The road to the flood-affected area.

There was something that bothered Casius as much as the rattling carriage.

The image of Adeline seeing him off.

She certainly showed a smile.

However, the lingering uneasiness in a corner of his heart wouldn’t disappear.

Why did her smiling face look so sad?

‘Is it because she dislikes being left alone in the duke’s residence?’

The servants who had ignored her would no longer be there.

He had driven them all out.

‘Is it because she dislikes being apart?’

That can’t be. When did she ever avoid him, why would she make such an expression?

The image of her looking at him with an affectionate expression, as if she would never see him again, wouldn’t leave his mind.

Even that kiss she had initiated.

Casius closed his eyes as he leaned against the carriage.

Adeline’s last expression he had seen.

When his vision was blocked, her expression seemed to flicker vividly before his eyes as if it were being drawn.

The groundless anxiety continued to torment Casius.

His intuition had never been wrong. It was a sense developed from navigating through numerous dangers.

He kept wanting to confirm with his own eyes that Adeline was in the safest place, the duke’s residence.

Even during the carriage ride, he had to suppress the urge to turn back dozens of times.

The rain that started falling again not long after the carriage departed showed no signs of stopping.

The thin raindrops that had been tapping on the window grew thicker and gradually increased in intensity.

It was then. With a loud thud, the carriage came to a stop.

The carriage wheel was stuck, spinning in the mud unable to get out.

Contrary to the expectation that it would depart soon, the carriage remained motionless for a while.

The duke, filled with doubt, opened the carriage door.

“What’s the matter?”

The duke came out of the carriage and surveyed the surroundings.

Due to the wheel being stuck deeper than expected, even three or four knights rushing to help couldn’t resolve the issue.

The wheel was firmly lodged in the soft mud, showing no signs of coming loose.

The continuous rain had softened the ground, making the task difficult.

“For a moment. It would be best if you take shelter from the rain.”

The duke and the knights decided to take time to regroup while resolving the carriage issue.

Moving to under a large tree, he closed his eyes with his arms folded. The surroundings were filled only with the sound of rain.

The surroundings that had been filled only with the sound of rain for a while were now growing noisy.

The duke opened his eyes at the sudden murmuring he heard.

At his gaze, the knights stopped their murmuring. The knight commander approached him as if he had something to report.

“Your Grace. There was a part we failed to report earlier.”

The duke closed his eyes again as if signaling him to continue speaking.

“Yesterday. When the lady went out to town, she sent a letter to someone.”

“To whom?”

“The recipient was someone named Hailo. I apologize. The report was omitted.”

At the knight commander’s words, the duke’s eyes snapped open.

Behind the knight commander, one knight was bowing his head as if in self-reproach.

It seemed a knight who had just shed his trainee status had belatedly made the report.

The moment that familiar name came from the knight commander’s lips, it was as if the fog had cleared, finally resolving the nagging question.

It was the man who had come looking for Adeline even when they were at Horn’s villa.

The eldest son of the Levrance Count family.

Was he ultimately Adeline’s choice?

He seemed to understand the reason for Adeline’s expression that wouldn’t leave his mind.

But it didn’t make sense.

‘Is it that bastard’s child?’

There was no reason for her to leave while carrying his child in her womb.

Casius needed to return to Adeline immediately.

If she had run away, he would bring her back, and if she hadn’t yet fled, he needed to hurry and catch her.

“Let’s go back.”

The original purpose for leaving the duke’s residence had long disappeared from Casius’s mind.

Now, nothing but Adeline registered in his mind.

He grabbed the reins of the horse beside him. Then he immediately rode the horse back towards the duke’s residence.

The pouring rain didn’t matter to him.

Surprised by the duke’s sudden action, Eric left some knights behind and chased after his master.

Eric and his knights quickly followed. But no one could catch up to their master who was already racing through the downpour, having lost his reason.

Quickly crossing the forest path and arriving at the duke’s castle, Casius immediately set out to find Adeline.

The head butler couldn’t hide his bewilderment at his master’s sudden appearance.

“Your Grace. Has something happened?”

It was no wonder, as the duke who had left to inspect the flood-affected areas had returned in half a day,

Not only that, but he looked drenched and seemed to have lost his senses.

The duke, disregarding the butler’s concern, went up towards the bedroom.

His gaze was fixed on nothing but the path to the bedroom.

Opening the bedroom door, the duke immediately let out an empty laugh.

“Ha.”

The bedroom was filled with only darkness, without a trace of warmth.

The bedspread was cold as if she had never lain on it.

Bang−

Casius immediately left the bedroom and headed for the lobby.

