ONE NIGHT STAND WITH HOT DUKE-Chapter 195: The funeral

Silence.

Some wondered if they had misheard.

Demian continued, his tone even.

"Ivanka and I... were no longer husband and wife."

The words fell like a stone into a still lake.

The ripples spread swiftly.

"W-what do you mean...?" the elderly Count asked, his face paling.

Demian did not turn. His gaze remained fixed on the grave that had just been sealed.

"Legally," he went on, "that bond had already been annulled."

Several noblewomen covered their mouths.

A young Baron whispered unconsciously, "Annulled? Since when?"

The murmurs began to swell.

"Was it because of the Kosler scandal?"

"Did the Emperor order it?"

"Was the marriage never valid to begin with?"

The Marchioness Kosler, standing not far away, lifted her tear-reddened eyes. She stared at Demian with an expression torn between shock and restrained fury.

The Marquess himself froze.

He had not expected this to be announced here.

Before his daughter’s grave.

At last, Demian turned slightly just enough to ensure they all heard him.

"So," he said quietly but firmly, "do not treat me as a widower."

Silence.

No one dared to interrupt.

It was not merely a clarification.

It was a severance.

Public.

On the day of the funeral.

Several nobles instinctively stepped back. The scandal they had assumed was buried alongside the black coffin was clearly not fully dead.

The Marquess stepped forward, his voice low but trembling.

"You chose today to say that?"

Demian met his gaze without emotion.

"I chose today so there would be no further misunderstandings."

The wind blew harder, stirring the black mourning cloth hanging at the gates of the family cemetery.

To the nobles present, one thing became clear Ivanka’s death may have closed the case legally. But the bond between Morvex and Kosler had been truly buried that day.

And for the first time since the funeral began, the whispers were no longer about the burned body or the explosion in the ravine but about a single question now hanging in the air If they were no longer husband and wife... then when had the marriage truly ended?

The soil above Ivanka’s grave was still damp when the whispers refused to die down.

The nobles had not fully dispersed. They stood in small circles, trying to interpret the words Demian had just spoken.

"Ivanka and I were no longer husband and wife."

The sentence hung in the air like a suspended blade.

At last, a Baron gathered the courage to step forward. "Your Grace... do you mean a personal separation, or—"

"Legally," Demian interrupted calmly. "The marriage had ended before her death."

The silence that followed felt heavier than the funeral prayers.

The Marchioness staggered half a step.

The Marquess stared sharply at him. "What are you saying?"

Demian did not raise his voice. He did not need to.

"The annulment was ratified," he continued, "and recorded before the incident at the northern cliff."

"That’s impossible..." whispered a noblewoman. "There was no announcement..."

"Because it was not a public matter," Demian replied coldly. "It concerned law and honor."

The Marquess’s face drained of color.

"So you—" his voice turned hoarse, "You decided that even before..."

"Before she died? Yes."

The answer was clean. Firm. Without hesitation.

The murmurs erupted like dry straw catching flame.

"Then Ivanka died as...?"

"No longer the Duchess of Morvex."

"Was that the reason for her exile?"

"Did the Kosler family know?"

Some nobles now looked at the grave differently.

Not as the resting place of a duchess.

But of a noble daughter whose marriage had already been stripped away before her life was.

The Marchioness could bear no more. "You disgrace her... even after her death?"

Demian turned slowly.

"I disgrace no one. I am stating the truth."

"The truth?" her voice cracked. "Today?"

"Especially today," Demian replied. "So that no one builds a false narrative upon her grave."

His words were sharp.

But not cruel without reason.

He knew how nobles worked. If he remained silent, they would rewrite history. Turn him into a grieving widower. Turn Ivanka into a tragic martyr of marriage.

He refused that narrative.

"I respect this ceremony," he added quietly. "But do not place me within a bond that had already ended."

The Marquess clenched his fists.

"Since when?" he asked under his breath.

Demian met his gaze directly.

"Since I decided that a marriage built on ambition and deceit was not worth preserving."

The sentence sounded more like a verdict than an explanation.

Several nobles began to realize something far more unsettling If the marriage had ended before Ivanka died... then her sudden exile was not merely an attempt to protect the family name.

She had already lost her position.

And perhaps lost everything.

The wind swept once more between the stone headstones.

At last, Demian stepped back.

"The ceremony is concluded. I do not wish to prolong this."

Without waiting for a reply, he turned and walked away from the gravesite.

The nobles parted instinctively to make way.

Behind him, Ivanka’s grave stood in silence.

And amid the increasingly fevered whispers, one truth became clear Ivanka’s death may have closed one Chapter.

But that announcement had just opened another far more dangerous one.

The carriage came to a halt in the main courtyard just as dusk was sinking into the horizon.

A gray sky hung low above Morvex Castle, and for the first time in a long while, Demian felt his steps grow heavy.

The gates opened.

Servants bowed.

But there were no hurried light footsteps.

No figure waiting at the top of the stairs.

Too quiet. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Demian stepped into the grand hall. Usually, even in silence, the castle still felt alive breathing, inhabited, carrying the faint trace of someone who had once stood near the window.

Now there was nothing.

He stopped in the middle of the room.

Empty.

He knew who was missing.

Valerie.

Her name echoed in his mind like a sound bouncing off stone walls.

He turned abruptly, striding down the corridor, pushing open the door to the chamber he had rarely entered without reason.

The door creaked softly.

The room was tidy.

Too tidy.

No gowns left draped carelessly. No books forgotten on the desk. No ribbon resting near the mirror.

The wardrobe was empty.

The drawers were empty.

Not even the faint, gentle fragrance that used to linger.

Demian stood there for a long time.

Cold crept slowly from the tips of his fingers.

"Where did she go?" His voice was low, nearly inaudible.

The head butler, standing at the doorway, answered carefully. "Lady Valerie departed several days before... the incident."

Several days before Ivanka died.

Demian closed his eyes briefly.

The person who had driven Valerie away who had cornered her, pressured her, made her feel as though she had no place in this castle was already dead.

Ivanka.

And that was what made it crueler.

If Ivanka were still alive, Demian could have dragged her back. Forced her to confess. Destroyed whatever she had built out of lies.

He could have taken revenge.

But death was a wall that could not be breached.

There was no one left to punish.

No one left to make suffer in repayment for this loss.

His hands clenched so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

He had always believed time was in his grasp.

That he could delay.

That he could resolve everything once one matter was settled.

He had been wrong.

Valerie was gone.

Ivanka was dead.

And the vengeance he had harbored had lost its target.

Demian walked to the window and pushed it open. The night wind rushed in harshly, stirring the thin curtains that now held no meaning.

He let out a short, humorless laugh.

"Even revenge... you took that from me,"