Trapped in the Mad Duke's Snare (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 4
Adeline tightly shut her eyes.
In a situation where she could neither act nor escape, the only thing she could do was turn away.
Just as she braced herself for death—
“Ugh….”
—the cold sensation pressed against her throat vanished, replaced by a sharp groan echoing in her ear.
Adeline felt the man’s scorching body heat spread from her waist up to her neck where they touched.
At the end of that suffocating moment, the iron grip that had held her captive finally loosened.
Just as Adeline tried to twist her body free from her bonds—
—the man blocking her back suddenly collapsed onto her with a heavy thud, embracing her as he fell.
Adeline couldn’t move at all, pinned helplessly beneath his burly frame.
After fumbling blindly toward the shelf several times, Adeline quickly lit a candle.
In the dim candlelight, shapes began to sharpen into clear forms.
The man who had held a knife to her throat now lay collapsed, drenched in blood.
Adeline swallowed hard at the sight of crimson blood seeping into the white carpet.
“Hey… are you alright? D-did you die?”
She cautiously approached and examined him. He was still gasping for breath, so he probably wasn’t dead yet.
Given that he appeared unconscious, he didn’t seem likely to threaten her again as before.
‘If I just leave him like this, he’ll die, won’t he?’
Adeline felt utterly confused.
After all, Duke Torpeo was her hope and final lifeline.
Yet seeing the man who placed a knife to her throat the moment they met filled her only with doubt.
‘Why on earth did that reader call this man the male lead?’
If she saved him, would she truly escape the short life fate had assigned her?
Lost in thought, Adeline gasped in shock as the Duke suddenly coughed up blood.
“H-hey, please wake up.”
Adeline knelt down to check on the Duke.
If left untreated, he would surely die from excessive blood loss. For a brief moment, she considered simply fleeing—after all, he had just threatened her with a knife.
But if he really was Duke Torpeo, perhaps he’d beg her to spare his life in return for saving him?
Whether she was caught by the Crown Prince and executed or killed by the Duke—it amounted to the same thing.
Might as well gamble on the Duke, who at least offered a sliver of survival chance.
Swallowing hard, Adeline resolved to do her utmost to keep this man alive.
[This is the timeline separator]Inside the bedroom, Adeline finally caught her breath and turned her gaze toward the worn clothes piled on the nightstand beside the bed.
Seeing the seal bearing the ducal crest atop the pile confirmed this was indeed Duke Torpeo.
Adeline lowered her eyes.
Unlike his feverish warmth, the man’s skin was deathly pale, drained of all color.
He hovered between life and death.
Cold sweat dripped from his soaked hair, trailing down his strong neck.
This was the same man who had pointed a blade at her just moments ago.
‘If I find this look sexy, am I going mad?’
Last night—
after carrying the unconscious Duke to the bed, Adeline had immediately fetched a physician.
“Will he be alright?”
“He appears to have lost consciousness from a poison-tipped arrow, but I can’t identify the toxin. Aside from that, he only has bruises.”
The physician replied indifferently to Adeline’s question.
“There’s nothing more I can do without knowing the poison—no antidote exists. We’ll have to leave it to fate. I’ll give you a standard antidote; make him take it. Hmm. That’s all, then.”
Silence settled in after the physician departed.
Even while bound, she’d sensed it—this man’s build was truly massive.
Every four hours, Adeline struggled to lift his unconscious bulk and carefully pour medicine into his mouth.
Supporting his heavy frame with her slender body was no easy task.
“Hey, you—no, Your Grace.”
Though she knew he couldn’t hear her, Adeline kept speaking to him.
“I’m saving the very Duke who tried to kill me. Don’t you dare forget this, understand?”
After the exhausting effort of administering his medicine, Adeline quietly watched the Duke.
‘Come to think of it—who did this to Duke Torpeo?’
The sole Duke of the Empire, left alone to die in a villa.
It was exactly as that reader had mentioned in the comments.
Adeline could hardly believe it, even with her own eyes.
The House of Torpeo had deep ties with the Imperial family for generations. Though the current Empress Emerita had been deposed, the previous Empress herself had hailed from the Torpeo ducal line.
Thus, the current Imperial family dared not treat the ducal house lightly.
If anyone in the Solatarius Empire dared threaten this man—the head of the Empire’s only ducal house—they were almost certainly someone of extremely high rank.
Someone comparable to the Emperor himself.
