Chapter 21…
The words of Assem, my late brother’s former attendant, were so shocking that I couldn’t speak for a while.
“Marianne… isn’t my brother’s child?”
“Yes. I believe she’s Lord Descente’s child.”
My father’s…? So those two had been involved even while my brother was still alive?
“Then that means Marianne doesn’t carry the Carmine family’s blood at all!”
My grandfather’s face turned red with rage as he shouted.
Kevin gestured for Assem to sit down on the sofa.
It’s easier to talk when you’re at the same eye level.
“Are you saying my brother knew about this?”
“The day before Lord Lucio passed away, he told me that he still hadn’t spent the wedding night with Lady Catherine.
Yet she told him she was pregnant.”
Hadn’t spent the wedding night…? Just like me, then.
“So my brother found out about Catherine’s pregnancy directly from her?”
“Lord Descente was there as well. He apparently ordered Lord Lucio to believe that the child in Lady Catherine’s womb was his own.
When Lord Lucio refused and spoke of divorce, Descente said that even if Lady Sheila found out, she’d obey him without question—
but if she learned the truth, she’d be so shocked she might collapse. It was a threat.”
This is outrageous.
What Father did amounts to nothing less than usurpation.
“Lord Lucio came to me right after that and told me everything. He seemed mentally exhausted.
And the next morning… he threw himself into the lake.”
What…? So my brother did take his own life?
“They said he drowned trying to save a child…”
But that was Assem’s testimony, wasn’t it?
Assem shook his head.
He must have lied to protect my brother’s honor.
“When I went looking for Lord Lucio and reached the lake, I saw him just as he fell from the boat…
I desperately swam to him and somehow pulled him out, but it was too late. I’m so sorry.”
Assem bowed his head, crying—but he could easily have died as well.
It’s amazing he managed to pull my brother out alone.
“No, Assem, it wasn’t your fault.
My brother was always under Father’s control. Being forced to lie even about his child’s bloodline must have finally broken his spirit.
He must have agonized over what to protect—our bloodline, or Mother’s heart.
In the end, he didn’t know what to do anymore.”
Ordinarily, anyone would choose the bloodline.
But perhaps my brother knew why Mother obeyed Father so completely.
Were Father and Catherine lovers even before her marriage, or only afterward?
When Mother spoke of marrying Catherine to my brother, she sounded regretful—almost as if she’d never wanted Catherine as a daughter-in-law at all.
Mother must have discovered their affair after Marianne was born, yet… how could she have known earlier?
“Grandfather, why does Mother obey Father so blindly?
No—actually, not just Mother. You and Grandmother do it too, don’t you?”
Kevin asked his grandparents that question.
One of the reasons he had come to their estate was to finally learn the truth.
After a long, heavy sigh, Grandfather said:
“The truth is… Lucio’s father isn’t Descente.”
Wait—hold on a second.
Another case of a different father?
