FJ 11

Chapter: 11

It was last summer, when they were spending their vacation at the northern territory’s summer palace.

A strange woman came looking for him.

She brought along a young boy, claiming the child carried the blood of the Carlisle ducal family.

“My child,” she said.

“That boy is yours.”

Under normal circumstances, she would never have made it past the guards to even reach the duke’s estate.

But since it was only a temporary residence they had stopped by for their summer holiday, discipline had grown somewhat lax.

When he had asked Juliet what she wanted to do during the vacation, she hesitated before saying she wanted to ride a boat on the lake.

They had spent three straight days doing nothing but staying in the bedroom, so he had agreed without much thought.

Juliet, smiling brightly—a rare sight—had excitedly left to prepare for the outing.

And in that brief moment—

A foolish new guard, completely absent-minded, mistook the strange woman for Juliet and let her inside.

When the uninvited guest burst in, he was lying on the bed like a languid black panther.

“He really is the duke’s son. Look.”

It was a woman he had never seen before. He didn’t recognize her face or her name—she claimed to have once been a maid to some actress.

The strange woman boldly presented the boy before him, as though displaying an ornament.

The child, dressed like a doll, wore a blouse adorned with an ostentatious brooch, shorts, and a hat. He looked about ten years old.

For some reason, the boy trembled violently and couldn’t even meet his gaze.

Lennox spoke with detached indifference.

“For a seven-year-old, he’s rather big.”

“Well—well, of course he is! He’s a child of the Carlisle family! Eric takes after you, Your Grace. He’ll grow up to be a fine knight!”

Momentarily flustered, the woman quickly regained her composure and shoved the boy forward again.

Then, as if to prove her point, she dramatically removed the boy’s hat.

“You can tell just by looking at this hair and these red eyes, can’t you? Eric is your son.”

Lennox quietly studied the terrified boy.

What the woman presented as evidence was something every citizen of the Empire already knew.

In the Carlisle direct line, children were rarely born.

Perhaps it was because the blood of something non-human flowed in their distant ancestry—or perhaps, as rumors claimed, it was the karmic retribution of a family that had shed too much blood.

Yet when children were born into the direct line, as if to prove their lineage, they were always born with black hair and red eyes.

Blood-red eyes, vivid and chilling—like drops of blood on white dove feathers.

That unmistakable trait was the reason the legitimacy of the Carlisle bloodline had never once been challenged, despite centuries of bloody succession struggles.

And indeed, the boy the strange woman had brought possessed rare red eyes and black hair.

“My son,” Lennox murmured, still speaking casually as he rose from his seat.

At that moment, Elliot—the secretary who had stepped out briefly on other business—heard the commotion and hurried back.

“Your Grace!”

Elliot took in the woman and the boy at a glance, immediately grasping the situation. His face turned pale.

“I’m sorry. I stepped away for just a moment—”

“No. Leave it.”

“Pardon?”

Lennox placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder, turned him around, then smiled faintly at Elliot.

“Come take a look too, Elliot. She claims this child is mine.”

“Y-Your Grace…”

“What do you think? Do we look alike?”

Lennox bent down to meet the eyes of the frozen boy.

“Your name is Eric?”

His voice was gentler than expected—soft, almost tender.

Despite his fearsome reputation, Lennox Carlisle was a man of striking beauty.

That handsome face worked even on children.

As the boy’s tension eased and he unconsciously smiled back and nodded—

Lennox’s hand shot out and seized the large brooch fastened to the boy’s blouse.

“W—!”

Before the woman could even scream—

Crack.

The brooch shattered in his grasp.

At the same time, the boy’s true hair color and eye color were revealed.

“Well played,” Lennox muttered coolly as he looked down at the fragments.

It was a crude magical device—one meant to alter eye and hair color.

Only then did the woman snap back to her senses and rush toward him, but the knights who had already stepped forward stopped her.

“Y-Your Grace! There’s been a misunderstanding—!”

“Elliot.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Remove them.”

After issuing the order, Lennox turned to leave the hall.

Behind him, screams and the child’s sobbing echoed, but he paid them no mind.

He was simply irritated and wanted to find Juliet immediately.

Part of him even thought it was fortunate that Juliet hadn’t seen this farce.

But before he could take even a few steps, Lennox Carlisle noticed a woman standing motionless at the entrance of the hall.

She was leaning against a marble pillar, one hand braced against it—

As if she would collapse if she didn’t.

