Episode 110
Soon the carriage passed inside the walls of the estate. As it rolled over the smoothly paved road, the garden, far more splendid than before, caught the eye through both windows. When Isaac and Sasha stepped down from the carriage, the servants standing in orderly rows greeted them with courtesy.
Isaac still found this sort of thing rather awkward. As they had briefly discussed the day before, after the wedding Sasha would stay at Dilton Manor for the time being. Isaac planned to go back and forth between Lance Field and Dilton Manor. No matter how much time Count Amman gave them, Isaac and Sasha would someday have to return to the county together. The procedures for his retirement had to be set in motion before then. He was fully aware of that. So this was a kind of grace period.
“I hope the letter I sent in the meantime did not end up hurrying you instead.”
“Not at all, Jason. I was the one who kept worrying that I had left everything in your hands. Has there been any letter from Mr. Turner since then?”
“Ah, yes. There has not, master. I will deliver Mr. Turner’s letter to you as soon as it arrives.”
Turner again. Isaac muttered inwardly as he watched Jason and Sasha from behind.
“Turner.” Isaac murmured the name of the lawyer he had only ever heard from her lips and had never seen in person. Since he had long been the exclusive lawyer for Dilton Manor, it was only natural that he and she would have a close relationship. Though Isaac tried hard to regard it calmly, he found himself turning over another unfamiliar name he had heard from her. “Robin.”
And who was “Robin”?
“You must have had a hard time. Are you tired?”
As Sasha turned to Isaac and asked, the question in Isaac’s mind broke off before it could continue. Without realizing it, Isaac arched a brow. They had both had a hard time, and they were surely equally tired, yet her attitude, as though he had endured the trouble solely for her sake, grated on him terribly.
But he, too, had grown somewhat accustomed to feeling slighted by her businesslike manner every time, so he merely nodded in silence.
“Go up first and rest. I’ll see you at dinner later. Or I can have a meal sent up separately.”
“That would be best.”
When Isaac answered as if he had been waiting for the offer, Sasha nodded. Even after the conversation ended, the two stared at each other for a moment before turning away. Isaac rubbed the hand that had just been wrapped around her shoulder roughly against the leg of his trousers, as though wiping it off.
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“In any case, Miss Grayson and I can never go back to before I confessed.”
Isaac thought as he lay sprawled on the bed. The room was still spacious and pleasant. In consideration of his dislike for overly ornate furniture and decorations, the servants had arranged it even more to his taste than before.
Isaac roughly kicked off his boots and climbed fully onto the bed. It had only been a few weeks. In that time, the room that had felt chilly when he first stayed there was now filled with the heat of summer streaming through the windows, warm and muggy enough that simply lying still made the air feel heavy.
Without realizing it, Isaac touched the area around his lips with his hand. The memory of kissing her was still vivid.
“You don’t know me well. Isn’t that so? You don’t know me as much as I have come to know you.”
It had been an impulsive confession. And later, she had come to find him after he had fallen into heartbreak and said that to him. That Isaac did not know her.
She was right. Isaac knew nothing about her at all. To begin with, theirs was only a relationship bound by contract, and that distance had been perfectly natural. It was not as though it had been specifically stated in the contract, but both Isaac and Sasha had taken it for granted.
Looking back, the one who had first broken that boundary was Isaac himself. At first, he had merely wanted to give her trust. After seeing that she had, in one way or another, been dragged into the family circumstances he most wanted to hide, he had thought he could not leave things as they were and had told her. But beyond that, Isaac had revealed a little too much of himself.
As Isaac thought it over, he realized that the boundary he had set up between himself and her had already collapsed long before that. Simply put, even before Isaac arrived in his hometown, even before he saw her in danger, perhaps from the very moment they had discussed the contract.
……Before he had dared even guess it himself, he had simply liked her.
“So this confession is hasty.”
No, considering that he had fallen for her far earlier than that, those words were not quite right. It was simply the result of feelings piling up and piling up until they finally burst out. Even if it had not been then, he would inevitably have confessed to her in the end.
“But I was happy. Hearing you say that you liked me, shamelessly enough.”
His feelings rose and fell unevenly. In conclusion, contrary to his fears, it was clear that she, too, looked on him favorably. But she had said there were circumstances she could not tell him. Once he learned of them.
“Captain, you will see me very differently.”
Isaac recalled her face, filled with a strange certainty and yet somehow sorrowful. As though it were certain that he would no longer like her.
The reason he had not been able to deny her words right away was, well. Of course, it had been the result of Isaac’s rational side belatedly coming into play. Yes. He did not know her. There was quite a lot he did not know. The more he thought about it, the more it truly was a great deal.
