The moment Edith heard the thug’s question, her heart sank.

‘How does he know I’m collaborating with Walter? How?’

But the thug, Jeffrey, gave her no time to think.

“Answer with your head.”

He insisted, clenched his jaw tightly.

Anyway, since she wasn’t pregnant with Walter’s child, Edith shook her head.

But Jeffrey only sneered.

“If you take too long to answer, it’s clear you’re lying. Did the lord dare to ruin the plan and touch you?”

He pushed Vivian into a suitable bush and dragged Edith to a place he had scouted beforehand.

Though Fortrion was already short of both knights and servants due to lack of funds, today everyone was focused on the pregnancy celebration in the garden.

So, he planned to secretly take Edith away, hiding her in the luggage compartment of the private carriage he had ridden in.

“Well, we’ll talk about it later. You still have several months left until you give birth.”

Jeffrey gestured to his entourage—people he’d hired with money he’d won over the years in gambling houses from the lord and others.

Understanding his orders, they lifted Edith, blindfolded her, and gagged her.

Being simultaneously silenced and threatened with death, she couldn’t even let out a moan.

“If you don’t want to die, just wait quietly here.”

The carriage he had brought had empty space under the seat, suitable for hiding something.

Jeffrey took advantage of a moment when no one was around and squeezed Edith into the cramped space under the seat.

Bang—

As the lid closed, her confined space turned into an ordinary-looking seat.

“Both of you, watch this place. I’ll go and see if it’s safe to leave the mansion.”

Jeffrey said, and briefly left the spot.

Edith couldn’t believe what was happening to her. Her body was trembling, and she was on the verge of tears out of fear.

She felt like she was losing her mind, but Edith bit the flesh inside her mouth to hold onto her sanity.

‘If I panic now, I’ll miss any chance to escape.’

Fortunately or unfortunately, her mental fortitude was quite conditioned due to already being in a terrible situation of kidnapping and confinement.

Edith pondered over the thug’s words to figure out who he was.

“The child you’re carrying isn’t the lord’s, but the stablekeeper you were kidnapped by, right?”

“If you take too long to answer, it’s clear you’re lying. Did the lord dare to ruin the plan and touch you?”

The thug spoke as if he knew the lord’s intentions well. At least, he had some interaction with the lord.

‘He spoke as if he knows why the lord kidnapped me.’

Had it not been for the sudden kidnapping, she would have used him to pry out the lord’s plans that had been bothering her for so long.

But now, she only felt the rough wood every time she exerted a little force.

“Don’t think about escaping by force while sitting on the chair.”

“……”

Two men who were part of the thug’s group were watching, making it impossible for her to call for help or escape on her own.

The bigger problem was that she couldn’t leave the mansion due to the binding spell Sophia had cast on her.

‘What happens if the thug actually drives the carriage out of the mansion?’

The thug, his gang, the horses, and the carriage body could all pass through the barrier, but she couldn’t.

Her mind began to run wild.

Her body won’t cause the carriage to suddenly stop. She was sure of it after years of working in a clinic, knowing human flesh was not that strong.

‘So when the carriage leaves the mansion, will I be crushed between the barrier and the carriage?’
Imagining the state of her corpse after a carriage accident was enough to make Edith feel as if all the blood had already drained from her body.

“If I say I can’t leave because of a binding spell, they will likely assume it’s a trick to prevent the carriage from going too far.”

Edith bit her lip, thinking hard, but no solution came to mind.

She could only desperately hope someone would rescue her.

“Sophia, isn’t Edith taking too long to return?”

Isabel cautiously asked Sophia, who she had briefly called over.

“I thought the same, so I sent a maid to Edith’s room a few minutes ago, but apparently, no one’s there… I told her to look around the area.”

“Then where did she go?”

Just as Isabel asked with a worried face, the people in the garden started stirring.

“My goodness. Is she injured?”

“Sophia, call a physician!”

At that moment, a pale and staggering Vivian was being supported by a maid that Sophia had sent.

“Vivian?”

“Lady Sophia, Lady Edith is…”

Vivian managed to relay news of the kidnapping before losing consciousness, throwing the surroundings into disarray.

Yet among them, Sophia stood out as particularly pale. Her heart started pounding, not just from worrying about Edith’s life, but also from the fear that her only lifeline could be severed.

‘A thug kidnapped Edith?’

Edith couldn’t leave the mansion due to the binding spell.

If Edith died, all the money and effort she had invested, and the power and wealth she aimed to gain through her, would all turn to vapor.