Shocked, Kisa stood up abruptly and shouted at Daniel.
“You! What are you doing? Don’t tell me you’re the person who jumped in front of the carriage?”
Daniel answered by pulling up one corner of his mouth even more.
“Are you crazy? What if you had died? Do you know how dangerous that was?”
“Wow, Kisa. Are you worried about a man who’s not even your fiancé? Nice, it’s been a while since I’ve received your concern.”
“No, is that what you should be saying right now?”
“Is there any reason I shouldn’t? I’m perfectly fine now anyway. That’s all that matters.”
With those words, Daniel leaned back comfortably against the backrest.
It was truly an absurd act.
Despite knowing full well that a significant number of people get injured and die in carriage accidents every year, he was acting as if he had multiple lives.
Kisa looked at the man who had become even more shameless and said firmly.
“Get out of my carriage right now.”
“I refuse.”
“Don’t you know this is clearly a crime? Should I call the police right now?”
“Go ahead and call them. But while the capital’s notoriously slow police are on their way here, you’ll have to listen to what I have to say.”
“You jumped in front of a carriage just to have a conversation?”
“Yes, what other choice did I have? You won’t meet me and you don’t reply to my letters.”
“Then stop meddling in my affairs. I’m someone else’s fiancée now. I have no obligation to deal with you.”
“…….”
Daniel stared at Kisa with a gaze that somehow seemed more subdued than before.
“Well said. This is about your fiancé. There, doesn’t that suddenly make you want to hear what I have to say?”
“If you’re planning to slander Seyard again like last time, don’t bother. I’ve already decided to trust him.”
“What makes you trust him so much?”
“The time I’ve spent with him so far.”
“How laughable. You’ve only known him for barely four months.”
With a snicker and a contemptuous smile, he narrowed his eyes.
“Just sit down first. This is different from last time. I’ve found another suspicious circumstance regarding your fiancé.”
“……Forget it. I don’t believe you.”
“Hmm? What’s with that subtle pause before your answer?”
“What are you talking about? There was no such thing.”
Seemingly ignoring Kisa’s words, Daniel’s eyes curved into an arc.
“I understand. You must have felt something odd while being with that guy all this time. See? What did I tell you?”
“Don’t jump to conclusions! To begin with, you don’t know anything about him-“
Just as Kisa was about to snap back, a third person’s voice was heard from a short distance away.
“Um, miss.”
The coachman, who was now standing at the carriage door, looked back and forth between Kisa and Daniel with anxious eyes.
“What….what should I do? Should I call the police? Or will you be leaving with Young Master Daniel?”
The servant, who had worked for the Vansfelt family for many years, seemed confused about whether to regard Daniel, who had frequently visited the mansion, as an intruder or as Kisa’s guest.
“And we can’t keep stopping in the middle of the road like this. I need you to decide whether we should continue or park the carriage somewhere else.”
Even though the question wasn’t directed at him, Daniel promptly answered the coachman’s query.
“Then just park it somewhere nearby. I don’t mind talking inside here.”
“You, really……”
“Come on, Kisa. You can decide whether to report me or not after hearing what I have to say first. Be honest. Don’t you want to know more about your fiancé?”
Kisa fell into a moment of contemplation.
Today, she had simply left home because she was bored and wanted to visit the Duke of Hillan’s mansion for fun.
In other words, since she had no appointment with Seyard, he wouldn’t be waiting for her even if she arrived a bit late.
‘I don’t believe a word Daniel says.’
Seyard was the person she trusted.
However, she needed to understand Daniel’s intentions.
If the information he claimed to have found was negative gossip about Seyard, like last time, Kisa could hear it first and give Seyard a heads-up.
If so, it might be possible to prevent anything that could harm his future.
Telling herself that this was for Seyard’s sake, Kisa convinced herself and sat down.
“I’ll hold off on calling the police for now. And park the carriage anywhere suitable.”
Seeing Kisa giving instructions to the coachman, Daniel’s lips twitched.
“Don’t misunderstand. I’m only listening because you’d keep bothering me if I refused.”
“Yes, yes, how could it be otherwise?”
While Kisa frowned at her former fiancé’s deliberately casual attitude, the coachman returned to his seat and set the carriage in motion again.
Daniel stretched as if his body was stiff, then rubbed his shoulder.
