A few hours earlier, when he had asked how things were going with Elena, Victor’s reply was this.
“At first, I was suspicious of Her Highness the Grand Duchess and had her followed.”
“Of course you did.”
Benedict nodded. Victor was a capable soldier who had survived countless battlefields. Naturally, he would have been wary of a strange woman who suddenly appeared claiming to be the Grand Duchess, and would have investigated her. There were plenty of suspicious things about that woman.
“She visits the clinic every day. So at first, I thought Your Highness must’ve fallen ill from the harsh prison life. Just look at this visitation room—it’s horrible.”
“As if I’d be sick.”
Benedict replied curtly to Victor, who shuddered as he glanced around the cold visitation room. He was sturdier than most men, his body hardened by training. During the war, he’d camped out in winter forests for days on end. There was no way he’d fall ill from a mere prison stay. Seeing his reaction, Victor scratched his head awkwardly.
“But now I think… maybe it’s Her Highness who’s unwell.”
“……”
“After looking into it, it turns out her father and brother were absolute bastards.”
As Victor’s report continued, Benedict licked his dry lips for no real reason.
‘Was she hiding it on purpose?’
He recalled the faint bruises on Elena’s delicate skin. She’d made up some excuse about trying to kill some pests, but as a soldier, he’d sensed those were the kinds of marks you got from being hit. There were similar, though faded, scars on her wrist that peeked out from beneath her sleeve. At the time, he’d found it odd but dismissed it as none of his business—yet apparently, they were signs of long-term abuse by her family.
‘And even so, she came here every day to wait for me in this miserable place?’
She was so pale it seemed she might be malnourished, her body so slender it looked fragile. Despite being sick enough to need daily visits to the clinic, Elena still came to the visitation room every single day. Imagining her waiting for hours inside these cold stone walls for someone who never showed up made a corner of his heart ache uncomfortably.
“On top of that, she also stops by the weapon shop every day.”
“The weapon shop?”
His well-shaped eyebrows shot up sharply. A clinic he could understand—but a woman buying weapons was another matter. Was she plotting something behind his back, planning to pull something reckless on him?
Soon Victor continued, his face clouded with concern.
“She was apparently looking at daggers there, so I figured maybe she was trying to pick out a suitable self-defense weapon.”
“…Self-defense?”
“In fact, ever since the article about the two of you came out, His Highness the Crown Prince has seemed quite displeased.”
“……!”
Benedict’s eyes widened in realization before narrowing again. In hindsight, it was obvious. He was imprisoned under suspicion of killing the Crown Prince’s father-in-law, Devon Hayden.
There was no way the Crown Prince would be pleased with Elena openly defying him like this.
“Imperial knights have even been tailing Her Highness. So we switched the men we had following her to act as her escort instead.”
“……”
“Her Highness the Grand Duchess clearly loves Your Highness. I mean, she’s taking on something that could put her in real danger herself!”
“……!”
Benedict’s pupils trembled with shock. Come to think of it, Elena Christie had been odd from the very start.
‘I’m confident I can get Your Grace acquitted.’
She was the first person, other than the soldiers under his command, to tell him outright that he was innocent.
Benedict recalled the moment he’d been accused of killing the Crown Princess’s father, Devon Hayden. The instant he found him collapsed in a pool of blood and lifted him up, he became the murderer.
It was all too perfectly arranged. That he was the first to discover the body, that the murder weapon was linked to him, that he’d had several arguments with Devon in the weeks leading up to the incident—everything pointed straight at him.
At first, people only tilted their heads in doubt, but once the details were published in the papers, they all turned their backs. And who could blame them? Sitting there during questioning, staring blankly at the evidence the Police Bureau presented, even he started to wonder if maybe he’d somehow been possessed and actually killed the man.
Sometimes, when a noble committed a crime, the council of nobles would step in to save them. But that didn’t apply to him. As an illegitimate child of the Imperial family, exiled to a remote castle with his nurse the moment he was born, he had always been alone. His mother, who’d died giving birth to him, was someone he’d obviously never met, and his father, the Emperor, treated him worse than a stranger. He wasn’t the type to make connections in high society, and with his half-brother, Crown Prince Lawrence, blatantly shunning him, there was no noble willing to stand up for him.
So the only ones in the Aria Empire who believed he’d been falsely accused were a handful of soldiers under his command. And even they were men who had nothing to do with society or politics.
By the time he was starting to give up on everything, Elena appeared and proposed a contract. And now, she was taking reckless risks for his sake.
Was she really doing all that purely to defend him in court? Just because of the contract? There was no way.
“…Is that why she proposed marriage?”
Benedict’s eyes quivered faintly with realization.
‘I usually never take a case without a retainer. But for Your Grace, I’m making a special exception. I’ll do it purely for the contingency fee.’
From the very start, she’d never hidden that he was special. The only thing Elena had kept from him was that she was being abused by her family.
“She must’ve kept that from me so I wouldn’t worry.”
Benedict took a deep breath. Thinking back, maybe the way Elena had lashed out at him when talking about Vivian hadn’t been what she truly felt either. It must’ve been complicated for her to bring up the woman he supposedly loved. Maybe she’d gotten sharp with him out of jealousy.
“But still… why?”
There was nothing between them. He’d first seen Elena in that visitation room. Suddenly, the content of the article Victor had brought to him sprang to mind.
‘His Grace ran straight into enemy bombardment without a moment’s hesitation. That was when I fell for him at first sight.’
Maybe… not everything in the article was a lie. He really had saved citizens of the Empire countless times on the battlefield. Looking back at Elena’s interview, it was written with such vivid detail—stuff only someone who’d been there could remember.
Eventually, Benedict reached the conclusion that Elena’s article was a moving true story. Even while reading it thinking it was nonsense, it had left a lump in his throat, and his soldier’s instincts for the truth were now telling him he’d seen the real thing.
“So that’s why she reacted like that to the condition.”
Now it all made sense. Elena had sparkled with enthusiasm the entire time he’d listed the conditions to get him out of prison—except for one. The part about ‘not developing personal feelings for each other’ had gotten a distinctly lackluster reaction from her. Like she couldn’t care less.
‘Because she was already in love with me.’
To her, it was probably a condition that was never going to be kept anyway. Benedict rubbed his face with a strange look.
“No. In the end, it’ll only be poison.”
Love only made people weak. In the end, it became a vulnerability.
His mother, abandoned by the Emperor. Crown Prince Lawrence, who’d clearly lost his judgment. The cause of their tragedies was all love. Even he was about to be executed because of that rumor he’d loved Vivian—taking on a false charge he never should’ve faced.
That was why he’d included that condition in the contract. To avoid creating any pointless weaknesses.
“No matter what, the contract must be kept.”
Benedict clenched his fist tightly, as if to make a vow.
* * *
The next day.
Once again, I was waiting for Grand Duke Richard in the visitation room. He hadn’t agreed to see me yesterday either—why would today be any different?
“Ugh, is there any way to hold a trial without the defendant?”
Leaning my head languidly on the table, I ran a hand through my hair while entertaining impossible scenarios.
Clank—
At the sharp metallic sound hitting my ears, my head snapped up.
“……!”
The moment I saw the familiar man walking through the door, my lips parted on their own. That Grand Duke Richard would suddenly agree to a visit was already shocking enough—but more than that, his appearance had changed so dramatically it took my breath away.
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