Episode 10
The maid set black tea down before Sasha and Osmund. Then she placed a plate of biscuits, well suited to accompany the tea, in the middle.
Sasha, indifferent to it all, was busy looking around the flower garden she had begun tending herself.
After taking a sip of tea, Osmund followed her gaze around the garden and smiled as though in admiration.
“Did you choose the flowers here yourself, Miss Grayson? They’re very beautiful.”
No.
“They’re gazanias. We replant them whenever the season changes. If you had come a little earlier, you could have seen the spring flowers as well. Personally, I prefer daisies.”
Just like the guest list for the birthday party, which Sasha had neither needed to concern herself with—no, which she had not even been able to concern herself with—the flowers in the garden had also been chosen by the late Lady Rosalyn herself.
“My late grandmother chose the varieties herself. She had a deep knowledge of gardening in life.”
Instead of pretending not to notice Osmund’s plausible compliment and accepting it, Sasha corrected him as such.
Osmund looked around the garden once more and replied, “I see.”
While Osmund examined the flower beds filled with colorful blooms, Sasha, too, was dryly looking him over while memorizing the list of flowers that would have to be planted next when the season changed.
“By the way, that… man.”
“Ah, the topic strayed for a moment. So, to give you the conclusion first… I’m sorry.”
Sasha said, with the proper expression of a host apologetic for failing to fulfill her responsibilities, that she had not received the promised apology.
“I never expected an apology from that man to begin with.”
“In that case, what do the two of you intend to do? The rumors among people are starting to die down by now…”
“……”
“If you wish, I could introduce you to a lawyer. He was my grandmother’s personal attorney.”
Osmund, who had been silent all along, looked startled and even raised his hand, hurriedly waving it.
“No, no. I’m grateful for the offer alone. However, now that things have come to this, I think this is a problem Robert and I should try to resolve separately, once and for all.”
When he had been clinging here the whole time, subtly acting as though she ought to take responsibility, that had been one thing.
But when she proposed a concrete method, he said he didn’t want that either.
Something about it seemed suspicious. Sasha belatedly became curious about the reason these people—whom she had not been curious about in the first place—had quarreled.
Sasha rolled her eyes expressionlessly, then returned to a suitably apologetic look.
“If that is what you want, then I hope it is resolved smoothly.”
“By the way, that… were you truly all right? That man is rather…”
Osmund spoke hesitantly.
His attitude, so cowed that it seemed he was gauging her reaction, was steadily eating away at the halo cast by the man’s beauty.
His tone was almost as if he wished something had happened. As though he wanted to hear the answer that, just as he expected, the man had treated her coldly and that they had not even managed to have a proper conversation.
Yes, almost.
As though he desperately wanted confirmation that she had heard “nothing” from him.
“As I told you, he was very careful and kind to me.”
When Sasha answered indifferently, Osmund’s face stiffened in a strange way. It was not an expression like Robert’s, sneering and openly showing antipathy.
However, with a look tinged with faint regret, Osmund tapped the edge of the table with his finger.
Come to think of it, hadn’t that man, Isaac, behaved like that while looking at Sasha as well? It was such an obvious gesture that it would have been strange not to recognize it.
It was anxiety. Osmund was growing anxious after hearing that Isaac had treated her well.
Sasha continued the conversation, pretending not to know.
“Everyone was in a state of confusion that day, in many ways. In any case, Captain Fincher apologized as soon as he saw me. He said he was sorry for ruining the party.”
“…He apologized to you?”
“Yes.”
Was it once? Or twice?
While Sasha was counting halfheartedly, Osmund unconsciously clenched his teeth and tensed his jaw.
“…That is… fortunate. It truly is fortunate that he knows shame.”
Osmund muttered with a face that did not look fortunate in the least. Then he glanced at Sasha again, as if gauging her reaction.
He moved his beautiful lips, hesitating for a moment over whether to speak or not.
“Though I do not know whether that was truly an apology made with pure intentions, since Miss Grayson was satisfied, then…”
“Pure intentions? What do you mean?”
Osmund wet his lower lip with his tongue once more.
He blinked his long eyelashes and looked down at the floor for a moment, then lifted his head toward Sasha.
“Ah, I believe I misspoke. Please don’t concern yourself with it.”
“Please don’t do that. Are you saying Mr. Fincher apologized to me falsely, as if he had some purpose? He didn’t seem like that sort of person.”
At Sasha’s words, which at first glance seemed to defend Isaac, Osmund once again tapped the edge of the table.
Beneath the table, the tip of his foot also tapped anxiously against the floor.
“This is only something I heard, but from what I was told, the second son of the Fincher family is in quite a corner.”
“In a corner? Because of what?”
“Mm. As is the case for everyone our age, marriage.”
With a calm face, Osmund spoke as he drank his tea, which had gone cold.
