“Me, Mel, the tea is overflowing.”
Adeline barely managed to utter these words. Only then did the Duke stop pouring the tea.
“That’s not what I asked.”
He put the teapot down on the table with a clack.
Leaning back on the sofa with one arm, the Duke stared at her. His bloodshot eyes were vivid, as if filled with blood.
Adeline shrank under his piercing gaze.
Certainly, this was not the look of a man who had spent a summer with her.
“Why do you have the seal? Bring it here.”
Following the Duke’s gesture, one of the knights by the door approached and placed the seal on the table, along with the luggage Adeline had before being dragged into the carriage.
Apparently, the knights who took her luggage had searched her bag.
The seal was her lifeline, yet now it lay before the Duke.
“That, that is!”
The knight quickly left the room at the Duke’s indicating glance, leaving them alone. Adeline pleaded with a look of great injustice.
“This, this seal? I just picked it up while washing your clothes when you were injured and kept it because it looked valuable. I intended to return it. I truly didn’t know it was a seal!”
“…”
“Mel, please remember. I nursed and saved you when you were near death. Don’t you understand my heart? I was sincere.”
Adeline began to imitate the tragic heroine, squeezing out tears.
Surely, a man would be weak to the tears of a beautiful woman.
“Why are you so cold? We weren’t like that. I was so shocked… to find out that you’re the Duke of Torpéio.”
She had only thought he went back, never imagining he would send people to capture her so soon.
Adeline sneakily glanced at the Duke while pretending to wipe her tears with a handkerchief.
“Perhaps… has your memory fully returned?”
The Duke, who had been expressionless throughout, finally chuckled at her transparent words.
“Do I seem like Mel to you, or the Duke of Torpéio?”
Adeline was startled by his low voice.
Her guard, briefly softened by being called ‘Del,’ was immediately up again.
“Aren’t you calling me Del because you remember Mel?”
Adeline looked pitiful, trembling all over.
“I just sincerely cared for you when you lost your memory. We became lovers and… don’t you remember promising eternity in our house with a beautiful view of the sea?”
She continued calmly, but her voice trembled.
The Duke’s gaze, staring at her, was icy even in the midst of summer.
“You still see me as your half-lost self?”
Adeline was speechless. Her brown hair, tense from nervousness, fell loose.
The Duke straightened up and approached her.
Then, he gently brushed her hair behind her ear and tenderly cupped her cheek.
His actions were tender as if dealing with a beloved lover, but his eyes flashed.
“You said we were lovers who eloped because of different social standings, right?”
“…”
“A commoner, you said. Did you want to use me, who lost his memory, to become a duchess?”
Adeline, trembling, suddenly had her thoughts cleared.
It seemed the man before her had regained his memory, but had not yet uncovered her true identity as Adeline of House Crédion.
Maybe it was because she had changed her hair color.
Having only encountered the Duke of Torpéio as Crédion Adeline once at the debutante ball, it made sense.
As this realization dawned, it was like finding a light at the end of a dark tunnel.
“You thought that if you treated and saved an injured me, I would take you as my consort?”
Simultaneously, a small hope sprouted.
Barely managing to control her pounding heart, Adeline said, “No! How could a commoner like me dream of such a thing? It was by chance that I treated you, Duke, when you were injured. But I loved you, knowing you were a person of high status. I’m sorry for harboring feelings for you.”
“…”
“Soon as your memory returned, I planned to give you the seal, but I was greedy. It felt like we really became lovers…”
Adeline continued acting, tears streaming down.
Whether this man with a crazed look was the male protagonist as the reader mentioned, Adeline wasn’t sure.
But now, she had no choice but to rely on the Duke of Torpéio.
“Please, just let me look at you. I don’t even dream of being your lover. If you let me stay, I’ll do any work.”
Adeline was willing to stay here even as a maid.
Thinking the Duke hadn’t recognized her yet, she planned to stay here while seeking other options.
“Right.”
She decided to contact Haïlo while staying here.
If she could find a ship to another country, maybe things would work out. That’s when she heard the unemotional voice and quickly looked up.
