“Don’t touch me!”

Silence descended on the peaceful terrace, like frost in the middle of winter.

Blood dripped down the red line created by the fingernails on the Grand Duke’s smooth cheek. Whatever it was, she was desperately holding her stomach, so she backed away from him.

The Grand Duke went blank for an instant. He looked at his hand, which she hadn’t been able to take, with devastated eyes, regardless of the scratch.

He parted his lips and took a few steps towards Anne, who was crouching her body. Among her intermittent moans of agony, she let out a scream.

“Get out… get out of my room. Right now!”

“Angroanne, what the hell is going on? This is…”

In the meantime, she didn’t seem to be feeling well in her stomach. Anne’s shoulders shook pitifully. Daymond’s fingertips trembled at the sight of the nauseous Anne.

In the end, Daymond, stunned at her refusal, had no choice but to leave the room, entrusting a maid to help her.

As soon as he left the hallway, Daymond looked down bitterly at his fingertips, which had briefly touched her wrist. The moment he met that look in her eyes that even the slightest touch of his hand was so terrible that she gagged, it felt like something was collapsing in his heart.

Like something irreversible is going to the bottom.

“I can’t do this…”

There must have been something wrong with Anne’s condition. He gave her time and apologized, and she was not the kind of woman who would act so ruthlessly, so she must have been sick somewhere.

The Lady is a person who never expresses herself even when she is having a hard time or even when she thinks she will die. She is the kind of person who will endure without saying a word until the moment she dies. Your Grace, by the time you find out, it will be too late.

Suddenly, the words Salton had said before leaving stuck unpleasantly in his ears.

The Grand Duke left the main building. After passing through the training ground and arriving at the accommodation where the employees of the family live, he opened the door to where Cromund’s doctor lived without hesitation.

A room full of the fragrant smell of herbs greeted him. The old doctor, who was looking at the dried grass in the corner, saw the Grand Duke’s sudden appearance, and hurriedly lowered his head in surprise.

“Your Grace… What brings you here?”

“How long ago did you check the Grand Duchess’ condition?”

Even after hearing that, the doctor broke out in a cold sweat and lowered his body to the fullest. He had only come because he was worried about Anne’s health, but before he could even look at the doctor suspiciously at him, the doctor knelt down as if he had committed a crime.

As Daymond was about to open his mouth at the anxious feeling that he had forgotten for a while passing the nape of his neck, the doctor spoke first.

“Your Grace… ! I have sinned to death. Her Grace asked me not to say a word…”

“What?”

The grand duke’s expression hardened even more when he admitted his sin.

“Tell me in detail what the Grand Duchess is hiding.”

The hoarse voice leaking through the teeth of tightly clenched teeth was very precarious. The doctor, who had been trembling at the eerie question, slowly parted his lips.

“Madam… has a child.”

As soon as the doctor finished answering, the Grand Duke’s eyes suddenly changed.

“… A child? Who… did you say has a child?”

The Grand Duke’s question, which he repeated in an absurd way, trembled slightly. The trembling doctor cleared his throat one after another and barely answered.

“The… Grand Duchess.”

His eyes widened with anger, there was only one thing he would do next. He jumped out of the room and went straight down the dark road to meet Anne.

His face was distorted all the way he walked across the backyard alone.

“She can’t be pregnant.”

He denied it with a gritting sound, but the doctor’s words that she had been suffering from morning sickness recently matched the situation he witnessed.

He moved quickly with furious steps. He tried to control his emotions, but even this broke his heart. Since he himself could not bore an heir, she could not have been pregnant. Even if a child would come naturally, it was impossible, no matter how much God intended it.

The reason for the pregnancy was that Anne had a separate affair with someone.

The long legs that had been moving quickly past the training ground shrouded in darkness came to a standstill. In the pitch-black darkness that even feels dreary, the red eyes captured the front of the magnificent Grand Duke’s castle with its bright lights on. To be precise, through the window of the east wing where Anne’s bedroom was located.

“Are you… really pregnant?”

Empty questions scattered through the rustling of leaves in the cool breeze.

If so, when? And whose? Did she flirt with another man outside the castle?

It can’t be. She never left the castle.

Then, when Anne was in danger, was he one step too late? No, she would have noticed. If so, was it the time when she was staying at the Count’s residence? That day, her ex-fiancé named Salton also came to visit.

Daymond’s lowered red eyes flashed, as he thought to that point. Blue veins rose dangerously on the back of his clenched fist.

He didn’t even have to think deeply. If he was looking for a reason to explain it, there was only one in the end.

The Grand Duchess had an affair with another man.

His face crumpled. She betrayed him again.