CH 19.8

Beneath Lucas’s feet, the man’s bones shattered and his face caved in from what appeared to be a light kick.

Quickly turning away from the bloody man, Lucas ordered.

“Find out where these men came from.”

“Yes, Duke!”

The knight commander replied, his voice clear. He summoned the knights with his communications device, and Lucas hurried to his feet.

Jessie followed, her face grim.

“I’m sorry, wife. I should have been here sooner…”

Lucas spoke softly to her, surprised.

He could have asked her why she didn’t listen to him.

But Lucas didn’t. Instead, he looked at Lila first.

It was a small, kind gesture that made Lila relax. But that wasn’t the end of the incident.

As Lucas carried Lila, he nimbly dodged a suddenly collapsing wall. It was out of nowhere.

“What the hell…?”

Before his embarrassment could sink in, another carriage came out of nowhere and he dodged it. Lucas, standing on the sidewalk, was speechless with disbelief.

Lila, who had buried her face in his shoulder and was shivering, finally lifted her head at the insistent sound.

“Lucas?”

“Wife, just lean on me for a moment.”

Burying Lila’s face in his shoulder again, Lucas looked around, and Jessie, who was following closely behind, was also alert.

The carriage that had rushed toward them had hit a far wall and was immobilised.

Lucas didn’t take his eyes off the carriage, thinking it might be someone trying to harm them.

“What’s going on!”

The male aristocrat in the carriage got off with a grip on the neck. The appearance of stumbling due to the aftermath was a perfectly normal reaction.

“I beg your pardon, Baron.”

The coachman dismounted, shuddering with surprise, and calmed the startled horses. Lucas, still suspicious, noticed that the horses’ stalls in the street were lit up.

“It’s too late. We must hurry home.”

The sun had set and the wind had turned cold. Lucas worried that Lila, still dressed as she had been in the capital, might catch a cold.

“I’m sorry, Lucas.”

Hugging him tightly around the neck, Lila apologised. She regretted going to the dress shop room on a whim.

“Duke!”

Just then Vincent appeared, pulling a carriage. Jessie quickly opened the carriage door in front of the three of them.

Even though she was still red-faced, Jessie had done her duty. Lucas noticed, and Vincent saw.

“Ma’am, you get in first.”

As he lifted the cradled Lila into the carriage, something landed on Lucas’s shoulder, narrowly missing him.

It was unpleasant to look at, and it smelled foul. His expression rotten with the secretions of the bird that was gliding across the dark sky.

“Luca…”

Lila was about to call out to him when a lamppost right next to the carriage suddenly began to tilt, then toppled over the Duke’s carriage.

Lucas tried to pull Lila out again as the roof of the carriage collapsed on top of him.

Then he caught a foul odour coming from his own shoulder and quickly removed his coat, tossing it to the ground.

Then he scooped Lila up again.

“Ha… What the hell is happening…”

He was in a very low mood, having just almost lost Lila. But a series of bad lucky breaks left Lucas feeling hopeless.

It was the same for Lila. No. Could it be this bad, even with bad luck?

“…Vincent.”

“Yes, Duke.”

“Just unhitch one of the horses. The carriage is ready.”

“Yes, Duke.”

Vincent, who had been looking at the wrecked carriage in disbelief, replied in astonishment. Jessie tried to help him as he scrambled to his feet.

Just then, there was a sudden crash of thunder and a bolt of lightning.

“CRACK!”

The sound was so loud, Lila screamed in surprise. Lucas turned his head in the direction of where the lightning seemed to have come from.

Around them, the Duke’s knights had arrived, and the place quickly became bustling. People stood around wondering what was going on, but didn’t come out of the building.

“Duke. The horse that was attached to the carriage had no saddle, so I brought one of the knights’ horses.”

“Good. You will deal with the carriage and return with Jessie.”

“Yes, Duke.”

Lucas lifted Lila onto the horse first, then mounted himself.

“Lila, lean on me.”

Once he had her leaning against his chest plate, Lucas grabbed the reins with only one hand.

“Giddy up!”

Lucas had a good instinct, and while he valued analysis and research when raising his business, he didn’t ignore his primal instincts.

It was an odd feeling, Lucas thought as he urged his horse to a gallop, and the fact that she’d told him this was a work of fiction made him think of outlandish theories he’d never considered in his life.

Such as the delusion that what Lila had said in the carriage might actually happen.

