Villainous Husband, the One You’re Obsessed With Is Over There - Chapter 216

Chapter 108.2

He liked the honest response. There was no room for her to hide anything. Raniero enveloped Angelica, who was curled up, and kissed her back. Now that she had been pushed to the limit, it felt like everything was finally returning to its original course.

Just like in the summer, he was given the leash.

It was familiar and comfortable.

To get what he wanted, destruction was still more useful than tolerance. He never realized the answer to be so obvious.

‘All I had to do was to be the only one in your world.’

From now on, Raniero would monopolize all the emotions, including the love and hatred of lovely Angelica.

̊ · : * ✧* : · ̊

At the dining table, all that could be heard was the sound of the Young Lord’s grumbling lingering for a while, unable to overcome his frustration. It seemed implausible that the name and titles were too pragmatic for a ten-year-old child to have fabricated it in an instant.

No, it wasn’t just about pragmatism.

The child knew exactly—both the family name and the title.

Eden had heard the name Dorothea Nerma when he went undercover as Cisen’s servant and lived in Actilus, and that Duchess Nerma was a pivotal figure.

He looked at the child’s face.

The red-faced child’s demeanor was so confident, and his gaze was arrogant. He was treating Richard and Eden as completely inferior. He had a strong intuition that this boy was indeed the precious son of the Duke of Nerma.

Still, he knew that they had to be cautious.

As he stood up, Eden grabbed the boy’s sleeve, who swatted his hand away as if disgusted.

“The clothes you’re wearing aren’t nobleman’s clothes, are they?”

Eden asked hoarsely.

A look of disdain flashed across the boy’s face in response to his question.

“T-These are servant’s clothes. Look at this.”

Saying so, he thrust his loose sleeve in front of Eden’s eyes.

“The size doesn’t fit, does it? Because it’s not my clothes.”

“Young servants like you usually wear clothes a couple of sizes too big. It’s normal to wear hand-me-downs, so of course, they’re big.”

Eden carefully observed the boy’s rapidly changing expression. The child had a face that showed he had no idea.

“T-then… Fine! Give me a sword. I’ll show you my swordsmanship! They say lowborn kids don’t even have swordsmanship teachers, and they just beat each other with stones, right?

“Is the fact that you are using a sword proof that you’re the son of the Duke of Nerma?”

“Of course! I’ll say it again, lowly kids…”

“That just means you’re not a ‘lowborn kid,’ not necessarily that you’re the son of a duke. You might be some distant noble relative from a village far from the capital.”

The boy seemed more embarrassed by this remark than when he was criticized for wearing servant’s clothes. Not only his face but even his neck turned red, and he was almost boiling with anger now.

“Then, ask me anything! I know everything about our family, so I’ll answer confidently!”

“Eden.”

Perhaps sensing that Eden was overly provoking the child, Richard stepped in to intervene between them. However, unless his mouth was blocked, Eden had decided to throw one last question.

“Okay. Since you’re so great, where is your mother right now? Let’s ask her directly.”

The boy’s mouth fell open.

His face went pale, then flushed red again. The quickest to redden were his eyes, and soon, tears welled up in his enlarged, round eyes. The memory of the time on the carriage, which he had forgotten for a while due to the exhausting walks and being pelted with stones, hit him hard.

Richard lifted the boy in a flash before he hurriedly descended the stairs with the child in his arms.

Eden shouted sharply at his back.

“Don’t let the kid go or send him anywhere!”

Richard glanced back at Eden over his shoulder. In truth, even if he hadn’t said such words, now that things had come to this, he wouldn’t have sent the child away.

It wasn’t until Richard’s footsteps grew a little quieter that Eden buried his face in his hands.

It was real.

The flow of conversation felt very genuine. It would take more verification to fully trust him, but it didn’t seem like the boy was lying. Through the child’s reactions, he was able to capture facts beyond what was exchanged in the conversation.

‘Something bad happened to Duchess Nerma.’

The servant’s clothes the child wore might have been dressed by Duchess Nerma herself. There was a strong possibility that she disguised her identity and tried to escape.

…Why did she try to run away?

‘Of course, there must be something involved in the Empress’s death!’

If that was the case, it lent a little more weight to the idea that Angelica’s ‘death’ was an assassination.

Eden frowned. His head was spinning so much it hurt.

‘But the Empress didn’t die. The child’s parents said so…’

Amidst the despair brought by the shocking news, he began to notice the strange point that had been obscured.

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