Chapter 5 : Duke Lenox Hesman

The next morning.

I headed to the palace with Dominique to report the change of use of the building and the opening of the stationery store. I arrived in front of the palace in a rented carriage and headed to the government office dedicated to reporting work.

I arrived at the government office by making my way through a crowded area like I was walking through a forest trail. People were scarce, and there was no one except for one tall man in the distance, so it was a calm atmosphere.

‘It feels good from the start.’

I walked with a monotonous hum.

But someone blocked me. It was none other than……

“Long time no see.”

The male lead and my fiancé, Duke Lenox Hesman.

“……”

Of course I was just going to ignore Lenox and pass by. There was no reason to pretend that I knew him.

The problem was that he had openly called out to me on the Imperial road.

“Lady Meldenique Vaveloa.”

He looked at me with a gentle smile, perhaps because there were not many people in the Palace.

‘What the hell, you used to treat me like a useless and invisible human.’

I frowned at what he had said in the past.

At first, Lenox came off as warm to Meldenique too.”

...──────...

“Lady Meldenique, It’s a good morning.”

Meldenique, who had no one to tell her about the rumors that she had been cursed, easily had her heart stolen by him.

...──────...

“Your Excellency Duke Hesman, don’t you hate me?”

“No way. You’re a necessary and useful creature to me. Call me Lenox.”

“Yes, Lenox.”

...──────...

He was the only savior to Meldenique, who everyone one was cold-hearted to. However, as soon as Meldenique was enchanted enough, Lenox changed his attitude with the flick of a finger.

“You are not beautiful. So the dress doesn’t suit you.”

He controlled Meldenique’s clothes and make-up.

“As you know, you have to have talent for business.”

He disregarded Meldenique’s talent.

“Why are you doing business with Sheria, not me?”

“You are incompetent and Lady Sheria Vaveloa is capable.”

He even compared the two even though he knew that Meldenique had an inferiority complex with Sheria.

When Sheria and Lenox became partners for a ball, Meldenique asked him.

“There’s not anything between you and Sheria, is there?”

Lenox’s narrative was deft. He brainwashed Meldenique, who suspected the affair between the two.

“Listen well. If I’m having an affair with Lady Sheria, it’s because you aren’t attractive enough for me.”

“……The problem isn’t my attractiveness but……”

That’s how he managed Meldenique so deftly.

So that Meldenique, who is already despised, loses her self-esteem and rolls down the abyss.

“I’m being nice to people like you because it’s me.”

At last, Meldenique began to believe him completely and entrusted him with all the decisions.

“Listen only to me. We will definitely get married.”

...──────...

Meldenique endured all the neglect, reverence, and gaslighting, in the spirit of wanting to marry him.

‘Because Meldenique loved Lenox so much.”

Looking back on the past, I felt Lenox’s low and medium-pitched voice pierce my ears.

I glared at him.

‘Crazy bastard. No matter how much I think of it, it infuriates me.’

The thought of secret contempt, neglect, verbal abuse, etc. made me angry.

The sword in my hand vibrated as if it had read my mind. As if it was telling me to calm down.

But I clenched the sword.

In any case, this man is someone who I had to meet at least once. There’s no reason for me to be depressed.

“I greet Your Excellency, Duke Hesman.”

He frowned for a moment, seeming to be puzzled that I hadn’t called him by his first name, Lennox.

I glanced from his black hair to his brown eyes.

Although he must have been a knight that carries a sword, his pure white skin matches his cold expression every time, eerily.

He certainly looked like a male lead. But to me, he’s just a man who had an affair.

He glanced at my face and asked me calmly.

“Lady Meldenique, I heard you left the family.”

“Yes, Duke. Now that I have left the family, I am just Meldenique.”

He whispered coolly at my answer.

“Now way. I didn’t allow it, what are you talking about?”

“……”

“Please finish the deviation within a month. I don’t like the woman who will be my wife living a dissolute life. We will have a wedding soon, right?”

I frowned openly.

‘A man who is having an affair thinks about a wedding?’

I didn’t think anything about a wedding would come out of this man’s mouth.

My nose was blocked and I was so dumbfounded, that I was speechless for a moment.

He was already playing love with my younger sister, Sheria, at a time when I had eaten up a billion bekrels.