Sasha had no particular reaction. Encouraged by that very lack of response, Osmund continued.
“Do you know the elderly Lady Caroline? She is that man’s grandmother, and the earl’s mother, a lady of considerable reputation. I heard that she opposed the second son receiving the title and property in place of the deceased eldest son, and set marriage as a condition.”
An inheritance conditional on marriage.
It was a story she had already heard from the man himself.
However, Sasha soon acted surprised and replied.
“Such customs still exist, then. I heard that these days many people inherit even while unmarried.”
“Yes. Just like in Miss Grayson’s case, these days such things have rather become unusual.”
After saying it, Osmund avoided her gaze as though realizing his mistake. Having suddenly brought up her inheritance, he glanced at Sasha, worried that she might have noticed his obvious intentions.
However, Sasha did not seem particularly concerned by such things.
“That elderly lady must have great influence, then? Like my late grandmother.”
“It was almost entirely thanks to her that the earldom, which was poor at the time, was raised to its current position.”
Sasha was silent for a moment, as if lost in thought.
She lightly brushed the tip of her chin with her fingertips.
“I had heard that the earl and the captain were not on good terms. But I didn’t know he was on poor terms with his grandmother as well.”
“…Like Miss Grayson, I only heard it from someone else, so I cannot say for certain.”
As if he had never done otherwise, Osmund calmly drank his tea with an attitude that seemed to take one step back.
Then he continued.
“I believe Miss Grayson is also well aware of the rumors about that man. Since it was the eldest son who was originally supposed to inherit the family, he, as the second son, left home for the military long ago, practically severing ties.”
“…Hm. Do you think he is an ‘unprepared’ person, and therefore not suited to becoming the earl?”
Osmund paused briefly and looked at Sasha.
But the woman sitting across from him merely smiled, speaking with an innocent face as though tossing out a light joke, so Osmund seemed reassured and looked away.
“That is a matter for that family’s people to decide. Still, I do think Lady Caroline set that condition because she knows well that the second son has such a peculiar side.”
“It is rather old-fashioned. Making marriage the premise, I mean.”
“What I want to say is… putting aside his background, because of the flaws in his character, he is by no means popular as a marriage prospect. To be honest, one could say almost not at all. Let alone marriage, there are likely hardly any women who would even wish to associate with him.”
Unlike his initial caution, Osmund was now speaking openly about Isaac’s fatal flaws.
Sasha had no particular reaction to that blatant criticism. Instead of agreeing with him as if she had been waiting for it, she merely gazed at Osmund’s beautiful face.
Osmund took a deep breath for a moment. He looked so impatient that anyone would have found it strange.
“So what I mean is… he is in a desperate situation in many ways. I was worried that he might, to Miss Grayson…”
“Do you think he made an insincere apology in order to win my favor?”
Osmund blinked at Sasha’s words, which struck precisely at the heart of the matter.
“As you saw, that man has a fiery temper and is, in many ways, unpredictable. I was merely worried because such a person behaved so obediently toward Miss Grayson. Miss Grayson is charming, and in many ways, rather special…”
Ah. Damn it.
Osmund unconsciously turned cold-faced and gripped the tablecloth.
“Please don’t misunderstand. What I mean is.”
“No. You’re right. I am rather special in many ways, am I not? I was fortunate enough to inherit all of my grandmother’s estate at this age.”
Sasha smiled and looked into the distance for a moment.
She took in the flower beds filled with colorful blossoms, and the glass ceiling through which sunlight poured in, before looking back at Osmund.
“Thank you for worrying about me. But I have a certain eye for recognizing approaches with such impure intentions or schemes, so you need not be too concerned.”
“……”
“As you said, Mr. Osmund, I am ‘rather special,’ so I am used to people treating me that way.”
When Sasha said that and closed her mouth, silence fell.
Osmund stared at her blankly, stunned, and soon realized the meaning of what she was saying, his face flushing red.
“…Captain Fincher…”
He barely opened his mouth and spoke hesitantly.
“That day… about us… I mean, about Robert and me, what did he say…?”
Sasha merely looked at him for a moment without answering.
But that alone seemed to be answer enough.
“Excuse me, Miss Grayson. …I’ve just remembered something urgent and must be going.”
Sasha watched Osmund’s back as he hurriedly rose and moved away, her face expressionless.
“Yes. Please do.”
With a look that seemed to say, Of course you will, Sasha tore her gaze away from his retreating back and looked into the distance.
Sasha thought of Isaac, whom Osmund had disparaged as fiery-tempered and unpredictable.
On the contrary, no matter how she thought about it, among the wretches her age she had met so far, Isaac seemed to fall on the rather decent side.
Thinking of that enormous man, who had not even bothered to pretend and had openly shown his discomfort while looking at her, Sasha let out a small laugh.
If anything, that man’s problem was that he was too honest.