In the midst of his busy office, the Duke suddenly asked his butler a question.
“How is she doing?”
“She is attending basic etiquette classes.”
As the Duke turned his head back to the documents after the question, his secretary Eric felt incredibly frustrated.
Unable to contain his curiosity any longer, Eric blurted out his long-held question.
“Your Excellency, is she really a commoner? I’ve heard she has quite a good grasp of etiquette for a commoner.”
The Duke snorted at Eric’s words.
“Of course. She’s a woman I’ve chosen.”
The Duke couldn’t help but laugh at the thought of Adeline, supposedly a commoner, starting from basic etiquette.
‘She must be suffering the same training.’
And the thought of the sole daughter of the Ducal House acting as a concubine was utterly humiliating.
Satisfied, Cassius shifted his gaze back to the documents.
“What? Could she be a noble’s illegitimate child? Your Excellency, what exactly happened?”
Eric, growing more desperate with his unanswered questions, moved closer.
He was terribly frustrated with the unresolved mysteries.
“Your Excellency, are you really going to take a concubine?”
“Of course. Having a woman in my life is exactly what the royal family has always wanted.”
Eric felt like he had eaten a hundred sweet potatoes at the Duke’s words.
“The royal family wanted a Duchess, not a concubine!”
“What difference does it make? A woman is a woman. I’m really looking forward to presenting her. Aren’t you?”
Eric thought the Duke had gone mad. Presenting a concubine to the royal family?
It was like asking to be openly ridiculed.
“Who would present a mere concubine to the royal family!”
Eric raised his voice, clearly frustrated.
“Eric, you’re pushing it.”
Something in the Duke’s demeanor changed, his eyes suddenly filled with killing intent. Eric quickly zipped his lips under the overwhelming pressure.
He felt sympathy for Del, the commoner who became a concubine, having to endure the Duke’s temper.
The Duke reflected on his past.
Before leaving Horn’s villa, Cassius gazed at Adeline, who had fallen asleep in his arms.
What was it for the family that she didn’t hesitate to throw herself at him without love?
The Duke needed to understand everything that happened to him. For that, he had to return to his castle. It had been a significant time since the Duke had lost his memory and stayed at the villa.
The Torpéio estate was eerily quiet despite the Duke being absent for nearly a season.
Hastily returning, the Duke confirmed that his absence had been covered up as a campaign ordered by the Crown Prince.
‘A campaign?’
This made it clearer that the Crown Prince had attempted to assassinate him.
The Duke instructed his servants to keep quiet about his return.
The attack at the hunting ground was the Crown Prince’s plan. However, the Duke taking refuge in Horn’s villa was unplanned.
‘How did she know to come to the villa?’
The Duke couldn’t figure out why Adeline was there.
‘Was the villa the goal?’
Remembering the sole portrait left in the basement, the Duke contemplated if the Ducal House knew his secret, leading Adeline to the villa. He couldn’t let her go if that were the case.
“Once you’re here, I have no intention of letting you go, Adeline.”
The Duke planned to torment Adeline with hope. Leaving her alone and heading to his castle was part of that plan.
To give her a taste of hope and fear, expectation and despair, even more than what he had experienced.
However, what Adeline discovered at the Duke’s villa was that she had to cut off all ties with the Marquis as soon as possible.
That’s why the Duke hurriedly ordered to bring Adeline to his mansion.
When he ordered to fetch Adeline, the Duke initially planned to imprison her and not release her.
He thought of questioning why Adeline waited at his villa and using her to threaten the Marquis family.
The Duke expected Adeline to be trembling in fear and begging for her life when she was brought before him. Contrary to his expectations, Adeline shamelessly continued to act as the commoner Del.
Intrigued by her act, the Duke came up with an interesting idea.
To bestow the humiliation of being a concubine upon the deceitful Adeline, the heiress of the Marquis family.
A brilliant plan to present to the Crown Prince the woman who refused to become his consort and ran away, now merely occupying the position of a concubine in the Duke’s household.
One day, a spy planted by Crown Prince Tras in the Duke of Torpéio’s domain sent a letter.
This letter, as if to offset the recent peace, brought a storm of blood to the royal palace.
Enraged by the letter, the Crown Prince called back the man who had led the assassination attempt on the Duke.
“What shall we do?”
Upon the summons of Crown Prince Tras, a man hobbled hastily towards him.
He was the one who had failed to assassinate the Duke at the hunting ground. The kneeling man pleaded his case.
“Your Highness, there’s no way he could have survived falling off that cliff…!”
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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