“Mommy!”

The child came down from her father’s lap and ran to Eriel with a bright smile.

“Mom, you know. I ate with Dad today……”

The child’s small fingers grasped Eriel’s hand. The child’s face looking up was bright.

It was the image of the family Eriel had wanted all her life.

Sadly, at this moment when her heart was broken, the family image Eriel had most wanted and hoped for unfolded before her eyes.

At the moment she decided to throw Bruno into a place worse than rock bottom.

What meaning would this kidnapping incident have for Damian?

The fact that he returned to the mansion without being detained means he must have talked with His Majesty the Emperor about ending this story politically.

But, his daughter was kidnapped…… At least Bruno……

“Mom…?”

The child holding Eriel’s hand blinked.

Lucy, sensing something unusual, stopped walking before Eriel did.

“Lucy, your mom and dad have something to talk about today, so shall we walk in the garden tomorrow evening?”

When Eriel said this with a smile, Lucy slowly nodded.

*

Wouldn’t it be different this time?

Wouldn’t he make a different decision for me and Lucy today?

Even though I was greatly disappointed, I still wanted to believe.

“……Eriel.”

Damian’s voice calling Eriel softly was carried by the wind.

If Damian apologized to Eriel about Bruno’s matter here and said let’s try to correct it even now, Eriel also resolved to forgive him without saying a word.

It was just three syllables he uttered, but that was enough.

Hadn’t he gifted Lucy a book on political science?

Hadn’t he put Eriel’s handkerchief in a box?

Though he doesn’t talk much, I believed that in Damian’s eyes, besides the empire, there were Eriel and Lucy.

“His Majesty told me to resolve the matter quickly.”

Ah…..

“If Genoa is shaken, the internal cohesion will weaken. In any case……”

Genoa……

How love makes a person so insignificant.

To me, family is you and Lucy, but why is your family the entire Genoa duchy?

Why only now, after placing our daughter on your knee, do you make people’s hearts so miserable……!

The wind blew.

The heartless husband brought up fragmentary work talk. As if Eriel’s wailing was just a momentary dream.

As he always had, he silenced the fact with silence and covered it with his own affairs.

I wanted to believe that the tears wetting my eyes were just traces left by the humid summer breeze passing by.

“And then?”

Eriel’s gaze, moving slowly, reached Damian.

“I’m planning to send Bruno as an envoy to the Eastern Continent and cover up the kidnapping incident appropriately. It would be faster to resolve the matter if we say they were also behind the rebellion.”

“……Yes. Do that.”

Eriel laughed lightly.

She felt the strange phenomenon of tears that had pooled in her eyes disappearing in an instant.

To treat her daughter’s kidnapper like that……

Yes, like that.

She no longer felt any value in exchanging words with him.

To be able to send away her daughter’s kidnapper so easily for political reasons. It was unbelievable and at the same time, disappointment spread throughout her body.

I’m such a fool for still trying to believe……

“I’ll get up now. I have to read a book to Lucy.”

*

Damian hadn’t fallen asleep, but he deliberately didn’t open his eyes.

As the morning sun shone on the mansion, he felt Eriel’s warmth leaving.

Not just in the bedroom. The entire mansion was gloomy as if dark clouds had gathered.

Last evening, Eriel’s mouth had completely closed after their brief conversation. Damian sighed as he rubbed his face dry and raised his upper body from the bed.

No matter how Eriel acted, today was an important day for him.

After a meaningless meal, Damian quickly moved to the study.

It had been just one day since he returned to the mansion from the palace. In just one day, dozens of letters had poured onto the desk.

Among the numerous letters, a golden letter that clearly came from the palace stood out.

The news that the Duke, who was said to have been detained, was fine and at the duchy would have spread, so the noble faction as well as the perpetrators who plotted the crude rebellion must have been meeting nonstop.

“Hah……”

Such things would be written.

However, Damian’s arm reaching for the letter soon fell, and he sat down heavily in the chair, sighing repeatedly.

Various thoughts came to mind, but he couldn’t properly conclude any of them.

Damian covered his face with his arm to avoid the blazing sunlight.

“My, My Lady!”

The sound of running shoes echoed through the corridor, reaching the study. Behind it, the butler’s voice rang out like a scream.

“My Lady! You mustn’t!”

But the butler must not have been able to stop Lucy, as the door of the study opened with a bang.

“You stupid daddy!”

Lucy, who flung open the study door, shouted loud enough to make the room shake.

