Chapter 94
The marquis’s eyes, masked in a stoic expression, twisted for a brief instant before returning to normal.
“Father?”
Barun’s voice scattered faintly in the air.
His flushed cheek burned under his hand, and he heard his heart pounding faster than ever.
The marquis slowly closed his eyes, then opened them again.
He still did not fully understand what had happened.
But if this news had already reached the imperial palace, then the council and the social world must already be in chaos.
If the Duke of Dalton moved, Barun would be in danger.
The imperial palace had already hinted that this could be treason.
He had thought he knew where the blade would point, but its direction had shifted.
Even the hand holding the hilt had changed.
This was a complete misstep.
At this moment, the marquis had to protect everything—both as head of the family and as a father.
Some people valued honor and reputation more than life, but the marquis was not one of them.
To protect his son, he was willing to throw away the family’s honor without hesitation.
“Father…?”
The marquis deliberately averted his eyes from Barun’s face, which looked as though he couldn’t believe he had been struck.
An aching finger.
They say all children are equal, but how could they truly be the same when one had witnessed his mother’s death with his own eyes, and heard his parents’ quarrels with his own ears?
Even though his chest ached from striking his son’s reddened cheek, the marquis could not hesitate—because this was the only path to survival.
“How could you possibly be jealous of your younger sister!”
The aide standing behind the marquis shut his eyes tightly.
Before coming here, the marquis had stopped by the carriage depot.
On the day of the tribute raid, no external carriage had entered the estate.
It had been the same since then.
The palace had restricted carriage usage in the capital to prevent further incidents.
Aside from external carriages, only the marquis, Soph, and Barun’s carriages had been used to travel within the family estate.
There had been no room for such a quantity of Bea in the carriage Soph had taken that day.
Which meant that, unfortunately, the most likely carriage was Barun’s.
A movable carriage, a warehouse where the contraband was found—circumstantial evidence was airtight.
Whether it was a setup or the truth still needed investigation, but just moments ago, the marquis had declared:
That no matter the suspicions, it would be resolved as a family matter.
Not as treason, but as family disgrace—to protect Barun.
The aide’s eyes filled with pain.
He too had watched Barun grow since childhood.
Barun’s twisted expression, as though he had just heard his final sentence, was too much for the aide to bear; he turned his head away.
“What are you…?”
“I already knew you were jealous of Velia’s influence in the guild. But still, how could you do such a thing as her elder brother?!”
“Father, what on earth…?”
“Do not make excuses! Even if you were jealous, you should never have touched imperial tribute. No matter how immature you are, how could you commit such an outrageous act?”
“What are you saying? I know nothing! I didn’t do this!”
At Barun’s cry, the marquis raised his hand and pointed at the warehouse.
“There! Over there!”
Barun whipped his head around, then shook it furiously, but it was already too late.
Everyone present had seen his face pale in that instant.
It did not mean he was caught.
It was the fear of a blade suddenly thrust before him.
But to everyone except Tov, Barun now looked less like the young heir of a great house and more like a foolish, childish boy.
A very disgraceful child.
With eyes as twisted as his son’s face, the marquis spoke.
“Barun! I am disappointed in you. From this moment on, all authority I granted you within the family is revoked.”
“Father, what are you saying…? This is a setup! I know nothing of this! What would I do with imperial tribute? This is slander! Where is the proof—yes, the evidence! Do you have it?”
The marquis stifled a sigh as he watched Barun, who had completely lost his composure.
If Barun had been even slightly shrewd, he should have kept his mouth shut.
This reckless outburst was not fitting for a future heir.
Even though only his formal authority was stripped away, everything still in his possession remained his—yet Barun could not see that, blinded by his outrage.
In a softer tone, the marquis tried to calm him.
“There was no trace of an external carriage entering that day. Only your mother and you used carriages. So…”
“It could have been placed in the warehouse after that day, couldn’t it?!”
“Barun Arpedi!!”
The marquis’s face reddened again.
Perhaps the imperial knights did not know, but the higher-ranking servants certainly did.
They all knew that people—specifically Barun’s people—went in and out of his warehouse almost daily.
“Enough. I will not see the family’s honor tarnished further.”
But the father’s desperate plea to keep quiet did not reach his son.
“Father! It wasn’t me! Then… then it must have been the lady—the marchioness!!”
Smack—Barun’s face whipped to the side once more.
The marquis’s hand trembled.
It was a trembling born of rage, shame, and sorrow.
His eyes quivered now more than ever.
The more he spoke, the more he realized he was thinking the same as the others present.
Doubts about Barun, his son.
If the Dalton family had orchestrated this, the suspicion seemed far too weak.
But if he considered Barun guilty?
Every piece of evidence lined up perfectly.
How the Bea had been hidden so quickly in the capital, how the transport routes had been known.
The guild had been scoured, but no accomplices found—yet if it were Barun, that made sense.
As the young heir, nothing within the guild was beyond his reach.
Over Barun’s trembling face, the marquis saw the image of a much younger boy.
The child who once shook and wept, insisting he knew nothing, when asked why he had taken Velia there.
“You need to calm yourself…”
These words were meant not only for Barun but for the marquis himself.
He could not cross the line in his anger. Here, at least, it had to end as a play.
He took a deep breath to steady himself.
“For now, you will come with me to the imperial palace—”
“Father?”
But the moment a clear, delicate voice broke in, the entire atmosphere shifted.
Everyone’s heads turned sharply in the same direction.
“What… what are you saying right now?”
The marquis froze at the sight of the trembling figure, delicate as a flower.
His face went pale.
“No… is it…?”
He could not avoid her anxious black eyes, shimmering with tears.
Those wounded eyes seemed to speak to him:
‘Father, I am your aching child too.’
The marquis bit his lip and closed his eyes tightly.
“Why is that… why is that here…?”
Velia’s trembling hand pointed to the Bea.
Bedol bit his lip hard.
Normally he would have made a fuss, but even he could not hide his shock—and so it was with the others standing behind.
As gasps filled the air, Velia shook her head desperately.
“No… no way… why would my brother…?”
Her wavering eyes landed on Barun.
Barun too looked up at Velia.
Seeing the raw resentment in her eyes, Velia suddenly rushed forward.
Step by step, faster and faster—until she was running.
For an instant, Barun thought he saw black wings spread from her back as she charged toward him.
“What were you thinking—!!”
“Enough, Father!”
Their voices clashed, echoing through the courtyard.
Velia spread her arms wide, blocking Barun.
Barun stared, dumbstruck, at the back of the head shielding him.
And in that instant, he fully realized it.
He was the prey. There was no way out of this trap.
“There must be some mistake! My brother would never do this! This… this has to be wrong. It’s a setup!”
The courtyard grew deathly cold.
The contrast between the brother shouting in denial and the sister defending him only heightened the drama.
Velia’s tears carried the play to its climax.
Even the imperial investigators, who had just arrived to watch the scene, looked moved.
Treason had, in a moment, collapsed into mere family disgrace.
“Father, it’s a misunderstanding. It’s my fault—I wasn’t good enough. Please, stop this.”
Though his plan to cover everything as a family scandal had succeeded, the marquis’s face was twisted in utter misery.
