Looking for the Villainess’s Contract Husband
Chapter 25
Chapter 25
[I will curse you until the day I die.]
It was when the Marquis had torn to pieces the son of a lowly gardener who had dared to covet Gretel.
Those were the words Gretel had shrieked with the eyes of a madwoman as she clung to the mangled corpse.
But look now.
Even a love that felt as though one might die without it eventually loses its luster over time.
Had Gretel simply followed the Marquis’s orders from the beginning—ridding herself of the child and hoping for a better love to come along—this tedious mess would never have happened in the first place.
‘Foolish girl. She must take after her mother.’
The late Marchioness had been a beautiful but exceedingly frail woman.
Had her family not promised to hand over their sapphire mines, he wouldn’t have even bothered taking her as his wife.
‘Well, at least she left behind those exceptional looks, so things worked out.’
The Marquis shook his head again and straightened his posture.
He reached out, picked up a quill, and dipped the tip in ink.
‘There is much to do.’
First, he had to send a letter to Duke Bryan informing him that the matter had fallen through.
The Marquis had sent a marriage proposal to Duke Bryan at the same time he dispatched his knights to fetch Gretel.
On the day Gretel was due to arrive at the Marquis’s estate, a letter had arrived from Duke Bryan stating that he would first meet with Gretel Diarmuid.
And while Duke Bryan was returning to the capital with his army, an even more appetizing prey, Jack Esperanza, had appeared.
His pride might be stung a little, but if losing a bit of face meant gaining Esperanza, it was a profitable trade.
‘He was rolling around as a commoner until not too long ago anyway, so he won’t be able to show much discomfort. There were many reports that his temperament is usually weak, unlike his military record.’
The Marquis’s eyes gleamed coldly.
He was fluently moving his pen to draft a letter to Duke Bryan, stating, ‘Regrettably, I must cancel this marriage proposal,’ when—
Knock, knock.
“……!”
The Marquis flinched and turned his head.
A hawk, with a small letter tied to its ankle, was tapping on the window with its beak.
The Marquis stood up and approached the window.
As soon as he opened it, the hawk hopped inside as if it had been waiting and held out its leg.
“Good work.”
As the Marquis untied the message and held it in his hand, the hawk flew to a perch on one side to quench its thirst, as if accustomed to the routine.
Offering a low word of praise, the Marquis unfurled the note.
Gilbert’s honest handwriting, much like his personality, greeted him.
<No body found. Traces discovered on the opposite cliff. Pursuing. Direction is south.>
“…….”
It was a short note. The Marquis narrowed his eyes, chewing over the contents.
‘No body, and heading south, is it…….’
Gilbert had reported that a knight named ‘Paul’ had taken pity on the child and fled with her.
But that was merely his speculation.
The only thing the Marquis could accept as the absolute truth was that ‘a knight named Paul and the child disappeared together.’
Of course, any sensible person would think like Gilbert.
A mere nine-year-old child leading an escape?
A brat who grew up locked in a narrow tower her entire life?
‘Preposterous.’
However, Marquis Diarmuid was a merchant by birth.
A merchant’s duty is to see what others cannot and to achieve what others cannot imagine.
At the same time, it is to gather scattered pieces of information and read the flow to one’s advantage.
Normally, the Marquis wouldn’t have thought much differently from Gilbert.
But now, a highly irrational event called ‘Jack Esperanza’s proposal’ had occurred.
Irrationality wedged into common sense is usually dismissed as ‘impossible.’
But when those irrationalities increase one by one and overlap, they transform into ‘possibility.’
Jack Esperanza’s proposal.
And the child’s escape.
Looking at those two alone, there was no connection between the events.
However, the Marquis did not ignore his instinctive unease and desperately racked his brain.
Even now, while others were certain the child was dead, had he not just received a report that no body was found after digging deeper?
‘……It didn’t seem like Gretel ordered the child’s escape.’
The list of books Gretel said her daughter wanted to read, which she wrote whenever she sent an occasional letter.
The story of how the child looked an adult twice her size right in the eye and defied him when Paul insulted her.
