Rejected by Daughter’s Second Male Lead Chapter 114

After finishing his bath and returning to bed, Gillen really did fall into a nap. It was an uncharacteristic action for the usual him, who was vigorously active during the day, went to sleep at 11 p.m., and woke up at 7 a.m. to handle work, noble council meetings, and social parties with ease.

He slept through that day and could not wake up even by the next afternoon. He had slept for nearly a full 24 hours. Of course, it was a bit difficult to call it sleep. His fever ran high, his breathing was more ragged than usual, and he could not properly come to his senses.

“I knew something was off when he said he was going to take a nap yesterday, something he never does!”

The head maid said worriedly.

“Perhaps he saw with his own eyes that the Young Lady is truly becoming the Crown Princess, and the shock caused him to fall ill.”

Navard made a plausible guess.

“He’s never even caught a common cold except during his rut… This isn’t like him to be lying in bed like this!”

Butler Brian also made a troubled face, saying this did not make any sense.

“Now, now, everyone… No matter how much you shout that this doesn’t make sense, the fact that His Grace the Duke has collapsed with a severe cold remains unchanged. In fact, the noise you’re all making is worse for his condition. I’ll prescribe some medicine, so make sure he has things like soup or porridge at every meal, and give him the medicine after he eats. Above all, this will get better faster if he doesn’t overexert himself, so everyone, please, don’t do this so close to him!”

Each of them had taken a turn placing a hand on the Duke’s forehead, lifting the blanket to check if it was a rut, and shouting, so the doctor had no choice but to scold them.

Of course, the robust Duke had not suffered from a single minor illness besides his rut for the past 20 years, but as a doctor, he could not understand why they were making such a fuss over a common cold that everyone else gets every year. However, he too was the Blake estate’s personal physician and a vassal, so as a person, he fully understood why these people were making such a scene.

“Are you certain he will get better with just medicine?”

Brian asked, pushing up his glasses. His hand was trembling slightly. The doctor sighed and answered.

“Ah, I’m telling you, he will. If his condition were serious, I would have stayed here to look after him. He’ll be fine in no time, so everyone, please calm down!”

With that, the doctor packed his house call bag and left.

The three aides left in Gillen’s bedroom frowned. They simply could not trust the doctor. In fact, in those days, there were many quacks, and it was common for people’s illnesses to worsen and for them to die after a doctor’s visit. Of course, the Blake estate’s personal physician was different from such quacks, but it was impossible not to worry nonetheless.

“In my opinion, wouldn’t this be something that can be solved with a single healing spell? His Grace the Duke’s lover is ‘that’ Marquis Hampton, after all!”

“…But haven’t you noticed, Head Maid. The Marquis hasn’t visited the estate once in the past two weeks. I think their relationship has ended.”

It was Navard who threw cold water on the head maid’s plausible suggestion. Since Navard had been able to work much more comfortably thanks to Yuan’s help, he was the first to notice Yuan’s absence, even without Gillen explicitly saying anything.

“But even if their contract has ended, their affection for each other won’t have gone anywhere.”

Brian said quietly. Among the three, only the head maid did not know about the contract relationship, but she did not bother to ask about it. People who worked in noble households always had to be tight-lipped.

Navard looked down at Gillen, who was groaning in his illness and unable to regain consciousness, then shook his head.

“No matter how much we worry about His Grace the Duke, we cannot bring the Marquis here if His Grace might not want it. According to the doctor, he should be up and about in a few days… let’s just watch over him a little longer.”

“Yes, Mister Aide.”

“Yes.”

As the doctor had instructed, Navard left the bedroom with the other two so that Gillen could rest peacefully.

However, even after several days, Gillen’s body strangely only grew weaker day by day. He would often vomit everything after taking medicine and could not eat properly. His body would burn like a ball of fire and then turn as cold as ice. At first, the doctor said it was because he was sweating too much and that this was part of the healing process, but as time went on, he began to view Gillen’s symptoms as serious.

“Well… looking at it now, these symptoms… seem similar to the pheromone deficiency of an individual who has lost their mate…”

As the Blake estate’s personal physician, he was also a specialist in traits, but he had dismissed pheromone deficiency from his mind, thinking there was no way His Grace the Duke would form a bond with someone after losing the Duchess.

