Episode 14
Sasha’s visit this time was made solely for that purpose. It was not like before, when she had come merely to enjoy a vacation under the pretext of receiving an apology.
She had returned to Lance Field with the blatant intention of proposing marriage.
Sasha came to Lance Field first thing the next day. Leaving behind the quaint, beautiful village that looked as though it had come straight out of a fairy tale, she went directly to Captain Isaac Pinsher of the Fourth Infantry Regiment.
Sasha tried to recall the conversation she had once shared with him.
“If I remember correctly, you said you were in a hurry to get married, Captain.”
Skipping the greetings, Sasha went straight to the point.
Pinsher looked even more disheveled than he had the last time. His hair was plainly tousled, and the smell of sweat clung to his entire body.
Sasha paid no attention to that and stated her business.
“What about me?”
The man, who had been nervously reaching out to accept the plate of pie from her, froze.
Clatter! This time, Pinsher dropped his fork.
“……”
＊＊＊
It was absurd.
Isaac stared at her with an expression that seemed to ask, What on earth did this woman just say?
Regardless, Sasha calmly picked up the fork he had dropped, dusted off the dirt, and carefully wiped it with her handkerchief. Then she handed it back to him.
Isaac accepted the fork she offered with a dazed expression. His gaze remained fixed on her face.
“Our conversation last time was brief, but I got the impression that you didn’t want to get married at all, yet had no choice but to force yourself to do it. Am I right?”
“……”
Without answering, Isaac scraped the inside of the dish, which held nothing but crumbs, with the tip of his fork.
Even though he had blatantly ignored her words, Sasha showed no particular regret. She simply cut off another piece and placed it on his plate.
When she suddenly offered him the freshly cut piece of pie, Isaac instinctively leaned backward. Though there was nowhere for him to retreat, his body shrank back of its own accord, leaving him in a comical state.
His much larger body sank deep into the back of the chair. The tough fabric stretched taut along the contours of his back muscles, then returned to its original shape.
“……I believe you said last time that you didn’t have a fiancée. Is there perhaps a woman you have feelings for……”
“Nothing like that.”
Isaac quickly cut her off.
Then, in a voice that nearly faded away, he said, “……There isn’t.”
“Oh, I see.”
Isaac himself did not know why he had blurted out that contradiction instead of simply letting her misunderstand him. He truly didn’t.
That woman was saying things that were completely insane with a perfectly sound expression on her face. Perhaps some of that had rubbed off on him.
Isaac rolled his eyes, thinking that she really did seem out of her mind. Then, when he saw her face light up with relief at his answer, he hurriedly looked away again.
“I know this is sudden. What could be more serious than marriage? I know it must be disconcerting to hear this from someone you’ve only known for such a short time.”
Then why? Why on earth?
Isaac grumbled inwardly as he rubbed the ends of his fingernails, blackened with grease, against the hem of his clothes.
Besides, far from showing this woman anything attractive as a prospective husband, hadn’t he only shown her how pathetic he was? Isaac was thinking that when he suddenly stiffened.
He had remembered the moment when he’d been about to beat Robert into a pulp after throwing a punch at him in humiliation, only to lock eyes with the woman who had stopped him as he was entering the ballroom.
It was a moment he could never forget, no matter how much he tried. Those green eyes filled with unvarnished shock. Yet now, those same green eyes sparkled so brightly that they looked almost innocent, as if nothing had ever happened.
“I’d like to propose that we remain married for exactly one year. Just one year. In other words, a time-limited marriage. It wouldn’t be an ordinary marriage.”
The movement of obsessively rubbing his fingertips clean came to a halt.
At the clear voice flowing from across the table, Isaac looked at her with a rigid expression.
“……One year…… what?”
“One year. We remain married for exactly one year, then separate cleanly. You know, divorce isn’t considered a major flaw these days. It’s not treated as a disgrace to one’s family like it used to be.”
What on earth was she talking about?
“Are you suggesting a marriage of convenience?”
Sasha calmly nodded at Isaac’s words.
“Yes, exactly. But it would be time-limited. For precisely one year.”
“Why…… one year?”
Sasha hesitated for a moment.
She could hardly honestly say, Because that is what First Lady Rosaline wrote in her will. So she blinked as though pondering the question, then asked instead,
“Is that too long?”
“……That’s not what I meant.”
Isaac sighed as though frustrated. Yet he could not even identify the cause of his frustration himself, so he merely rolled his eyes—until he noticed that she was leaning toward him. He faltered and retreated backward.
Once again, the fabric of the chair back stretched out with a long, pitiful creak.
Isaac once again rubbed his blackened fingertips compulsively against his T-shirt. Without realizing it, he looked back and forth between his own fingers and Sasha’s pale, well-groomed ones.
“……Why me?”
At Isaac’s question, which came out almost as a mumble, Sasha’s eyes widened for a moment.
Then she answered calmly.
“Because you don’t want to get married. But you have to.”
“……”
“Hmm. All right. I’ll be honest. Because you’re just like me. I don’t want to get married either. But circumstances require me to.”
