I Seducing the Black-Hearted Duke Wasn't Me - Chapter 25

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 25
“Sigh…….”
I exhaled a long breath and pressed my fingers to my temple.
My head was too muddled to focus on the documents before me.
Because of that, I’d spent the entire evening wrestling with papers I should have finished in one sitting.
But that wasn’t even the real problem.
“The truth is, I actually have a way to do this.”
What in the world could that method be?
Option one: threaten her into handing it over.
“But that would backfire. She’s already given interviews to the press—if I did that, she’d just assume she was right and leak it.”
If that happened, public sympathy might actually shift toward Gerald.
Option two: steal it back.
It was my property, a treasured heirloom of our house, but such a heavy-handed approach felt wrong.
Not for moral reasons, but because if I got caught in the act, it would be equally disastrous.
‘And from what I saw in the article, she wears it on her finger all day…….’
I’d have to break her hand to get it off. There was simply no way.
Besides, Leon Obsidian didn’t strike me as the type to allow that.
“……No. I can’t think of anything.”
No matter how hard I racked my brain, only these two options came to mind.
“If only there were some record of her pawning it.”
A sorry heir who’d pawned the Family Head Ring—the scandal alone would be damning.
But at least it would prove I’d never given that ring to Gerald, that I’d never proposed to him.
‘The receipt I finally found only listed the amount. There was no detailed description of the item. And—infuriatingly—it showed a purchase confirmation right there on the document!’
In other words, that foolish foreigner had been swindled by a back-alley pawnshop owner.
She’d sold the Family Head Ring for a pittance.
‘Somehow she had the nerve to sell off a pledged item without hesitation.’
This is why one should use a properly licensed pawnshop.
There was fault on her end too for using an unlicensed, back-alley operation run by scammers.
“Aaaaaah.”
Clutching my head in my hands, I slumped forward and buried my face against the desk.
I was half-drowning in frustration, crashing against the immovable wall of reality, when it happened.
“Your Lordship.”
Lora knocked urgently on the office door.
“I told you I had no appetite for dinner tonight.”
“It’s not that…… His Majesty has come to visit again.”
“What?”
At Lora’s words, I instinctively checked the time.
11 p.m.
“At this hour?”
Most people would be tucked into bed by now.
But he’d chosen to visit at this late hour?
‘Could something have happened? Or is it about the Gerald matter……?’
“I’ve shown him to the Reception Room.”
“Understood.”
Draping a thick shawl across my shoulders, I hurried toward the Reception Room.
When I opened the door, I found Leon standing in the center of the spacious room, unattended by a single escort.
“Leon. What brings you here at this hour?”
“I’m sorry for dropping in so late. But I wanted to give this to you as soon as possible.”
Give? Give me what?
“Close your eyes.”
At this sudden request, I simply stared at him. I wondered what he was doing, but he only smiled softly in return.
I had no choice.
I closed my eyes.
As I stood there in darkness, I felt my hand being lifted, and then something smooth slipped onto my index finger.
I knew its shape without looking.
“That’s enough. You can open them now.”
I slowly opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was.
“Wait. This is…….”
A ring set with a large, vivid ruby that blazed like liquid fire—one I knew far too well.
The Family Head Ring of Zaherete.
“Wait, how did this happen? How did you…. Did Valentine Gerald just hand it over without a fuss?”
“Curious?”
“Of course I’m curious!”
He nodded, as if to say why would I ask something so obvious.
How had he solved the problem that had been eating at me for days, keeping me from focusing on anything else?
Pressed for an answer, Leon let out a soft laugh.
Then he said:
“If you’re that curious, go on a date with me tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Then I’ll tell you how it all happened.”
He was teasing. Negotiating at a time like this, no less.
Anyone watching would think we’d lost our minds.
“Fine. Yes. Let’s do it. A date.”
Fortunately, I rather enjoyed this sort of back-and-forth, this give-and-take.
“But about the date—couldn’t you just tell me what happened now? I’m dying of curiosity.”
I latched onto his arm, hanging there pleadingly, demanding he process the payment upfront since I’d promised to go through with it.
