The Crown Prince’s palace was bustling with preparations for the wedding attire.

Ralie had also entered the palace for the final fitting of the imperial wedding dress.

The Crown Prince’s final fitting was in full swing.

At the sound of a knock, Ralie turned her head to look at the doorway.

A man with a build unsuited for a servant, wearing servant’s clothes she had seen before, was entering.

The servant approached the Crown Prince with large strides and quietly reported something.

“It is said that Duke Torpeum has collapsed. The people of Cologne say the duke has contracted an epidemic and won’t even go near the lodgings where he is staying. He is completely isolated.”

Because he reported so that only the Crown Prince could hear, Ralie couldn’t know the content, but at the Crown Prince’s boisterous laughter, she ended up dropping her teacup.

“Hahaha. Is that so? Is that true?”

Even as the sound of the cup breaking echoed through the space, Trashi paid no attention to Ralie.

Just looking at his subordinate nodding his head.

“Haha. That’s very satisfying.”

He just kept letting out gleeful laughter.

Ralie was watching this eerie scene from the tea table where she was waiting for her turn.

“Soon I’ll be able to completely remove him from my sight.”

Ralie’s eyes were filled with fear as she looked at the Crown Prince. She didn’t know when that gleeful laughter might capriciously turn into violence towards her.

Around the time the cold water from the fallen teacup on the table flowed to the floor, the Crown Prince stopped laughing and looked at Ralie.

“Oh my, did the cup fall? I hope my noble Crown Princess-to-be wasn’t hurt.”

The Crown Prince, pushing away the tailor’s hands that had been in the middle of fitting, approached Ralie.

He seemed to be in quite a good mood, unlike usual. Enough to be concerned about Ralie’s injury.

“Ralie, did your delicate hand almost get burned? You should be careful.”

Ralie’s hand had no trace of redness from the tea water that had almost completely cooled.

“How I love these pretty hands of yours.”

Ralie flinched when the Crown Prince’s hot lips touched her slender fingers.

The scratches on her cheeks barely hidden by makeup and the numerous large bruises under her corset from bumping here and there.

While he was the very one who had injured her, he was worried about fingers that had merely brushed against tea water.

For a moment, Ralie felt a surge of contempt for the Crown Prince.

The Crown Prince seemed to recognize Ralie’s contemptuous gaze at once and pressed close to her. Then he muttered softly.

“Be good, alright? I’m in a very good mood today. So I’ll let it slide just this once.”

The Crown Prince brought Ralie’s damp hand to his mouth and sucked it in.

“However, it would be best not to show that look again.”

Because that hot sensation seemed to warn that who knew what would happen next.

Ralie’s eyes looking at Trashi were instantly consumed by fear.

Adeline and her party hurried as soon as the carriage was prepared.

Adeline hadn’t been able to sleep even for a moment on the way to Cologne due to her worried heart.

Adeline, who had stayed up all night, couldn’t close her eyes even in the ceaselessly running carriage.

This was because the stories about the epidemic heard in the inn’s dining room kept ringing in her ears.

The carriage ran endlessly and only arrived at the entrance of Cologne in the early evening.

Getting off the carriage and seeing the entrance of Cologne, Adeline’s heart sank with a thud.

From the entrance of the town, a fence had been put up and knights were guarding in front of it. It seemed to be a thorough blockade.

Adeline approached the knight guarding the entrance.

“Duchess! How are you here…?”

“Open the gate.”

The knights felt something was strange from the moment the carriage approached Cologne. The only carriages that could enter Cologne now were supply carriages bringing medicine, food, and such.

There was no reason for a luxurious carriage carrying people to come. The woman getting out of the carriage they had been ignoring was the duchess they had often seen at the ducal residence in the capital.

“I’ve come to see the duke, so open it.”

It had not even been two days since Duke Torpeo’s order to not let in any outsiders.

Therefore, the knight found Adeline’s order to open the gate quite troublesome.

It was not at all easy to know the detailed situation of the blockaded town. Moreover, it was nearly impossible to hear news of Casius.

Throughout the carriage ride towards Cologne, Adeline felt she would go mad with worry about Casius commanding in the middle of a town where an epidemic was raging.

Her heart was so urgent. All she could do was tell them to open the gate like this.

“My lady. Unless there are orders from His Grace, you cannot enter.”

Not knowing Adeline’s feelings, the knight was extremely adamant.

He wouldn’t bend his will at all even though the duchess was ordering.

“Then relay it. Right now.”

“Don’t you know that I can’t relay it?”

The knight continued speaking with a seemingly pitiful expression.

‘Why can’t it be relayed?’

Unless they reported to Casius and were refused, how could they not even relay it? Adeline began to sense something strange in the knight’s words.

“Where is the duke?”

