Charlotte’s white eyes glimmered fiercely as she lifted her small head stiffly. There was no time to spare for Charlotte. Moreover, the target for her current anger existed precisely.

“Move aside, Miss Windler.”

The usually soft and gentle gray eyes were now distorted with rage towards Edwin.

“What kind of rudeness is this in front of the Duke? Calling in a friend without permission to point a gun at the Duke, and now throwing money at him so disrespectfully? You don’t seem to have any idea what kind of situation Miss Eveline is in right now.”

The raised voice and contemptuous eyes scolded Vivian. She was questioning Vivian’s responsibility for bringing a dangerous person into the mansion.

“I have nothing to say to Miss Windler. I will speak with the Duke, so please step aside.”

“Why do you have nothing to say to me? You seemed like you would kneel and beg when necessary, but now you have nothing to say so I should move? You have no idea who your friend tried to attack, what I almost lost, or how much you’re benefiting from the Duke’s kindness.”

Vivian bit the tender flesh inside her mouth. Half of what Charlotte was claiming was wrong. It wasn’t Charlotte who almost lost something, but herself. And it wasn’t her friend’s attack, but the Duke’s.

It was true that she was benefiting from Edwin’s conveniences, but it was all part of the Duke’s plan.

He had appeared before her, thoroughly calculated and planned to take revenge for what happened 14 years ago. So there was nothing to be grateful for or sorry about. What was there to be thankful for when she was going to die by the Duke’s hands anyway?

“You’re going too far. This is not an issue to argue with Miss Windler about. Please step aside. This is between the Duke and me.”

Vivian continued calmly, suppressing the fire in her chest. She wanted to quickly resolve the situation with Charlotte. On the contrary, Charlotte, who approached with a sneer, had no intention of letting go of the current confrontation.

“Going too far? Did I say anything wrong? You should be ashamed. Where does this audacity come from to make a fuss after causing this mess by completely failing to manage your friend?”

“Don’t talk nonsense about things you don’t know. This is my last warning. Step aside now.”

When Charlotte still wouldn’t make way, Vivian gritted her teeth. Ignoring Charlotte would have been the best option, but her attempt to walk towards Edwin was blocked by a hand grabbing her arm.

As Vivian looked down at Charlotte, Charlotte, who had moved closer, whispered angrily:

“What are you going to do if I don’t move?”

Charlotte, gripping Vivian’s slender arm, was about to cross a line. The strength coming from her small frame was hard to believe was Charlotte’s. Just as Vivian’s brow furrowed in pain.

“Charlotte.”

The low voice that cleared the air between the two made Charlotte release Vivian’s arm as if throwing it away. Massaging her arm that had been grabbed, Vivian turned her head.

Charlotte turned to look at Edwin whom she had called. He gestured with his eyes towards the open door. Charlotte’s jealous eyes trembled slightly.

She had let a friend into the mansion to point a gun at the owner who fed, clothed, and sheltered her, not knowing his kindness. She threw away the gold coins given to cover up her mistake to the mansion’s owner who had covered for her wrongdoing. It wasn’t enough to kick out Vivian Eveline immediately, yet she was oddly designating the wrong person to leave.

When Charlotte didn’t budge, dissatisfied, Edwin gestured to Sophie, who was fidgeting behind Vivian, to take Charlotte and leave the study.

“Your Grace!”

Charlotte’s disappointed voice filled the study. Sophie approached hesitantly, whispering softly to soothe her, but Charlotte roughly shook off Sophie’s arm.

“Did I do something wrong? Why should I leave here? Throw out Eveline. Didn’t she try to kill you, Your Grace!”

“Charlotte.”

Charlotte had no intention of hiding her hostility towards Vivian. Edwin, now tired, exhaled quietly with a slightly more irritated face.

“Leave.”

The voice that pierced like a dagger left a scar on her heart. Charlotte, who had no choice but to turn away, pushed Vivian’s shoulder as she left the study. Sophie followed hurriedly with quick steps. As Sophie closed the door on her way out, all noise subsided.