There was one more reason he could not deny her words. In truth, it was only natural that she was so certain. Isaac had shown her, in every respect, just how stubborn and inflexible his personality was. Even if he only thought of the various matters involving his father, he had never once shown her the sight of himself forgiving anything.
With a low sigh, Isaac rose from the bed. As he put his boots back on to go out and get some air, the pile of letters heaped on the desk caught his eye.
Isaac walked over and looked at the letters that had arrived for him.
Some were from his adjutant Felix at the military unit, and some were from Major Wells. As always, most of the people who sent him letters were soldiers.
With an expressionless face, Isaac pushed the letters aside one by one, then stopped at one point.
“……York.”
Isaac frowned as he read the sender’s name. Sergeant York. It was a letter from an old friend and comrade who had once crossed battlefields with him and been closer to him than anyone.
There was not just one letter from York. The moment Isaac pushed his letter aside indifferently, another letter from York appeared, and his brow furrowed harshly.
If it had been before, he would have gathered them up and thrown them away without hesitation. There would have been no need to show even the effort of tearing them to shreds with all the regret he could muster; he would simply have tossed them into the wastebasket.
……However.
Unable to discard the letters as mercilessly as before, Isaac hesitated for a moment and stared at the pile.
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While Sasha had been away, the servants of the estate, including Jason, had not only managed everything faithfully but had even prepared for the wedding.
The wedding was to be held in that old chapel in Clumber, and the reception would continue at Dilton Manor. Jason, the head maid Allison, and the others had more or less completed the preparations, but a few matters that required the approval of Sasha herself had been put off.
As soon as she arrived, Sasha once again spent several days so busy with wedding preparations that she could hardly breathe. If there was any comfort, it was that perhaps because she had done it once before, it did not feel quite so overwhelming. And, unexpectedly, Isaac was helping her, which made things much easier.
Sasha found that a little awkward, and Isaac, as though he knew what she was thinking, replied that this was something he ought to do and that she need not concern herself with it.
The invitations were sent out quickly, and since yesterday, replies had begun to arrive one by one, saying that the recipients would gladly attend.
There was one from the duchess as well. It was a letter containing an ordinary greeting, saying that she would gladly attend her nephew’s wedding and offering her congratulations in advance.
There were also replies from Lady Rosalyn’s dear friends, whom she had known for a very long time, and from Miss Carol, who could now be called Sasha’s own acquaintance.
“Has there still been no letter from Mr. Turner?”
It was a peaceful morning. Isaac had taken a carriage early and left for Lance Field, so from that day on, Sasha was expected to be alone for at least several days.
As Sasha checked the letters and asked Jason, Jason nodded with an apologetic look, as though it were his own fault.
“Yes. Would you like to send a letter first?”
“……No. When the time comes, he will send one himself.”
Sasha murmured. Yes. The reason they were having this make-believe wedding was, in the end, because of that will.
And more than anyone, the person who had to scrutinize that “marriage” itself with his own eyes was Mr. Turner, the lawyer. Even without an invitation, he was someone who would certainly attend the wedding.
“Anyway, that’s fine. I should catch my breath for a while until lunch.”
As Sasha rose from her seat, Jason followed as if he had been waiting.
“You are going to practice shooting, are you not? We have prepared a separate space.”
“……Pardon? Did I ever ask for that separately? I said any open ground would do……”
Sasha replied defensively, then soon shook her head. Then she smiled with a much more relieved expression.
“Thank you for that. It must have been troublesome, when everyone is already busy.”
“Not at all.”
An outdoor shooting range prepared solely for her came into view. It was set not far from the garden Lady Rosalyn had so painstakingly decorated, making the contrast stand out clearly. Sasha found it somehow a little amusing.
Shaking off the strange feeling, Sasha approached the table with practiced ease. The pistol, carefully maintained with Isaac’s help a few days earlier, was waiting for her in its case.
She loaded the bullets with less fumbling than before.
In the end, the more she practiced, the more skilled she became. Like the other things she had done, shooting was not so different.
And in the end, what determined whether one shot well or poorly was “calmness.” Recalling the words Isaac had said to encourage her, Sasha put the leather ear protectors over her head.
She spread her legs shoulder-width apart. The heat of the warmed gun barrel traveled through her right palm.
Just like a gun already loaded, the road immediately ahead of her had already become irreversible.
She had already chosen, and she had already come halfway according to that choice. As planned from the beginning, she had married him.
Through this marriage, Isaac and Sasha would obtain the things they “rightfully deserved.”
……Yes. There was no turning back now.
The warm heat began to burn into her palm. It seemed to say, If you have loaded it, then shoot.
Sasha fired the first shot at the target on the other side.