“Didn’t I tell you to be a nice daddy before I find a new daddy? Did you forget everything we talked about while eating?”

Lucy frowned intensely, infusing her anger into her stomping footsteps.

Damian lowered his arm and looked down at Lucy.

Although anger covered her green eyes, Damian felt rather at ease facing such a Lucy.

The butler who had followed anxiously behind Lucy bowed with an apologetic face.

Damian nodded once and gestured to allow the butler to withdraw.

“Daddy!”

As soon as the butler closed the door, Lucy walked to the sofa and plopped down opposite.

“How can you just send the kidnapper of your daughter as an envoy to the Eastern Continent? Huh?”

Her short legs that didn’t reach the floor dangled in the air.

Contrary to that, the child’s coldness enveloped Damian, but rather, Damian burst into laughter at his daughter’s appearance.

“……You’re laughing?”

Lucy’s eyes crinkled. Her foot that had stopped in mid-air filled Damian’s view as if in disbelief.

“I think I told you to do an event for Eriel.”

Damian brought up the conversation he had with his daughter at the dinner table last evening.

“No……! Daddy! If we do an event now, Mom will beat us up!! Really!”

Her eyebrows furrowed as if looking down on Damian, moving slightly. She sighed deeply and crossed her arms, looking just like she was seeing Damian as beneath her.

“First! I’ll listen and judge for myself, so tell me why the incident turned out like that.”

Lucy, who took out a notepad and pencil from her bosom, nodded toward Damian.

“His Majesty the Emperor told me to cover up the incident quickly.”

“His… Majesty… Emperor, hmm……”

Lucy, who slowly wrote down ‘His Majesty the Emperor’ on the notepad, frowned.

“Hmm….. You could have punished Uncle Bruno while carrying out His Majesty’s orders. Is it because of your great affection for your younger brother, or something like that?”

“Not at all.”

“Not at all…?”

As Lucy tilted her head, Damian tilted his head along with Lucy as if wondering why such a story came up.

“Sending him to the Eastern Continent is not out of affection. Nothing is precious to me except Eriel and Lucy, you.”

“What did you say to Mom?”

“I said the same thing.”

“……Pardon?”

“I said His Majesty the Emperor told me to cover up the matter quickly.”

“No, not that. Did you say nothing is precious except Mom and me?”

Silence followed, but Lucy seemed to understand Damian’s unspoken words as she shook her head.

“I guess you didn’t. You wouldn’t have said such a thing. If it’s not affection, why did you say you’d send Uncle Bruno as an envoy to the Eastern Continent?”

Damian, looking at the child, swallowed hard. His moving eyes, as if contemplating, finally uttered the truth.

“It’s because I can’t fully read the other side’s thoughts right now. Framing Bruno as the culprit itself could be for the internal division of the Genoa family, and furthermore, it could be used as a pretext to sprout division within the imperial faction. Above all, if we send him as an envoy to the Eastern Continent, he can be disposed of at any time.”

“To the afterlife?”

At Lucy’s direct question, Damian closed his lips.

Eriel’s wailing passed through his mind.

Lucy is still 7 years old.

Yes, 7 years old. To Damian, who had undergone harsh successor training at 7, eliminating someone could be part of political education, but for a normal 7-year-old, it would be something that shouldn’t be said.

As silence fell again, Lucy put down her pencil.

“Alright, Daddy! More importantly, then, why did you pretend not to know about Uncle Bruno’s ill intentions all this time?”

“That’s…… Because I owed a debt.”

“……A debt?”

It seemed to be an unexpected answer, as Lucy opened her mouth in surprise. Damian slowly nodded.

“He saved my mother in my stead.”

At Damian’s words, Lucy closed her lips.

The existence of Eriel, who was also Lucy’s mother, was a very significant presence to Lucy, so she seemed to understand the meaning of those words.

The ticking of the clock filled the room. However, the brief silence that filled the study was broken by Damian’s next words.

“But now that debt has been fully repaid. This will be the last cover-up for my brother. However…… I can’t help His Majesty’s orders. ……Lucy.”

Damian called his daughter, who had been lowering her gaze.

On a very warm summer afternoon, very bright sunlight shone between the two father and daughter sitting across the table.

The two blonde hairs reflecting the same color shone.

“When the rebellion incident is resolved, you won’t be able to see your uncle again. Derek too, of course. Are you okay with that?”

“……Of course, Daddy.”

Lucy smiled brightly at Damian’s words.