Chapter 33
Watching the departing Agnes, Adrian timidly protested to Jerome.
“Are you just going to let her go like that? If it turns out I’m connected to this incident—”
“Shut up.”
A fishy smile spread across Jerome’s lips.
“I’ve played along this much that’s enough. Do I have to clean up all the mess you made?”
Jerome Winterbolt was neither idle nor generous enough to cater to others moods.
Helping Adrian, who had suddenly barged in clinging to his trouser legs begging to be saved, wasn’t for any grand reason.
He had simply found a toy to relieve boredom for a while.
Gaining investigative authority over Rebelt alone made it worth the effort.
Agnes and the Bardo trading company—these two cards still had use in obstructing Lionel, so stopping here was appropriate.
They were still too valuable to completely destroy yet.
“Still, that’s a bit amusing.”
Beast-like golden eyes pierced Lionel’s back.
Jerome was confident.
No one knew Lionel better than he did.
That’s how he could tell.
How persistently Lionel’s gaze followed Agnes.
How carefully his fingertips supported her.
“…She was a wife attached for humiliation.”
A low laugh escaped over the bridge of his nose.
“That will become your shackle, Lionel.”
Jerome’s golden eyes gleamed sharply.
Lionel had gained a weakness.
Though the man himself seemed unaware of it yet.
***
Inside the carriage returning to the ducal mansion, a suffocating silence lingered.
Lionel gazed out the window with a face that showed either anger or deep thought.
His profile reflected in the carriage window was quiet and solid.
The difficulty in reading emotional texture made it all the colder.
Before boarding the carriage, when Lionel asked if she would return to the hospital, Agnes briefly shook her head.
She wasn’t seriously injured enough to lie in a hospital bed, and above all, returning to that room felt terrifying—as if soldiers could burst in at any moment.
Agnes tightly clenched her fingertips.
The white patient gown crumpled under her palms.
The hospital clothes she wore, hurriedly dragged out as is, felt particularly shabby.
Wrapping her shoulders with both arms to cover herself a little, a deep blue gaze followed from across.
Startled, Agnes was about to lower her eyes but opened her mouth.
“I know you won’t believe me, but I have no connection to this terrorism.”
“I know.”
It was an utterly firm and indifferent reply.
“That’s why I stepped in.”
“…Really?”
She had assumed Lionel would suspect her too. Agnes was considerably surprised.
Did he truly believe her words?
Agnes examined Lionel’s face to grasp his true intentions.
But reading anything from Lionel’s expressionless face was difficult.
Clank, the carriage wheels jolted.
Amid the shaking vibrations, Agnes’s heart quietly rippled.
Upon arriving at the ducal mansion, Lionel silently lowered the wheelchair.
Watching him, Agnes cautiously broached the subject.
It was time to act on the resolve made in the hospital room.
“Your Grace. Actually…”
But the words didn’t come as easily as thought.
Biting her lips hard, Agnes closed her eyes briefly, then opened them and spoke as if resolved.
“I think Father and Sister are colluding with Rebelt. Perhaps even since the Sercadia war.”
A short silence passed.
Lionel’s eyes stared directly at Agnes as if observing.
Under that cold gaze, Agnes swallowed her breath.
Lionel said nothing.
That silence was more frightening.
It felt she had to prove it before Lionel dismissed her words as nonsense.
“Unlike what’s known, I’ve handled most of the trading company’s administrative work all this time. There were parts every month where quantities or sales didn’t match—”
“Stop.”
Lionel cut off Agnes’s words sharply.
“Go in first. I’m tired.”
Then he walked away quickly, as if there was nothing more to hear.
The words she had barely mustered courage to say fell vainly to the ground.
Ah.
She had been arrogant.
There was no way Lionel would believe her.
Ignored in front of all the servants, Agnes’s eyes reddened.
Yet Lionel didn’t look back at Agnes even once.
***
Returning to his office, Lionel clutched his shoulder.
Red blood faintly seeped through the wrapped bandage.
“Damn it.”
A short groan escaped.
With an annoyed expression, he pressed over the wound.
Fatigue weighed on his shoulder.
Lionel crumpled into the chair and tilted his head back.
Sitting there for a while regulating his breath, the pain gradually subsided.
As the shoulder pain eased, the report on the desk caught his eye.
It was the investigation result of carriage traces found in the debris of the bombed bridge.
Unfolding the paper, dense letters filled his view.
Lionel quickly flipped to the last page.
The conclusion stated that the alloy used to reinforce the carriage panels was a special alloy used only by the Bardo trading company.
“It seems not everything she told me was a lie.”
Lionel recalled, in this very seat, the words Agnes had shouted asserting her innocence.
“I didn’t take the southbound train then. I went north.”
According to the report, part of her words was true.
At least the Bardo trading company carriage had headed north.
However, whether the cargo inside was military supplies for the Black Iron Knights or weapons flowing to the Sercadia army was unknown.
Lionel closed the report.
Kalt, standing guard in front, unusually chose his words carefully.
“Colonel, if I may overstep, Agnes’s statement earlier doesn’t seem false.”
“You think so too?”
Lionel pressed his temple indifferently.
“I think so too.”
“Then why didn’t you hear more?”
“Because I haven’t yet calculated how much usefulness Agnes Bardo has.”
“Yes?”
He thought he had finally grasped the tail of the Rebelt bastards.
With the captured terrorists all falling into Jerome’s hands now. Lionel was back to square one.
The Rebelt bastards with their tails stepped on would hide in burrows again.
There was no way to pursue unless they showed themselves first. Of course, even if they did, Jerome would interfere.
Lionel slowly leaned back.
The chair back creaked.
But Jerome had overlooked something. If he couldn’t pursue from outside, he could simply dig in from inside.
And Lionel was considering using Agnes as the means for that.
Lionel looked at his face reflected in the window.
Behind the expressionless face, Agnes’s eyes overlapped.
Clear eyes bearing trust without a speck of doubt.
Whether she wanted revenge after being betrayed today, having profited similarly from selling weapons.
Or some other whim—what did it matter.
After all, he just needed to obtain what he wanted.
Above all, the foolish Agnes Bardo seemed to blindly trust him with just a few instances of help.
Like a duckling imprinting on the first person seen after hatching.
Recalling her naive eyes, something quietly moved in his mind.
He could use her. Instinctively, he thought so.
“Belief is the most efficient leash.”
It was merely an efficient judgment.
Lionel repeated that to himself.
“So that’s why you intervened in the investigation process.”
Lionel narrowed his brow.
Was that why?
Seeing her intimidated, his mood had hit rock bottom and his body moved first—that was true.
But if asked whether he acted from the thought of using Agnes from then, he wasn’t sure.
But probably so.
He must have instinctively recognized her usefulness.
Otherwise, his own impulse wouldn’t be explained.
“Yes.”
Lionel affirmed coldly.
Yet something hotly pulsing in one corner of his chest quietly mocked that logic.
“Rather than discarding Agnes Bardo, using her didn’t seem bad.”
Deceiving and using others to extract information was common on the battlefield. As numerous as deaths.
Agnes would be no exception.
So this stifling sensation settling over his chest wouldn’t be a big deal.
Feeling around his solar plexus, Lionel suddenly felt the mansion chilly today.
Thus, he abruptly gave an uncharacteristic order.
“It might be good to light the fireplaces more than usual.”
“Yes. I’ll prepare it right away.”
“No, not my room—Agnes’s room.”
“…? Yes. I’ll instruct the servants.”
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