It was an entirely reasonable answer.
It sounded far more natural than some strange response from those lips about how she had fallen in love with him at first sight. Though sudden, it was a plausible answer.
The suspicion that had been consuming Isaac’s mind peeled away by one layer. Even so, he still sidelong glanced at her with eyes filled with distrust and an inexplicable anxiety.
“……Is there no other man……”
“No. It has to be you.”
Sasha quickly cut him off.
Without a word, Sasha looked at Isaac, who had pulled his chair as far away from her as possible.
‘I don’t think there’s any man I could separate from as cleanly as you. At least, not among the men who meet the conditions.’
Instead of giving that honest answer, she said,
“The truth is, my late grandmother set very strict conditions for the candidates to become my husband in her will. She really did love her granddaughter dearly, didn’t she?”
Without realizing it, Sasha put a barb in her words.
Isaac, knowing nothing, merely listened to her with a blank expression.
“According to my grandmother’s will, I have to marry a nobleman of at least count’s rank. Captain Pinsher just happens to meet those conditions.”
“The count is my father. Not me.”
Isaac corrected her with an uncomfortable expression.
Regardless, Sasha smoothly countered,
“But once you marry, you’ll become the count, won’t you?”
“……”
“Captain Pinsher has to marry in order to inherit the title and wealth, while I have to marry a man of at least count’s rank because of my grandmother’s will.”
On the surface, it sounded like a perfectly natural conversation.
“……You’re going to have a fake marriage over nothing but a will?”
Even Isaac Pinsher knew, roughly, how things worked in that world.
It was true that, as Sasha had said, divorce was no longer treated as a disgrace to one’s family as it had been in the past, but it still affected a person’s reputation.
As a man and a soldier, I could afford to be relatively free of such concerns, but Sasha, as a woman, could not.
Even if it did not amount to a disgrace to her family, it was obvious that the word ‘divorce’ would follow her like a label.
“……”
Sasha fell silent for a moment.
No matter how desperate her circumstances were, it would have been stranger for Isaac to accept such a sudden proposal without hesitation. In response to his entirely natural question, she gazed into the distance with a troubled expression.
‘How much should I tell him?’
Should she tell him that it was actually because of the enormous inheritance attached to the will?
That she intended to take the inheritance and run away, becoming free at last?
The reason she had to run away was because, in truth, she—
‘……The truth is, I.’
“……The truth is.”
‘I don’t have the confidence to spend my entire life surviving by lying.’
“My cousin wants to marry me.”
She withdrew her gaze from the distance and looked back at Isaac, speaking calmly.
“You told me that before.”
Isaac spoke with some irritation.
“I hit Jeffrey.”
But at her next words, delivered in an even tone, he had no choice but to lift his head and look at her.
“Who did?”
“I did.”
Sasha raised her hand without expression and removed her glove. She showed him her white hand, now bruised in several places.
Isaac was left speechless.
What was going on?
“Did your cousin try to do something awful to you?”
“Captain. That isn’t what’s important right now. I don’t have much time.”
It was absurd. Her attitude of setting aside the most important matter, and that strangely businesslike demeanor of hers.
It made him uneasy.
“Regardless, I have to get divorced. I know it must sound ridiculous to say this when I’m not even married yet, but it’s the safest way to make my cousin give up on me forever.”
Her point was clear.
She needed to acquire the label of divorcee in order to become perfectly free from her cousin, Jeffrey Grayson, without being harassed by him any longer.
Sasha had not lied about everything. She had merely hidden part of the truth and told him only what was true. Yes. At least that made her more blameless than if she had told a complete lie.
Sasha rationalized it that way to herself. Besides, once the promised year had passed, they would become people who would never see each other again.
“I……”
Isaac finally opened his mouth after a long while.
Then he pressed his fingertips, reddened from being rubbed too much, firmly into the armrest of the chair and—
“I don’t know.”
He suddenly sprang to his feet.
“Ah, of course, you don’t have to answer right away. Take plenty of time to think……”
Sasha hesitated, then hurriedly followed after Isaac as he strode away.
Had she seemed too impatient?
“If you simply haven’t found someone yet but genuinely want a real marriage, you can refuse right away.”
“……It isn’t that.”
“And even if you meet someone you truly love while we’re married, that’s all right. Even if we call it marriage, we don’t necessarily have to live like a real married couple……”
Sasha spoke while desperately trying to maintain a calm tone. If she appeared too anxious, it would only make her seem suspicious.
But as she continued speaking, Isaac, who had been walking ahead, suddenly turned around. Startled, she slipped backward.
Just as she thought she was about to fall hard on her backside, Isaac’s large hand seized hers.
He grabbed it urgently, with no control over his strength, as though he might crush it.
“……Ah.”
His large hand closed around her bruised one. A quiet groan escaped Sasha’s lips.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, this is……”
Only belatedly did Isaac release her hand, as though he had been burned.
Thud. Rendering his brief rescue pointless, Sasha landed hard on her backside and sank to the floor.
Isaac left her there and fled.
“……I’m sorry.”