‘…Could it be someone from the Imperial family?’
She herself was being hunted by the Crown Prince. Whoever targeted the Duke must surely be someone just as powerful as the Crown Prince.
A creeping sense of dread rose from Adeline’s toes.
Clutching her wildly pounding heart, she prayed desperately—
Please, please let this man before her become her winning hand.
[This is the timeline separator]On a sweltering summer day, contrary to the bitter cold of winter,
Crown Prince Trashi of the Solatarius Empire, for some unknown reason, proposed a hunting trip to Duke Torpeo.
In Solatarius, with its four distinct seasons, the Imperial family held an official annual hunting event during the coldest winter days.
It was a meaningful ceremony where the Imperial hunting grounds were opened, and the game caught was generously distributed as meat to the Empire’s citizens.
“Duke, the heat is making me sluggish. Let’s stretch our limbs with a hunt at your estate. What about Sahallan?”
The Imperial family never engaged in private hunts outside the official Imperial event.
Moreover, Sahallan was located beyond the capital’s outskirts—not within the Imperial hunting grounds.
The Duke felt suspicious but dismissed it as just another one of the Crown Prince’s whimsical suggestions.
“No need to make such a fuss over the Crown Prince’s leisure. Let’s go with minimal attendants and enjoy ourselves.”
Thus, their hunting party was unusually small for a journey involving both the Crown Prince and a Duke.
Upon arriving at Sahallan’s hunting grounds after a full day’s hard ride, the group began hastily setting up temporary tents.
But the Crown Prince, showing no signs of fatigue, immediately proposed they start hunting.
“His Majesty is unwell, so as Crown Prince, I can’t afford to stay away from the palace too long.”
Urging him on, the Crown Prince uncorked a bottle placed on the tray and poured wine into the Duke’s cup.
“I specially prepared this. Have a drink, then let’s set off right away.”
The Duke downed the cup in one gulp.
Since the Crown Prince had always enjoyed drinking with him before, the Duke felt no suspicion.
About two hours into the hunt, the Duke’s vision began to blur.
Sensing something amiss with his body, he dismounted briefly to rest.
Just as he reached to tie his horse’s reins to a tree—suddenly, the sound of something cutting through the wind made him swiftly dodge.
Yet perhaps due to his growing dizziness,
he couldn’t evade entirely—the cold metal grazed his right shoulder. It was an arrowhead.
“There he is!”
Masked men, presumably the archers, charged toward the Duke.
Before he could fully grasp the situation, the Duke painfully remounted and spurred his horse into a gallop.
Gripping the reins with one hand, he used the other to tear off the sleeve near his wounded arm.
“Ugh… Is it poison?”
The shoulder grazed by the arrow was already turning an ominous blue.
As his vision whited out from the toxin, the Duke halted his horse. Beneath his feet, after dismounting, lay a sheer cliff.
Just as he thought there was nowhere left to flee—
“The game of hide-and-seek is over. Give up already.”
The masked pursuers had already encircled him.
“Hide-and-seek? Do you even know who you’re speaking to?”
“We know well enough. Cassis Mael Torpeo.”
Seeing the masked figures close in, the Duke reluctantly drew his sword.
“Your name—the one who’ll soon die right here.”
A mocking smirk crossed the Duke’s lips at the arrogant fool’s words.
Whoever dared target the Empire’s sole Duke wouldn’t have sent mere rabble.
Clang, clang—the blades clashed incessantly.
Though the Duke’s movements had slowed, making him easy prey, his attackers stubbornly aimed for his face.
As a blade grazed the Duke’s cheek, his tightly bound hair was sliced clean off.
And thus relentlessly driven back, the Duke tumbled over the cliff’s edge.
‘So this hunt was meant to hunt me.’
Had someone uncovered the secret he’d buried deep, never spoken aloud?
He couldn’t fathom why the Crown Prince would recklessly target him like this.
Plunging from the cliff, the Duke sank into the river’s upper current and lost consciousness in the churning waters.
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself on the shore of Horn, a remote village at the Empire’s very edge.
Fortune in misfortune—the scenery felt strangely familiar to him.
Horn was the village where he’d lived as a child.
Thus, dragging his exhausted body to a villa, the Duke unexpectedly encountered Adeline.
[This is the timeline separator]On the twelfth day of nursing the fallen Duke, the weather was unusually clear.
Cool breeze from the open window fluttered the white curtains.