At that, he smiled—a touch awkwardly, it seemed.
“Well. Clinging to me with such fervor, such eagerness. I have to say, I’m genuinely delighted.”
Delighted, he says.
“But I’m afraid I have something quite pressing I need to attend to.”
“…At this hour?”
“Yes. At this hour.”
Leon’s expression turned genuinely troubled as he explained there was simply no getting around it.
At that, I released my grip on him.
‘Right, I’d forgotten—he’s only just returned to the Marquess Residence after four years away, so of course he’ll be swamped for a while.’
Having been gone from the estate for all that time, he’d have mountains of work ahead of him just handing over affairs from his proxy.
Feeling sympathetic, I couldn’t bring myself to hold him back any longer.
I knew better than anyone how draining it was when overtime piled up.
“Then I’ll send someone about the schedule. See you tomorrow, Erna. Oh, and—”
Leon tapped my hand lightly, the one wearing the ring, then offered a charming smile.
“I’d be grateful if you thought of me every time you put the ring on.”
Well. I doubt I could stop myself even if I wanted to.
I laughed softly and clenched my hand into a fist, ring and all.
“…Thank you. Really, truly thank you.”
“Think nothing of it.”
With that, Leon turned to leave.
He left behind a tender good night, nothing more.
* * *
Leon emerged from the Marquess Residence and made his way toward the carriage waiting at the main gate.
When he opened the door of the larger of the two coaches standing side by side, a man greeted him from within.
It was Vincent, his chief aide—whose face bore the haggard look of the exhausted.
“Everything ready?”
“…Yes, sir. All set.”
Vincent’s voice came thin and lifeless.
Even as he spoke, his face was clouded with doubt, his eyes searching Leon’s for some sign of reassurance.
‘I’m losing my mind.’
Through the carriage window, the Marquess Residence receded into the distance, and the Duke’s gaze lingered on it with such tenderness that it was almost painful to witness.
Young noblewomen smitten with him would have fainted at the sight.
But the mood shifted just as quickly.
As the carriage rounded a corner and entered the shadowed streets, his demeanor transformed in an instant.
As though the tenderness of moments before had never existed at all.
‘An angel-soft, gentle man—what nonsense.’
Vincent bit back a scoff every time the young ladies referred to their master in such terms.
The carriage came to a halt before a low-slung building.
The headquarters of the Public Safety Division, which oversaw security in Jedo.
Leon stepped out of the carriage with an impassive face, and one of the officers waiting outside bowed in greeting, gesturing him inside.
“We’ve been expecting you, Your Grace.”
“…”
“This way, if you please.”
* * *
“Damn it!”
Inside the dimly lit prison cell.
Cold, damp air clung to his skin, and droplets beaded on the chill-soaked walls where mold bloomed thick and verdant.
And as for how cramped it was.
Gerald, who had grown up in relative comfort, felt like he was dying.
‘What on earth did I do to deserve this?’
His lies had already been exposed, and he’d suffered proper humiliation for it. And now, on top of that, he’d been dragged to this dreadful place.
‘And they didn’t even interrogate me before throwing me down here — they just left me to rot!’
If they’d at least questioned him, he could have managed something, but instead they’d simply dumped him here with a casual mention that it might take time.
Gerald knew the usual procedure: suspects who were brought in were ordinarily held in the temporary detention cells on the upper levels.
But he’d been sent straight down to the Underground Prison, where no one ever came.
“This is all Erna Zaherete’s doing. That woman’s fault.”
Grind.
Gerald’s eyes glittered with fury.
“I never expected her to file a Missing Item Report. The cunning little schemer — that’s just like her.”
If it hadn’t been for that, he wouldn’t have been exposed so pathetically.
Everything would have gone perfectly.
“In the first place, it was whoever pawned the heirloom at the pawnshop who was wrong. I bought it fair and square with my own money. What I do with it is my business, isn’t it?”
If they hadn’t wanted this to happen, they shouldn’t have pawned it in the first place.
Why are they taking it out on me when they’re the ones who made the mistake?
Gerald fumed and raged, his teeth grinding audibly.
That was when it happened.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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