Episode 13
“I don’t understand. You’re saying I should calmly request a duel even in a state of insult?”
“If it seems a situation you cannot possibly overlook, then slap him right across the face.”
An attendant cried “My lady!” and hurriedly tried to dissuade her, but Lady Rosalyn paid no heed.
“But that is something you should only do when you are confident you can handle the consequences.”
Objectively, Jeffrey Grayson’s attitude had long since crossed the line. And given that he had even kindly thrust physical evidence before her, Sasha felt she no longer needed to endure.
Though she had not moved in high society from as young an age as that Jeffrey, in just this half-year Sasha had figured out more or less the ecosystem of how that place operated.
They were people strictly governed by rank who also fussed over noble morality; for an affair of this magnitude, taking Jeffrey’s side would be nothing short of disgraceful.
Thus, Sasha resolved to bear it willingly.
“…….”
Jeffrey was frozen stiff. Having been struck by a woman for the first time in his life—violence nearly close to being punched—his head turned, and he remained frozen as he was.
“……Jeffrey Grayson. My letters. Was it you?”
Sasha quietly asked him.
“Y-you crazy… Have you lost your mind?”
The annex’s drawing room, which had long since devolved into a pleasure den, fell as silent as the grave.
The man snickering in the back had gone quiet, and the woman who had been sleeping with her face planted on the table, snoring, had also fallen silent at some point.
“My letters. I’m asking if it was you.”
“Shit. Letters out of nowhere, what kind of bullshit……”
“Don’t play dumb. Every single person who exchanged letters with me gave strange excuses, saying they could no longer associate with me. If that wasn’t your doing, then what was?”
Sasha, who had been spitting the words out like chewing them, paused for a moment.
It was because she had thought of one more person who might sabotage her marriage besides Jeffrey Grayson.
Ah, of course. Such scheming from behind was far too refined and aristocratic a method for Jeffrey to use.
If it had been Jeffrey, he would have brought his gentlemen’s club friends and openly humiliated her.
For every last one of her suitors to write back begging Sasha to sever ties, as if someone had seized and shaken each of their weaknesses.
If there was someone capable of using such a clever scheme.
“……It’s my aunt.”
The Duchess.
In the meantime, Jeffrey had come to his senses and rushed a step toward her.
Regardless, Sasha struck his other cheek once more.
Then, thwack. Thwack. She beat Jeffrey as if venting her anger.
Raising her tingling palm, she clenched her fist and simply kept hitting wherever she could reach.
From the moment he was struck on the opposite cheek, Jeffrey remained frozen as if broken.
“She must have realized you are truly hopeless.”
Otherwise, would she have resorted to such schemes to push you onto me?
Not a sound could be heard in the drawing room except Sasha’s huffing breaths, Jeffrey’s intermittent groans, and the dull thuds of impact.
Amidst that commotion, Jeffrey’s painter friend—the one who had drawn the problematic picture—began silently fleeing toward the door.
＊＊＊
Jeffrey Grayson and his friends were thrown out of Dilton Manor just like that.
Jeffrey Grayson bore the scratch marks she had left on his cheeks as they were, while his friends had barely managed to throw on their clothes.
Just as Lady Rosalyn had said, Sasha had committed such an act only after weighing the matter to some extent and deciding she could handle it.
If it became known that that noble young duke had played at drawing vulgar pictures of her cousin, nothing good would come of it; far from protesting, even the Duchess’s side would lie low for the time being, desperate only to cover up this affair.
Just as they had covered up every filthy misdeed Jeffrey Grayson had committed until now.
In exactly the same way.
“……No letters at all from the ducal residence?”
“None, Miss.”
Butler Jason answered smoothly.
“Very well. Then you may go.”
“Uh, Miss……”
It was late at night. After such a commotion during the day, the manor was steeped in an unsettled atmosphere.
The still-inexperienced young butler Jason dared speak up despite Sasha’s dismissal.
“I apologize for not informing you in advance.”
“……It’s fine. It was my fault for leaving things until they reached that point. Sort out the damaged furniture and draw up a compensation claim. I’ll send it straight to Jeffrey.”
“I didn’t know it had gotten to that extent. If I had known, I would have sooner……”
“Jason. It’s fine.”
It wasn’t fine.
But who was there to blame? It was her own fault for impulsively fleeing Dilton Manor, suffocated and in turmoil.
As Jason left the room unable to raise his head until the very end, Sasha finally collapsed onto the table with a long sigh.
When she raised her throbbing hand, she saw bruises already turning blue.
Clumsy violence had wounded her just as much as it had her opponent.
Everything was amateurish. She could not stand her own clumsy self. But it was understandable.
I’ve been locked up here since I was eight. I grew up receiving nothing but an education full of theory.
Before she could fall into endless self-pity, she lightly slapped her own cheek to come to her senses. Sasha sat back down at the desk.
Four letters she hadn’t yet opened remained on the desk. She mechanically flipped through the envelopes, then paused at the one from the law office.
The law office of Attorney Turner.
The letter was succinct.
Honestly, it was hardly even a letter. Only a few sentences were written on the white paper.
I have received the unfortunate news, Miss Grayson.
The inhuman opening of the letter began abruptly like this,
Anyway, as you have failed to complete Item 46, accordingly, we inform you that 1,500 onde of your provisional inheritance has been permanently deducted.
The deducted inheritance will be donated to the Gillian Foundation in due course.
It ended just like that.
As Sasha read the notification-like letter with an expressionless face, murmuring, “They sent this quickly,” a knock sounded from the other side.
The moment she saw him, Sasha’s expression hardened.
“Theo.”
The old servant called Theo trudged in toward her.
Despite not having received her permission, he strode in without hesitation and whispered to her.
“This is a letter someone sent to the young duke.”
“To Jeffrey? You mean someone sent a letter to that annex?”
As Theo nodded, Sasha tore open the letter without hesitation.
She then stared for a long while at the contents, which were as short and succinct as the one from the law office.
That woman is a fraud.
Sasha stared at it with an expressionless face for some time, then looked at Theo and asked.
“Are you certain Jeffrey has not read this letter?”
“Yes. I intercepted it en route.”
“Aside from this letter.”
“There were none.”
Sasha ran her finger over the words “She is a fraud.” and smiled.
“That’s a relief.”
＊＊＊
It was truly a dilemma. Sasha Grayson was now in a situation where marriage was as urgent for her as it was for Isaac Pincher.
At the same time, she was in just as desperate a situation where no one sought her out.
The manor’s servants trembled with fear for a different reason. Butler Jason was one of the few who knew she had to marry in order to inherit this manor.
That was why he had looked visibly all the more anxious when she severed ties even with the men she had corresponded with by letter.
Like the calm within a storm, Sasha Grayson spent several days acting as though nothing had happened. She looked after every corner of the manor, checked on the servants, and studied diligently as if doing homework, just as Lady Rosalyn had ordered her to study while she was still alive.
In that seemingly hopeless situation, Sasha suddenly thought of that man in circumstances similar to her own—Isaac Pincher.
And those things he had whined while drunk—how he hated marriage, how he hated matchmaking even more.
Among them, she recalled him saying that he could only receive the title and estate if he married.
Ah, right.
Perhaps we could make good allies.