As Blair slightly raised her head, she saw Herdin’s back, wearing a robe as if he had just washed.

He was putting firewood in the fireplace. Droplets of water on his wet hair glistened in the light.

After confirming the firewood had caught fire, Herdin turned towards the bed. Blair closed her eyes, pretending to be asleep. It seemed like the right thing to do.

A presence approached without footsteps, stopping in front of the bed, casting a shadow before her. Soon, a weight was felt on the side. It was the familiar weight that embraced and pressed against her every night.

Blair worried he might wake her, but even after a while, Herdin remained motionless.

Slightly opening her eyes, she saw his face, lying still with eyes closed.

That face looked unfamiliar.

He always embraced her greedily until he fell asleep as if fainting, and woke up first.

So, the sight of him sleeping quietly beside her was so strange. Being here solely for her, without any benefit to himself.

Suddenly, she recalled that night when he lit the fireplace himself to prove her innocence. That night too, he stayed by her side.

He’s always like this.

When she turns away, not wanting to be hurt by his indifference anymore, he approaches like this and shakes her.

At the moment when she needs him most, when her heart is weakened. He seizes that gap and burrows in.

Blair realized with self-mockery that her trembling body had calmed without her will. She could no longer deny that it was thanks to this man staying by her side.

‘He might have killed me.’

Again, soon again, he’s a person who will leave me.

I hate your careless kindness.

I hate myself for wavering, knowing that kindness is like a spring breeze.

When I miraculously went back in time to the past, I clearly thought I would never love you again. And yet…

Now I’m a little anxious.

How long will I be able to hate you?

* * *

In the evening when the sun had fully set, Wesley came out through the side door of the Boldwin Viscount’s mansion.

He kept looking around as he came out to the main road and hailed a hired carriage. His manner was very cautious.

“To the club.”

It was his first outing since the hunting competition.

A few days ago, the hunting competition was suspended when Blair got lost. Ivan, unaware of the details, simply thought Blair had gotten lost and was displeased.

Herdin was frantically searching the entire forest to find Blair, and meanwhile, Wesley had found and killed the man who had instigated the kidnapping.

Now there would be no way to prove that he was involved in that incident.

He had borrowed money from Rachel, but unless she intended to confess her involvement in this incident, she couldn’t ask for the money back.

Even if Herdin suspected him, he couldn’t punish him based on mere suspicion.

‘In the end, nothing happened to that Blair woman, and she was safely rescued, so isn’t that enough?’

So it just ended as a light happening.

Thinking that way made him feel relieved.

It was almost embarrassing that he had stayed in self-restraint at the Viscount’s residence for days, worrying that Herdin might come to catch him.

Of course, the money spent on plotting that incident was a bit of a waste.

‘If I had used that as betting money, I might have multiplied it quite a bit…’

As Wesley was smacking his lips, the carriage arrived at the club.

‘Oh well, I’ll just win today and increase the betting money even more.’

Standing in front of the club, for some reason, he felt a groundless confidence that he would be the winner of the gamble today.

Wesley entered the club with excitement, as he always did.

“Wow, the great Wesley Boldwin missing club attendance for days. What’s going on?”

“We almost worried you might be sick.”

The usual group greeted him with giggles.

They naturally made a place and started a card game, as they always did, exchanging trivial jokes.

Wesley, who received his cards, checked his hand. His eyes widened.

‘The hand is not bad…?’

Maybe it wasn’t just expectation, but he might really become today’s winner.

Thump thump, his heart started beating with excitement. He was even more nervous than when he had a bad hand.

Wesley anxiously received the last card. The moment he checked that card, joy spread across his face.

This is a hand that’s harder to lose.

Just as Wesley was about to open his hand, trying to calm his pounding heart,

A shadow suddenly approached and loomed over Wesley.

“Hello, Wesley.”

Wesley’s face turned pale, surprised by Herdin’s appearance.

“A dog can’t stop shitting, how could you stop gambling? Right?”

Wesley, frightened, quickly tried to get up and run away, but Herdin was not one to let that happen.

He grabbed Wesley’s head and slammed it onto the card game table.

“Argh!”

