I Will Seduce The Northern Duke

"……Yes."

"Lies!"

The Princess turned pale, shouted, and ran out of the room. Thereafter, Selena, who witnessed Kalcion open his mouth as if he had something else to say to her, hurriedly placed her forefinger against her lips.

‘Stop!'

Kalcion calmly obeyed. Even though he slightly improved, his acting skills were still not reliable. For that reason, it was better for him to follow Selena's instructions for now.

"Our Princess is a bit shy. But she is honest. I bet the Duke will come to know how cute she can be when she starts living with him. She can be a perfect match with anyone."

Even though the Princess had left the room, the Queen did not stop talking about her daughter. Without even a hint of hesitation.

"Then, I think Your Majesty must find someone better than the Duke."

"Do you think if Prince Larsen ascended to the throne, the two of us would feel safe in that castle?"

The Queen seemed to have no intention of hiding the reasons behind her actions.

"If Her Majesty and Her Highness decide to flee to the North, the Duchy will protect its guests. If that time ever comes, I'm sure we will give our best to do so."

Kalcion spoke up, refusing her.

"Why does the Duke refuse us all the time? There's nothing for him to lose. Although I wasn’t, the Princess has been a royal as soon as she was born."

"I only caught Your Majesty’s eyes when you were looking for an unmarried man far enough to be out of reach of His Majesty's eyes and had moderate power."

"I don't deny that."

The Queen gently admitted it.

"And now, the whole world seems to be targeting me because of the explosion of the mine. The same goes for Your Majesty. If so, wouldn't it be better to find someone else under the same conditions?"

"I did think of that, but what am I supposed to do when the Princess yearns for you?"

"Stop her."

"Can't the Duke stop himself from refusing? I must say it's time for him to allow a proper bride to sit beside him."

Selena decided to step in. The longer the conversation would go, the longer the Queen would defeat Kalcion with her words.

Selena went to say something, but Kalcion took the lead.

"I don't want to get into a political marriage."

"…….?"

Both Selena and the Queen had the same expression. However, unlike Selena, who was agonizing over what he meant, the Queen immediately replied.

"Does the Duke want to live recklessly? Did he get his puberty late?"

"On the contrary, Your Majesty should take it as me being cautious."

The Queen's eyes widened at his answer.

"I find it impossible to believe the Duke could speak like a man in love. It's something one must live long enough to see."

Selena was surprised this time.

‘I don't want to marry the Princess.'

‘I don’t want to get married for the time being since it’s a marriage of convenience.’

‘I'm handsome even if I don't get married.'

These were the reasons she could infer from Kalcion's words. Nothing, but ‘love'.

‘What do you mean!'

The Northern Duke?

Her lips trembled, unable to hold back her laughter. However, the Queen was sharp enough to catch her smile.

"Don't be so happy. How is love at the center of this?"

"I beg your pardon? That's what the Duke says when he looks at me…. Isn't that true, Duke?"

Kalcion and love were such a bad combination, Selena forgot for a moment that she was supposed to act as his lover.

"Don't you usually say that?"

She tried to be consistent in their performance of a couple pouring sesame seeds.

{TL/N: In Korea, when you see a couple who is cute, happy, and so in love, you say, “sesame seeds are pouring out“}

At first, she was under the impression that it was a mistake, but it seemed rather natural for it to be one. That’s why it made sense for her to acknowledge that Kalcion, who was blunt, didn’t mean to say such things rather than to lie to herself that it's because he genuinely wanted a marriage of love.

"As Your Majesty is already aware….. his actions and words don't match."

The Queen only smiled joyfully at her words.

"She's quite bold and cute. Duke, this lady is your partner for the banquet, isn't she?"

"That's right."

"You can't be like that in social circles. If you do that, you will get stabbed for real."

She said it with a smile, but Selena's smile disappeared at her words.

"Are you going to kill me?"

"I tend to not go so far."

Selena's throat dried up.

"Then, who would?"

Selena met her eyes. The Queen was smiling, but her eyes were frighteningly scary.

"I don't know. Perhaps more than one or two people?"

"……."

The Queen stood up, still smiling at the stiffened Selena.

"I seem to have bothered a sick person for too long. I'll be back when I hear he's feeling better."

"Please take care, Your Majesty."

The Queen then disappeared as fast as she had stormed in earlier. Selena was too puzzled to realize whether or not the frantic conversation was real.

"……You seem to have something on your mind, right?"

"Hmm."

