Why did I, who had been searching for the kidnapped Marie, suddenly become a blackmailer threatening a Grand Duke?
The root of this bizarre role reversal was the story I heard from Marie.
“The Grand Duke’s purpose was not to kidnap me. In fact, it’s hard to believe, but I think he was trying to protect me.”
“What? What on earth does that mean?”
“…First, take this coat.”
I took the gray coat Marie handed me. It was a very long men’s coat.
‘Is she giving me this to do something about my outfit?’
I was obediently slipping my arms into the coat when Marie spoke again.
“That is the coat the Grand Duke took off and gave to me last night. He covered me with it, saying it might be cold here since there’s no proper heating.”
I froze in the middle of putting the garment on. This was the Grand Duke’s coat? Should I take it off right now?
‘No, wait. You met the Grand Duke last night?’
“What happened? You said the Grand Duke isn’t the kidnapper?”
“I mean, that is what His Grace believes!”
Marie looked just as confused as I was.
“It’s hard to believe, but it seemed like the Grand Duke truly believed all his actions — including kidnapping me — were done to protect me.”
“What kind of….”
‘Right, even then, I found it hard to believe Marie’s words.’
I rolled my eyes and looked at the Grand Duke standing in front of me. I couldn’t read his expression through the shadow-covered form.
“State your demands. I will grant you anything. However, if you intend to blackmail me using Lady Marie’s safety, you will regret it.”
His voice, however, sounded incredibly desperate and anxious.
‘Was Marie really right?’
The Grand Duke really tried to protect Marie? Even to the point of faking her death?
‘If that’s really the case… then my hypothesis might also be true.’
In fact, there was a hypothesis that had occurred to me the moment I heard Marie’s words. I thought it was absurd, but I couldn’t let go of the possibility, so I had tested the servants earlier to confirm the truth.
And absurdly enough, it was confirmed to be the truth.
“…I found this place through a secret passage connected to the Grand Duchess’s room. Interestingly, there was a room in the middle of that passage. Inside was a woman with short, red hair.”
A woman hidden away in a room within a secret passage. Just like Marie, who was hidden in this top-floor room.
“Everyone said it. That woman was your wife, Lady Sara.”
If the Grand Duke had faked Marie’s death to protect her…
“Just as Marie’s death was faked, was Lady Sara’s death also a fabrication?”
“…….”
The Grand Duke remained silent, but that silence spoke volumes. I reflected on the information I had gathered about the incidents so far.
Now that my perspective had shifted, I saw things in a new light.
Incidents that occurred in the North and were hushed up without proper investigation. A body so badly mutilated that it was said to have died from a nonexistent allergy. Even a funeral held with an empty coffin, claiming the victim died in a rockslide.
“Did nobody actually die?”
“…….”
“Was everyone just a puppet in your play? Is Lady Elise, who became Marie’s trauma, actually alive as well?”
“…….”
“Answer me!”
“…Yes.”
Finally, Grand Duke Kalan opened his heavy mouth.
“Nobody died. Including Elise, of course.”
“Everything was a lie from the start….”
I had seen a strange reaction to Elise’s death before. Baron Menzel. He seemed to love his daughter, but he didn’t mourn the death of his daughter’s only friend at all. Instead, he coolly said, “Thanks to Elise, an opportunity has opened up for you.”
At the time, I was simply horrified by the Baron’s inhumanity, but if what he said actually had a completely different intention….
“Did Baron Menzel know the truth from the beginning?”
“Yes. The Baron and I entered into a contract.”
“A contract?”
“A contract to fake a death.”
Grand Duke Kalan spoke calmly.
“The marriage with Lady Marie was a sham from the start. There was a separate side agreement.”
I recalled the bizarre dowry that didn’t match the marriage certificate.
“The contract was to smuggle his daughter to the North, where the eyes of the capital do not reach, and for me, the Grand Duke of the North, to personally forge her death and create a new identity for her.”
“And the reason for such a contract?”
“Because he believed his daughter had become a target of Taylor John.”
I didn’t know why the Baron came to think that, but it was understandable that he would become neurotic if he thought his dearly beloved daughter had become the target of a murderer.
