Spoiler: Dun Dun Duuun! Roxana and Elvin continue to talk to the young gentleman, and Elvin casually throws out that Lord Frane (they call him Count Frane Young-sik, which I think means that he's the second son of Count Frane - I've chosen to call him Gentleman before, but it might better be translated as Lord) is hiding Claire and people are shocked. Then he makes a comment ind of about how they were romantically involved and Lord Frane kind of gets mad that Elvin is telling lies. Elvin and Roxana eventually leave back to her house to discuss the duel. Lord Frane has to rush home because the cat is out of the bag and he has to warn Claire that she's been found, only to be waylaid as soon as he gets home. His Father is PISSED and tells him that the agreement won't prevent Elvin's father from destroying them using underhanded means, if he's injured or killed, because I guess we were wrong before and Elvin's father actually cares a lot for Elvin and has been known to destroy people who have harmed Elvin before. Lord Frane is getting nervous when his father is cursing him out and someone from the Royal family shows up only to find that there were signs of someone living in an attic, but Claire is not found, so they know he was hiding her. Lord Frane's older brother is then like, follow me and takes Lord Frane out to training ground and tells him to practice defending only, because he absolutely cannot harm Elvin. Lord Frane notices that his brother's look at him is that he doesn't care if he dies himself. We see the CPs aide again, but now they're all on tenterhooks when they go to meet the CP. The CP apparently has heard the rumors that Claire has been meeting other men, and he is angry that they are apparently true. The CP has apparently gotten his act together a little bit in that he's able to do his work again, but now he drinks all the time off work and his picked up smoking. He's apparently turned into something of a mob boss because if his courtiers make a mistake, many of them have been injured or even killed, so they are afraid because he's no longer the nice, gentle leader they used to follow. Then the aide tells him of the duel between Lord Frane and Elvin over Roxana and we see that he's mad that he keeps hearing about Elvin and Roxana together- he apparently doesn't like others taking what is his. Roxana used to always be there waiting for him and now she's always seen with Elvin. We see that he had come to an agreement with Elvin's younger brother to try and assassinate Elvin and was irritated it didn't succeed. Elvin's younger brother wants to inherit the Grand Duchy and hence the assassination attempt - the CP just wants Elvin gone because he took Roxana - but the CP wonders what Elvin's father would do if he found out about the assassination attempt because he cares for Elvin so much. (The CP is also bitter because the Emperor kind of dotes on Elvin, and if Elvin didn't look like the spitting image of the Grand Duke, he would have been really suspicious Elvin was another son of the Emperor's) Elvin and Roxana are in the sitting room at Duke Lillian's manor. Roxana asks him if it will be ok, and then realizes that Elvin said he would only use one hand to fight because his arm was still injured. She asks to take a look at it, and it still looks like it's healing but she chides him for taking off the bandage when it is still healing, so she has a maid get some medicine. She offers to put it on for him, which embarrasses Elvin a bit, but he lets her apply the medicine. As she's tying the bandage up, she looks up at him, and he gently reaches out to touch her face, and then he leans in to kiss her. She's just getting used to the unusual sensation when the sound of shattering porcelain breaks the moment and she looks to see Stephen had walked in with tea and pastries right as they had kissed, and dropped everything in shock (LOL). He apparently was trying to use that as an excuse to snoop, and Roxana knows it won't take long for this to reach the ears of the Duke, so she orders everyone out. She apparently thought he was lying to make a scandal at the party when he said he had one sided feelings, but then he asks her if her lack of resistance at the kiss could be interpreted favorably? She looks at him and notices he's wearing the brooch she gave him and she acknowledges that she's wearing the bracelet he gave and realizes they both like the other. Seeing that she's not refusing he tells her he'll be back with a proper declaration. Payne reads about the duel in the paper and finds it funny that Elvin is fighting in Roxana's honor because he would not have done that for anyone else. His aide still judges Roxana poorly but she (I think her name is Ellen) recognizes that Payne had his heart set on Roxana. There's an acknowledgement that Roxana, even though she always caused a fuss with Claire, might not be that much of a villainess if she has the two most eligible men wanting her. Payne tells his aide to leave and thinks about the situation, where he knows that his father has really favored Elvin as well, but the Emperor would never allow the Grand Duchy and the Duke to marry because of how risky it was. He also doesn't think that either the Grand Duke or Duke Lillian would approve of the other's child as a spouse for their child. So he thinks all he has to do is wait - but he feels pretty lonely because Roxana has put up a pretty strong boundary against him but he likes her. Elvin returns home to be welcome by his angry father. His father is mad he wrote that agreement of non-retaliation and about his handicap and is like, "Don't you know people are hurt or killed during duels!? How could you agree to this?" Elvin isn't worried about the angry father. Elvin's younger brother is like, "Yeah, you haven't trained with the sword at all, right?" (During the conversation with Roxana in the sitting room, he mentioned he actually received sword training in the Royal Palace at the behest of the Emperor - Roxana thinks the trainer must have been a really good one.) That's the end for this week.