Stirred by the soft rustling of the curtains, the Duke’s eyelashes trembled faintly.
“Mmm….”
At the low groan, Adeline, who’d been dozing beside him, stirred in her sleep.
After tirelessly tending to him day and night, Adeline felt as heavy as a soaked sponge.
Unlike her dreary reality of constant nursing, her dreams had been sweet—
just moments ago, she’d been sipping Darjeeling tea in the Marquis’s rose garden.
“Mel.”
She’d just murmured, wishing to add more honey.
The sensation of someone shaking her shoulder gradually roused Adeline.
Her blurry vision slowly sharpened, and light filled her sight.
Wondering who’d woken her, she found a pair of crimson eyes gazing at her—
from alarmingly close range.
“H-hiik!”
Adeline immediately bolted upright.
The Duke. Duke Torpeo—who had lain unconscious for a full twelve days.
Flustered beyond measure, Adeline began hiccupping incessantly.
‘He’s awake! What do I do… What do I even say…?’
No—more importantly, who just wakes up like this all of a sudden?
She wasn’t mentally prepared yet!
“A-are you awake? Hic!”
Adeline asked between hiccups.
Frowning slightly as though still weak, the Duke spoke his first words in a rough, dry voice.
“Mel.”
Adeline didn’t recall muttering “Mel” in her sleep.
In fact, she assumed it was a slip—after all, the Duke, waking after twelve days, couldn’t possibly be asking for honey.
Perhaps feeling a headache, the Duke briefly pressed his fingers to his forehead before lifting his head.
Through strands of long hair falling like drawn curtains, his eyes flickered into view.
Those icy, penetrating eyes seemed to pierce straight through her.
Adeline swallowed hard, bracing for what he’d say next.
She expected something threatening like, “Who are you to be in my house?” or “I told you I’d kill you—why haven’t you left yet?”
But the Duke slowly parted his lips.
“Is that my name?”
“…Huh?”
“Mel.”
Too stunned, Adeline blinked rapidly.
Mel—his name?
‘Could it be… you’ve lost your memory?’
When the male lead is punished by carrying the female lead’s child and having periods like a woman
“I’ve given birth to two children for you, yet you still think about him.
Was I nothing but his substitute to you from beginning to end?”
Synopsis:
Meng Huan, a scumbag who has dated countless girlfriends, transmigrates to a female-dominated country.
Day 1: Whether it’s female dominance or not doesn’t matter. The beauties here are passionate and amorous. Isn’t it easier to date them than in modern times?
Day 2: After a night, Meng Huan discovers the differences in the female-dominated world. Men here actually have chastity locks and menstrual cycles. This hinders his ability to perform, damn it!
Day 3: What’s wrong with sleeping around? I don’t want you to marry me. I’m meant to be a playboy. I don’t care about male virtues… What? You want to drown me in a pig cage? Marry, I’ll marry!
Day N: Meng Huan inexplicably vomits and receives the shocking news of his life… He’s pregnant.
_____
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MANGA DISCUSSION
4 Comments
Chapter Comments (76)
There was no time to escape—then came a soft, drowsy voice laced with his hot breath against her ear.
+“What exactly are we to each other?”
Omo omo!!! The tension between them 😘
Am I the only one who questions how the plumbing is still working after the place had been abandoned for so long?
Kyaaaa, what’s with this atmosphere? Poor Adeline, it seems the Duke has fallen for her.
Inline Comments (34)
The Duke stormed out of the study.
Hmm, I feel that the Duke hasn’t lost his memory and that he’s trying to uncover it.
Faced with the sudden risk of being mislabeled a married woman, Adeline hastily
You just had a golden opportunity to turn this misunderstanding around and save your future self some pain and embarrassment…why claim to be lovers?
Counting the falling raindrops, Adeline soon drifted off to sleep.
This female lead is creating all sorts of issues for herself. Behavior like this makes forfeit any right to complain regarding future complications.
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Apu
I hope he gets his memories back quickkkk. That crown prince does seem to the one to let a job go unfinished. By now he should have been informed abt his runaway fiancée too~
Artemtisforaday
Welp. At least she’s save from being murdered by the Duke for now. Let’s see how long it takes for his memory to come back.
Miioo
How vile and despicable that crown prince is! I hope he dies a horrible death. Poor duke, now he’s lost his memory too.
Blairwoods
Unexpectedly 😂 but i still confused. So crown prince and the duke was cousins right?