“Are you a real doctor? How could you miss something so important…! Aren’t individuals known to die if they contract pheromone deficiency!”

Navard flew into a rage and grabbed the physician by the collar. In terms of title, the physician was also a viscount, the same rank as Navard. Sweating profusely, he shook off the disrespectful wrist of the viscount younger than him.

“Of course, I know that he had a rather intense encounter with Marquis Hampton a few months ago, enough to require a manachair! But wasn’t that an acute rut? An acute rut is literally just relieving a sudden heat, so for an imprinting to occur—”

“Didn’t the two of them travel the country together after that! There’s a possibility they were imprinted then, so how could a doctor be so complacent…! To do this while taking care of His Grace the Duke, of all people!”

“Hey, the more I listen, the more this young punk speaks down to me! I say, Viscount Zen! If you are His Grace the Duke’s aide, then I am the exclusive personal physician for His Grace Duke Blake and the Young Lady! I am older than you, and my family has been the physician for noble houses for generations—”

“So what! Then cure His Grace the Duke right now!”

Navard grabbed the physician’s collar again. Several servants rushed to pull them apart, and Butler Brian, with a shadowed expression, looked down at Gillen, who had not woken up amidst the commotion.

“Mister Aide.”

Brian turned his head and called Navard in a low voice. Navard, who had been huffing and puffing in agitation, looked back at Brian.

“I think we need to bring Marquis Hampton here as soon as possible.”

Instead of a carriage, Navard rode a horse. He galloped toward the Hampton Marquisate. However, he was unaware that the Hampton Marquisate had been locked up for three weeks already.

“What? Why can’t the gate be opened?”

“Currently, Marquis Hampton has left the empire for magic research.”

Of course, he had not left yet, but Sara (formerly Aide No. 3) said so. It was because her master had instructed her to turn away visitors like that from now on.

“He left… the empire…? How…!”

Navard was so shocked he nearly fell off his horse. Sara was startled and tried to support him, but Navard stopped her with one hand.

“I am fine. But… was Marquis Hampton in good health, by any chance?”

Sara, designed to have emotions, flinched. She felt a faint sense of guilt for having to lie. But since loyalty took precedence over conscience, she nodded her head.

“Yes, the Marquis was in good health even on the day he left.”

“In that case… could it be a one-sided imprinting by His Grace the Duke? Ha!”

Navard trembled with a sense of betrayal and glared at the estate beyond the firmly shut iron gate. The favorable impression he had of Yuan had now plunged back into the negatives.

So, while our Duke is on the verge of death suffering from pheromone deficiency because of you, you just went off to do magic research all happy-go-lucky?

“…Was there any word on when the Marquis would return?”

“Time and space have no meaning for the Marquis. If he wishes, he could return right now, and if he does not wish, he may not come even after a hundred years. It all depends on the Marquis’s will. A great magician lives a completely different life from others, you see.”

The loyal Sara said, her eyes shining. Seeing the glint in her glass-like eyes, Navard fell silent. The servants of the Hampton Marquisate were indeed a bit creepy.

“…If you can contact the Marquis by communication sphere or send a telegram, do so. Tell him that His Grace the Duke’s life is in peril, that the Marquis’s pheromones are absolutely necessary. And this fact must never be known to the outside.”

“Yes, Viscount.”

Navard forced himself to tear his gaze away and turned his horse around.

And as soon as Navard disappeared, Sara was summoned to Yuan’s laboratory.

“What did Navard say before he left?”

Yuan, whose complexion was not good, asked as he injected his own arm with a drug that temporarily stopped the pheromone glands. Ricardo had not yet returned, so he was surviving day by day without Gillen’s pheromones using every method he could devise.

“He was looking for you, Marquis, but as instructed, I told him you had left the empire to conduct magic research.”

“Hmph, why is he looking for me now? How absurd.”

“He said that His Grace the Duke’s life is in peril—”

“What?”

For a moment, Yuan’s expression went blank.

Sara paused at Yuan’s question, but simply thinking it was a reaction of not understanding the content, she continued with the rest of the sentence.

“He said your pheromones are needed, Marquis.”

However, before she could finish her words, Yuan had already disappeared. Only an empty syringe was rolling on the floor.