The club members, intimidated by that fierce atmosphere, ran away in a line.

As Herdin slammed Wesley’s head onto the game table a couple more times, Wesley finally stopped his meaningless resistance and became docile.

Herdin leaned over Wesley, who was groaning, and said in a low voice.

“If you try to run away as soon as you see my face, I can’t help but be suspicious.”

“That’s because you’ve been threatening me, accusing me of being the culprit from that day!”

It had been a long time since he had abandoned the respectful attitude from the hunting competition. But from Herdin’s perspective, this was less ridiculous.

Rather than the guy who used to take pleasure in his misfortune as a child now bowing and being polite as an adult.

Herdin turned Wesley’s head to meet his gaze.

“It was you, wasn’t it, the culprit.”

A blue flame flickered in his eyes. Wesley, instinctively overwhelmed by that intensity, flinched, but it was only for a moment.

“Fuck, do you have any evidence it was me?”

Herdin looked at Wesley, who was reacting with false accusations, with a strange gaze.

Wesley struggled with his held head and yelled.

“If you treat someone who helped you out of goodwill like this—”

“Rachel Seldon.”

For a moment, Wesley’s resistance stopped at the familiar name that flowed from Herdin’s lips. Herdin didn’t miss this opening and added.

“That woman confessed everything. Said it was all your doing.”

Wesley’s heart sank as he heard this. At the same time, anger towards Rachel, who had betrayed him, rose.

“Fuck, it’s not true! Everything… yeah, that bitch ordered it all! I just did what I was told!”

“…”

“She gave me the money too. She said she wanted to insult Blair, no, the Duchess, because she annoyed her!”

“…”

“Think about it. Where would I have the money to plot something like that?”

Herdin, who had been quietly listening to Wesley’s words, finally released Wesley’s head as if throwing it away and opened his mouth.

“How much of that is true, I’ll have to go to the Seldon Marquis’s house to ask.”

“…What?”

Wesley, who had been desperately pinning the blame on Rachel, hesitated.

The statement about going to the Seldon Marquis’s house later…

“You didn’t meet Rachel first…?”

Herdin smiled coldly as he looked at Wesley, who was staring at him with a dumbfounded expression.

“This is why you always lose your betting money.”

Losing his mind over a single word without even verifying its truth, and spilling everything with his own mouth.

And how his emotions are all written on his face.

“You bastard, you lied so well…!”

Herdin easily tripped Wesley’s feet as he lunged forward. Wesley rolled on the floor with a loud, clumsy noise.

Herdin looked coldly at such a Wesley and said.

“Why. You messed with my woman and deceived me, should I be the only one playing fair?”

“You…!”

“Don’t feel so wronged.”

He took out a small bottle from his inner pocket and threw it in front of Wesley. The bottle that hit the floor shattered with a crack, and the liquid inside spilled out.

A sweet and seductive scent wafted over.

Wesley’s eyes wavered at the sight of it.

What was in that bottle was what the kidnapper had tried to feed Blair.

“There was no way for you to escape from the beginning.”

Back then, when he had searched the abandoned house with Wesley, he had found a medicine bottle along with traces of Blair.

The medicine bottle, which looked like the only new thing rolling around in the old and shabby abandoned house, looked suspicious at a glance.

Herdin had ordered an investigation into the identity and source of this medicine, and it was very easy for Luth, who was well-versed in such matters, to find out who had purchased the medicine.

The reason he probed Wesley while knowing he was the mastermind was firstly to secure Wesley’s confession, and secondly—

‘I saw her entering the forest with a knight earlier.’

To confirm the charges against Rachel Seldon, who had given false testimony that she had seen the kidnapped Blair with another man.

Wesley Boldwin had definitely played his part in that aspect, so now all he could do was flap his mouth.

It would surely be noisy then.

“Just sleep for now.”

Herdin grabbed the back of Wesley’s head, who had faithfully performed his role, and slammed it hard against the game table again. Soon, Wesley’s body went limp.

Herdin tossed the unconscious Wesley like a sack to the knights waiting at a distance and turned around.

“Load him into the carriage.”

Now it was time to catch another mastermind.