‘He told Marie, who refused the marriage, to either enter a convent in the South or go quietly to the North….’
Was that not a simple threat? Was it all the Baron’s own way of keeping his daughter far away from Taylor John in the capital?
“No, but that doesn’t make sense.”
I questioned the Grand Duke.
“If that’s the case, why didn’t you explain it to Marie all this time?”
Marie had believed the Grand Duke was Taylor John and had been terrified for a long time. She even developed trauma because she thought Elise’s death was her fault. If the Grand Duke’s words were true, why did Marie have to suffer through such unjust fear?
“That’s… because the story might leak out….”
“You should know that Marie’s social circle is extremely narrow. Even if you were cautious in the capital, what was the reason for hiding it even in the North? Furthermore, you should have explained it to Marie and sought her cooperation even before kidnapping her.”
I couldn’t bring myself to trust the black shadow before my eyes.
“Shall I be honest? Grand Duke, in my eyes, you look like nothing more than a madman. A sinister, perverted lunatic who fakes the deaths of his wives one by one and locks them up somewhere under the pretext of safety.”
He had an agreement with Baron Menzel? It sounds plausible, but how on earth am I supposed to believe that? Besides, I heard from Lure about what kind of end Lady Elise’s father met. Didn’t he lose his daughter, try to sue the Grand Duke but fail, and eventually squander his entire fortune and end up miserably on the streets?
“If you really wanted to protect Marie from Taylor John, you would have told her everything. Why didn’t you?”
“Because….”
I couldn’t hear the rest of his words clearly.
“What? Speak up.”
The Grand Duke shouted as if he couldn’t take it anymore, exploding with emotion.
“BECAUSE TAYLOR JOHN WAS STUCK RIGHT BY MARIE’S SIDE!!!”
“Wh-What?! Who?”
Taylor John was next to Marie? A Taylor John other than the Grand Duke?
‘Who is it? I was so focused on the Grand Duke that I didn’t even think about it!’
If it were Taylor John, I would have seen him as the culprit, so who on earth could it be?
“Is it Reeman? Was that bastard Taylor John?”
“What are you talking about! Taylor John is you!”
“…What?”
Now it was my turn to be flustered.
“Baron Menzel said from the beginning that you were suspicious.”
That old man said that? What on earth did I do!
“He said it seemed Taylor John had finally approached his daughter. Suspicious behavior that seemed like an intentional approach, abnormally superior physical abilities, unclear social status — plus, he suspected you climbed over the Baron’s walls to break into Lady Marie’s room and lured the young Lady Marie with plausible words.”
…None of that was factually incorrect.
‘Looking at it objectively, I am an incredibly suspicious person.’
As I came to this sudden realization, the Grand Duke continued.
“At first, I thought it was just the Baron’s excessive suspicion. But I heard about how suspicious your actions were during the journey to the North!”
No, this was truly unfair. What could have possibly been suspicious?
“Even though you said you were just a nominal guard, you never left Lady Marie’s side to a disgusting degree! I even heard that you stayed up all night watching the carriage where Lady Marie stayed, even in the middle of the night! How creepy!”
“Creepy! That was just being a guard!”
“Are you going to claim that attaching your subordinate as Lady Marie’s maid was also for the sake of protection?”
The Grand Duke gave me a cold look as if he didn’t believe me at all.
“The maid who calls you ‘Teacher’ and follows you closely. She was hired immediately after you suspiciously approached Lady Marie. Wasn’t it all a trick you performed to thoroughly monitor Lady Marie?”
“I just, to make sure the protection was certain….”
“Most of all, the night before taking the train to the North. You kicked Mr. Clee until his bones broke while he was having a scuffle with Lady Marie, and you struck Mr. Jackson over the head with a whiskey bottle, didn’t you? An ordinary person cannot exercise violence so without hesitation!”
“No, that’s a real misunderstanding.”
The person who struck him with the whiskey bottle wasn’t me; it was Marie. And what broke upon impact wasn’t a person’s head, but an oil lamp. As for the kicking until bones broke… well, that was me, but… I used force because I was certain I saw a culprit. I didn’t hesitate because there was no reason to!