“I heard your engagement ceremony at the Duke of Hillan’s mansion was quite splendid. That must have been nice?”
It was a question that seemed casually thrown out but had a sharp barb clearly felt in it.
“I don’t think you stopped the carriage just to talk about my engagement ceremony?”
“Why are you so uptight with me? I heard you disappeared alone with him before the engagement reception even ended? Was that so good?”
Kisa was momentarily speechless from the sheer absurdity.
“So where did you two go alone? What exactly did you do?”
“Daniel Lowens, get a grip. Why are you making such a fuss as if I’ve been having an affair? You were the one who maintained such an intimate relationship with another woman that it caused misunderstandings while we were still engaged.”
She couldn’t understand why he was looking at her with hurt eyes as if he had been betrayed.
“Yes, I admit that I wronged you. But cutting off ten years of our time together all at once was too harsh. Think about how long we’ve known each other.”
Kisa’s eyes filled with contempt as she looked at the man who was whining like a child.
“Enough. I was a fool to believe you. So your story was all lies. Coachman! Stop the carriage and call the police-“
“Okay, okay! I’ll get straight to the point!”
Daniel barely managed to stop Kisa as she was about to stick her head out the window and give new instructions to the coachman.
He gave Kisa a dissatisfied glance and finally brought up the main point.
“The witness has disappeared.”
“Witness?”
“The guy I kept sending you letters about, asking you to meet him, but you consistently ignored.”
“Ah, the man from Bonzmos?”
Daniel had rushed to Kisa and rambled on about how Seyard had been a thug who habitually frequented gambling dens in the past and had a woman, based on that person’s story.
“After confirming with him directly, he said that was a malicious exaggeration. It’s true that he visited gambling dens a few times, but he didn’t do anything else that would label him a thug, and he certainly didn’t date any woman.”
“What? You believe that? No, more importantly, did you tell him everything I told you?”
Daniel asked with a grimace, and Kisa frankly admitted.
“Yes, I told him.”
“Damn it… So that’s what happened. That’s why that man disappeared.”
“Why did he disappear?”
“Why do you think? Because you told on him, and that guy took care of it.”
“Seyard? Don’t accuse an innocent person without evidence.”
“If it wasn’t him, why would someone who went to work perfectly fine every day suddenly vanish overnight? Not a single person around him heard even a simple word about his departure.”
And, he continued.
“I’ve also checked with the police headquarters, and as far as they know, he doesn’t seem to have been involved in any incident.”
“Then it’s probably nothing. Maybe he just suddenly wanted to travel and left on a whim?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. How many people travel like that? Besides, I had promised him a large sum of money. On the condition that he would tell you the same story he told me.”
“……You really went to great lengths.”
“That’s how desperate I was to save you from that guy’s clutches. Anyway, would he just take off on a trip when he didn’t even know when I would arrange a meeting with you? Abandoning a fortune that would take a lifetime for an ordinary working-class citizen to save up?”
After a moment of silence, Kisa soon spoke up.
“So is that all you wanted to tell me?”
She was thinking that if that was everything, she would tell him she understood and ask him to get off now, but Daniel shook his head.
“This is just the introduction. The introduction explaining why I went to Bonzmos.”
“You went to Bonzmos yourself?”
“Yes, and because of that, I had to leave the capital for quite some time.”
Come to think of it, around the time of Kisa’s engagement, Daniel hadn’t tried to approach her for quite a while, and his letters had suddenly stopped.
Kisa had been happy thinking that the leech-like man had finally given up, but now it seemed she had been completely wrong.
“I wanted to find a new witness and investigate your fiancé’s past myself.”
“I don’t understand why you’re so obsessed with Seyard. Why don’t you just live your own life? That’s what your family would want too.”
“Enough of that, just listen. I encountered a rather interesting situation in Bonzmos.”
With a sardonic smile on his lips, Daniel lowered his voice and said.
“Bonzmos, that town. The entire town has completely taken Seyard Hillan’s side.”
“What?”
“I went around asking at gambling dens and everywhere else, but everyone only had good things to say about him, as if they were all following a script. When I asked if Seyard Hillan used to frequent gambling dens, they would noticeably panic and claim that never happened?”
His voice dropped even lower.
“Doesn’t that seem suspicious no matter how you look at it? According to you, he did actually visit gambling dens.”
