A few hours earlier, when Benedict asked Victor how Elena had been doing, this was the answer he received.
“At first, I was suspicious of Her Highness, so I had her followed.”
“Naturally.”
Benedict nodded. Victor was a capable soldier who had survived countless battlefields. Of course he would have been wary of a strange woman who appeared out of nowhere claiming to be the Grand Duchess, and naturally, he would have investigated her background. There was something suspicious about that woman, after all.
“She visited a doctor's office every day. At first, I thought Your Grace might have fallen ill from the harsh conditions of your imprisonment. Just look at this visiting room. The conditions here are appalling.”
“Hardly.”
Benedict answered curtly as Victor shuddered and looked around the cold visiting room.
Benedict had always been more robust than most men, and his body had been hardened by years of training. During the war, he had spent days on end sleeping outdoors in the dead of winter. A mere prison was hardly going to make him sick.
Victor scratched his head, looking sheepish at the response.
“But now I suspect it was Her Highness who was ill.”
“…”
“When I investigated her family, I discovered that the men who call themselves her father and older brother are utterly despicable.”
As Victor continued his report, Benedict found himself licking his dry lips.
Was she deliberately hiding it?
He remembered the bruises on Elena's delicate skin. She had brushed them off with some excuse about catching an insect, but as a soldier, he had vaguely recognized them as injuries caused by being struck. There had been similar marks on her wrists, faint but visible beneath her sleeves.
He had found them strange at the time, but decided they were none of his concern. Apparently, they were signs of prolonged abuse at the hands of her family.
And despite all that, she waited for me in this miserable place every day?
She was a slender woman with skin so pale he had wondered whether she was suffering from malnutrition. Despite being unwell enough to require daily visits to a doctor, Elena had come to the visiting room day after day.
Imagining her sitting for hours within those cold stone walls, waiting for a man who never appeared, left him with an inexplicable ache somewhere in his chest.
“She also visited a weapons shop every time.”
“A weapons shop?”
His finely shaped eyebrows rose sharply.
A doctor's office was one thing, but if she was looking for weapons, that was another matter entirely.
Could she be hiding some ulterior motive? Is she planning something against me?
Victor continued, his expression grave.
“I was told she was looking for a dagger. I suspect she was trying to find a suitable weapon for self-defense.”
“…Self-defense?”
“The truth is, ever since the article about your marriage was published, Crown Prince Lawrence has reportedly been quite displeased.”
“…!”
Benedict's eyes widened in realization before narrowing again.
In a way, it was only natural. He was imprisoned on suspicion of murdering the Crown Prince's father-in-law. From Lawrence's perspective, Elena's actions directly contradicted his interests. There was no reason for him to welcome her interference.
“In fact, knights from the Imperial Family have been following Her Highness. In the end, we changed the men assigned to watch her into a protective escort.”
“…”
“Her Highness must truly love Your Grace. Why else would she willingly put herself in danger for your sake?”
“…!”
Shock flickered in Benedict's eyes.
Come to think of it, there had been something strange about Elena Christie from the very beginning.
“I’m confident I can get you a Not Guilty verdict.”
Aside from the soldiers under his command, she had been the first person to ever say… that he was innocent.
Benedict recalled the moment he was falsely accused of murdering Devon Hayden, the Crown Princess's father.
The instant he discovered Devon lying on the ground, bleeding, and tried to help him up, Benedict became his murderer.
The circumstances had aligned far too perfectly.
He had been the first to discover the body. The murder weapon had a connection to him. And in the weeks leading up to the incident, he and Devon had been involved in several arguments.
Every piece of circumstantial evidence pointed to him as the culprit.
At first, people had expressed their doubts, wondering whether he could truly have committed the crime. But once the press released the details of the case, they turned their backs on him.
In truth, he could hardly blame them.
During the investigation, he had stared at the evidence submitted by the Police Bureau and found himself wondering whether he really had killed Devon while somehow not being in his right mind.
On occasion, the Council of Nobles intervened to save members of the aristocracy accused of crimes. But no such intervention would ever come for him.
