“Me, Mel. The tea is overflowing.”

Adeline barely squeezed out her voice. Only then did the duke’s hand stop pouring the tea.

“That’s not what I asked.”

He set down the teapot on the table with a clatter.

The duke stared at her with his arms half-draped over the sofa. His red eyes, gazing at her obliquely, were as vivid as if they were filled with blood.

Adeline’s shoulders shrank under his gaze that scanned her.

It certainly wasn’t the kind of look a man who had spent the summer with her would give.

“I asked why you have the seal. Bring it.”

At the duke’s gesture, one of the knights standing by the door approached and placed the seal on the table.

Along with the luggage bag where Adeline had put the seal before being dragged into the carriage.

She had wondered, and it seemed the knights who had taken her luggage had searched her bag.

It was nothing short of a lifeline. And now that seal was lying in front of the duke.

“Th-that’s!”

The knight quickly left the bedroom at the duke’s look telling him to leave.

Left alone, the two of them, Adeline pleaded with a rather aggrieved look.

“Se-seal, you say? I just happened to pick it up while washing your injured clothes and kept it. It looked like a precious item, so I held onto it. I was going to return it. But I really didn’t know it was a seal!”

“……”

“Mel, try to remember. I nursed you when you were on the brink of death and saved you. Don’t you know my heart? I was sincere.”

Adeline began to imitate a tragic heroine, squeezing out tears.

Yes, this man is still a man. He should be weak to the tears of a pretty lady.

“Why are you so cold? We’re not that kind of relationship. I, I was so surprised… To think you were Duke Torpeo.”

She had only thought he had returned. She never imagined he would immediately send people to capture her.

Adeline pretended to wipe her tears and slyly lowered her handkerchief to gauge the duke’s reaction.

“Perhaps… has your memory fully returned?”

The duke, who had maintained an expressionless face throughout, finally burst into laughter at her words, whose intentions were clearly visible.

“Do I look like Mel to you now, or Duke Torpeo?”

Adeline was startled by his low voice.

The wariness that had momentarily eased at the address of ‘Del’ sprang back to life.

“Isn’t it because you also have Mel’s memories that you call me Del, Your Grace?”

Adeline trembled her whole body while emitting a pitiful gaze.

“I only nursed Your Grace, who had lost his memories, with all my heart. Then we became lovers, and ah… Don’t you remember promising eternity with me in our house overlooking the beautiful sea?”

Though she continued speaking calmly, Adeline’s voice trembled finely.

By now, the duke’s gaze fixed on her had become as cold as frost even in midsummer.

“You still think I’m a half-wit who’s lost his memory, don’t you?”

Adeline was at a loss for words. Perhaps because she was so tense, Adeline’s brown hair fell down.

The duke straightened his upper body and approached her.

Then, brushing back her fallen hair behind her ear, he gently cupped her cheek.

His actions were as tender as if he were treating a beloved, but his eyes looking at her flashed.

“You said we loved each other and eloped, didn’t you? Did you say it was because of our different social status?”

“……”

“You said you were a commoner. Did you want to become a duchess by taking advantage of my memory loss?”

Adeline trembled, but her complicated thoughts were sorted out in an instant.

It seemed that the man before her had regained his memory, but Adeline’s true identity hadn’t been exposed yet.

Perhaps it was because she had changed her hair color.

She had only encountered Duke Torpeo once as Adeline Credion during her debutante.

As her thoughts reached this point, she felt relief as if finding light at the end of a pitch-black tunnel.

“You thought I would take you as my partner if you treated and saved me when I was injured, didn’t you?”

At the same time, a small hope sprouted.

Adeline spoke while barely grasping her heart that felt like it would burst at any moment.

“…No! How could a commoner like me dream of such a thing? Treating the injured duke was a coincidence. But I loved Your Grace. I’m sorry for harboring feelings for such a high-ranking person.”

“……”

“I was going to return the seal as soon as your memory returned, but I became greedy. It felt like I had really become Your Grace’s lover……”

Adeline continued her act while shedding tears.

She wasn’t sure if this man with the manic look in his eyes before her was really the male protagonist as that reader had said.

