WARDV 17

CHAPTER 17

“…Sharp, aren’t you.”

To be honest, it wasn’t a serious enough wound to require ointment, and if Idris hadn’t applied it, I probably wouldn’t have bothered.

Only then did I let my guard down and began to spread the ointment on my wrist.

Idris closed the tin case and spoke.

“On the battlefield, even a small wound can’t be ignored.”

“…”

“You think, ‘This is nothing, I can handle it’… But those insignificant wounds tend to open up at critical moments and determine life or death.”

Had someone else said this, it might’ve sounded like bravado.

But coming from someone who had actually fought on the battlefield, it struck a chord.

“You have to win, don’t you? This game.”

His voice was calm, but I could see the emotion in his eyes.

He’s worried about me…

It felt strange.

Having someone worry about me like this—it felt unfamiliar.

And somehow, the wrist where his hand had touched started to feel oddly tingly.

“Don’t hold back. Use a generous amount.”

He handed the closed tin case back to me.

After a moment of hesitation, I replied.

“Thank you… for caring.”

“By the way, I didn’t get to ask back at the hotel—what did the duke say?”

“Oh, the usual. That if I don’t go back to the mansion with him now, I won’t get any alimony.”

“Judging by the way he talks, I bet he won’t return your dowry either.”

By imperial law, a wife’s dowry is supposed to be returned upon divorce.

But many men made excuses—claiming the wife squandered the money or that they simply didn’t have it anymore—and refused to give it back.

Peidan looked likely to be one of those petty men.

“Right? But it’s fine.”

Idris looked at me with curiosity, surprised by my confident tone.

I grinned and added:

“Because I’ll just take it back.”

A little later.

Idris walked through the corridor from the annex to the main house.

One thought kept turning over in his mind.

Was it really a good idea to bring that woman into this house?

Besides the servants and Heather, no one had ever stayed in his mansion as a guest.

To him, “other people” were nothing more than troublesome variables interfering with his life.

So letting Leticia into this house… had been a purely impulsive decision.

He got angry seeing Peidan drag Leticia away like that.

Why did that make me so angry?

Sure, he felt a natural revulsion toward men who acted like that, but he wasn’t the type to act on a whim just out of pity for the victim.

He wasn’t that compassionate.

“…Guess the capital’s going to be noisy for a while.”

He was used to being the center of all sorts of gossip. These days, he found it almost boring without it.

Idris shrugged and brushed away his thoughts.

He found the answer to his question when he ran into Heather in the hallway.

“What are you doing? You’re not asleep.”

“A report just came in from the agents dispatched to the Litvan territory. I thought you’d want to know.”

The person he was looking for.

That phrase made Idris’s golden eyes flicker slightly.

Seeing that look, Heather’s expression grew apologetic as she cautiously delivered the news.

“I’m sorry to say, but there was no blonde woman of that age with the name Aria.”

Aria.

Before Idris had been acknowledged as a prince, back when he lived in the slums—

She was the only one who had approached him when the rest of the villagers avoided him.

But all he knew about Aria was her name and the fleeting glimpse of her face.

As a child, he had always covered his eyes to hide his golden irises—an unmistakable mark of royalty.

Yet when he heard the report about Aria, someone else’s face came to mind.

“Idris.”

When Leticia had called his name in the carriage earlier that day—

Her face had overlapped with Aria’s in his mind.

He had never told Aria his real name. So there was no way she had ever called him that.

But… Leticia also knew the story about how caterpillars become butterflies.

That, too, was something Aria had told him when they were kids.

“You know, caterpillars have to grow inside a cocoon, struggling before they get their wings.”

“…”

“So we’re also growing inside our cocoons to get our wings!”

Only then did he understand why he’d been so furious about what happened between Peidan and Leticia.

“Then… we’ll dispatch agents to the Petran region next.”

Heather glanced at Idris, trying to gauge his mood, and bowed before stepping back.

But just then—

“Heather.”

“Yes?”

On impulse, Idris was about to tell her to look into Leticia’s childhood.

But he closed his mouth again.

Just from a single butterfly story, thinking she’s Aria is ridiculous.

At the banquet after returning from the war, when he first saw Leticia next to Peidan, their eyes had met.

Even then, he had instinctively thought of Aria.

The thought that Aria might have a man had made his heart sink… only to feel relieved soon after.

Their names were different. Their status was different.

So Leticia Chloel could not be Aria.

And with that relief came a sense of emptiness.

Just like now.

Maybe it’s just been so long… I want to believe that someone who looks a little like her is the real one.

Idris scoffed at himself and said,

“No, never mind. You can go.”

The next morning, at the Farnese Ducal Estate.

Elise, who had gotten up early, was pacing anxiously in her room.

The uneasy silence was broken by a knock.

“My lady, the newspapers—”

Before the maid could finish her sentence, Elise flung open the door and snatched the paper from her.

“Give it here!”

This maid was one of the people Elise had charmed and manipulated after entering the Farnese household.

Startled by Elise’s unusually sharp tone, the maid froze, but Elise didn’t care.

The massive photo and headline on the front page had already seized all her attention.

[Duke Farnese’s Marital Strife: The Duchess’s New Flame Revealed to be Grand Duke Del Lua…]

Without even flipping the page, she grabbed the next paper.

[Duchess Farnese Currently Staying at the Grand Duke’s Estate…]

And the next one. And another. Every single paper covered the scandal between Leticia and Idris in glaring headlines.

“This can’t be real… Are they really involved like that?”

Muttering nervously to herself, Elise finally noticed the maid, who looked unsettled by her behavior.

She quickly fixed her expression and smiled sweetly.

“Ahem! Thanks for the papers, Melinda. Could you bring me some wash water if you’re not busy?”

“Ah. Yes, my lady.”

As soon as the maid left, Elise’s gaze returned to the paper—now ice cold and sharp.

What a shameless woman.

Gritting her teeth, she crumpled the newspaper in her hand.

She had been Peidan’s first love.

No one knew that better than Elise herself.

That meant the position of Duchess Farnese was supposed to be hers.

But while she was struggling under the pressure of her viscount uncle, Leticia had debuted in high society first and snatched Peidan away.

And that wasn’t enough—she went around seducing every man in the social circle.

Even though both were daughters of viscounts and undeniably beautiful in different ways, people only ever looked at Leticia.

That had always felt unfair.

Why did Leticia receive more love, despite being of the same status?

But after Leticia married Peidan, society’s attention naturally drifted away from her.

Elise managed to worm her way into Peidan’s heart and win it back…

And now she’s seduced even the Grand Duke of Del Lua?

As Idris’s impossibly handsome face flashed in her mind, her chest burned with frustration.

I can’t just sit back and watch that woman get something better than me.

Whether it was a thing… or a person.

A woman who stole from others deserved the title of a pitiful divorcee.

Not the glamorous lover of a Grand Duke.

There has to be a way to drive a wedge between that woman and the Grand Duke…