~Chapter 40~
Bloodied Damian
“I heard everything,” Eleanor said.
“What do you mean, everything?” asked Duke Astria, his face serious.
Meanwhile, Damian, despite being beaten, still looked shameless. When Eleanor hesitated, he scoffed and cut in.
“There’s no need to listen to a fake Astria girl like her, Father. Let me explain—”
“Damian, how could you do this to me?”
Eleanor raised her head again and cried, tears falling down her face.
Damian frowned, irritated that she interrupted him. He glared at her as if to say, Go ahead, talk all you want. Father will still take my side in the end.
Even if she accused him of trying to kill her, he figured he could just deny it. The Duke would get angry, sure, but anger and the actions he’d take after were two different things.
No matter how valuable Eleanor might be, she couldn’t compare to the only heir of Astria. If the Duke thought his heir was being threatened, he’d surely turn against Eleanor.
Damian fully believed this, and for once, Eleanor agreed with his thinking.
If I say he tried to kill me, he’ll just try to silence me—make sure I can’t speak of it elsewhere.
The Duke’s anger at his son would quickly shift to protecting the family’s reputation. She couldn’t let that happen.
So Eleanor decided to take a different approach.
“You’re right, Damian. You didn’t tell those thugs to kill me.”
The two men’s eyes widened. The Duke looked relieved that his son wouldn’t be charged with attempted murder, while Damian looked confused, unsure of her intentions.
Her goal was to make the Duke feel at ease—not threatened—so he could be angry at Damian without any guilt.
“But you ordered them to do something worse.”
“What? What are you talking about…?”
Damian’s face twisted. He had no idea what she was getting at.
“You told them to defile my body!”
Eleanor screamed at him like someone who had been truly traumatized.
“You told them to rip my clothes, leave marks on my skin, and ruin my purity! You wanted to make me damaged goods—worthless in the marriage market as Ellie Astria!”
Her voice shook with raw emotion.
“If you wanted me gone so badly, you should’ve just had them kill me instead!”
She gasped for breath, her small body trembling. She looked exactly like someone who had barely escaped a horrific fate.
Eleanor had never heard the thugs talk about such things. She wasn’t sexually assaulted in any way.
So technically, her words were lies. But not entirely.
If Karsian hadn’t saved me… what would’ve happened to me? She believed her story wasn’t that far from the truth.
“Damian Astria,” the Duke said in a low, cold voice.
The rage that had been boiling inside him suddenly turned icy cold. It was a warning sign—a sign that he was really angry.
Damian, recognizing this from past experience, quickly dropped to his knees.
“No, Father! She’s lying! I might’ve been mad, but I’d never order something like that! I’d never tell anyone to assault my sister!”
He genuinely looked horrified, and judging by his expression, he probably hadn’t ordered anything like that. At least he didn’t.
The Duke, too, seemed to sense that Damian was telling the truth. He frowned, troubled.
Eleanor decided to help her father out of his dilemma.
“Fine. Then tell me why. Why would you do something like this? Was it because I told Father about your gambling debt to Lord Peterson? Or was it the forged graduation record from the Academy? Did you really try to ruin the Astria name over something so petty?!”
Damian’s face went pale in an instant. He never imagined Eleanor knew about those secrets—or that she’d bring them up here.
“Damian,” the Duke said in a chilling voice.
His sharp gaze locked onto his son. The shameless confidence on Damian’s face disappeared instantly. He tried to pretend he didn’t know what she was talking about, but unlike Eleanor or Nora, Damian wasn’t skilled at lying.
“F-Father, I didn’t mean it. That’s not true either, she’s just—”
“You bastard!”
The Duke realized that everything Eleanor said was true—and his fist flew forward.
Thwack! Smack!
The dull sound of fists hitting flesh echoed through the room. Damian’s screams followed.
“AAARGH! Father!”
Blood streamed down his forehead, probably from being hit in the head. But the Duke didn’t stop. He had never been this furious at his only son before.
Damian had tried to damage Eleanor—Astria’s most valuable asset. That meant the Duke himself would lose the most. A ruined daughter wouldn’t fetch the price she was worth, and all his investments would be wasted.
And on top of that, Damian had disgraced the family by getting into debt with Lord Peterson, a man infamous for his low status, and forging graduation records.
Even if Damian was his beloved son, the Duke couldn’t forgive someone who challenged his authority.
