Evil Duke, Please Be Gentle!

"You can come out lady!" said Reynold as he checked twice. There was no one else in the dark and the men were already dead.

He looked relieved that he had handled it well or he would not have been able to meet the eyes of Leo who trusted him out of all of them.

"Thank you sir Reynold." she said as she walked towards him and then stared at the man. "Do you have any idea who they are?" she asked with a look of hope in her eyes.

She had a hunch that everything is interwoven but Ethan was not the one who was sending them.

Though everyone thinks that he was blinded by love and greed for his potions that he had even discarded his father for Hannah, she knew he was suffering as much as Leo and William.

Giving him the power he never wanted and taking the family which he always desired for was cruel to him too.

He would not send the men to kill her but then she did not have any proof to support him when even Leo did not trust Ethan enough to send William back.

There was no denying that they were given slow poison on the palace that used to be their home and she could understand the resentment of Leo when he came back from a mission only to know that his wife and father were suffering from the continuous poison yet the culprit was laying in one of the luxurious rooms freely.

"I have no idea my lady." he said in a tone full of regret when he was not able to help her but she shook her head.

She was expecting too much. She just felt that knights must know each other even if they did not work together but that did not look like the case now.

"But…" he paused as he was not sure if he should say so, "I am sure that they did not belong to the family of the duke." her eyes lit just with that when he nodded again.

"But they could be hired assassins dressed as knights, my lady. You should not trust someone that easily." he warned as he took the single body in the room out of the small house and threw it in the garden.

"Sir Leo is right. You are not in the condition to blindly trust anyone." he said in a soft voice when she looked away but nodded her head.

"Reynold!" she did not use the honorifics this time, he noticed. The way she called him sounded intimate and if they were friends at least.

"I feel like I am not going to live for a long time." her words caught his attention and his perfectly made eyebrows furrowed.

"I know that the physician has said that I am recovering but I know my body better than others." her eyes still have a strange light and enough warmth that even when he felt that his heart sank, he couldn't take his eyes away from her face.

"So, I want to unite the family again. That is my last wish.

I do not want to leave my daughter in the environment where her father would lose all his hopes." he did not know how to respond to that..

"My lady, you are just thinking too much. Sometimes it happens during pregnancy." he tried to assure her when she gave him a soft smile and shook her head.

"I hope you are right and I am wrong. But if that is not the case then i hope that you will help my daughter in saving her father." he looked at her with a puzzled look when she looked away as if she had already spoken more than she should have.

Reynold did not take her words seriously. He had often heard from his friends that their wife have developed a lot of fear during pregnancy and sometimes they just talk nonsense.

It was better to not agitate them but accept their wordings.

"Yes, I promise that I will protect the little lady and if she ever has an argument with Sir Leo. I will help her in solving it." it was a vague promise anyway.

He was sure that Leo would never fight or resent the child he was boosting so far.

"My lady may not have any idea but sir Leo is telling everyone that he is going to be a father soon.

And that his daughter would be the cutest child they would have ever seen.

He never stops talking about the child, my lady." she chuckled and then walked back to the chair.

Sitting on it, she picked up the small hobby she had developed.

"Are you making this for sir Leo?" he asked as he saw that it was larger in size for a child.

"Yes, I have already made three for my daughter and two of Leo. This one would be the last set of sweaters. They all are matching in color and designs.'' As soon as the subject was changed, her voice turned soft and excited again.

She looked… happy! He wondered why she said so! As if the person who talked about her death and told her to keep Leo alive was another person.

Though it was the same body, the emotions and actions were completely different.

He shook his head about that matter and then stared out.

He did not feel like they would be attacked again and was sure that Leo was already on his way.

"You should go and take a rest, my lady." he said as he picked up the bowls of soup that still had more than half of the contents in it and took them towards the wash area.

"No! I am sure Leo would already be on his way. I want to greet him when he comes back."

She said with conviction when he shook his head.

"The place is far away. It would take three hours to travel, my lady. Even if the lord has left, it will take a long time to come back. You should go and take a rest or the lord would be displeased with me."