"The Queen doesn't seem to be the culprit. If that is her true self, doesn’t she seem more of the type who’d move on? Otherwise, I believe I would’ve seen through her if she was involved."

"That's right."

It was plausible. The Queen urged Irelle, who was previously the settled lady to sit next to Kalcion, and now Selena to get out of the way.

"…….Huh?"

Why did she do so indirectly?

Couldn't she have said it directly?

But, there was no way to confirm. If Irelle and the Queen had talked, it would have been at a party, and of course, Kalcion wouldn't have known.

In conclusion, the engagement was one of convenience, without love. Even when you look at it from all angles, Irelle's humble conditions were ridiculed and ostracized……And so, the reason as to why she died remained to be because she was the lady who’d sit next to Kalcion, the Duke of Renbird.

‘Let’s say they did talk. If that’s the case, did she hear something from the Queen then?’

Did she cry because her pride was hurt or was she just pretending? Because she didn’t know Irelle personally, she wasn’t able to discern which of the two was the truth.

The only thing clear to her was that the existence of the Queen might have been a considerable burden on Irelle.

Was she still able to live in a normal state after hearing a declaration of war from the Queen? Was she still set on marrying the Duke regardless of the Queen’s presence? If Irelle's cause of death was suicide, the Queen would also be the perpetrator.

"You're confident that Irelle was murdered?"

"I've been confident from the beginning. The wound itself wasn’t sharp enough to be caused by herself."

Still, it felt undesirable.

"I haven't entered the circle, yet I’m starting to feel what she might have felt. I don't think it's a simple matter where she got on someone's nerves and they killed her to wipe her off the picture."

"Are you saying there's a high chance she committed suicide?"

"That's what keeps bothering me."

Instead of blindly denying Selena's words, Kalcion got up.

"Then, let me show you Irelle's room. You might realize something else when you see it for yourself."

"Now?"

"Now."

Kalcion reached out his arm. Selena took a deep breath before placing her palm on his.

***

Irelle's room was on the opposite side of the hallway on the second floor. Upon entering the wide hall, the stairs were split on both sides.

The room on the left belonged to Kalcion while the one situated on the right was Irelle's. Even for a couple, the structure of the mansion depicted that one values the other’s privacy.

Besides that, this mansion had one peculiarity. There was a bridge that connected the garden to the end of the second floor. Not on the end of Kalcion's hallway, but the other.

"Why did they build that bridge?"

She was just curious, but her question caused Kalcion to smile bitterly.

"My mother. The previous Duchess must've ordered it because she used to say it was stuffy whenever she came to visit the capitol."

"Her Highness could just go out for a walk. Was she too lazy to go down the stairs?"

"Well….. there might've been times when it was too late at night to do so. If not, perhaps the Duchess just didn't want to stand out."

"……Ah."

She understood right away.

If she'd walked openly through the stairs, her whereabouts would have been known. That bridge was a passage she could use to go out of the mansion without being noticed by people.

Late at night, the Duchess had to avoid the eyes of people to leave the mansion. There could only be one reason. To see someone she shouldn't meet.

Even if nobody tried to talk about it, they probably knew the reason. Even Kalcion was known to be indifferent to other people's business.

How could the previous Duke allow the Duchess to build a bridge to have an affair with another man?

"How did the Duchess manage to get permission?"

"Since my mother already had me, she already fulfilled her duty as the Duchess, while my father had the duty to make the Duchess as convenient as possible."

Selena looked up at Kalcion as he explained dryly. There was no expression on his face.

"Did it seem fine from her son's perspective?"

"Regardless of whether it was fine or not, it was not the issue anymore."

"But they were still married."

"That's how most noble couples live."

What she was going to spit went back in.

It felt strange when he said it wasn't a problem not because that’s how his parents live, but because most noble couples lived in that manner. Even though she was curious about his response, she couldn't have insisted on prolonging their conversation about his parent’s issues now that it was already awkward.

Kalcion walked towards the door at the end of the hallway. There were two rooms. Kalcion approached the door which was slightly larger and more colorful than the other.

"What's the room next door for?"

The room at the end of the hallway had an exceptionally narrow space between the rooms compared to others she had seen.

"It was the room of the lady-in-waiting…… but Mrs. Janet used it instead."

"Even at the period of time when Irelle was here?"

"Yes."

"Until ‘that' day?"

Kalcion, who was aware of what she meant, glanced at Selena before opening the door of the slightly larger and more colorful room.

"At the time Irelle was murdered, Mrs. Janet said that she was deeply asleep, and that she didn't hear anything."

Thud.

The door closed behind her.