Born the Emperor's illegitimate son, Benedict had been banished almost immediately, sent away with his wet nurse to live in seclusion in a remote castle. He had always been alone.
His mother had reportedly died giving birth to him, so naturally, he had never even seen her face. As for his father, the Emperor treated him worse than a stranger.
Benedict had never been inclined to socialize or cultivate connections among the nobility. And with his half-brother, the Crown Prince, openly shunning him, there was little chance any noble would come forward to support him.
As a result, the only people in the entire empire who believed he had been falsely accused were a handful of soldiers under his command.
And those men had no connections to high society or politics, either.
Just as Benedict himself had begun to give up on everything, Elena had appeared and offered him a contract.
And now she was going to extraordinary lengths for him, even putting herself in danger.
Is she really doing all this just to defend me? Simply because of a contract?
Surely not.
“Could that be… why she proposed marriage?”
A glimmer of realization stirred in Benedict's eyes.
“As a rule, I don't take cases without a Retainer. But since it's you, Your Grace, I'm making a spe-cial exception. I'll represent you for a Success Fee alone.”
From the very beginning, she had never concealed the fact that he was special to her.
The only thing Elena had hidden was the abuse she suffered at the hands of her family.
“She must not have wanted me to worry.”
Benedict drew a deep breath.
Thinking back, perhaps the harsh things Elena had said to him that day when they discussed Vivian hadn't reflected her true feelings at all.
It must have been complicated for her to speak about the woman he supposedly loved. Perhaps jealousy had made her sharp-tongued.
“But why, of all things…?”
There had never been anything between them.
He had met Elena for the first time in that visiting room.
Then he suddenly remembered the newspaper article Victor had brought him.
“His Grace didn't hesitate for a moment before rushing into enemy artillery fire. The instant I saw him do that, I fell in love.”
Perhaps the story wasn't entirely fabricated.
After all, he had rescued countless imperial citizens on the battlefield.
As Benedict thought back over Elena's interview, he realized that certain details had been described with remarkable precision. Details so specific that only someone who had actually witnessed the events could have remembered them.
Eventually, Benedict arrived at the conclusion that Elena's interview had been a genuinely moving account of something that had happened.
Even when he had read the article believing it to be a fabrication, something about it had left him strangely moved.
His keen instincts as a soldier had seen through to the truth.
“So that's why she reacted that way to my condition.”
At last, everything made sense.
As Elena laid out the terms of their agreement to secure his release from prison, her eyes had sparkled with enthusiasm.
Yet when he added his own condition—that neither of them was to develop personal feelings for the other—she had seemed distinctly unimpressed.
As though the condition meant nothing to her.
Because she was already in love with me.
From her perspective, it must have seemed like a condition that couldn't possibly be honored anyway.
Benedict rubbed a hand over his face, troubled by the strange feeling that had come over him.
“No. In the end, it would only become a poison.”
Love did nothing but weaken people. Inevitably, it became a vulnerability.
His own mother, abandoned by the Emperor, and Crown Prince Lawrence, who had clearly lost all sense of judgment—the tragedies surrounding them had all begun with love.
And hadn't Benedict himself been saddled with an accusation he never should have faced, all because of a ridiculous rumor that he was in love with Vivian? Now he was awaiting a possible death sentence.
That was precisely why he had insisted on including the condition in their contract.
He had no intention of creating unnecessary weaknesses.
“No matter what happens, the contract must be honored.”
Benedict clenched his fist, as though sealing a solemn vow.
******
The next day.
Once again, I was waiting for Grand Duke Richard in the visiting room.
He hadn't agreed to see me yesterday, either. Why would today be any different?
“Ugh. There's no way to hold a trial without the defendant, is there?”
I slumped forward until my head rested limply on the table, raking my fingers through my hair as I entertained an utterly ridiculous possibility.
Clank.
The sudden, sharp rattle of metal made me jerk my head up.
“…!”
The instant I saw the welcome figure stepping through the open door, my lips parted in astonishment.
It was unexpected enough that Grand Duke Richard had suddenly agreed to see me.
But what startled me even more was how dramatically his appearance had changed.