Chapter 37
Because Agnès kept staring at Dylan, their eyes inevitably met. Dylan looked puzzled, and Agnès quietly motioned for him to come closer.
“Huh? Where are you going, sir?”
The knights, who had been happily gathered around the map, somehow noticed her tiny gesture immediately.
Agnès was impressed. So this is how they perform so well on the battlefield…
“Your Grace, I have something to tell you. May we speak somewhere else?”
She finally said it directly.
At her words, the knights’ eyes sparkled with curiosity.
From their perspective, the duke’s fiancée asking him for a private conversation must have looked like a sweet romantic moment.
Which was exactly why Agnès had wanted to talk without them around.
Dylan slowly turned his expressionless face toward his knights and stared at them.
The knights immediately bent over the map again as if nothing had happened.
The longer Dylan silently stared, the lower their heads drooped.
They looked moments away from smashing their foreheads into the table.
When the room became completely quiet, Dylan calmly reached out his hand to Agnès.
“Let’s go.”
Agnès placed her hand lightly on top of his, and once again the knights’ gazes shot toward them—this time much more cautiously, making it hard to scold them.
Her cheeks warmed with embarrassment as she followed Dylan out.
Honestly, this entire situation was his fault—he was escorting her with such elegance just to have a simple conversation.
In the hallway, Dylan closed the study door and looked at her, as if asking Is this something we can discuss here?
“Let’s go to Your Grace’s bedroom.”
It was the most private place in the house—the safest place for Dylan to speak freely.
But instead of moving, Dylan only raised an eyebrow.
“It’s fine.”
“I haven’t even said anything yet.”
“Today is the fourth day. You want to shorten my cycle, don’t you?”
It would’ve been stranger if someone as perceptive as Dylan didn’t guess her intention.
Even so, Agnès stood her ground.
“Your Grace, aren’t you exhausted because of my situation lately? Then I believe I should also do my part.”
“If you meet the conditions I set, you’ll receive everything you want.”
“I know. It’s not that I don’t trust you. But the two of us…”
Agnès tightened her grip on the hand resting on Dylan’s.
Dylan looked down at their hands, then at her face.
“…we are partners who shake hands, aren’t we?”
Her golden eyes were firm—like small stars.
Tiny lights, easily hidden or dimmed, but never extinguished.
Lights that appeared again every day.
Dylan looked at their awkward handshake.
Because she was holding his right hand with her left, it looked almost comical.
Her hand was much smaller and far weaker than his.
And yet her words—we’re partners who shake hands—struck him.
He had shaken hands with countless people. Most he couldn’t even remember.
But he understood what she meant:
She didn’t want to just be protected.
She wanted to stand beside him.
For some reason, Dylan suddenly thought of his sister, Kali—
the fierce knight who scowled whenever he tried to protect her during hunting competitions.
This woman looked half as strong as Kali physically, but the determined expression was the same.
Dylan quietly stepped back.
“You’re right. This is a special situation, so I’ll accept it. It will help us meet your conditions.”
Agnès’s eyes widened in surprise.
Clearly, even she hadn’t expected him to agree so easily.
She was happy—truly happy.
It was strange. Most people would be horrified at the idea of cutting their skin to give blood, yet she seemed delighted.
“But once Noah is safely returned, there will be no exceptions. It must always be once every five days.”
“Yes! Thank you!”
Dylan gently removed his hand from hers and extended it again—this time properly, for a real handshake.
“You should be thanking me. Come to my bedroom tonight.”
Agnès’s smile grew bright—brighter than usual.
She smiled often, but this was different.
Dylan realized he had seen this expression only twice before:
- The day he promised to deliver her letter to Noah.
- The day he returned with Noah’s reply.
This… this is her true smile.
Suddenly, he wanted to touch her flushed cheek.
But he held himself back so she wouldn’t be startled.
Resisting that impulse was wise…
though he regretted not touching that warm, reddened cheek.
* * *
The next day, the “secret passage experts”—the knights—arrived with their report.
They exchanged glances nervously.
A well-rested, glowing duke…
and a tired-looking lady.
Considering they were engaged, there was only one possible conclusion.
Trying hard not to imagine their lord’s private life, the knights hurriedly started their report.
Their leader, Bram—the eldest—spoke first.
“Ahem. We discovered that the Overhan townhouse changed locations once.”
Agnès, unaware of their thoughts, listened attentively.
“Oh, right. That was before I married Count Overhan. When he inherited the title, he moved the townhouse because the old one was too far from the palace. The previous townhouse is still in the outskirts of the capital. A location he never liked.”
“Indeed. But we found he didn’t sell the previous one—he simply closed it off. Do you know why?”
“I’m not sure. He was obsessed with history, so I didn’t think too much about it. Why do you ask?”
Bram muttered, “As expected…”
then continued.
“It is possible the secret underground passage you mentioned connects the two townhouses.”
Agnès couldn’t hide her shock.
“But the two houses are quite far apart.”
“Distance matters, of course. But what’s more important is what structures exist between them. If someone dug underground recklessly, they could collapse a nearby building or accidentally connect to someone else’s secret passage. That would be… awkward.”
“I… see.”
Agnès didn’t know much about architecture.
She could imagine a building collapsing, but underground passages intersecting was beyond her imagination.
And the knights’ ability to visualize underground structures from surface layouts amazed her.
“We also discovered people coming and going from the old townhouse, even though it’s supposed to be closed. Rough men, poorly dressed. Sometimes a large wagon parks there at night.”
“That’s suspicious.”
“Indeed. If they were transporting something legitimate, they wouldn’t need to hide. Likely drugs or counterfeit goods.”
“You mean like gold coins? Or art?”
“Those are typical examples.”
Dylan, who had been listening quietly, added:
“There was evidence that Count Overhan dealt in counterfeit artwork. It seems he used the old townhouse as a storage site.”
Agnès suddenly remembered something.
When she was still Countess Overhan, Rickman once mocked other nobles for being “fools who couldn’t even tell if art was genuine.”
She had dismissed it as arrogance…
but what if he had been selling fake art to those “foolish” nobles?
Scamming nobles would be an even more serious crime.
“In that case, we should investigate that building thoroughly. Also check if anyone has purchased fake artwork from him. Some of them will definitely side with us.”
With Dylan’s orders, the meeting ended, and the knights set off to gather information.
But a few days later, they returned with apologetic expressions.
“We told them they had been tricked into buying counterfeit art, but none agreed to cooperate.”
“One even yelled at me. Told me never to mention it again.”
“Well… nobles do have their pride…”
But even for nobles, the reaction was too uniform.
Could it really be that they found nothing?