‘The protagonist has many trials and incidents. What if Lila, who had been hiding her face, became the heroine she was supposed to be? If the world revolved around her absence, it would be possible that events that hadn’t happened before… would come rushing back to life.’

Lucas had read the heroic epics she was referring to. And like those novels, would trials would come to Lila, the heroine?

“Ha… crazy.”

As they raced to the Duke’s House, the highest point in the northern castle grounds, the rain began to pelt down on their heads.

Against the cold wind and even colder showers, Lucas felt the credibility of his theory.

“Lu, Lucas.”

Lila shivered in the bone-chilling northern showers. Though not as close as Lucas, she thought what had happened today was very strange.

“What’s going on!

She was on a horse for the first time in her life, and she had no time to think about it. The cold rain seemed to soak her body and freeze her to the bone.

Lucas gripped her firmly around the waist and urged her on, the torrential downpour obscuring her vision.

“Who are you!”

A knight guarding the ducal gates called out as he spotted the pair approaching in the distance. Lucas drew closer and showed his face.

“Duke!”

The knight, who hadn’t expected Lucas to return on horseback in this rain, hurried to open the gate.

The massive iron gates swung open, shaking off raindrops.

“You’ve worked hard.”

“Thank you, Duke!”

The knight seemed overwhelmed, and bowed in a respectful manner. Lucas urged his horse forward, Lila’s body cold in his hands, icy.

Reaching the manor’s entrance quickly, Lucas leapt off his horse, Lila in his arms. He landed with what seemed like a light glide, then set off at a brisk pace.

“We’re almost there, just hang on.”

“Lu, Lucas…”

It was so cold that Lila shivered involuntarily. She’d heard of northern cold, but she’d taken it a little lightly.

Hugging him, she clenched her teeth tightly or they would crackle.

Lucas came up to the third floor in a flash and carried Lila into the Duchess’s chambers.

Carrying her in his arms, barely able to take in the sights of his long-awaited return, he went straight into the bathroom.

After setting her down on the couch in the bathroom, he took off his own shirt.

The pink shirt he’d worn to greet Lila had turned a dark pink from the rain.

“Are you okay?”

Lucas asked as he cupped the tip of Lila’s chin, who was stunned.

“Yeah, no, I’m fine, it’s just, it’s so cold…”

“Why don’t you take your clothes off first?”

Lucas said, and began to fill the tub with warm water. Lila struggled to remove her drenched and clinging dress.

A large hand was placed on her back as she struggled to remove it on her own. Lucas helped her out of it.

“Hhooh…”

With a deep sigh, Lucas scooped the naked Lila into a quick hug.

He was about to put her in a tub full of warm water.

“Lucas, wait.”

Lila quickly pulled a bath bomb out of her incognito pouch and threw it into the tub.

“What’s that?”

Lucas asked as he watched the bath bomb disappear into a golden froth upon contact with the water.

“It’s a bath product that helps relax the mind and body.”

Lila had always been a fan of bath bombs.

“I’ve never seen this before?”

Lucas looked at the tub with curiosity, then gently eased Lila into the water.

“Thank you.”

Goosebumps rose as the water melted her frozen body. Lila’s lips quivered and she sighed in relief.

When Lucas was finished, he slid effortlessly into the tub, and since they often washed together, Lila didn’t resist as she had the first time. Pulling her up against him, he put a hand on her shoulder.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah… Lucas, I’m so sorry, I must have been so complacent.”

This would never have happened when she was wearing ugly make-up. Besides, her status was different now.

She was already a duchess, regardless of her formal marriage, but her thoughts were short-lived.

“I won’t go out so blindly next time. I worried you, I’m so sorry.”

He couldn’t see Lila’s expression, but her voice was enough to tell him she meant it.

Lucas kissed the nape of her neck and her ear briefly before answering.

“It’s okay, you made it back safely.”

He meant it, too.

Whatever Lila wanted to do, he would support her, even if he didn’t know the exact contents of the novel she’d been talking about, she’d been hiding for nearly a decade.

Now that she was finally showing her face and doing what she wanted to do, he had no intention of not supporting her.

He had other things to worry about. He believed Lila’s words, even if they were false.

If so, it meant that the hypothesis he’d been thinking about on the ride home earlier might be correct.

‘It’s the protagonist’s trial…’

That’s what he was really worried about: what exactly did the trial involve?

If it was something trivial like this, he could handle it. But…

‘If I was involved with those three men, including the crown prince…’

He felt a little. No, a lot, angry.

Not at Lila, but at this unknown, mysterious world.