But for now, Adeline had no choice but Duke Torpeo.

This ducal castle was the only place to hide from the crown prince’s eyes.

“Just let me be able to look at Your Grace. I don’t even dream of being a lover. If you let me stay, I’ll even work.”

Adeline wanted to stay here even as a maid.

Since the duke with his returned memory didn’t recognize her, she thought to stay here for the time being and look for another way.

‘That’s right.’

Let’s contact Hailo while staying here.

Maybe things could be resolved somehow if we find a ship to leave for another country. It was when she was making such plans.

Adeline lifted her head abruptly at the monotonous voice seeping into her ears.

“Would your father want that?”

Adeline stammered with a momentarily blank face.

“Fa-father? What do you mean……”

Adeline felt dizzy for a moment.

The duke lowered his gaze as he stroked her light brown hair.

With a chilling gaze, the duke ran his finger down to her collarbone and then pulled on the metal chain around Del’s neck.

“Adeline Credion.”

At the end of the metal chain Adeline was wearing, a pendant with the crest of the Credion viscounty glittered.

“What scheme is the young lady of Viscount Credion up to now?”

Only then did Adeline realize. This man knows everything.

That she is the one and only heir of the Credion viscounty.

Having been caught red-handed, Adeline fell to her knees and began to pour out words.

“Y-Your Grace. I just wanted to avoid the engagement with His Highness the Crown Prince and ended up in Horn while running away. I was just living there because I heard no one lived there. Really……”

Adeline’s voice trembled as she cried out to the duke.

“I really had no idea it would be a villa of the Torpeo family. You know too, Your Grace. What happened to the Crown Prince’s previous fiancées……”

Adeline trembled all over as she thought of the fiancées who had died horribly.

If she were dragged to the Crown Prince like this, she would end up buried in the cold ground like those fiancées.

She didn’t want to end up like that.

“Please help me just this once. I’ll stay quietly and then leave. Please let me stay for just a very short while.”

The duke smirked at Adeline’s excuse that wasn’t an excuse.

“If you want to stay here that badly, there is one way.”

Seeing Adeline’s pleading appearance, a mischievous feeling bloomed in the duke’s heart.

As Adeline’s expression turned pale, a cold, sneering smile gradually spread across the duke’s lips.

“Mistress.”

The duke slowly approached Adeline and roughly lifted her chin.

Adeline shook her head, wanting to avoid it, but the more she tried to escape, the stronger he gripped.

“How about becoming that?”

To tell a lady of a viscount family to become a mistress.

Adeline’s whole body froze in shock at the unimaginable words.

However, he smiled coldly, seemingly unconcerned about Adeline’s reaction.

“I can’t do the crazy thing of touching the Crown Prince’s fiancée either. So you can’t stay in my ducal castle as the daughter of Viscount Credion.”

“……”

“But if you’re the commoner Del, it’s possible. And if you’re my mistress, no one will be able to object to you staying in the castle.”

Adeline’s whole body trembled.

Though it was a light remark thrown as if joking, Adeline knew the man wasn’t joking.

“But to stay as a mistress……”

‘You’d have to do even worse things without hesitation.’

She swallowed the rest of her words, unable to add the thoughts that came to mind.

As Adeline lowered her gaze, a large hand hazily entered her view.

The man still hadn’t released his grip on her chin. The duke stroked Adeline’s hair with his free hand.

“We’ve already been intimate, so it shouldn’t be difficult, right? I quite like you.”

Adeline’s brown hair scattered softly between his long fingers.

Their gazes met as he stared as if not wanting to miss even a single strand of her hair.

His red eyes like the sun were filled with madness.

“Become my woman.”

Adeline’s shoulders trembled.

She felt that something was seriously wrong. The man she had saved to survive. This man she had saved without knowing anything, this ducal castle was a trap.

She had to run away.

But contrary to her mind, her body wouldn’t move as she wished. Adeline, who had tried to stand up, lost strength in her legs and slumped back onto the sofa.

“Then I’ll save that life of yours. From the Crown Prince.”

Trying to avoid the Crown Prince, Adeline had fallen into a trap. To Duke Torpeo, who was even crazier than him.