MAN I swear, this CP is more garbage than Claire it's just that he is in a higher position so he is privileged to be so, kinda shock as well that his Father care for Elvin because I remember in spoiler he slapped him. THANKS FOR THE SPOILERS!! ps: I’m I the only who is happy that CP believe rumor (in fact its true) about Claire and still want to get back with Roxana even though it’s not gonna happen
Thanks for the spoilers. I was fangirling when I read about the kiss between the leads only to laugh at Stephen's reaction next. I'm surprised Elvin's Father cares about Elvin since his previous action of hitting the latter gave us readers the wrong impression. And the emperor actually let Elvin learn swordsmanship without the knowledge of Grand Duchy, hmm... I smell something fishy. However, this is also good. This novel isn't just about two outstanding men and a scum fighting over a brilliant girl. Originally I was disappointed how the noble young masters acted like brainless brats but I guess that's only limited to those who aren't the heirs of their House. Now it seems that the heirs to their clans are still intellectual. Its also impressive to see Payne's aide beginning to change her view point on Roxana instead of persisting on her initial opinions. This forms a stark contrast between Payne's subordinates and CP's. The former's being more flexible and the latter... Well, let's just say that if CP wins the crown then what's waiting for the Empire is a downfall. For a country to progress and develop the leaders cannot be too pedantic and neither can they be stubborn without room for change. Um... Just typing this makes me worry for their country. I look forward for some political plot.
I think it has something to do with his stepmother. Elvin mentioned before that Roxana (OG) reminded him of his mother, how she get pushed from her position and withered day by day while the mistress taking the spotlight, he could see through Claire shallow scheme cause his stepmother much more clever than that. If it's true that his stepmother is the one behind his mother death than he got some poisonous snake in the house, if she could turn Elvin father against his wife, considering Elvin temper, it would be a piece of cake to turn him against his beloved son.
Thanks for the spoilers! I appreciated reading them, due to how slow paced the story can seem at times.
Lol, same. I've started reading the week's chapters in a batch because I tend to forget what happened at the beginning of the weeks events if I don't. Also, it's easier to deal with how slow it is that way.
