Don't Keep a Dog in the Garden - Chapter 26

Like a vicious dog baring its teeth, Whisker asked, his gaze filled with undisguised hostility, “If I uncover the assassin who killed the former Grand Duke and even the one behind it, what will you do?”

“You ask the obvious. I’ll deliver a punishment befitting the crime,” Giiern replied leisurely.

His expression made it seem as if he had no connection to the matter at all.

As if that could be true.

Even as Whisker twisted his lips in a sneer, Giiern merely looked at him and Cassia with languid gray eyes.

Today’s pretext was secured by the Emperor, who put forward concern for the Grand Duchess’s safety.

Whisker was still the Bureau Chief of the Fedemillon Empire, and the Emperor’s order, though belated, was valid.

In the end, Cassia left the imperial palace without resolving the issue of withdrawing the imperial troops from the Verdi region.

As she descended the stairs, lost in thought, Whisker grumbled beside her in a playful tone.

“Isn’t this too much? To separate newlyweds who just held their ceremony.”

Even at his sincere complaint about having to leave on a business trip as Bureau Chief the very next day, Cassia gave no reply.

Right now, her mind was filled with a single possibility that kept resurfacing no matter how much she tried to reject it.

Whisker, his eyes uneasy, grabbed her arm as she walked and turned her around.

“Your Grace?”

Cassia looked at him for a moment, meeting his red, radiant eyes.

From one step below, the expression on Whisker’s face as he looked up at her held only confusion.

He was never someone whose emotions were easy to read.

Her lips wouldn’t part, and only her gaze wavered with her turmoil.

“What is it?”

At her uncharacteristic behavior, Whisker’s red eyes began to darken as well.

Cassia moved her lips before finally calling his name.

“Whisker.”

“Yes.”

“Is there something you haven’t told me?”

Whisker looked at Cassia for a moment as if weighing the intent behind her question, then slowly opened his mouth.

“There’s a lot.”

Seeing her golden eyes tremble precariously, he furrowed his brow and added, “But there’s nothing I can’t tell you.”

Only then did her wavering gaze meet his directly.

It was as if she doubted whether his words were true, and at the same time hoped they were.

Cassia was also someone skilled at hiding her inner thoughts, so Whisker felt confused about what exactly he was missing.

Cassia released the arm she had been holding and returned to her usual expression before giving an order.

“That’s enough. Find out who killed my father.”

Was the unfamiliar behavior she’d shown earlier because of longing for her father?

Though he didn’t understand familial affection or paternal love, Whisker recalled the image of Hamilton he had observed over a decade ago and found it believable.

He had been quite a gentle father.

He was someone worthy of receiving his daughter’s longing.

Losing such a father must’ve left a wound in Cassia.

“I will.”

Whisker took Cassia’s hand, pressed his lips to the back of it, and answered as if swearing an oath.

Obedience wasn’t difficult.

For Whisker, it was rather something he enjoyed.

If only my obedience could become your happiness.

Carrying out this order and bringing back the prey would likely hurt Cassia once again. She was always someone he wished to revere and reach, yet the hand he now held felt unusually small today.

***

Cassia left Whisker at the imperial palace, where he had business at the Inspection Bureau to prepare for his trip, and returned alone to the Grand Ducal residence.

As soon as she arrived, she shut herself in the office, and Marsilla speculated that the two must’ve argued at the palace.

Seeing that the two went out together and she returned alone, couldn’t you tell? At her firm conviction, Rinox hinted at a brutal insubordination.

Meanwhile, the butler Ellen was summoned to the office.

What was given to the seasoned butler, who entered while gauging Cassia’s mood, was an unexpected question.

“You mean when Your Grace’s husband became the Bureau Chief?”

“That strange title, well… no. Never mind. Yes. Do you remember exactly when it was?”

“Well, let me think…. It was about half a month after Your Grace succeeded the Grand Duchy. There were many major events that autumn,” Ellen answered, searching his memory.

Cassia, who shared the same memory, nodded. “That’s right.”