All the servants had gathered one by one amidst the sudden commotion in the middle of the night.

He singled out just one person among the servants.

It was the maid named Betty who was always with Adeline.

At the sudden summons, Betty found herself alone with the duke in the center of the office.

Everyone already knew that Lady Del had disappeared in the commotion.

Betty was trembling uncontrollably.

“Was there anything strange about her?”

“Th…that is.”

“Tell me everything, down to the smallest detail”

At the duke’s pressing, Betty began to spill everything she could remember.

“There was blood on the bedspread once! She said it was just a scratch, but…”

“What?”

At Casius’s murderous gaze, Betty could do nothing but prostrate herself flat.

From Betty’s words, he sensed that something had gone wrong with Adeline’s pregnancy.

“What would happen if I wasn’t pregnant?”

He recalled the questions Adeline had asked him a few days ago.

Whether she had miscarried, or wasn’t pregnant to begin with.

It was certain that Adeline had left the duke’s castle of her own accord.

Only after the duke had turned the castle upside down did the knights who had followed begin to arrive one after another.

He immediately ordered Eric, who had rushed up panting:

“Find her.”

However, it was not easy to find her in the continuing downpour even in the middle of the night.

As the continued search yielded no results, the knight commander reported.

“Further search is difficult. When dawn breaks tomorrow, it might be better to look…”

Before the knight could finish speaking, the duke pushed him aside as if he didn’t want to hear any more and left the office.

He had to find her today no matter what.

Seeing his appearance as if he might rush out right now, Eric blocked the front of the office with his body.

“Move.”

“If it’s not pregnancy, is there a need for Your Grace to search so urgently?”

“Is whether it’s pregnancy or not important?”

What’s important is that she’s my woman.

At first, I thought I was concerned about her because the feeling of having a child was unfamiliar.

But now that she’s run away like this, I understand. It wasn’t because of the pregnancy, but because I was concerned about her herself.

In fact, when he heard that blood had actually been found, he was inwardly relieved.

It meant she wasn’t carrying Hailo’s child. Whether her pregnancy had gone wrong or it wasn’t a pregnancy to begin with, at that moment it had no meaning to him at all.

Casius realized that he couldn’t let Adeline go for any reason.

She shouldn’t have run away from his side. It wasn’t revenge or venting anger.

Now he couldn’t live without her.

Casius’s blood-red eyes gleamed even more.

“If you don’t want to die, move.”

At his voice full of killing intent, Eric could no longer stop him.

Adeline escaped from the duke’s castle an hour after Casius had left.

With the hood of a dark robe pulled low over her face, she fled and walked endlessly along the back mountain.

After walking for about two hours, Adeline leaned heavily against a tree, gasping for breath.

The rain that had started falling lightly was now pouring down enough to obscure her entire vision. As if even the weather was not on her side.

Her shoes were a mess, buried in sloppy mud, and the wet hem of her dress had long since lost its color.

Because she had chosen flight that wasn’t really flight, she couldn’t move along normal routes.

She had chosen the mountain with as little human presence as possible, and walking the rough path quickly drained Adeline’s stamina.

“Ha… hah.”

As if mocking the voluminous folds of her dress, the rainwater clung to the hem and wouldn’t let go.

The water-soaked dress grew increasingly heavy.

Even knowing she was at her limit, Adeline mustered her strength and took one step at a time.

She couldn’t stop walking until she reached the next village.

By now, Casius, who would have returned, might have turned the castle upside down upon discovering Adeline’s disappearance.

If he knew, he would have started sending out all the knights to search for Adeline.

I need to go as far as possible.

But her body wouldn’t cooperate as much as she thought.

By now, the rain was pouring down enough to obscure her vision. The dress Adeline wore, as well as her undergarments, were completely soaked by the merciless rainwater.

She tried to move her legs even by pulling them with her hands, but her whole body was shaking.

Adeline huddled against the wind that was cold enough to chill to the bone even in early autumn.

To make matters worse, her mind was hazy. She felt like she might really collapse at this rate. She hurriedly scanned her surroundings.

That’s when a cave entrance came into view.

The cave seemed to be the entrance to a mine that was said to be in the Torpeo duchy’s territory.

Forcibly dragging her already stiffened legs, Adeline entered the cave.

“Just for a moment… I need to take shelter from the rain.”

It was the moment Adeline entered deeper into the cave.

Along with lightning flashing across the pitch-black night sky, a thunderous roar reverberated through the cave.

Adeline flinched at the terrifyingly loud thunder.

With the loud sound, the cave entrance was collapsing.

Now that even the moonlight shining at the cave entrance had disappeared, Adeline’s vision was filled with only darkness.