The following morning.
Lucien finally returned to the grand estate of the Arden Dukedom.
The castle had become strangely quiet and dark compared to the previous day's lively and cheerful atmosphere. Yesterday's dried wedding flowers still decorated the high walls and pillars. Half-finished decorations remained untouched on the tables.
The moment Duke Lucien Arden arrived, servants stopped their work the moment they saw him walk through the doors.
None of them dared to greet him and they kept their gazes down on the floor.
Lucien walked straight through the manor, ignoring the whispers. His expression remained completely empty as his heavy, muddy footsteps echoed loudly through the silent corridors.
He stopped outside Ruby's private chambers.
The heavy wooden doors were already slightly open, while Ruby stood inside near the window, dressed in formal black mourning clothes instead of her white wedding gown.
And the moment she turned and saw him standing at the threshold...
hope lit up her pale face.
"Lucien...my husband."
She hurried across the room toward him, her skirts rustling.
"I've been worried sick about you!"
"I heard something terrible happened at the imperial palace. Is the Crown Prince—"
"Where is it?"
Lucien interrupted quietly, his tone dead and flat.
Ruby blinked, freezing in her tracks.
"...What?"
"The original letter. Where is it?"
Ruby's soft smile stiffened instantly.
"I... I don't know what you're talking about."
Lucien slowly stepped inside the room, shutting the door behind him.
For the past week, something had never felt right to him. Everything had happened far too quickly. Far too perfectly as if someone had carefully arranged every single piece of the tragedy.
But right now, without another word. He walked straight toward the wooden coat stand near the wardrobe, Ruby's breathing immediately became uneven, her eyes widening in sudden panic as he thrashed her stuff open and scattered everything to search for the letter. He broke open the jewellery boxes, the drawers and scattered her clothes to the floor while nitpicking through every pocket he could find just to find the piece of parchment.
"Lucien..."
"What are you doing?"
He completely ignored her voice.
His hand slipped smoothly into the hidden inner lining of her dark traveling cloak. The very cloak she had worn the morning she personally delivered the Emperor's sealed order to his study.
His fingers brushed against a piece of folded parchment and his heart stopped beating for a second.
Slowly...
He pulled it free into the dim light.
A broken golden wax seal stared back at him signalling that the letter had been read.
The emblem pressed into the wax was unmistakable.
The Crown Prince's personal crest.
Lucien's hands began trembling violently.
"No..."
Ruby's face instantly turned as white as a sheet, leaning closer to him.
"Lucien..."
"I can explain!"
He unfolded the paper with shaking fingers. The familiar handwriting met his eyes immediately.
Elegant.
Gentle.
Beautiful.
Truly Cassian.
His vision blurred with hot tears, but still...he forced himself to read every word. Slowly and carefully.
>*"Lucien... I am carrying your child. That's what I wanted to tell you that night, but everything happened so fast. You already know what happened. So please... come back to me. Let us talk properly before it is too late... I really need you right now."*<
The entire room became completely silent.
Lucien stared blankly at the page.
Once.
Then again.
The date at the top. The dark ink. Everything matched.
This letter had been written the morning after the banquet.
It had reached the Dukedom.
But it had reached Ruby's hands.
And it had never reached him at all.
The breath caught painfully in his throat, choking him.
"No..."
His whisper barely existed.
"...No..."
His hands shook so violently that the parchment crumpled in his grip. His bloodshot silver eyes slowly lifted toward Ruby.
They were filled with raw heartbreak...
and something far darker.
"You..."
His voice cracked completely.
"...You kept it from me."
Ruby instinctively stepped backward, her hands raised in fear.
"Lucien, please listen to me—"
"You kept it!"
he repeated, his voice suddenly turning frighteningly calm and cold.
"For seven days he painfully waited for me."
"For seven days!"
"He believed I abandoned him."
Lucien took another step forward.
Ruby's back struck the hard stone wall behind her.
"Lucien..."
"I only wanted us to be together!"
"I love you!"
"I couldn't lose you to him!"
Lucien laughed out loud.
It wasn't a laugh of amusement or joy. It was broken, empty, and terrifyingly painful laughter.
"You love me?"
He slowly raised Cassian's crumpled letter in front of her face.
"This...was the one thing he needed from me."
"He begged me to come to him."
"He told me..."
"...our child was waiting."
His breathing became ragged, tears spilling over his eyes.
"And you hid it."
Ruby burst into frantic tears, covering her face.
"I was afraid!"
"I thought if you read it..."
"...you'd leave me forever!"
"I only wanted one chance Lucien, but you wouldn't focus on me!"
"One chance for you to choose me over him!"
Lucien's jaw clenched so tightly it trembled.
"So, you decided to just forge my handwriting and forged my answer to him just to make me stay with you?"
"Ruby, you made him believe that I threw him away."
Tears rolled freely down his pale, mud-stained cheeks.
"You have ruined us, all because of that letter."
"With one lie at a time you drive away the man that I love. And for that, I will never forgive you. For as long as I live."
*****