Chapter 3

Angela’s fear of him was something Edward had been aware of, but he never imagined she would go this far.

It’s all your fault, Angela.

Edward still loved her. She was the one who had tried to leave him, unable to endure his “special” requests—so this was her doing.

If Angela had truly loved him, would there have ever been a reason for her to fear him?

Unable to accept the situation, Edward held her body close and quickly assessed what needed to be done.

Amid the suffocating silence as the knights nervously awaited his orders, Edward finally turned to them.

His gaze was sharp, devoid of sorrow. With an unsettlingly calm expression, he issued his command.

“We will return to the capital. Prepare at once.”

“Duchess Devonshire is dead?”

Dylan stiffened inside the carriage as Kevin delivered the report on their way back to the estate.

“Yes. It seems she slipped and fell off a cliff during a walk. They said the couple had gone to their villa for a quiet vacation…”

Dylan clenched his hand into a fist.

Angela is dead?

“Dylan? Are you all right?”

He had spoken with her just recently at a party. And now Angela… gone.

“You must be feeling heavy-hearted, Dylan.”

Kevin, knowing the relationship between Dylan and Angela, looked at him with sympathy.

Few people knew about the connection between Dylan, the Duke of Alester, and Angela, the Duchess of Devonshire.

Their first meeting had been seven years ago, during the summer when Dylan was fifteen.

He had been vacationing with his mother in his maternal family’s territory. Bored with the uneventful days, he had slipped away from the estate, leaving Kevin behind, and found Angela.

She was picking something up from the beach, staring down at the ground. Her long hair obscured her face, but she didn’t seem like a commoner.

There were no attendants nearby. Curious, Dylan approached and spoke.

“What are you doing?”

“Hmm?”

She looked up, startled, as if she had been deeply focused on something. Angela didn’t show any wariness toward a stranger and simply opened her hand.

“Picking up pebbles. Aren’t they pretty?”

Round little stones lay in her palm, glistening softly.

But when she asked if they were pretty, Dylan couldn’t answer.

Her face was far more beautiful than any pebble.

“I want to show them to my grandmother. I think she’d like them.”

“Your grandmother is here?”

“Mm-hmm. She’s from around here. She still lives here.”

A household servant, perhaps?

Dylan thought it might be a vassal family’s daughter—this land belonged to the Cave Count’s domain, after all.

“Which family are you from?”

“You probably wouldn’t know it. It’s not a noble house.”

She smiled faintly.

Even so, she spoke to him casually, despite recognizing him as a noble.

His curiosity grew.

“What’s your name?”

“Angela Fanning.”

That name made everything clear.

The story of the previous head of the Fanning viscount family falling in love with a maid was well known.

Marrying a commoner was unthinkable for a noble, yet the former viscount had defied tradition and married her. It was why some looked down on the current viscount as only half-noble.

Even after the viscount married a baron’s daughter, opinions about him didn’t change much. His common-born grandmother was still alive, so another generation would have to pass before things truly shifted.

Had she come here because her grandmother now lived in this territory?

“Who are you?”

Angela, who had mentioned visiting her grandmother for two months from the capital, asked him.

After a brief silence, Dylan replied.

“Dylan. Dylan Alester.”

“Alester? That Alester family?”

Her eyes widened.

She must have assumed he was merely a vassal’s child because he had spoken so casually.

Hearing that this was his maternal family’s land, she murmured,

“So I should use honorifics…?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s fine.”

He had already spoken informally, so it hardly mattered.

Angela grinned, looking pleased.

“Alright then, Dylan.”

Her bright, harmless smile made his heart skip a beat—an unfamiliar feeling for him.

They were the same age.

She was delighted to have found a friend. Her suggestion that they meet again didn’t receive an answer, but he didn’t oppose it either.

A few days later, he met her again, and she led him to a cave she had discovered.

Having spent years exploring the territory while visiting her grandmother, she knew the land better than anyone.

Dylan continued spending time with Angela after that. They wandered mountains and beaches, discovering places he had never seen before. What had once felt like a dull countryside life became unexpectedly enjoyable.

Through their meetings, he realized Angela was more than just a pure-looking girl—she possessed an innocent and genuine personality.

“Aren’t you scared wandering around alone without guards?”

“Scared? I’m not going anywhere dangerous.”

She believed there were no bad people in the world.

Watching her, it sometimes felt as though she saw everything too brightly.

Yet that was precisely what drew him to her. Among the noble children he knew, none were like her.

She didn’t understand evil—but perhaps it was better that way.

Dylan found himself thinking he wanted to protect that purity.

When he realized the thought, he quickly dismissed it, startled. Angela was just a friend he had happened to meet.

Nothing more.

There was no time for anything to change.

News arrived that his father had fallen ill.

Because his father was still young, no one expected it. Dylan returned to the capital without properly saying goodbye to Angela.

Once back, he began his education as the heir.

Seeing his father confined to bed, he understood there was no time to waste. He could focus on nothing but the affairs of the family.

A year later, his father passed away.

His mother, deeply devoted to her husband, succumbed to grief and soon followed him.

In a country where nobles typically inherited titles in their twenties, Dylan became head of the house at sixteen. Relatives immediately began interfering.

They coveted the family’s wealth and claimed he was too young to handle the duties of a duke.

Things his father would never have tolerated.

Not only his father’s siblings but also his mother’s relatives joined in, and Dylan quickly grew to despise the Cave family.

The brief, happy time he had spent with Angela in the countryside faded.

Determined to survive until adulthood, he devoted himself entirely to the family’s affairs.

He did not see Angela again until three years later—at her wedding.

“Fanning’s daughter is getting married?”

“Yes. To the Second Prince!”

While he was dealing with political struggles, she had found her partner.

He attended the royal wedding, but seeing Angela smiling beside Edward left him with an unpleasant feeling.

It had been a fleeting childhood acquaintance—so why did it bother him so much?

In the end, he left without speaking to her.

After that, he ignored Kevin’s advice to marry into a powerful family and focused on restoring his house’s influence among the central nobility.

Three more years passed.

When his family’s position became unassailable, he met Angela again.

“Dylan?”

At a gathering of high-ranking nobles, she recognized him and approached.

She wore a dress adorned with jewels—nothing about it was inexpensive.

She was breathtakingly beautiful, yet her extravagant attire, often criticized as more opulent than the empress’s, had long been controversial.

Though he had once known her as a pure girl, the woman before him now seemed distant.

As Dylan felt the distance, Angela greeted him warmly.

“It’s been so long. I heard you inherited your title, but this is the first time I’ve seen you.”

She smiled, speaking softly.

Despite the changes in their social standing, she still seemed like the girl he once knew.

“You’ve grown up. Why didn’t you greet me at the wedding? You said you were coming…”

Her familiar smile reminded him of the past.

No one else spoke to him so casually.

For a moment, Dylan felt as if he had returned to those days.

“Angela.”

Before he could respond, Edward approached, watching them with interest.