Chapter 18
A brief silence passed.
Lionel looked straight at Agnes over his glasses, then slowly shifted his gaze toward Hunts.
“If that’s what you say, then you have never headed south?”
“I swear it.”
After finishing her words, Agnes cautiously looked at Hunts Lockwood.
As if hoping he would confirm it again with his own mouth.
“Right? Sir Hunts?”
“Ahem…….”
But Hunts, far from giving the promised testimony, kept avoiding eye contact and only hesitated.
Lionel, who had silently watched for a long while, put down his quill pen.
“You said your name is Hunts Lockwood.”
“Ah, yes, yes! That is correct, Your Grace!”
Hunts bowed deeply to Lionel, in a manner incomparably more polite than when he dealt with Agnes.
“Tell me again the story you told me earlier. Without changing a single particle, exactly the same.”
Ah, finally.
Agnes clasped both hands tightly in her trembling heart.
However, the words that came out of Hunts’s mouth were completely different from what had been promised.
“The young lady urged me to give false testimony to prove her innocence.”
Agnes looked at Hunts with an expression of disbelief.
“What…… did you say? What does that mean? A few days ago, you clearly promised to testify that I headed north that day—,”
“Young lady, why are you really doing this? If you keep acting like this, it puts me in a difficult position too. The fact that you headed south that day is something most of the caravan people know, yet you dare ask me to lie to His Grace.”
Hunts put on a greatly troubled face.
“Enough. That’s sufficient, so you may leave now.”
Just as Agnes was about to open her mouth again, Lionel dismissed Hunts with a few indifferent gestures of his hand.
Agnes’s fingers, clutching the box placed on her lap, turned white.
Watching that sight, Lionel rose from his seat and came around to the front of the desk.
Then, with his hand thrust into his pocket, he leaned obliquely against the desk.
“What that knight said is not true…… I also have other evidence to prove that the claim I smuggled weapons is false.”
Agnes took one deep breath. Then, with trembling hands, she opened the lid of the box.
“If it’s not urgent, I’d prefer you do it later. I have a lot of work.”
“It won’t take long. Just a moment, really just a moment.”
Agnes resolutely opened the box and took out the enlistment proposal.
A sneer appeared at the corner of Lionel’s mouth as he glanced at the paper.
“What exactly do you think you can prove with that? And what proof is there that it isn’t a forged copy?”
His blade-like tone sharply pierced her chest.
With just a few words, the effort she had made crawling on the garbage dump floor while enduring the stench was instantly belittled.
Even her mere wish to have the disgust erased felt futile; Lionel’s eyes were that coldly indifferent.
But that was not the end.
Lionel, letting out a sigh, picked up something that had been placed on the desk.
“Then how are you going to explain this? Are you going to claim this was fabricated by someone too?”
Then, he casually placed it on her lap.
Thud—.
At the lightly dropped stack of papers, Agnes instinctively flinched.
As she unfolded it with trembling fingertips, horror filled her face.
It was a southbound ticket issued in her name on the day of the carriage accident. And a photograph of Agnes herself boarding the train.
“This can’t be, there’s no way this could……?”
What he had delayed checking—
It was precisely this additional material related to Agnes that had been reported at the banquet hall.
Ting—.
Lionel opened his Zippo lighter.
He did not, however, light it.
Instead, he merely rolled the lighter in his hand while observing Agnes’s expression.
Her lush, soft eyelashes were trembling faintly.
“This makes no sense. How could something like this—.”
“I’ve already confirmed the passenger list too. Your name was boldly listed in the first-class section.”
When Agnes could not respond, Lionel let out a dry laugh. It was a reaction he had expected.
Lionel, who had been contemplating whether to bite a cigar, opened and closed the lighter lid a few more times.
In the end, suppressing the thirst lingering in his mouth, he put the lighter back into his inner pocket.
At that moment.
Click click click—.
A short metallic sound rang from the telegraph placed in one corner of the office.
The adjutant immediately approached, began deciphering the received Morse code, and started writing down the content.
A moment later, he approached Lionel with a serious expression, holding the memo notepad.
“Colonel.”
While remaining wary of Agnes, the adjutant immediately lowered his voice and whispered secretly into his ear.
“……This is an additional report related to Rivelt. They have appeared near the northern border line, and a small-scale battle has broken out.”
Lionel’s eyes instantly turned fierce. Soon, he picked up his jacket and turned his body.
He looked ready to rush out at any moment.
“Your Grace……!”
“I believe I told you to do it later if it’s not urgent.”
After coldly warning Agnes, who had barely opened her mouth to hold him back,
Lionel headed straight for the door.
“……Then at least tell me when you’ll return.”
“Are we intimate enough for me to share even that?”
“You haven’t heard my full story yet.”
Lionel rubbed his temple with his fingertips.
A faint headache arose.
What would change by hearing more?
“Don’t wait.”
With those words, Lionel opened the door and left without any hesitation.
Agnes bit her lip while staring at the scraps of paper and the photograph left in her hand.
The truth she had desperately scraped together was helplessly trampled by just a few sheets of paper and a few words.
In that moment, even the desire to prove herself felt like nothing more than selfish greed.
Lionel’s eyes had not looked at her, nor at the truth.
***
Meanwhile, in a dark alley on the outskirts of the ducal castle.
A black carriage silently approached the staggering Hunts.
Its appearance, bearing no crest whatsoever, was highly suspicious.
Soon after, the carriage window opened.
Inside sat a platinum-blonde woman whose face was veiled by a lace hat.
Hair so transparent that light passed through it. And her delicate silhouette faintly resembled Agnes.
Depending on the angle, one could truly mistake her for Agnes Bardo.
“How did it go?”
Hunts chuckled vilely and rubbed his palms together in a servile manner.
“I testified exactly as you ordered, Lady Chloe. Hehe. His Grace the Duke probably believed it completely.”
Hunts even mentioned the photograph that had been on Lionel’s desk.
“I also confirmed that the materials the caravan master had tampered with safely reached His Grace’s hands. It was proudly placed right on the desk.”
“Hmm.”
Chloe tilted her head primly.
“Will the Duke really believe that photo?”
“Of course he will. Even if you wash your eyes and look again, it was Agnes herself. The neckline, the side profile—everything was perfectly deceptive.”
Hunts, glancing at the carriage, once again rubbed his palms together like a puppy that needed to pee.
“Then, since I’ve done everything you ordered, now the promised…….”
At that instant, something was tossed out from inside the carriage with a thud.
What fell at Hunts’s feet was a heavy purse.
Like a man finding an oasis in the desert, Hunts hurriedly opened the purse.
The purse was filled with gold coins. However, what truly delighted Hunts was something else.
Mixed among the gold coins was a black lump—high-purity refined drug.
Upon discovering it, Hunts gasped in joy.
“As expected, you are truly generous, Lady Chloe!”
Chloe had discovered Hunts heading to a gambling den purely by good luck.
Hunts Lockwood was already steeped in drugs, and his life as a knight was effectively over.
His remaining fortune was on the verge of being exhausted on buying drugs.
There was no reason for such a Hunts to refuse an offer that would give him money and drugs just for moving his mouth a few times.
His promise with Agnes?
Honestly, it was regrettable, but what could be done?
The side that expected such a thing from a drug addict was the naive one.
“Remember this well. Leave the empire by this route and never return again. Understood?”
Even before Chloe finished speaking, Hunts swallowed his saliva and hugged the purse to his chest.
“Yes, yes. Of course!”
Hunts, whose face had brightened in an instant, chuckled foolishly and hopped away toward the end of the alley.
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