The beating didn’t stop until Damian, blood pouring from his face, sobbed and begged for mercy. The Duke’s fists were powerful, and Damian, who never cared for physical training, couldn’t even fight back. He simply curled up on the floor.
Drip.
A drop of Damian’s blood landed near Eleanor’s eye.
It should’ve been shocking, but she stayed calm—as if it were just a splash of water. She didn’t even bother to wipe it off, just watched quietly as Damian got beaten.
“Master, perhaps it’s time to stop. The young master’s condition…”
One of the older butlers approached and gently tried to intervene. Only then did the Duke begin to calm down.
Damian was nearly unrecognizable—covered in blood and bruises.
The Duke clicked his tongue when he saw the state of his son. He wouldn’t be able to show his face in public for a while.
“Take him away and get him treated.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Damien, you are forbidden to go out from now on. You will be confined to your room and the estate for the next few months. Understand?”
The cold command came from him, but Damien couldn’t respond. He had already lost consciousness halfway.
‘So, being banned from going out is all? How generous.’
Eleanor snickered softly as she watched Damien’s unconscious figure being carried away by the butler.
This was not enough to satisfy her. Her true revenge on Damien hadn’t even started yet.
“Ah, no, no! Oliver!”
She could still clearly remember that day when, at the age of fifteen, her dear friend, the only one who had comforted her in this mansion, was found dead in her room, bound with thick, coarse ropes.
The golden fur that had lost its warmth, the kind tongue that had licked her tears, now limp and hanging in the air, was a sight she would never forget.
The punishment Damien received today was far from enough to repay the agony she had suffered. No matter what Damien did, the Duke of Astria would never give him the level of punishment Eleanor desired.
‘Then I’ll do it myself.’
Eleanor would be the one to make Damien truly pay, not with some petty punishment, but by pushing him into a terrible and eternal agony.
As she made this resolve, she slowly wiped the bloodstains from the corner of her eyes.
Bang!
A delicate white hand slammed down on a wooden table.
Expensive ornaments piled on the table fell to the floor with a loud noise.
“Damned bastard…”
It was a vulgar word for a noble lady’s mouth, but Nora spoke it without hesitation.
The person who made her so angry was Jasper, a thug she had known since her days in the slums. He was also the man she had entrusted with the recent attack.
“Why the hell are you blaming our kids for your failure? A bunch of knights suddenly appeared out of nowhere! How was I supposed to handle that? You should be the one paying the penalty, not me. Do you have any idea how many of my kids I lost because of you?”
He was shamelessly making excuses for the mess he had caused.
He even blamed Nora for the rumors of Astria’s name spreading to the police. Apparently, he thought it was Nora’s fault that a mysterious man appeared to save Eleanor and tortured the thugs to get the truth out of them.
Bang! Bang!
Nora slammed the table furiously, remembering what she had endured to convince Damien earlier. Her anger boiled over.
“Who the hell is that bastard?!”
Who was the person who saved Eleanor? And at just the right moment?
Her beautifully manicured nails scratched at the expensive wooden table, frustration overwhelming her.
Was the appearance of this helper just a coincidence? Was it really just a random occurrence that a righteous knight visited the area and saved Eleanor from danger?
No, it couldn’t be. That wicked girl must have used her brain and predicted this, sending someone to help.
Coincidences only happened in fairy tales, the ones Nora had read as a child. Once Eleanor was kicked out of her noble title, she was no longer the protagonist of the story. So, fateful encounters and coincidences should belong to someone like Nora, not Eleanor.
‘So she already got herself a man, huh?’
Nora sneered, her venomous thoughts swirling. The man Eleanor had met was probably someone insignificant, someone not worth her attention—just another fake who had shown interest after Eleanor had fallen from grace.
Still, the thought of seeing Eleanor’s face, betrayed by the only man she trusted, brought some twisted enjoyment.
“Natalie.”
“Yes, yes! Lady Nora.”
“You know, I think Eleanor has found herself a man. But it seems like she won’t introduce him to me, so as her sister, I’m just worried about her.”
“Is that so, my lady?”
Natalie, hearing Nora’s tantrum from outside, tried to laugh nonchalantly. She had a strong sense that if she answered incorrectly, she might get scratched instead of the table.
Nora flashed a smile at her, a sweet smile that sent chills down her spine.
“By the way… do you know which maid has been getting close to Eleanor recently?”