“Would your father wish for that?”
Adeline stammered, “My, my father…?”
In that moment, everything seemed distant to her.
The Duke stroked her light brown hair and looked down.
His chilling gaze then trailed down to her collarbone, and he pulled on the metal chain around Del’s neck.
“Crédion Adeline.”
The pendant on the chain that Adeline wore glinted, bearing the emblem of the House of Crédion.
“What scheme is the lady of House Crédion up to now?”
Adeline realized then. This man knew everything.
That she was the sole heir of House Crédion.
Caught in her act, Adeline knelt and poured out her story.
“Please, Duke. I was just trying to escape an engagement with the Crown Prince and ended up going as far as Horn. I stayed there because I heard it was uninhabited. Really…”
Her voice trembled as she shouted at the Duke.
“I never imagined it was the Torpéio family’s villa. You know what happened to the Crown Prince’s previous fiancées…”
Shivering at the thought of those tragic ends, she feared being handed over to the Crown Prince and buried in the cold ground.
She didn’t want that to happen.
“Please help me just this once. I’ll stay quietly and then leave. Just let me stay for a little while.”
The Duke smirked at what seemed like a plea but wasn’t.
“There is one way you can stay here.”
Seeing Adeline begging, a mischievous thought arose in the Duke’s mind.
Her expression turned pale, and a sarcastic smile slowly spread on the Duke’s lips.
“Concubine.”
He harshly lifted her chin as she tried to turn her head away, but the more she tried to escape, the tighter he held.
“How about that?”
The idea of being a concubine for a lady of House Crédion was unimaginable to her.
Yet he laughed coldly, as if she wasn’t a concern.
“I can’t trouble the Crown Prince by touching his fiancée. So, you can’t stay in my ducal residence as a lady of House Crédion, can you?”
“…….”
“But as a commoner Del, it’s possible. Especially as my concubine, no one would oppose your staying in the castle.”
Adeline trembled all over.
Though it sounded like a light, joking remark, she knew the man wasn’t jesting.
“But to live as a concubine….”
‘I’d have to do even worse things without hesitation.’
Unable to add the words that came to mind, she swallowed the rest of her sentence.
As Adeline lowered her gaze, the man’s large hand came fuzzily into view.
He hadn’t released his grip on her chin, and with his other hand, he gently stroked Adeline’s hair.
“We’ve already been intimate, so it won’t be difficult, right? I find you very appealing.”
His long fingers gently disentangled Adeline’s brown hair.
Their eyes met, his burning red like the sun, soaked in madness.
“Be my woman.”
Adeline’s shoulders shook.
She felt something was terribly wrong. The man she had saved to survive, the man she unknowingly helped, this duke’s castle, turned out to be a noose.
She needed to escape.
But contrary to her will, her body didn’t move as she wanted. Trying to stand, Adeline’s legs gave out, and she slumped back onto the sofa.
“Then I’ll save that life. From the Crown Prince.”
In trying to escape the Crown Prince, Adeline had fallen into a trap. A worse madman, the Duke of Torpéio.
Male lead is a Love-Obsessed Merman
When he discovers she has gone, he risks everything to pursue her on land, enduring agonizing pain to transform his tail into human legs…
One-line summary: Male lead chases female lead. The male lead’s love is a bit sick, an invincible love brain.
Synopsis
During a voyage at sea, Jiang Yang accidentally captures a merman.
Servant: I heard that mermen are fierce and brutal.
Jiang Yang looks at the merman obediently rubbing her palm like a puppy: “You call this fierce and brutal?”
Servant: I heard that mermen have no human nature.
Jiang Yang looks at the merman with wet puppy eyes, obsessively calling her ‘A Yang’ like a childish infant: “You call this having no human nature?”
With great difficulty, she releases the merman back into the sea and returns to shore.
Who would have thought that in less than half a month, the merman, who should have been freely wandering in the South China Sea, would shed his scales, endure the pain of losing his tail, transform into human legs, and come ashore to find her?
He kneels at her feet, rubbing her palm, with merman tears rolling down: “A Yang, don’t abandon me.”
_____
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