Spoiler: The Duel The story continues with Elvin and his brothers trading barbs and glaring daggers at each other. After a bit of this, the Grand Duke kicks the younger sons out and scolds Elvin, saying he doesn't know how to fight and he could be injured, etc, etc. Elvin continues to snark at him, and then tries to leave, when his father asks him if Elvin blames him for what happened to Elvin's mother. I think Elvin replies that he does blame his father for killing his mother, and the Duke is shocked (the MTL of what Elvin says is more of a question that his father killed his mother, but his father acts shocked as if Elvin had openly accused him). Elvin asked him what he was expecting when the Grand Duke asked that question and leaves. The Grand Duke tries to arrange for armor and training for him, but they believe that he won't accept it because he turned into a difficult child after his mother died. (Dude is delusional if he doesn't think that Elvin thinks his step mother was responsible - the man cheated on Elvin's mother with his stepmother for goodness' sake). The date of the duel is set and Roxana gets a request from Hermes for her to go see the owner. When she gets there, she and Elvin joke a bit before Elvin gets serious. Seeing this, Roxana is concerned and ask him what is going on. Apparently, there is a NEW rumor going around... that Claire is pregnant with the Crown Prince's child. Elvin seems to be judging Roxana's reaction, but she's not surprised that they likely had that kind of relationship as it would have happened eventually. She contemplates Claire's current situation - that she's now rumored to be pregnant with the Crown Prince's child, which means she's even MORE of a liability for the Crown Prince when he's already fallen behind (which won't make the Empress happy) and then asks Elvin to spread another rumor that the Crown Prince will be at the duel. She plans to have Claire and the CP destroy each other by luring Claire to the duel. The young Lord Frane suddenly gets a message in his room with a vial, no known sender, telling him that Elvin is actually a good swordsman and that he Elvin will kill him. The message says the vial is full of a drug that will mildly paralyze him and give him hallucinations if the Lord can get it on him. This whole thing makes him nervous. A few weeks pass and he works his butt off until the start of the duel. He grabs the vial as he leaves (even though he's not going to use it... for real? If you weren't on some level going to use it, you would have left it home...). Apparently, he had it tested and it seemed to work as expected. He arrives at the duel site and Elvin is already there showing off. When Elvin sees him, Elvin asks him if he got his handkerchief - then he shows off his handkerchief from Roxana, saying it was a wish of good luck and it's a pity that the young Lord didn't get one from Claire even though he was defending her honor. Then Elvin rubs in his face everything that Claire has done (starting a relationship with a man who had a fiancee, framing people, getting people killed, attempting to murder her maid to escape...) and then he basically says, "Well, I don't expect you to believe me. Claire really lucked out getting such a good dog as you." The young Lord argues that she doesn't have the power to do that. Meanwhile, Roxana is outside of the ring, where bets are being placed. She places a boatload of money on Elvin (people were shocked at how much gold she put up). She sees the exchange between the two men, and warns Elvin not to get injured. Elvin says he won't and the fight starts. Elvin basically plays with the guy like a cat with a mouse, and the fight goes on for a while. At some point, Roxana sees someone in a cloak and has her knights catch them, in order to reveal Claire's face. She's like, "Oh, so it's you? Here to wish the Lord luck?" Claire argues that their relationship isn't like that and that she only loves the CP. Roxana, having reached her goal, lets Claire go and turns back to the fight. Elvin is slowly injuring the young lord and eventually the guy falls to the ground. He suddenly throws dirt at Elvin and people disapprove because it's cowardly. Then he makes a desperate run at Elvin and he makes a wild swing, where Elvin parrys and disarms him and holds his sword to his throat. The duel is over when Elvin suddenly stumbles. Roxana runs over to Elvin and asks him if he's hurt and he shakes his head at her questions, but he suddenly coughs up blood and keels over. Roxana orders them to take him to the doctor and then orders the knights to control the area because someone tried to harm Elvin. She orders the knights to take the lord into custody, which he tries to fight against. She then starts to head to the carriage where Elvin was taken to be seen by the doctor. She actually starts running but loses balance on her heels and she falls, spraining her ankle and losing a shoe. As her maids are picking up her shoe, she sees another cloaked figure and is surprised to see it's the actual CP (she made up the rumor to lure out Claire, but didn't think he'd actually be there.) He asks her if she's really acting that way over Elvin and she tells him it's none of his business and tries to walk away, but he grabs her wrist and tells Roxana that he's waiting for her to come back. She tells him it's not going to happen (she does notice his new and improved dark energy...) and then shakes him off, heading to the carriage without a glance back. She finds the Doctor and he tells her it IS a rare medicine but for some people it can be poisonous - Elvin being one such person. Roxana asks about an antidote and the doctor said Elvin has already taken it and should recover. Roxana asks if the poison is so rare, why did he already have the antidote and the doctor tells her that Elvin had ordered them to get it a few days before.... Alright, let's place our bets - who bets the current rumor about Claire is true?