“…Juliet?”

He was about to ask how long she had been standing there—but stopped.

Juliet wasn’t looking at him.

Her gaze was fixed on the woman being dragged away and the crying child.

“You’re making a mistake, Your Grace! This child is yours!”

The woman screamed until the very last moment as she was dragged out through the opposite door.

Lennox realized he was clenching his fist without meaning to.

He stared intently at Juliet, but she still didn’t look at him.

As though hypnotized, she couldn’t take her eyes off the mother and child being pulled away.

Once they were gone, and even the echoing screams faded from the vast hall—

Only Juliet and Lennox remained.

Only then did Juliet lift her head.

Their eyes met briefly, but he said nothing.

Juliet, too, only looked at him silently, her pale expression unreadable.

There was no accusation in her ashen face.

No shock.

She simply gazed at him quietly with her calm, deep blue eyes.

Just as she always did.

To Lennox Carlisle, it was an incident not even worth mocking.

To begin with, children were not easily conceived in the Carlisle family.

Whether it was because non-human blood flowed somewhere in their distant lineage, or because the family had accumulated too much karma through bloodshed, no one truly knew.

Despite being a bloodline driven by boundless desire, the family had surprisingly few collateral branches.

For that reason, the concept of illegitimate children barely existed in the ducal house.

And Lennox himself had always been careful not to conceive a child by accident.

He had never maintained a long-term relationship with any woman.

There was only one exception.

Juliet Monard.

Naturally, con artists wouldn’t know such details.

Believing only the rumor that children with red eyes were born into the Carlisle family, countless frauds had tried to extort money this way.

But had he explained any of that to her at the time?

He only remembered that his nerves had been frayed after the incident, that he had canceled the boat ride and the rest of the vacation plans, and returned immediately to the ducal castle.

Most likely, he hadn’t explained anything at all.

He hadn’t wanted to burden an already fragile woman with his inner thoughts or the dark secrets of his family.

Instead of stopping her and explaining everything, Lennox had simply walked past Juliet and left.

And Juliet, left behind, hadn’t chased after him or demanded an explanation.

She was so excited over something as trivial as a boat ride, like a child.

When he said they were leaving, Juliet quietly boarded the carriage without asking why.

She had stared out the window in silence the entire way back, and he hadn’t spoken a single word to her.

“Damn it.”

Their relationship had always been like that.

He explained nothing.

And Juliet never asked.

And for far too long, he had accepted that as normal.

A relationship destined to end someday anyway.

A woman he could dismiss at any moment with a careless farewell.

He believed brief, shallow kisses were better than troublesome conversations.

But maybe… it shouldn’t have been that way.

Even if Juliet hadn’t asked, should he have stopped her and demanded to know what she was thinking?

Lennox realized the possibility far too late.

Perhaps Juliet hadn’t seen the moment the woman’s lie was exposed.

Perhaps what Juliet saw was only him ordering a crying child and woman to be dragged away.

Perhaps she saw only the back of a man coldly denying his own child.

After he passed by her without explanation and left, Juliet had remained there alone for a long time.

What had that quiet woman been thinking, left all by herself?

Riding madly through the streets, Lennox ground his teeth.

“I just…”

“Please let me leave.”

“Haven’t I done well enough all this time?”

That faint smile.

That hurried manner, as though hiding something.

He didn’t even know what he planned to do—but one thing was certain.

He had to see Juliet immediately and confirm it.

That whatever worst thing she had imagined was not the truth.

That there had been circumstances she didn’t know.

And if—if Juliet truly was carrying a child, then after that…

The fine-bred black horse crossed the long distance in astonishing speed and arrived at the ducal estate.

The moment they reached the mansion, Lennox released the reins and leapt down from the heaving horse.

The front courtyard was chaotic with servants carrying luggage and preparing carriages, following his order to leave for the north.

“My lord?”

The butler recognized him and hurried over in surprise.

“Juliet.”

“Yes?”

“Where is Juliet?”

“A-ah… the young lady just went to the annex—”

Lennox didn’t wait to hear more.

He broke into a run toward the annex.

“My lord!”

The knights who had followed him arrived at the inner courtyard just a moment too late—by then, he had already thrown open the annex door and was charging up the stairs to the second floor.

Bang.

“…Juliet?”

But when he opened the lit door on the second floor—

Juliet’s room was empty.

An unoccupied room.

Only a single butterfly, scattering pale blue light, fluttered gently through the air.