Chapter 1
“Congratulations.
Her Grace the Grand Duchess is with child.”
At the unexpected words of the imperial physician, Lincia’s eyes trembled violently.
She quickly looked up at her husband, Harvich, but his gaze had already sunk into cold detachment.
“…I-I’m pregnant?”
Lincia’s voice shook pitifully as she asked the physician.
“Yes, it seems you are about seven weeks along.”
In any noble household, a pregnancy was cause for celebration especially in one where no heir yet existed.
But the servants, seeing the Duke’s oddly cynical expression, did not dare open their mouths.
Even Lincia herself wore a face of disbelief, making it all the more difficult for anyone else to add words.
“…”
“Have you not been feeling more tired than usual of late, or perhaps unusually sluggish?”
Lincia shook her head.
She was always weary from stress, and her cycle was never regular.
She had simply assumed this month’s delay was nothing unusual, never imagining it could be a sign of pregnancy.
“With this, the noble blood of House Cassius will flow once more.
My lord Duke, my deepest congratulations.”
Though neither husband nor wife seemed pleased, the physician prattled on with cheerful blessings, oblivious.
“I shall personally deliver this joyous news to His Majesty.
Your Grace, please be cautious in your movements and refrain from overexerting yourself.”
The physician hurried to pack his case.
From Harvich’s lips came a breath that was half a scoff, half a sigh.
At the same time, he pressed his brow as though weary.
“Erna, bring the Duke’s physician.”
His first words were anything but welcoming.
At his request for another doctor, the imperial physician’s expression stiffened.
“My lord Duke, in all my years I have never once erred in my diagnosis.”
The man spoke with conviction, but Harvich was unmoved.
“It is better to be certain, is it not?
This is, after all, a matter reported directly to His Majesty.
I would hate for your head to be forfeit to an error.”
The physician, who had just begun to pack away his case, slowly set it back down.
Erna, who had been hesitating for fear of offending him, jumped at Harvich’s icy glance.
“I-I’ll fetch him right away.”
Soon, the Cassius family physician entered with Erna, panting from the rush.
Without a chance to catch his breath, he reached for Lincia’s wrist to take her pulse.
“Well?
My wife is said to be with child.”
The physician’s lips parted, then closed.
Finally, with a heavy sigh, he spoke.
“…It is true.
Her Grace the Grand Duchess is indeed expecting.”
The finality of the words struck like a death sentence.
Lincia’s eyes quivered as she grabbed at Harvich’s collar.
“I-I, I…”
Harvich looked down at his trembling wife and exhaled a long, weary sigh.
As his chilling gaze swept the room, the servants took the hint and quietly slipped away.
Lincia, watching his face for any sign, lowered her head.
“We must return to the Imperial Palace at once.
His Majesty has long awaited the news of his only sister’s pregnancy.”
The physician rose with his case, bowed, and departed with light steps.
Once the household doctor had gone, only two people remained.
The silence did not last long.
Both spoke at once.
“Just who…”
“Who is the father?”
“What?”
“The father of the child.”
Harvich’s eyes held no emotion at all.
He did not look like a man who believed for even a moment that Lincia carried his child.
Her eyes shook violently.
“…What do you mean by that?”
His voice was cold, as though pronouncing a fact rather than asking a question.
“I thought you understood my position and agreed to it.”
Their betrothal had been forced, not equal.
Lincia had accepted nearly all of Harvich’s demands.
No wedding ceremony.
No need to bear an heir.
The rights of a mistress, but none of the duties.
“I never wanted a child either…”
But Lincia bit the rest of her words back.
She feared the child within her might hear that neither parent wanted it.
Her hand moved to her still-flat stomach.
“If the child is not mine, it is better you do not bear it.
I will not keep at my side a wife carrying another man’s child.”
At those cruel words, Lincia bit her lip without realising it.
Harvich was a man of integrity.
If he found their child problematic, it was not from deceit he truly remembered nothing of that night.
And indeed, when she thought back, that night had been strange.
In more than two years of marriage, Harvich had never once come to her bed.
Except for that one night.
He now studied her silently, then sighed softly.
“Better to get rid of it.”
“It’s your child!”
Though she knew she had no right, no ground to stand on, the words burst out of her before she could stop them.
Startled by the volume of her own voice, Lincia clapped her hands over her mouth.
In the Cassius duchy, her very existence was a crime.
She had never once dared to raise her voice before him.
Their marriage had been forced upon them by the Emperor, a leash around the Duke’s neck.
Lincia had always lived with shallow breaths, careful words.
Harvich glanced down at her.
His face remained unreadable.
“I never committed anything shameful.
That night, you were the one who came to my chamber first…”
Her trembling voice carried only truth.
“My lady, I trust you.
I even entrusted you, a member of the imperial family, with the Cassius treasury.
We may not have love, but we have our own form of faith, do we not?”
“I did not lie!
This child is yours!”
His red eyes were fixed on her.
He said nothing for a long time, only watching.
Clutching at her skirts, Lincia managed to continue, hope flickering faintly in her chest.
Perhaps he would recall something.
Perhaps he would believe her.
“You kissed me first, and—”
A soft exhale cut her off.
She lifted her head to find his gaze cold, empty of feeling.
“When delusion runs too deep, it becomes an illness.”
Lincia felt the old hostility she had long known from him.
And with it, unbearable shame for her foolish hope.
She had believed that if she spoke honestly, he might trust her that some fragment of faith still remained between them.
But to Harvich, she was little more than an insect.
Even if the event were real, no one would believe the words of an insect.
“…I…”
Harvich was a man who trusted his convictions over her memories.
The conviction that he would never be a royal princess.
The conviction that he would not, in the face of great plans, let lust undo everything.
But Lincia could not let that night be erased.
“I am not mad.”
Because proof of that night now lived in her womb.
Harvich stared at her.
A single moment stretched into eternity, and she could not shake the feeling that he saw straight through her.
“I do not believe you lay with another by choice.
Not a woman who loves me as you do.”
Her face flushed crimson at having her feelings laid bare.
“…I do not love you,” she muttered, head bowed.
“Let us leave it at that, then.
It spares us both trouble.”
To him, even her emotions were a nuisance.
Lincia gripped her skirt tighter, her knuckles pale from the strain.
“If His
Majesty coerced you, you may speak of it.”
At his words, so certain of her infidelity, her body shook.
Shame.
Humiliation.
That such a man had seen through her heart.
“…Please leave.”
Harvich regarded her for a moment longer, then turned and walked away.
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