Thanks for the spoilers. I was really surprised that CP and Claire's relationship had developed to this degree. Guess I underestimated their shamelessness. If Claire was the one who spread the rumors then she's paving way to her own path of destruction. As if the Empress would really care about her being pregnant with CP's child and even if she does care about her grandchild, there are always cases of mothers 'dying' from child labor.
About the rumour, crown prince was not serious about Claire when he was engaged to Roxana , so if Claire is really preg I think it would have happened after Roxana leaving cp,like cp sleep with Claire due to sadness or hallucinations.but if it’s before the breakup I really want both cp and Claire to pay for what they did !!!
I am also kind of curious about it. Could it have been made up? If so, by who? Maybe Elvin made it up because he wanted to gauge Roxana's reaction. Maybe Claire made it up because she wanted to get the CP to come find her more urgently (though, this is kind of dumb move on her part, if so, because it makes her an even bigger target and liability). Maybe Payne's own team made it up to add another liability to the CP's side, because not many families are going to want to marry their daughter to him (and thereby support him) when his mistress/concubine is already pregnant with the firstborn child who will be a threat to any heir their family will produce. Maybe it's true. But whether it's true or false from Claire's side, who the heck did she tell while she's ON THE RUN from Empress' headhunters to be able to get it to spread? Dunno. If it's true, it likely was from before the breakup, because I don't think the CP and Claire have had contact since he broke her out of prison. But maybe there was a secret meeting somewhere.
It's cruel for Elvin if he did it to induce a reaction from Roxanna. It's idiotic if he did it to frame Count Frane. Seriously.
I don't think he did allowed himself to be poisoned for that. I think he heard it was a possibility and decided to cover his bases because he already knew it would adversely affect him. Lord Frane was under the impression it WAS harmless because he had it checked by a medicine specialist and even tested it on rats. He just wasn't aware that it would affect certain people more seriously. However, whoever gave it to him did know that Elvin would be affected and could use it's mostly harmless nature to trick Lord Frane into using it.
Spoiler: Aftermath Roxana, knowing that it was likely that the vial found in Lord Frane's pocket is what poisoned Elvin, takes him into custody and has him imprisoned. She then asks one of Elvin's servants if he gets along with his family, which is a negative. Knowing he wouldn't want to go back there while he's unconscious, she takes him back to her house to recuperate. She's warned that this will look weird but she doesn't care and she rides with him in the carriage with his head in her lap. Lore Frane is in the prison and he's kind of freaking out. He's sure he's not responsible for Elvin's poisoning because he checked that the powder was safe. Claire and the CP finally meet again! Claire is like, "Why are you avoiding me!?" And the CP basically tells her that she ruined everything and that if she had just behaved herself he would have brought her in as a concubine later. He tells her to leave and go find Lore Frane who she's so close to, and she argues that nothing happened between her and Lord Frane. The CP then tells her that the limit to his generosity for ruining his plans is to help her escape being caught at Count Frane's house where she was hiding and letting her leave now. He's getting ready to walk away and Claire feels a twinge in her abdomen and she asks him if he's really going to abandon hid child too? The CP is shocked. Roxana is watching over Elvin who is still unconscious. She's sitting by his bedside, holding his hand, when someone from the Grand Duchy show up. She goes out to see them and they're like, "Could you return the young Lord to us?" Roxana basically tells him that he should wake up soon and they should wait until that happens. She sends them off to drink tea while she goes to sit by his side again. She wonders about what kind of life he's had before and realizes she doesn't really know much about him. Grand Duke Croix (sp?) and his two younger sons are getting ready to go practice hunting for the big hunt later (you know, the obligatory event in every rofan...). The Grand Duke is worried but the two boys are looking bright