“Your, Your Grace.”

“Master!”

Zigmont’s apprentice quickly packed his bag and followed them. In no time, Edgar arrived at the main gate and threw the poor doctor out.

“Get out!”

Although Zigmont was now a well-famed doctor, he had been treated like that during his early days, so he had learned the proper ways to fall and was able to avoid tumbling down the stone stairs.

“Don’t you dare show your face to me ever again.”

Then, the door was closed with a bam.

“Ouch, ouch.”

His apprentice helped him to get up, but he really didn’t know why the duke was that angry. It wasn’t like Rubica was a maiden, and what was wrong with loving your own wife?

‘I will never understand those nobles.’

He clucked his tongue. Was he not going to be paid? That wouldn’t be good. He didn’t mind waiting for Edgar until the morning stars came up, but that would change if he was not going to be paid.

“Master, are you alright?”

“I’m fine, my child.”

Zigmont was about to tell his apprentice to report this to the bureau that monitored the behavior of the aristocrats when the door opened again.

Soon Carl, the butler, came out with a troubled expression and, thankfully, he was holding a full wallet.

“Mr. Zigmont, I’m sorry.”

However, being paid brought a smile to the doctor’s face. Actually, preferring to meet various patients to learn about various diseases over treating a few royals was only an excuse. The doctor loved money just as Edgar loved Rubica.

“No, no, but I really don’t understand. You were there too, and you must know this as well, but it is only natural for him to love his wife. I told him only the right thing, and he was so mad to hear that…”

“Um, it’s…”

Carl didn’t finish the sentence as he had noticed Edgar liked Rubica. Sometimes he couldn’t restrain himself in front of her and would smile.

However, the duke wouldn’t even look at her and focused on what he was eating or said something sarcastic. He had stayed calm, so Carl hadn’t known that his master’s disease, no, love was that serious until Edgar confessed it to the doctor.

“It must be about his pride.”

“His pride?”

“His wife finds him a little… bothersome.”

Carl really couldn’t bring himself to say, ‘She doesn’t like him.’ Zigmont’s eyes widened. There was a woman who found such a great man bothering? She had to be crazy.

“That must be why he is a little confused. He will surely feel sorry when he comes to his senses.”

Carl smiled awkwardly, but the doctor was now feeling very confused. What kind of woman could she be for her to seduce the duke who even all those charming ladies failed to win?

Then, his apprentice checked the gold coins inside the wallet and quietly whispered to him how much it was. He had already been given the down payment, so it was huge money. After getting that much money, it was curtesy to leave quickly before the payer changed his mind.

“Anyway, he is not doing that because there is something wrong with his body, so please make sure he doesn’t eat any wrong drugs.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you.”

With that last piece of advice, Zigmont was soon gone. Carl saw him leave on a carriage and then returned to the duke’s room where Edgar was still in agony, pulling his own hair out. Carl took out his favorite tea from across the desert to calm him down, and soon a sweet scent filled the room. Tea was there to ease Edgar’s pain when he got a headache.

Some diversion was just what he needed now. The duke would calm down after getting some fresh air and sweet scent, and he would admit the truth eventually.

“Put it away.”

However, when Carl offered him a cup of tea, Edgar threateningly growled. He had never been like this before, so Carl put down the cup on a nearby table.

“Your Grace.”

“Get out.”

He sounded firm, but Carl didn’t move for a second. He couldn’t decide if he should leave now or help the duke clear his confused mind.

“Your Grace, um…”

“Get out.”

Now he was the one about to be thrown out of the door if he lingered more, so he quickly ran out. Edgar then sat alone in the room while roughly messing with his hair.

‘I’m in love?’

It was ridiculous. He despised love as it only brought misery to this world. He had seen a sane person do something crazy because of love, like giving up his dream and talents just to go follow their lovers to their hometown. Love was something to be avoided as much as possible.

Look at his own mother. How did such a sacred nymph fell in love with trash like his father? He really couldn’t understand. And, how did his father fall in love with someone else when he had such a perfect woman by his side? That was another mystery. If love didn’t exist at all, if the virtue that everyone praised but wasn’t so necessary for a living didn’t exist, that tragedy wouldn’t have happened. He had planned to never fall in love. Feeling such an unnecessary emotion was useless.

But…

-Your heart beats fast every time you see her, and you feel like you own the whole world when she smiles.

He definitely felt good when Rubica smiled. He got mad when that smile wasn’t for him but someone else and would taste an unexplainable anxiety. However, when she smiled at him, he felt like he owned the world and had to fight the desire to hold her tightly in his arms.

‘… and she was always with me when my heart beat so loud and fast.’

Especially when he kissed her forehead or embraced her. When that happened, he felt a thrilling passion going through him. Something he hadn’t been able to tell the doctor which had happened on their first night together.

-… and you feel like the world is falling to pieces when she cries.

Indeed. His heart ached when Rubica cried. When she had to abandon her belief for him, he felt greatly humiliated for the first time in his life. He was mad about the family’s tradition that he had been so proud of before. He felt disgusted to his old days of trying to keep that old tradition. He should have fixed it before she came, and he felt like he was the biggest idiot in the world.

“Shit!”

It was hard to deny. Muttering he wasn’t, that there was no way he was in love, was no good. He looked back into his memories and thought about the things he had done, and it looked like he truly was in love.

“I am in love with someone else.”

And, with a woman who would never love him.

“Shit.”

He couldn’t help but swear. How did this happen to him? He didn’t know either. Since when it started to happen and how he came this far, he really didn’t know.

He should have backed off when she said she was in love with someone else. Then, he wouldn’t have suffered this kind of crazy pain. He wouldn’t have been in such a crazy situation. He wished to turn back time and go back to the time he hadn’t known her.

“Shit.”

However, that was impossible. Now he couldn’t go back to the time where he hadn’t known her. Even now, although he was so confused and in such pain.

“Rubica.”

He missed her. A lot. Only by seeing her, he felt like he could calm down.

***

The maids at the mansion in the capital were not hired for long. They worked for a year or two and then moved to other nobles’ mansions that paid them more with recommendation letters.

Thanks to that, managing them was even easier. They had been told not to go to the second floor as the duke was sensitive and followed that order diligently.

So, Carl could relax a little more at the capital than at the dukedom. At Claymore Mansion, he had to get up early in the morning, check his master’s condition, and put him in a wheelchair in his office lest a maid came and saw him.

However, that wasn’t needed at the capital. He woke up by the sunrise for two days and served the duke in time when other noblemen normally got ready in the morning. He was relaxed, but the duke only got more and more agitated every day.

“The king has extended the conference for another day.”

Edgar had said that last night as he angrily undid his cuffs. He was now truly mad. He had planned to stay at the capital for only two days, but then the king started to make requests about this and that in return for siding with Edgar about that mana quartz matter.

Edgar was really worried, and he wanted to go home immediately. His relatives were nasty and liked to boast that they were the members of the prestigious Claymore Family. They could hurt Rubica’s mild heart in many ways. Although Rubica had bravely said she could handle it as she had started it, Edgar was still worried. He wanted to go back and be at her side. He needed the king’s letter for that, but that old raccoon wasn’t missing a chance to make him do this and that.

-Edgar, what do you think of this? The minister of state has come up with an idea to renovate the water and sewers, but my eyes are too dim to read this.

The king shamelessly handed him the document and Edgar could only barely resist the urge to throw it at his face.