The Duke's Daughter Is A Villainess (28)

While Dahlia was napping peacefully, the men gathered at her side were in turmoil.

The duke looked at Dahlia's pale face and the dark bruises around her neck and swore that he would kill Anna himself.

Lucas rubbed uncomfortably at his chest and wondered why he was so unsettled just thinking about Dahlia not waking up. Unnoticeable to anyone in the room, the percentage above his head climbed up to +45%.

Noah's had somehow jumped all the way up to +86%. Now that he'd completely erased Alice from his mind as a possible love interest, his feelings for Dahlia couldn't help but build.

Seeing Dahlia so vulnerable had struck something in the hearts of those men there, and all of them felt that they couldn't bear to lose her like this.

Eventually the king and the queen had arrived with a doctor. The king expressed his apologies that something like this could've happened within the palace walls, and the queen was especially apologetic as well since Anna was her personal maid and someone she had favoured quite a bit amongst the staff.

Thankfully, the doctor said that Dahlia would be fine. She was unconscious due to the shock and mental stress, but Anna hadn't actually managed to do any permanent physical damage. The doctor pronounced that she would recover once she woke up, and really all that needed treating were the bruises.

Stella, who had to wait outside until the doctor left, finally got to see her sister after waiting for fifteen minutes. She burst into tears the moment she saw her sister, however, as she saw the ugly bruises on her neck and couldn't stand the thought of her sister being hurt. Lucas was the one who had to look after Stella and comfort her as the duke, the king and the prince all discussed how to handle Anna.

In the end they all settled for letting the duke do whatever he wanted to her. As it was his child that was harmed, ultimately he could decide on her punishment. What the duke hadn't expected was to recognise the woman the moment he set foot into the room. She was more beautiful than most girls, so of course he would remember that they'd spent a night of passion together. Though he'd left in the morning, as he knew he could never seek a real relationship with her, he'd never quite forgotten her face.

Knowing that they'd slept together before, however, didn't change anything for him. He merely frowned and raised his sword, intending to swing it down and chop her head clean off.

It was at this moment that Alice burst through the door, having heard that her mother was being kept locked up in a room. She took one look at the duke and his sword and then burst out crying, falling to her knees and begging for him to spare her mother. At the same time, she noticed that it was not just the duke in the room and that Noah was there too. She then shifted her attentions to him, and begged him as she reminded him of their relationship as friends, to help her this once and set her mother free.

Noah sneered, suddenly feeling that Alice was nothing but a shameless woman. How had he ever developed feelings for someone like this in the first place?

"Your mother tried to kill Dahlia today, Alice. She's committed a serious crime. How can she go unpunished?"

As soon as she heard that, Alice stopped crying. So it was Dahlia... yet again. Alice knew her mother well, knew her better than anyone, she knew that her mother would not do something so foolish, especially not if she was going to get caught. Alice assumed immediately that it must've been Dahlia's schemes. In her heart she already labelled Dahlia as the cause for everything that went wrong.

"My mother would never do such a thing!" Alice insisted. "It must've been Dahlia, she must've been lying-"

It was unfortunate that the duke's patience had already run too thin, and hearing those words come from Alice, he couldn't hold it in anymore and simply killed Anna right then and there, in front of her own daughter.

Alice's mouth was open as if she had more to say, but her voice immediately went out when the blood splattered onto the side of her face. She was frozen stiff in shock.

The duke looked down at this girl, thinking that she seemed just as annoying as her mother. Now, even if it came out that Alice was actually also his daughter, he would never accept or acknowledge her.