eyed and bushy tailed. A servant runs up to tell them Elvin was injured during the duel and was taken by Roxana to Duke Lillian's and servants were sent to go pick him up. The Grand Duke nearly collapses and tries to get back on his horse to go get Elvin but the Second son stops him and says he'll go instead, since servants were already sent to get Elvin. The Grand Duke agrees. On the way there, he basically says that they failed to kill him but it's good that Elvin was at the Lillian Duchy because it's difficult to find an antidote for the medicine used on Elvin, so he'll be out of it on the way back and they can try again. Count Frane makes arrangements to go see Lord Frane in prison and his eldest son is basically like, "He made his bed, he should lie in it." Count Frane said it would look totally heartless if they didn't go and Lord Frane is his son so he should go look and see if there is anything he can do. The eldest son says that it may be that the Count has to make a decision between saving his son and saving the family. Elvin wakes up and Roxana tells him that she's at her house. The servants sent by the Grand Duchy are getting antsy and start demanding what's going on. Roxana goes to see the situation and they're asking her to hand over Elvin when Elvin walks out. Again they say it's time to go back and Elvin agrees. Roxana is worried, so she tells him to take a couple of her family's knights with him. The nanny sent by the Grand Duke tries to tell Roxana that they have knights and don't need hers, and Roxana is like, "Excuse me, but was I talking to you? Servants must be treated well at the Grand Duchy if they think they can interrupt their master's discussions." Which shuts the nanny up, but Elvin is smiling in pleasure. Roxana orders a bunch of the knights to escort Elvin back to the Grand Duchy. As he walks past her to go get ready to leave, he whispers to her that she looked amazing and he would have fallen in love with her all over again, which embarrasses her. Lord Frane is sitting in the dungeon, his body is aching because he was cut quite a bit by Elvin. His muscles are all sore and now that he's had some time to himself he realizes he was acting strangely, getting easily enraged and riled up during the fight. He's all wrapped in bandages. His father and brother show up with a doctor. They notice his face got cut and his father is angry he was cut so much by Elvin. He thinks the rumors of Elvin being vicious are true. While his wounds are getting checked, the doctor notes that based on his symptoms he seemed to have taken some sort of performance enhancer and now his muscles are all sore. The Count and his eldest son ask Lord Frane what happened and Gale (this is Lord Frane's name) tells them that he made sure the medicine was safe and someone was setting him up. They asked if he had proof and he told them that he kept the note that was sent with the vial and it's in a drawer in his room at home. His father tells him they can't promise him that they can help him and he's in deep water. They leave to go look for information and Gale sits in the dungeon. He wonders where Claire is and if she's worried about him - he thinks that they'll eventually have to meet because of Elvin's rumors. The Empress and the CP are talking and the Empress is haranguing him about bringing Claire back to the palace. She tells him to get rid of Claire or she will do it. He tells her he can't because Claire is carrying his child. The Empress drops her teacup on her lap and says, "What did you just say?" Edit: Missed the last section with Lord Frane Spoiler: Pregnancy Does anyone think that this whole baby thing came out of nowhere? Like, there was nothing, NOTHING hinting that Claire and the CP were doing that before. After all, she was such an innocent angel who was definitely not seducing the CP, their relationship wasn't like that before, and now suddenly they're all like they did have sex? I'm pretty sure Claire was under her dad's house arrest for several months so she should be showing by now but they say her belly is still flat.
Ok so the pregnancy is…..,like I never thought cp and Claire did the deed . but whether the pregnancy claim of Claire is true or false they must have done it to make cp believe her, Cp povs in the first chaps he always says Claire is so cute like a little girl.wow and he slept with her !!! And u want Roxana back!! And u say there was nothing between you and Claire!!! Wow!!! just die your highness!!! Elvin my baby we love uu please protect our girl