’s shoulders shook.
“Uaaah! Aaaaargh!!!”
His eyes rolled with fury.
Forgetting even the stench, he grabbed a poker lying in the corner of the shed and swung it wildly.
Bang! Crack!
Crates stacked inside the shed shattered, and servants struck by the blind blows screamed.
Everyone watched the Duke’s rampage with terror.
And the one trembling the most was, naturally, the Duchess.
She knew very well what happened when her husband was blinded by rage.
Just as she tried to flee, the Duke noticed her—the root cause of this entire disaster—attempting to escape.
“Matilde!”
The Duke rushed toward his wife almost at a run.
He was still brandishing the poker menacingly.
“What have you done?! Why is Edmund in that state?!”
The Duchess screamed in terror.
“I—I don’t know! When I arrived, the accident had already happened!”
Though it sounded like frantic babbling, this was actually the best answer the Duchess had managed to come up with after agonizing over it for the past two weeks.
‘So what if I deny it? There’s no evidence.’
Even as she backed away with a deathly pale face, she was quick to shift the blame.
“It—it was Kasia who did it! She had an affair with the gardener, accidentally killed Edmund, and caused an accident while trying to flee! I didn’t do anything!!”
She shrieked desperately.
But—
“Bullshit!!”
As the Duke cursed, the poker slammed into the floor at her feet.
Bang!
Then he struck his wife’s cheek with the back of his hand.
“Aaah!”
“Where do you get off turning things into this mess and lying about it?!”
He beat his wife mercilessly.
No one dared to protect the Duchess in the face of the Duke’s fury.
Not even Patrick, their only son.
He was fixated on the corpse laid beside Edmund’s.
The charred dark chestnut curly hair was stuck to the bonnet.
“……”
Meanwhile, the violence and shouting between the couple only intensified.
“Aaah! No! I’m telling the truth! I didn’t do anything!”
“You lie shamelessly! As soon as you arrived here, Florence’s daughter sent a carrier pigeon confessing everything you did!”
“W-What?!”
The Duchess’s eyes widened in shock.
The head butler stepped forward calmly and reported,
“Miss Florence has been regularly reporting not only to the Duke, but also to me.”
Naturally, the Duchess knew nothing of this.
She had only ever heard the butler speak favorably of Kasia.
“She urgently sent a carrier pigeon saying that the Duchess had fabricated the Duke’s orders and was trying to kill Edmund immediately. She said that at this rate, Edmund would die before he could reveal any secrets.”
“No! I—I was only trying to extract the secret…!”
“She also said she was afraid that the Duchess intended to kill her as well.”
Two weeks after our escape.
We were riding atop a supply wagon, heading north.
The jolting shocks battering my backside had become familiar by now.
A lone bird flew across the unusually blue sky.
‘The carrier pigeon must have arrived safely, right?’
The letter I sent to the head butler—filled with blatant lies.
If it arrived safely, and if my prediction was correct, then by now the Duke and Duchess would be in the midst of a fierce fight.
‘If they’re too busy blaming each other, our safety will be more assured.’
And the scheme I had prepared wasn’t limited to just the carrier pigeon.
