Chapter 17

Between the legs, white and viscous liquid flowed out. His eyes darkened as he almost touched it.

“Uh… Yes.”

Leon lifted his exploring hand and glanced at her face. The dreamy blue eyes looked at him blankly.

“…”

Leon stared at her unclear mouth shape and then froze. Before he could ask anything, Dana closed her eyes. Leon’s hand, lying on the bed, was so tense that he had to consciously unclench his fist .

“Whew… That’s nonsense,” Leon muttered as if he was dumbfounded by Dana’s words. And then he covered his face with his palm and turned around completely.

His disgruntled face was finely red under his hand.

* * *

When the carriage door, which was covered up to the window, opened a little from the inside, the man who was waiting outside hurriedly sat.

“Chief of staff.”

“Yes, what happened?”

“I heard the story of a man who worked at the company for a long time.”

Daniel nodded as if to tell him to hurry. He was actually a little embarrassed right now.

He thought Dana Deniz, the heir of the target Deniz, would find it quickly as soon as it started. Not only could the daughter of the targeted person buy dozens of large houses, but if she wanted to, she would even be able to buy a title.

Such an existence was naturally noticeable by law, so Daniel had been easily approached at first.

He called for an interview with Dana Deniz, the head of the Deniz merchants, on the pretext of negotiating mass purchases at Tertius’ castle.

This was because he didn’t want to tell her much about the marriage. He tried to judge things by looking at it in person.

However, the return reply was that ‘Dana Deniz’ was absent. It didn’t seem to be a simple ‘going out’ or a few days of absence.

“First of all, the merchant group is operating normally. On the surface.”

“On the surface? So it’s not true?”

The merchant said she was not there. Therefore, the upper managers at the group said they would send an agent instead of Dana Deniz, but Daniel immediately declined as she had been her purpose in the first place.

Considering the Grand Duke as an opponent, the attitude at the group could have been considered disrespectful, but it seemed that they had no choice but to be in such a situation, as they had apologized five times in a single missive.

“First of all, middle managers have been replaced except for a few.”

“But?”

“The managers who stepped down were consistently on special terms with the predecessor of the head of Deniz. They’ve been together since the beginning of the merchant group. Oh, one of them was excluded.”

Daniel stroked his chin and tilted his head suspiciously. However, he also looked at other possibilities.

“Isn’t it just a generation change? If we’d been together since our predecessors, we’d be quite old. Oh, one person was excluded?

“Yes, that’s what you might think. The surviving person was a person who didn’t get much attention during the reign of predecessor Head of Deniz.”

“If everyone changes, it will be difficult to operate. No, I don’t care about that. The question is, where did she go?”

“There’s a rumor going around.”

He didn’t want to know the political fight in the merchant group, but he couldn’t help but listen completely, so Daniel asked the following question.

“What rumor?”

“I’m not sure because it was a bureaucrat of the branch…”

He was about to rush the man who had been waiting for a little while, but he opened his mouth again.

“There are rumors that Dana Deniz fell in love with a man and handed over all her fortune and that they ran away at night together…”

Daniel frowned and clicked his tongue.

The man continued to talk, “Somehow, there must have been a secret relationship. He is also called an old nobleman, and there is a rumor that she had an affair with a young baron..”

“Ah, it’s done. Stop, stop.”

“What?”

Daniel nervously turned the curtain over the wagon window to one side. Light came into the stuffy and dark space. “There’s nothing more to listen to. Whether that’s true or not, the woman of such rumors and our Grand Duke! He doesn’t deserve to be with a merchant’s daughter…” He grumbled in a lousy mood as if he were Leon’s relative.

The person who was reporting looked at him strangely while closing his mouth. In fact, it was so typical for a nobleman to have a lover other than his spouse in this country that it was not even considered gossiping.

“Anyway, it means she had a lover. Let’s go back.”

“What shall I do? I like the pay here…”

Initially, the man was a person who only ran errands when there was work in the Great Department, and he went into the upper and lower staff to find information.

“I have nothing to call upon you, for the time being, so do whatever you want.”

When Daniel waved as if he was bothered, the man smiled broadly and stepped out of the carriage.

“Hehe, then take a look.”

The carriage departed, and Daniel murmured, scratching his cheek with his finger, “Can I just say it as it is?”

* * *