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At that moment, Elise was pacing around the room, gnawing at her fingernails, just as Leticia had predicted.
'What should I do?'
Before Leticia arrived at the mansion, Peidun had conveyed through the butler that she should not leave the room.
However, Elise, knowing that Peidun still had feelings for Leticia, couldn't possibly wait idly in her room.
So, she had gone to eavesdrop on their conversation...
"Elise is going to be pregnant soon, so wouldn't a messy fight be bad for a pregnant woman?"
Fortunately, Leticia didn't seem to have any feelings for Peidun, but that conversation sparked a different anxiety in Elise.
'Should I get rid of the baby?'
Miscarriages are common in early pregnancy.
No one would suspect anything even if it happened suddenly.
However, the problem was that her position would be jeopardized if the baby disappeared.
'Is there another way...?'
Elise, who had been pacing anxiously around the room for a long time, suddenly stopped in her tracks.
"...There's no other way."
Elise's eyes were shining precariously as she said that.
Deon put down the documents that he couldn't bring himself to look at, letting out a frustrated sigh.
Four o'clock.
Three hours past the time he was supposed to meet Idris.
'To suddenly make an appointment and then be late without even contacting me. How absurd.'
He had been waiting for Idris because of a letter Idris had sent him a few days ago.
The letter was a notification-style appointment stating when he would be visiting.
A very rude letter that didn't even mention what they would be talking about.
He would have ignored it if it were anyone else, but he couldn't.
Idris would never visit him for no reason. They weren't even that close to begin with.
So that meant he had something very important to say.
'Could he have found a clue about the Founding Festival incident?'
He quickly cleaned up anything related to the incident before a proper investigation could begin.
But even so, the ominous feeling didn't go away.
Then the only way was to meet Idris in person and find out what he had to say.
But the very person who was making him anxious hadn't shown his face or even contacted him, even though the appointment time had long passed.
'What on earth is he trying to do...?'
Just as he was at the height of his frustration with the unnerving premonition and impatience, there was a knock.
Knock, knock—
"Your Highness, Grand Duke Dellua has arrived."
"...Let him in."
The protagonist who had made the notification-style appointment appeared with a nonchalant face, even after being three hours late.
"Sorry. I had some urgent business."
Idris approached with a face that didn't look sorry at all and sat on the sofa that the host hadn't even allowed him to sit on.
"Are you free today? I was wondering if I should come back another day, since you're always so busy, brother."
Then he picked up a strawberry from the table and ate it. He had also abandoned the honorifics he used in official settings.
He showed no manners at all.
The butler frowned at the sight and said,
"I will bring you some tea."
But Idris stopped the butler from stepping back.
"No, I'm leaving soon anyway, so there's no need to prepare anything. I'm a bit scared of being poisoned, too."
Because I haven't confessed yet.
Idris muttered as an aside, but the butler, startled by the first part of his sentence, didn't hear those words.
Poisoned.
That was a reference to the time when Idris was young and Deon's mother, the Grand Empress Dowager, had tried to poison him.
When the butler looked at Deon with a flustered expression, Deon got up from his seat and nodded. It was a signal to leave.
After the butler left, Deon came over to the sofa where Idris was sitting and asked,
"So, what's the reason my dear brother has come to see this older brother?"
The words themselves were the kind of greeting a friendly older brother might give, but Deon's eyes as he looked at Idris were extremely cold.
He was friendly in front of people to manage his image, but there was no need to do that when it was just the two of them.
Idris went straight to the point.
"I'm investigating the incident that happened at the Founding Festival."
Deon paused when the story of the Founding Festival came out of his mouth.
"...Why are you investigating that?"
"I can't trust the old men who are constantly aiming for the vacant Empress's seat. So His Majesty has asked me to investigate separately."
"..."
"So tell me, who do you think the culprit is?"
Deon stared intently at Idris as he asked that.
'Is he asking because he knows something?'
Idris wouldn't have come all the way to see him just to ask that question.
But whether he was asking because he knew or because he didn't, his answer in this situation was already decided.
"...Why are you asking me that."
"I thought you would naturally know, brother."
"Then you're overestimating me."
Idris looked at Deon, who was answering nonchalantly, with strange eyes for a moment, then nodded.
"Oh. So my brother is more incompetent than I thought. What a shame."
He continued, crossing his long legs without taking his eyes off Deon.
"I don't know who the culprit is, but the deceased maid's affairs had been completely cleared up. So completely that it's really strange."
That was only natural.
Deon had quickly cleaned it up before the investigation even started.
"But there was one thing I missed."
At Idris's words, Deon's hand, which was holding a teacup, stopped.
But he maintained his poker face and waited for the words to follow.
"...What is it?"
"The townspeople testified that debt collectors had visited the maid and her family several times."
At that moment, a fierce wave arose in Deon's eyes, reflected in the red tea.
"And when I asked for a description of the debt collectors and tracked them down..."
"..."
"...I found a loan shark business run by my brother."
In order to handle Ludian's death as an accident, Deon was looking for maids in the Crown Prince's palace when he found a maid with a sick younger sibling and deliberately put her in debt.
To get her to accept the offer to kill Ludian in order to write off the debt.
"Don't you know anything about that maid?"
Deon looked at Idris, who was looking at him over the teacup.
His voice was casual, but his eyes, which were staring at him quietly, were extremely cold.
The relaxed attitude from a moment ago was gone, and he looked like he was facing an enemy.
Only then did Deon realize.
The reason Idris had come all the way to ask him those questions wasn't because he really didn't know who the culprit was.
He only had suspicions but no evidence, so he couldn't catch him.
It was a kind of warning.
That he was watching him.
'This impudent bastard, daring to...!'
Rage at Idris's actions of daring to pressure him and the instinctive fear of being caught for his crime washed over him.
Deon gritted his teeth and answered in as nonchalant a tone as possible.
"I don't have every customer of the business reported to me, so there's no way I would know."
"..."
"But since it's about my lovely niece, I'll look into it."
Idris stared at Deon for a moment, then got up with a mysterious smile.
"Then I'll leave it to you."
However, the moment he opened the door of the reception room, two of Deon's subordinates blocked his path.
The butler who had left earlier had sent them, telling them to guard the front of the office.
Idris's golden eyes sank coldly as he faced them, and the corners of his lips twisted upward.
"Are you trying to fight me?"
A strange sense of intimidation could be felt in his attitude, which was full of interest and showed no sense of tension.
"But will two be enough?"
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