Slowly releasing her arm and facing Edwin, Vivian did not move closer to him, unlike her initial demeanor. Keeping a good distance, Vivian calmly met his blue eyes. The temperature, as if nothing had happened, calm and cynical, made Vivian’s heart boil.

“Isn’t your purpose to take revenge on me and my family for what happened 14 years ago?”

Her voice wavered slightly due to the rising heat.

“I can accept it calmly. If you kill me because of that promise then, and if it helps ease your boiling desire for revenge and painful wounds even a little, I can die a hundred times over. But I cannot accept you putting the person I love in danger for the sake of revenge, to torment me.”

Vivian’s eyes, which had been reciting calmly with effort, turned vicious. Edwin, whose brow furrowed slightly, sneered.

“Love?”

“Because you lost the people you love because of the person I love, I’ll be a sinner in front of you as much as you want. Even though you deceived and pressured our mother to incur a shapeless debt, I didn’t resent you. Because that debt, I can repay it. And if I die by your hands, that will be the end of it.”

Vivian, who was on the verge of tears, tightly grasped her pale green dress. Edwin quite liked Vivian’s rebellious face as she poured out her grievances, trembling and clutching her skirt.

Vivian gets angry easily when someone touches the people around her.

Recalling Vivian raising her voice at the dinner table, claiming her family had been insulted, he could fully understand the current Vivian.

“But if you’re going to drag in the innocent Theo and use him as a sacrificial lamb for revenge, I… I won’t stand for it. Don’t involve people who have nothing to do with our relationship.”

Vivian was resolute, yet her eyes reddened. Though she looked like she might cry at any moment, Vivian was holding back her tears so well that Edwin wanted to praise her.

Should I make her cry or not?

As Edwin contemplated, he slightly raised the corners of his lips in a smile, then looked down at the gold coins at his feet. He firmly stepped on them and pushed hard, causing the coins to slide across the floor and stop in front of Vivian’s shoes.

“Pick them up.”

A malicious tone descended upon Vivian. Her thin shoulders shrank at the cold command, but today she had to break free from the responsibility to obey.

“I won’t play along with your games anymore, Your Grace. So if you want revenge…”

“It would be easy to kill Theo Evans. Or I could just barely keep him alive. I even thought about burning down the dress shop earlier. But well.”

Edwin shrugged casually with an insipid smile. Vivian’s face turned pale with shock. The corners of her bloodless lips trembled pitifully.

“Shall I try a more sophisticated method? Everyone saw that Theo Evans pointed a gun at me, so there are plenty of witnesses. If I just bring Theo Evans to court, the death penalty is a foregone conclusion.”

Tears immediately welled up in the imaginative Eveline’s eyes. Though Theo Evans had returned home safely, she seemed to already consider him dead. Was it just his imagination that those tears didn’t seem particularly heartfelt for someone she claimed to love so much?

“Still not going to pick them up?”

Resentment built up in her chest bit by bit. She had to reluctantly bend her knees, looking at the gold coins fallen before her feet. As she tightly grasped one gold coin while shedding thick tears, Edwin smiled with satisfaction.

“Rather… please kill me now. If you really must eat me, yes. I’ll fatten up as much as you want, Your Grace.”

Edwin suddenly burst out laughing, but Vivian continued without paying him any mind.

“If something happens to Theo too, I can’t live, Your Grace. My father went missing after coming all the way here to escape King Mayer, and my mother hasn’t been able to return. If something happens to Theo as well, I really…”

Looking back like that, the root of everything lay with her. When rumors spread that Mayer wanted her as his mistress, she should have reassured her worried parents and said she would do it, that she would willingly accept it if it was for the sake of the family.

Since she couldn’t turn back time, all that remained were bitter regrets and tears.

“So please don’t involve innocent people. I’m begging you like this.”

Vivian’s anger had long since faded. Instead, what took its place was a desperate and wretched anxiety. Though he had thought about making her cry, he shouldn’t have actually made her cry. It was quite pitiful that Vivian didn’t know she wasn’t in a position to make such requests.

“Innocent people?”

Edwin leaned against the desk behind him and stood straight on the floor. As the sound of his approaching footsteps matched, her eyes lowered to the ground. His shoe gently brushed past Vivian.

