Chapter 94

“Yes.”

The duke finally spoke, his lips stretching slowly as he listened to the report.

“So, the second son barged into the tea party, broke down the doors in the mansion, and did all that just to find that woman?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

The aide bowed his head.

Duke Valenstein.

His eyes and ears reached every corner of the empire.

Even to the northern border where the Eisenhart territory lay, far across half the empire from his island domain.

At the Valenstein family’s northern villa, where Ines had taken her servants, several of them were actually the duke’s own direct subordinates.

The reason was simple.

He wished to keep watch over his daughter’s every move.

The duke’s lips curved faintly as if savoring what he had just heard.

“She chose to suppress the incident rather than expose it.”

So that was it.

To observe his daughter.

My daughter, Ines.

The duke’s mouth lifted in amusement.

A child who had inherited her mother’s pink hair and his own sky-blue eyes.

That tiny girl had grown up enough to try deceiving her father now.

“Adorable.”

A soft chuckle escaped him.

It had been clever of her to pour tea on that woman in front of everyone, but what she did afterward was reckless.

To take that woman into a mansion apart from the garden, then drive out every servant from the floor.

“That will not do, Ines.”

The duke tugged thoughtfully at the tip of his mustache.

“Such behavior means you have something to hide.”

Something like.

“A private conversation with that woman.”

He laughed quietly.

So she had even ordered her servants to keep silent about Demius breaking through every door from the first floor to her room in search of that woman.

The reasoning sounded plausible enough.

If word spread that Duke Valenstein’s daughter had hosted a tea party where her fiancé caused a commotion to find another woman, it would indeed be a disgrace to the family name.

That was why he had let Ines handle it for now.

“She is still immature.”

The duke sighed softly.

To clear an entire floor and command silence from the staff would only make it easier for him to notice.

If she wanted to hide something properly, she should have concealed the tree in the middle of the forest.

Blood cannot be denied.

He, too, had made similar mistakes when he was young.

A nostalgic smile traced his lips.

She had never seen his younger self, yet she was repeating his very actions.

Leaning back in the armchair, the duke asked lazily,

“Do you have a daughter?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

The aide bowed again.

“She turned nine this year.”

“My condolences.”

The duke shrugged.

“Daughters are adorable, but they can be quite troublesome. They never understand their parents’ hearts.”

He clicked his tongue lightly and spread his hands.

“They’re obedient when little, then suddenly adolescence hits and everything changes.”

Ines.

My sweet daughter.

I know you have been refusing to return home.

Once the aide had been dismissed from the room, the duke rested a hand over his stomach and smiled faintly.

Volunteering for the Advanced Research Institute, staying up all night writing theses just to avoid coming home.

You believed academic success would serve as a proper excuse not to return.

“I suppose it’s time to bring you back.”

He clicked his tongue again.

A young lady should always receive her bridal training at home.

He had allowed her freedom for too long, and now she dared to defy him.

That is what happens when a daughter is educated too well.

The corners of his mouth tilted upward.

And you, my child, of all people. Did you think I would ever let you go so easily?

Through her father, she bore the blood of House Valenstein, and through her mother, she belonged to a prestigious clerical lineage that had produced generations of high priests.

Worldly power and divine heritage united in one perfect bloodline.

Her beauty and intelligence only made her more exceptional. Suitors from across the empire and even from foreign royal houses had long sought her hand.

However.

The duke’s eyes narrowed as his tongue clicked softly.

“Royal blood means nothing.”

That was not his goal.

He sought something higher, far greater.

House Eisenhart.

The empire’s only grand ducal family, the strongest in military power, eternally supported by the people for defending the north against demonic beasts.

They were the single greatest obstacle standing between him and his ultimate ambition.

To bring that family under his control was his life’s long desire.

And the key to achieving it was none other than his daughter, Ines.

For her to now try to escape his grasp.

“Unacceptable.”

After all the time and money I have poured into you, my daughter, how could I ever let you go?

The duke tilted his gaze toward the ceiling and let his thoughts drift.

Perhaps her defiance had begun much earlier than he realized.

When had she started showing such insolence?

“The Academy?”

No.

His lips moved slowly as he recalled.

Earlier than that.

“Was it after her mother died?”

Perhaps.

His eyes shifted lazily.

That girl never even saw her mother’s corpse.

‘Your Grace, the duchess…’

It had been more than ten years ago.

That dawn, when he received word that the woman who lived in the separate quarters had been found hanging in her chamber, the first place he went was his daughter’s room.

There she was, fast asleep in her pink, girlish bed, breathing softly.

Only after confirming her safety did he head to the duchess’s chamber.

The woman, said to have hung herself from the chandelier, had already been taken down and laid on the floor by the servants.

She was around thirty, with strands of white already glinting through her pink hair.

“Is Mother still sleeping?”

That was what Ines asked at breakfast after waking and not seeing her mother.

Such an innocent question. The duke smiled faintly and stroked her shoulder.

“Ines.”

He smiled tenderly.

“Your mother was always ill, remember? This time it became more serious, so she went far away to rest and recover.”

“Where?”

“To a distant seaside. Somewhere warm and peaceful. She will get better there.”

“I see.”

Ines hesitated, her small lips parting slightly before she looked up at him.

“How many nights until she comes back?”

“Let me think.”

The duke gazed above her head for a moment before smiling softly.

“Do you miss her?”

“It’s alright.”

She shook her head.

Her soft pink hair fluttered gently like spring blossoms.

Just like that woman’s had once done.

But the sky-blue eyes she had inherited from him stared back at him quietly.

“I’ll wait until Mother comes home.”

“Yes.”

A faint smile returned to his cold lips.

He patted her head affectionately.

“Good girl, my daughter.”

More than ten years passed, and that little girl had grown into a twenty-four-year-old woman.

“Too late,” he muttered under his breath, frowning slightly.

Twenty-four. Too old for marriage already.

He had pitied her timid nature and let her live as she pleased before marriage, yet she had done something this audacious.

“That bold little thing.”

He tugged again at his mustache.

Perhaps Asellion and Demius’s disappearance had delayed her engagement, but still.

His subordinate, stationed near the window, had tried to overhear Ines and that woman’s conversation but could not catch their voices.

All he heard was what came afterward, after Demius barged in.

“Your manners are as crude as ever. I suppose one cannot teach etiquette to a brute.”

“I never understood why my brother was engaged to someone like you.”

The duke had long known that Ines disliked the second son.

Likewise, the second son clearly despised her.

But what could either of them do?

They were born into noble houses, and duty was theirs to bear.