Cain slowly raised his body. The chair that slid with a scraping noise stopped as the old woman lifted her bowed head.
“Young master, the lord and lady did everything only for the family and for you…”
What was being done for him?
How was distorting the truth for personal gain something done for the family?
Cain, feeling confused, staggered out of the hut.
“Your Grace, what are you trying to do?”
Cain immediately mounted his horse.
“The truth… the truth…”
Cain couldn’t finish his words. His hands gripping the reins were trembling.
“Your Grace, catch your breath first and calm yourself before leaving. You can’t go now.”
Nathan blocked the horse’s path. Even if Cain insisted, even if he was kicked by the horse’s front hooves, Nathan would stop him.
If he let Cain leave like this, it felt like he might never see him again.
That’s how precarious Cain looked.
* * *
Jane, her face pale, shook off Cedric’s arm holding her.
“I’ll, I’ll go first.”
Jane’s voice quivered. Her hands trying to push Cedric away had no strength.
“Jane…”
Jane’s eyes rippled endlessly like the surface of a lake on a rainy day.
“Jane, breathe and listen calmly.”
Cedric, holding back Jane who kept trying to run away, patted her shoulder.
“Jane, all I know is that the previous Duke Hastings was the one who falsely accused the Whitney family. No one knows what happened between them. One thing is certain, Jane. You have to leave the ducal house.”
It wasn’t something to say to the shocked Jane, but Cedric had wanted to say this from the beginning.
“Let me know if you need help.”
Jane’s eyelashes fluttered. But that was it. She didn’t answer him.
The sight of Jane looking like she would collapse at any moment pierced Cedric’s heart like a nail.
“I’m unexpectedly capable, you know.”
What Cedric offered to Jane, frozen like someone who couldn’t smile, was sincerity imitating a joke.
“Lean on me. I’m quite sturdy.”
After a long silence, Jane spoke.
“I’ll contact you later. Thank you for today.”
Jane barely got into the hired carriage.
She knew Cedric was looking at her endlessly, and that his gaze was full of worry, but she didn’t look back.
As soon as the carriage door closed, her body crumpled forward.
Left alone, Jane burst into tears. She covered her mouth and sobbed.
Jane mulled over what Cedric had told her. The vague unease was the prelude to a great misfortune.
“Mom… Dad…”
Although her parents were not without fault, at least if they had time to respond, they wouldn’t have passed away so tragically without even having a chance to say goodbye.
Cedric clearly said:
“If the previous Duke Hastings hadn’t schemed, the execution couldn’t have happened so quickly. No matter how messed up the Emblen Kingdom’s legal system is… Even if it was treason, they should have been given a chance to explain.”
She had begged for her parents’ lives from those who had driven them to their deaths.
Her eyes burned with indignation and resentment.
Of course, she couldn’t blindly believe Cedric’s words. But it was also something she couldn’t ignore.
She wanted to know the truth as soon as possible.
But did Cain know?
In the end, the question always came back to Cain.
Perhaps he knew the whole truth and blamed the deaths of the previous Duke and Duchess Hastings on the Viscount and Viscountess Whitney.
The sudden thought that clever Cain must have known came to her, but she still hoped he was also unaware.
It was a silly thought.
Jane bit her lower lip hard.
She hated herself for thinking of Cain even in the midst of such a great shock.
And the fact that she had to return to Somnium Mansion, that she would sleep in the bedroom of the previous Duchess Hastings, that the people who had served the previous Duke and Duchess Hastings were beside her – it was all terrible.
There was an even bigger problem.
Jane couldn’t trust anyone.
Cain was a given, but not even Norbert, or even Mary.
They had served the Hastings ducal couple 7 years ago. Their loyalty was extraordinary.
Until she knew the whole story behind this, Jane would not trust anyone.
Not even Cedric.
As her sorrow turned to determination, the carriage stopped at the back gate of Somnium House.
A figure lingering near the tall wall hurried to the carriage.
“Did you have a good trip?”
As Jane got out of the carriage, Hayley ran up to her happily.
Perhaps it was because Jane’s will to not face anyone was too strong.
Jane didn’t hear Hayley’s greeting. She didn’t see anything either. Everything seemed like an illusion.
Jane brushed past Hayley.
“My lady, are you alright?”
Hayley grasped her as she moved like a buoy on the sea.
Jane slowly turned. Her dazed eyes rolled widely, searching for the speaker.
The green eyes that had been so bright were clouded like a foggy forest.
“…It’s you, Hayley. Don’t worry about me.”
“You look very unwell. Did you not sleep last night? Shall I call your physician if you’re feeling ill?”
Jane shook her head. Instead, she stared at Hayley.
Hayley’s brown hair, her clear brown eyes that resembled her hair color, and the freckles dotting her cheeks, her worried expression.