Those things began to click together one by one in the Marquis’s head.
The Marquis decided to gamble on a ‘what if.’
‘What if.’
What if that young thing is clever enough that even her mother couldn’t guess?
What if she recognized someone who felt guilty toward her and succeeded in coaxing a knight by stimulating that guilt?
‘What if…….’
What if Jack Esperanza’s sudden proposal to Gretel Diarmuid was also entirely connected to that child’s escape?
The moment that thought crossed his mind, a chill ran down his spine.
‘It’s a leap.’
Yes, it was a leap. A leap bordering on a completely absurd delusion.
But the Marquis had reached his current position by never overlooking even the smallest possibility and digging until the end.
Now that even a speck of possibility had been discovered, he could not do nothing.
Without hesitation, the Marquis reached out and rang the bell on his desk.
Not long after the clear chime rang out, the butler appeared and bowed politely.
“You called, Master?”
“Send this letter to Duke Bryan. And to Gilbert…… what is that in your hand?”
The Marquis spoke as he held out the letter sealed with a wax stamp, then paused, furrowing his brows.
The butler was holding a letter similar to the one he was offering.
The butler smiled thinly and swapped his letter for the Marquis’s.
“I was just about to come see you when you called, so I came straight away. It is a letter from Her Majesty the Empress.”
“…….”
The Marquis’s face hardened at those words. He quickly opened the letter to check its contents.
An elegant and neat script, yet one that felt like a snake coiling around a neck rather than a floral vine.
It was the Empress’s handwriting.
<Have you found the Successor of the Holy Spirit?>
The contents of the letter, which had neither sender nor recipient written on it, consisted of a single sentence.
However, the Marquis immediately understood its meaning and his face crumpled into a scowl.
‘She certainly is impatient.’
His nerves were already on edge with a mountain of work to do, and being prodded by the Empress made him feel utterly foul.
‘Of course, this is also an important matter…….’
The Marquis raised a hand and irritably ruffled his neatly combed hair.
He lifted his gaze and asked the butler.
“What is Cesare doing right now?”
“If you mean Priest Cesare…… according to the last report, he is currently traveling around the orphanages near the capital with other priests, interpreting the scriptures. It’s what he always does around this time of year.”
“Tsk, useless busywork.”
The Marquis clicked his tongue in displeasure.
To orphans, a single sweet snack was far more meaningful than a line of scripture anyway.
The Marquis could not understand the current High Priest, who insisted on strictly following such formal laws.
Because of that, he wasn’t able to summon Cesare immediately when he needed him.
Well, whatever. Right now, even the time spent thinking about such a person was a waste.
The Marquis murmured coldly.
“Tell him I wish to see him once his busy work is finished. The Successor of the Holy Spirit could very well be an orphan. I must ask if there were any unusual children.”
“Understood. Then……”
“……Wait.”
Just as the butler was about to withdraw with the letter for Duke Bryan.
The Marquis caught him with an urgent voice.
“Master? Do you have further instructions?”
The butler replied politely, though he looked puzzled.
The Marquis’s brow furrowed slightly.
‘He said the traces lead toward the capital.’
After a moment of contemplation, the Marquis finally spoke slowly.
“Just in case, pass the child’s description to Cesare as well. Tell him to detain her if he happens to see her by chance.”
“Understood.”
After the initial hazing on the first day at the orphanage, the days had been peaceful without any major incidents.
People wishing to adopt drifted in and out of the orphanage from time to time.
Children would be called away by the teachers and either leave the orphanage with smiling faces or return to their rooms looking a bit dejected.
Among them, the child called out most frequently was, naturally, Benjamin.
He was the eldest among the orphanage children and possessed a neat appearance and a well-mannered temperament.
But…….
“They chose another kid instead of hyung again?”
“Ugh……”
“Why on earth?”
The children huddled in front of the window, standing on their tiptoes to peer outside.
Outside the window, a middle-aged couple could be seen lifting a child with beaming smiles.
However, the child receiving their smiles was not Benjamin.