Vivian turned to look at him, conscious of his back. Edwin’s eyes were directed at the wall of the study. More precisely, he looked up at Vivian’s portrait hanging there before standing in front of it.

“Is that what Evans said? That Baitness pointed a gun at me, an innocent person?”

Vivian’s eyes flashed at Edwin’s question. One fact flashed through her mind amidst his leisurely and arrogant attitude.

“I’m sorry, but I’m the victim of today’s incident. So I have no choice but to put Theo Evans on the scaffold, if only out of indignation?”

“Y-Your Grace…”

“Listen well, Miss Eveline. I’ll tell you since you don’t seem to know.”

Vivian’s heart sank to the bottom. From the beginning, what Vivian had worried about was Theo encountering Edwin. She was concerned that Theo, who sometimes couldn’t contain his anger, would abruptly ask about the carriage incident.

“Theo Evans asked me. What happened in the carriage on that rainy day.”

Vivian’s legs wobbled. Barely regaining her balance, Vivian closed her eyes tightly and exhaled a shaky breath.

Edwin probably wouldn’t have hidden what happened that day, so Theo must have heard. About what happened in the carriage that day.

After that, what did Theo do? What action did Theo take towards the Duke when he found out that he had been strangled?

“When I said I strangled you.”

Edwin’s calm voice, not deviating from expectations, elicited an exclamation from Vivian.

“He said he would kill me.”

Edwin concluded the full story of today’s incident while driving in the final nail.

“Now tell me, Miss Eveline.”

“…”

“Who is the perpetrator and who is the victim?”

It was then, as she was trembling her lips with her head bowed. A large hand appeared in her field of vision. Before she could read the situation, her body swayed violently and she lifted her head.

The distance with Edwin had narrowed to within a span. His large hand had grabbed and pulled the skirt of the dress Theo had gifted her, causing her to enter the radius of death.

“W-What is this…”

A flustered Vivian tried to twist her body and pull out the skirt seized by him, but it was a futile act.

“Rather, you should be grateful for my patience. Instead of bringing the gold coins given to Evans and throwing them in front of me.”

“Your Grace, my clothes…”

“What did you say earlier? That I deceived and pressured Mrs. Eveline to incur debt? You shouldn’t question me about that. You should question your incompetent father, who made her borrow money even though he knew I was a survivor of Lavenga.”

A dark shadow fell over her gray eyes. Before she could judge the truth, she read the murderous intent filling the blue eyes looking down at her. Her eyes squeezed shut with the intuition that she might really die this time.

“I want to kill Theo Evans because of you. Yes, as you said, the death of a person unrelated to our business is unnecessary. Then. What should we do to keep Theo Evans alive?”

With her vision blocked, her other senses came alive. The man’s powerful strength holding her skirt, the friction sound that arose each time he applied force to his grip, the salty taste spreading throughout her mouth due to the wound from biting the tender flesh of her inner lip so much.

Amidst all the despairing senses, Edwin’s scent grew stronger.

“Shouldn’t you die first for everything to end?”

As the hand gripping her skirt pulled once more with greater force, her frail body was pathetically crushed against the man’s solid frame.

By that much, the man’s scent engulfed all her senses, becoming the only sensation remaining.

“Didn’t you say you would fatten up as much as I want?”

She slowly opened her tightly shut eyes and looked at him. The distance with him was even closer than she had imagined. Just as Vivian tried to resist once more by twisting her body.

His hand firmly grasped Vivian’s body. Vivian’s eyes widened at the unfamiliar and strange sensation transmitted. Vivian looked down blankly at the improper hand that gripped a part of her with more force.

“Look carefully.”

And then he carelessly released her body, as if letting go of a piece of meat. Soon after, he stared at the vulgar palm that had rudely treated a lady, then showed it to Vivian.

“Fill this up. When that time comes, you can die. Then conversely, Theo Evans will live.”

Her stinging eyes traced a path from his palm to Edwin’s blue eyes. Was it because of the close distance with him? There was a slight tinge of green in his eyes that she had thought were purely blue.