Jane’s eyes widened and narrowed.
‘Hayley. I can trust Hayley, whom I chose myself, can’t I?’
At least she had to trust the people she first formed relationships with upon returning to the capital.
Jane couldn’t uncover all the truth alone. And after uncovering it?
In any case, she needed an ally.
Who was there?
The only ones that came to mind were Hayley and Mrs. Merche.
Was this really all?
Jane lamented her narrow circle of acquaintances when suddenly someone’s words came to her.
“I’m good at hiding things, people, and feelings.”
Lloyd, who said he was good at treasure hunting.
Although she didn’t have a particular relationship with him, she might be able to get his help once.
‘How shameless of me.’
Jane realized anew that she was backed into a corner.
To ask for help from someone she hadn’t even shared a single meal with.
Jane quickly erased Lloyd’s name. Instead, she grasped Hayley’s hand tightly.
“Who knows I went out?”
“Since you insisted on keeping it a secret, it’s only me and the hired carriage driver. The driver of the carriage you took back and forth.”
“Then make sure no one else knows. And Hayley, I want to be alone.”
It was such a small voice that one had to listen carefully to barely hear it. Jane had no energy, like someone who had returned from a desperate fight.
Did she see a ghost or something?
Her face had turned pale with a bluish tinge, and her breathing was erratic as if it would stop at any moment.
So Hayley nodded without asking anything.
Jane went straight to her bedroom through the deserted path.
* * *
Jane sat still by the window, staring blankly outside.
She didn’t think anything, didn’t see, didn’t eat, didn’t hear.
She endured the passing time with all her senses cut off.
Time flowed diligently and night fell. In that time, the blue sky changed its appearance a total of four times, from scarlet to red, then from violet to dark blue.
Only after that much time had passed was Jane able to think.
She slowly went over what Cedric had told her.
“The one who falsely accused Viscount Whitney was the previous Duke Hastings.”
Cedric sighed countless times and only said that one sentence.
Although it was a shocking revelation to call it “only,” there were many holes in Cedric’s statement.
Why the Duke of Hastings falsely accused her parents, whether Cain also knew this fact, how Cedric knew – all the important details were missing.
Those gaps had to be filled in order to uncover the truth about her parents’ execution.
To uncover the truth, Jane had to stay with the Hastings.
When she first heard Cedric’s words, she wanted to throw away the contract and everything else and confront Cain.
But as her turbulent emotions subsided and reason returned, her thoughts changed.
Her parents’ deaths were suspicious. If there was any unjust aspect, she wanted to bring it to light.
‘I have to stay at Somnium House. I’ll find out everything I can while getting along well with Cain.’
And there was also Joseph. The child was just starting to open up to those around him and adapt, so if she suddenly disappeared, how much would he wander again?
‘Joseph thinks he was abandoned by his birth mother.’
It was too cruel to inflict a similar wound on such a child again.
Considering the various circumstances, Jane had only one choice.
Staying at Somnium House.
But she didn’t have the confidence to face Cain.
Thinking of him stirred a whirlpool in her heart.
Male lead is a Divorced Husband
She said to him: “Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change it!”
Liu Changning transmigrated into a female cannon fodder character in a female-dominant novel.
After reading the first half of the novel’s plot, the first thing she did upon transmigration was to divorce the Pan Jinlian-style male protagonist she had just married.
She indulged herself, pretending to be ugly and poor.
But as time passed, the way that man looked at her became more and more unusual…
Liu Changning was dumbfounded: Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change!
――
This lifetime, Pei Yuanshao was rejected by the same woman twice!
The first time, she drove him away. Forced by the situation, he endured the waves of anger in his heart, yielding and humbling himself.
That person lay slanted on a rocking chair, her sallow face emotionless: “If you don’t want a divorce, go cook!”
Pei Yuanshao’s face was dark and gloomy: “You!”
The second time, after the crisis in Jinling City was resolved, the new emperor sent someone to pick him up. He turned around, stammering: “I… I have to go. If you keep me…”
That person lay on the kang bed, her back to him, as if she had long anticipated this day, crisp and clear: “Goodbye!”
Pei Yuanshao was so angry his fingers trembled: “You… you!”
The mission of family and country made him restrain himself, averting his eyes and turning to leave this broken household.
Two years later, they met again. Seeing her ethereal face, his body shook like a sieve.
“She was originally a ‘she’!”
At the Qionglin Banquet, the top scholar of the imperial examination, a talented person with exceptional speech and conduct, all the unmarried young gentlemen from aristocratic families looked at her with shy and timid eyes.
The peerless imperial official Pei Yuanshao felt the anger in his heart erupt. He pointed at the woman surrounded by the crowd at the Qionglin Banquet, his thin lips slightly curled: “Little sister, I wants that person to be the wife-master of my Mingde Prince Manor.”
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