They ran into each other so often like it was fate. Lenox expressed interest in Sheria in a situation where he was clearly engaged.

‘He used to stand by Sheria in public, ignoring me.’

You’re still enjoying the feeling of secretly developing love while committing taboos that make Meldenique a laughing stock, don’t you?

‘No one knows about their affair, they’re also delusional.’

Now that Sheria has left for a brief rest in the South’s warm Holy Land, Lennox may feel her absence and be growing more mournful love.

You want to get married in that situation?

‘He’s crazy.’

Now that we’ve come across each other like this, I’ll have to hit him straight.

“Your Excellency, I know everything.”

“What do you mean?”

His attitude was calm, but his eyes cannot be hidden.

He was looking at me as if he were annoyed.

With eyes as if they were looking at a bug.

‘It’s strange that Meldenique was so hung up without knowing that he hates her.’

Why on earth would he want to get married?

I looked at him and whispered.

“The relationship between Sheria and the Duke.”

Lenox and Sheria pushed for love.

Of course people doubted the relationship between Lennox and Sheria. But they pretended to be fine on the outside.

‘You didn’t want to be accused of having an affair.’

Some people felt sorry that they could have loved each other even without Meldenique.

In 『Lovers Caught in Magic』, Meldenique was just an obstacle to love, and an impurity for socialites.

Even though Duke Lennox Hesman’s real fiancée was Meldenique.

“Ah.”

Lenox seemed flustered at my words but smiled calmly.

“Did I not say it wasn’t an affair? Trust me, I said that.”

In the original story, Meldenique couldn’t break off the engagement despite being shamed.

She clung and clung to him, asking for love because she loved him.

But I was different.

‘But an affair is an affair for any reason.’

“I don’t want to hear excuses.”

I glared my mouth and spoke syllable by syllable.

“I’m breaking up with Your Excellency.”

“……what did you say?”

He opened his eyes wide with a look of surprise for the first time.

“Ah, I’ll give you an alternative. I think you can marry my younger sister, the saint, Sheria. If that happens the political marriage between families will be fulfilled. It’s clean, right?”

With a rare flustered face, Lenox opened his mouth.

“As I have always said, I have no thoughts of marrying Sheria. Although she is elegant, beautiful, and lovely, unlike you……”

‘What the hell, why are you complimenting Sheria to me all of a sudden?’

I looked at him with a pathetic look.

As if intoxicated with his theatrical love, Lennox shook his head in silence.

“Yes, although she is different from you in many ways, I intend to marry you anyway.”

I don’t know where to start.

Do you want to date and marry different girls?

But I had no intention of jumping to his heels. I will rewrite the end of this novel on my own.

“You won’t marry Sheria? That’s what you mean?”

“That’s right.”

“Then marry Madame Hildegardt. I’m not getting married.”

The age difference between the two is about thirty years, but you could try to overcome it.

It was my principle to deal with illogicalities with logic.

At my words, his face turned into an expression of loss of words.

“Lady Meldenique Vaveloa, what kind of joke is this?”

I guess this doesn’t make any sense.

I gently pulled out the sword in my hand. Although I pulled it out to make it look like self-defense, Lennox was shocked.

“Right now…… are you holding a sword in the Palace? You dare to, at me?”

I looked at him.

He looked at me with bewildered eyes, as I expected.

‘It would be surprising to see me rebel after you always ignored and gaslighted me.

And there was one more person that was flustered.

‘What, what are you doing, Mel!’

It was Dominique.

From the original work, it was said that only in emergency situations, it could make electric sounds, but Dominique’s heart seemed to be rushed right now.

I spoked inwardly to Dominique.

‘Sorry. I’ll give you a bonus.’

Dominique quickly shifted his posture.

‘It must be given in gold.’

With his permission, I grabbed the sword and put the blade into the floor with force.

Bang!

The edge of the sword was plunged deep into the ground.

I offered my brief condolences to Dominique and continued to talk to Lenox.

“It seems like you can’t understand, but I’d like to formally request a break-up, Your Excellency.”

Putting the blade down on the floor means requesting for a duel.

Of course, it was not a formal duel.

It meant ‘if you don’t break the engagement, I will break it somehow.’