The autumn six years ago was an extremely turbulent time for the Fedemillon Empire.

First, the Grand Duke who had been inspecting the Grand Duchy died an unnatural death, and Cassia, who had just turned eighteen, ascended as the new Grand Duchess. Then the new organization called the Inspection Bureau was established, and Whisker appeared at the center of the empire.

“It was around the same time as the downfall of the House of Cornwall, so there was a lot of talk about your husband as well.”

Ellen added another incident, and Cassia nodded once more.

Around the same time Cassia succeeded the Grand Duchy, the House of Cornwall, one of Fedemillon’s great noble families, collapsed overnight.

Everyone in the ducal household, including the Duke of Cornwall, was slaughtered in a single night, and the lord’s castle of the Cornwall Duchy burned for three days and nights.

It was the miserable end of a family that had once enjoyed power while acting as the Emperor’s right hand.

And it was said that the one who carried out that horrific hunt was none other than Whisker.

That to cut off the right hand that had grown too powerful, he had been selected as a new hunting dog.

“They said he seized the position of Bureau Chief as a reward for bringing down the House of Cornwall.”

Cassia spoke of the rumor circulating as if it were fact.

Given that Whisker was appointed Bureau Chief immediately after the Duke of Cornwall’s corpse was confirmed, the rumor was likely more than just a rumor.

The fact that Whisker, who was later granted the title of Duke Mastiff, chose the former Cornwall ducal residence as his own estate further supported it.

So she had only thought that the relationship between the Emperor and Whisker was connected through the fall of the House of Cornwall.

She hadn’t connected it to another tragedy from that same autumn, over a month earlier, the death of Grand Duke Hamilton Diorent.

Could it really… be so?

That year, was there no possibility that Whisker had performed another service for the Emperor?

Swallowing the question she couldn’t bring herself to voice, Cassia’s expression darkened.

Ellen, who had been watching her carefully, spoke cautiously, “What is troubling you?”

“Investigate Whisker’s movements from six years ago. I want to know when and how he came into contact with the Emperor,” Cassia answered while keeping her gaze fixed on the empty desk.

Ellen was puzzled by the unexpected order, but as a loyal butler, he bowed his head.

Finding out Whisker Mastiff’s movements from six years ago would be nearly impossible, but he would do his utmost.

“Yes, Your Grace.”

Cassia encouraged Ellen with eyes darkened like the sun on a cloudy day, and after the butler left, she lowered her gaze back to the empty desk.

There’s no way.

Even ten years ago, he simply turned away.

Would his mind have changed six years ago?

If Whisker had assassinated her father on the Emperor’s orders, there was no way the suspicious Emperor would’ve so readily permitted their marriage.

There’s also no reason to entrust him with the investigation of the case now.

So it can’t be.

No matter how unpredictable Whisker is, would he speak of love to the woman whose father he killed with his own hands?

She considered asking him several times.

Thinking that if it were Whisker, he wouldn’t lie, then thinking that he might lie with an utterly composed face.

In the end, she realized she didn’t trust him at all.

“How cowardly, Cassia Diorent. After taking his hand.”

Cassia let out a sigh and muttered in a low, self-mocking voice.

If she couldn’t trust anyone, who did she think she could protect?

Had she never taken a single step forward from the days when she couldn’t love anyone out of fear of the pain of losing them?

Her father once said this.

That suspicion is a terrible poison that harms not only oneself but also those around them.

Cassia closed her eyes tightly, then opened them, drew in a long breath, and slowly let it out.

With a heart that wavered after just a single day, she wouldn’t be able to accomplish anything.

She decided to protect him, so she would choose to trust.

By the time she steadied her resolve and rose to her feet, it was already late at night.

When she opened the office door and stepped out into the corridor, Whisker was there.

He stood leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was reflecting.”

Whisker uncrossed his arms and stood in front of Cassia with a sullen expression.

It was such an unexpected answer that she had to ask.

“Reflecting? On what?”

“I heard Your Grace was angry, so I thought about what I did wrong, and it seems leaving the Emperor alive today might’ve been the mistake.”