‘But since it happened in the dark, is it possible to misunderstand it like that?’
I remembered how the relationship with the group had become abruptly awkward after the ambush. Looking back, the feeling of betrayal that night might have been mutual. I thought I could understand why he went to the extreme length of decoupling the train car to separate me from Marie immediately afterward.
‘No, wait. Then why did Reeman talk like that?’
That guy had told me several times that the Grand Duke was Taylor John. Not just in this castle, but on the train as well.
‘Come to think of it, back then, I felt something strange about that attack.’
Until then, I was certain that Taylor John was a lone perpetrator. However, the attack was carried out by many. I couldn’t help but be puzzled. Perhaps if I had thought about it more, I could have reached the truth.
But at that time, on that train, Reeman told me that even if the Grand Duke was a monster, he was a monster who was beneficial, so there could be people who followed him.
‘Maybe he’s a monster who is good to his own people?’
As if he followed the Grand Duke even though he knew he was Taylor John. In that way, Reeman had erased other possibilities from my mind.
“I wondered until the very end. Lady Marie seemed to trust you firmly, and the Lady Marie I saw was not a foolish person! I thought that perhaps you were really someone trying to protect Marie out of goodwill and that I had misunderstood! But in the end, I was wrong, and Reeman was right. I should have listened to Reeman from the start!”
“What did Reeman say to Your Grace?”
“Of course, he said you must be excluded. That you were definitely Taylor John! That you might harm Lady Marie at any moment!”
“……It seems there was a rat after all.”
Reeman. That bastard was suspicious. It was certain that he had driven a wedge between the Grand Duke and me and induced misunderstandings between us.
‘I have to catch him and find out what his motive was.’
However, the Grand Duke was not in a state to engage in a productive discussion.
“So it has come to this. I hid Lady Marie in a safe place, but you found her in the end, and you’re wearing the coat I gave to Lady Marie like a trophy. So tell me, what do you want?”
The Grand Duke was desperate. It seemed he would even get down on his knees if I wanted.
“If you want money, I’ll give it to you. Or do you want to hear how I’ve been obstructing you? The night before you boarded the train, I instructed that Lady Marie be secretly taken away and served safely. Of course, I was also the one who moved Lady Marie to this room. I am also the one who faked the Grand Duchesses’ deaths and took the money!”
At that confession, the black shadow scattered into pieces, and the Grand Duke’s true form was revealed.
The true appearance of the Grand Duke that finally emerged was……
‘A kid?’
A boy who was only tall and lanky, at most around Marie’s age, showed himself. The boy, whose face was pale, pleaded with me.
“If you want a life, I’ll even give you mine. So please, return Lady Marie to me. I don’t have the confidence to live without her!”
I slowly operated my stalled brain.
‘So… the Grand Duke’s courtship all this time wasn’t a trick?’
He really fell in love at first sight and made aggressive advances? And now he’s saying he’ll give his life to have Marie back?
‘…Wait, am I a massive villain right now?’
I didn’t even know what to say. If I told him now that kidnapping Marie was a lie, would he even believe me? Or would the Grand Duke go crazy and attack me, saying let’s both die?
Just as I was hesitation, my lips twitching, unable to decide what to do.
“I am safe. Sir Heis is not Taylor John.”
A voice of salvation reached us.
“Marie!”
I told her to stay hidden in the secret passage, so why did she come out! But thank you for coming! Please come here and clear up this misunderstanding!
“Lady Marie! Are you safe?” Grand Duke Kalan cried out pathetically.
“Of course. I haven’t been physically hurt. Though my heart has been hurt.”
However, Marie’s voice was somehow cold.
‘…What? Did something happen in the secret passage?’
Marie was glaring at the Grand Duke with a cold gaze. The Grand Duke seemed to think it was because he had locked her up without explanation.
“Ah, I’m truly sorry for bringing you here without explanation. But there were circumstances — “
“You don’t need to explain. I already heard everything from my sister.”
“…Sister?”
“Yes. I met Sister Elise. And I found out.”
Marie looked at the Grand Duke and shot back coldly.
“No matter what excuse you make, Your Grace is nothing but a vile coward.”