“He is in the barracks. As soon as he wakes up, I will relay your message.”

‘Wakes up?’

Only then did Adeline realize the identity of the anxiety she had been feeling all the way to Cologne.

Adeline stared at the knight with round eyes, unable to continue speaking due to her anxious heart.

“It’s dangerous if you stay here. If you stay in the next town, we will surely relay it.”

The knight seemed to think Adeline had spoken to him on the premise that she knew the situation in Cologne.

He knew well that if he realized Adeline didn’t properly know the internal situation, he would certainly not divulge more information. Adeline began to test the knight, pretending to know everything.

“The duke needs to wake up? What does that mean? From your words, are you saying the duke has lost consciousness?”

“Yes. Regrettably so. He caught the epidemic and… But he will soon get up. Don’t worry, my lady.”

Unable to falsely report the duke’s situation to the duchess, he offered words of comfort that he would soon get up.

However, Adeline didn’t even know the fact that the duke had collapsed, so she felt numb as if she had been hit on the back of the head.

Adeline, who had been in a daze for a while, came to her senses.

‘The duke caught the disease? Cholera?’

“The duke caught the epidemic? What is this nonsense?! How can it be that I, his wife, am only finding out now that the duke has fallen ill?!”

“…”

“Are you truly the Torpeo Knights, acting like this?”

Having lost her reason, Adeline tried to force open the town gate recklessly.

“Duchess!”

The surprised knights approached to stop Adeline, but it wasn’t easy to block her.

“Move aside!”

“You can’t!”

At first, when the knight said he would report as soon as the duke woke up, Adeline wanted to believe he was resting because he was very tired from commanding at the forefront. But unconscious?

Adeline began to pressure the knight with an overbearing attitude, just as she had done with the butler when leaving the ducal residence.

“Move aside immediately. How dare a vassal of the ducal family block the duchess.”

In this situation where the duke had collapsed, the highest authority of the ducal family was the duchess. The knight could no longer stop Adeline.

Adeline pushed through all the barriers and forcibly entered the town of Cologne.

She kept moving her body towards the barracks visible in the distance. There was no time to be conscious of whether she was walking or running.

All the way to the barracks, Becky and the knights were making a commotion behind her, but Adeline couldn’t hear any sound.

The only thing frantically tearing through her mind was Casius. Only her husband.

“Ah…”

Finally, upon reaching the barracks and lifting the tent flap.

Before Adeline’s eyes was only Casius lying on the bed as if dead.

Servants were busy treating him and moving urgently by his side, but Adeline could only see one person.

Adeline approached the bed where Casius had collapsed.

She didn’t even have the presence of mind to avoid the objects and people on the way to the bed. Adeline just pushed away the obstacles with her hands and moved forward solely towards Casius.

Having approached so closely, Adeline called out to the duke.

“Your Grace!”

She hoped he would open his eyes at her call. As always, with those red eyes gazing at her.

‘Didn’t I tell you not to come to such a dangerous place?’

‘Does my lady find my words amusing? How could you come here so fearlessly…!’

She hoped he would scold her, growling like that.

Though he often hurt and pushed her with rough and blunt words, she knew that wasn’t really this man’s true heart.

Because the gentle Mel they spent together at the villa was also part of Casius.

She thought he just couldn’t express his worried and apologetic words any other way.

That’s why she couldn’t hate this man.

But…

If you left the capital so proudly, leaving me behind, you should be healthy. Why are you lying here?

Adeline approached Casius and cradled his pale face.

He who only knew how to act threateningly, never showing such a weak appearance.

But seeing him lying there like a corpse, Adeline’s heart sank.

“Casius.”

Adeline called the duke’s name.

“You said you wanted to hear it.”

When he said it was a name allowed only to her and told her to call him that.

“Why are you lying there like that. Casius!”

Adeline’s legs gave out and she sank down. He showed no reaction to her call.

The fact that he had already lost consciousness meant the disease had progressed considerably.

‘You’re the Duke of Torpeo.’

Adeline hurriedly tried to recall the original work in her mind, but it was useless.

It was a novel she had only read the introduction of, after all.

Perhaps. Was it because she had been reincarnated and changed the future that the Duke of Torpeo’s fate had changed?

Was this man paying for karma he shouldn’t have had to experience because of Adeline?

Instantly crushed by guilt, Adeline began to sob while clutching the bedspread.

“Hueueueue. It’s because of me, because of me that you. Hic.”

It was when Adeline was crying as if she didn’t care about the epidemic or anything else.

“Del.”

A familiar voice rang in Adeline’s ear as she was crying with her head buried in the bed.

Was she now hearing auditory hallucinations of the duke?

When Adeline’s crying sound was growing stronger from sorrow.

“…Adeline.”

At Casius’s voice clearly heard in her ear, Adeline raised her head.