Chapter 140

“Estelle, We have to go back now. It’s still too cold for you to be out for an outing at night…”

Kling pulled and wrapped his wife’s shoulders as she was looking at the garden from the annex’s balcony when it was raining.

“But I don’t feel cold at all.”

“I do not know. Would my baby think so too?”

His wife Estelle was almost due. As she got barely pregnant right before she turned 30, the couple loved their pregnant baby so much. It didn’t matter whether it was a boy or a girl. They just hoped that the baby would be born safely and grow up well with their overflowing love.

“Got it. Let me give in today, ” said Estelle, turning and patting her belly that was swollen like a mountain. The two left the balcony and went into the warm room.

“Do you want to eat anything tomorrow morning?”

“Well…Oh, I would love to eat sherbet, with a bunch of strawberry syrup sprinkled on it.

As for the main dish, how about steamed fish? I’ve been eating too much meat these days, so I feel like I want to eat some fish.”

As she had bad morning sickness, he wanted to treat her to any food she wanted.

“Good. Let me tell the kitchen staff about it. If you want to change what you want to eat tomorrow morning, tell me anytime. Let me get everything ready…”

At that moment, he suddenly felt cold in the back of his neck and stopped speaking any further.

“Honey?” Estelle called him as he couldn’t finish his words.

The sound of somebody twisting the door was heard clearly. Fear crept up her neck.

‘There should be nobody coming through the balcony at this late hour. Robber or an assassin?’

Duke Kling hurriedly hid his wife behind his back and tried to call somebody who would help him, which was the best option for him at the moment.

When he thought as far as that, he quickly twisted his body and tried to call anybody outside.

“Duke Kling!”

The black shadow at the door on the balcony called him.

It was a woman wearing a black cloak and a hat with a black veil. Even if it was soaked to the skin by the rain outside, Kling felt its heavy moisture even from a distance.

Kling frowned. Although he could not be sure of the identity of the shadow, he could not call the servant in the opposite room of the house because the person’s voice was too familiar to him.

It was a woman’s voice that he never thought he could hear up close like this except at a public or an external event.

“… Her Majesty?” he asked.

As if responding to his asking, the shadow took off the wide brim hat and black gloves.

Her blonde hair was slightly wet from the rain. Her eyes were frozen blue. It was none other than Empress Blair.

“Oh my god, Your Majesty! How did you come here alone? It’s raining so hard outside…”

On behalf of her, who stiffened like a piece of wood, Estelle grabbed a blanket from a chair nearby and approached her.

“I came here to tell you something, Duke Kling,” she got down to the point without any introduction.

Blair did not shrug her shoulders though she looked like she was about to collapse with a pale look.

Her fingertips that grabbed the blanket handed by Estelle were trembling faintly.

“Please have a seat first and have some hot tea…”

“No. I do not need it. I’m not here to share tea with you.”

They once lived close together just like families only two years ago, but they no longer saw each other even in private places since then.

In the meantime, Blair, exposed to all kinds of infamous rumors, closed the doors of her palace. Since last year’s scandal involving her illegitimate baby, she had been meeting people and performing her job as the empress, but Kling could not meet her before the scandal broke out or even now.

“Duke, don’t be mistaken. I have not forgiven you yet. You are one of the enemies that destroyed my fatherland. I will not forget it even if I die.”

Her reason was clear. She resented the emperor so much. She didn’t want to forgive anyone associated with the emperor.

Duke Kling slowly knelt down, facing the owner of the inner palace, whom he had not met in nearly two years.

He couldn’t confidently express his apologies to her while looking at her eyes. He felt he didn’t deserve to do so.

“I’m sorry. How can God dare to ask for Your Majesty’s mercy?”

Blair glanced down at his head. Estelle stepped back with a complicated look, staring at the two.

“I told you that the only reason you participated in the Lennox war was to prevent unnecessary slaughter. I didn’t know in advance that he was communicating secretly with the rebels.”

What she said next was inaudible because of the sound of the rain hitting the window.

That was good because what she said was not to be overheard by anybody because it was a secret.

The cause of the Lennox War known to the outside world was the rebels inside the country.

While Empress Karina’s children were fighting fiercely for the succession to the throne, the mercenaries employed by the Romanov’s imperial family revolted.

Her third son, Prince Diamud, who survived to the end, asked for help from his ally, Aslan. In response to his request, Emperor Cassius sent the forces to crack down on the rebels, and completely destroyed them after five battles.

When the war ended, the only survivor of the Romanov bloodline was its only youngest queen Blair, who was Aslan’s Empress. As a result, the Lennox Empire was disintegrated and absorbed into Aslan as its dependent territory.

That’s what almost everyone on this continent learned about and remembered the Lennox War.

But the fact was that Diamud and Cassius were cooperating with each other. As Diamud sought the succession of Cassius, he mobilized mercenaries and made a mock rebellion to take over the throne. However, Cassius secretly mobilized fake mercenaries and made them real rebels to kill all the descendants of the Romanov family except for Blair. After the war, Cassius shifted the responsibility for the war on the rebels, whose use was at an end, and murdered them all to remove all evidence…

Blair didn’t know that, which was natural, because it was kept as top-secret that Duke Kling, famous for his close ties with Cassius, came to know only when he led Aslan’s forces to crack down on the rebels.

“…That’s right.”

And even if everyone else knew this, only one person, namely Blair, was not supposed to know under any circumstances.

“If that’s really true…”

Blair became the main victim of that tragedy against her will. And she came to know about it all too well.

She took a deep breath and said, “Please volunteer to be the new lord of Lennox at tomorrow’s cabinet meeting.”

After a long sigh, she ordered a cruel order to him. Heavy silence followed.

Duke Kling lifted his head unconsciously and stared at her.

It was early this month that Cassius’ uncle Grand Duke Bertrand died after being thrown from a horse. Socialites and cabinet officials in the capital naturally focused their attention on who would be the new lord of Lennox. Some began to speculate on the likely candidates one by one

“…Your Majesty.”

What was certain in their minds was that the name of Duke Kling was not among those likely candidates being talked about, because he was known to have no such ambition.

Blair continued, “I know how much Cassius values you. I’m sure if you, not any other person, make such a request, he will grant it. Maybe he wants you to be the new lord more than me because he is a very calculative man as far as power is concerned.”

“…”

“Just leave the capital as soon as the emperor grants your request. Go and gather all the treasured articles and donate them to my son. I’ve come here to say that.”

Blair was trying to put Kling’s name on the top of the candidates’ list.

Duke Kling could not hide his trembling gaze. He never expected she would give him such an order, and her motivation behind the order was very radical.

This was an undeniable political conspiracy. She was even pressing him to give the practical benefits of Lennox to her son, not Cassius. Although she was the crown prince’s mother and Emperor Cassius’s wife, it was tantamount to treason to buy government positions and return his power to the crown prince when the absolute ruler Cassius was still alive.

Besides, Blair was the legitimate princess of Lennox.

Lennox did not place any gender restrictions on its successor. In other words, as the only survivor of her family, she had the legitimacy with which she could claim Lennox in lieu of her dead brothers and sisters.

“Your Majesty, what you mean is…” Kling could not continue easily.