Episode 18
Polite and refined Sasha Grayson—the mask she had spent so long and such care constructing was crumbling into powder and scattering away. She knew it herself. But once her mouth had come unstopped, she could hardly control it.
Come to think of it, hadn’t it felt like this when she had beaten Jeffrey Grayson? Once she actually struck him, tears had suddenly threatened to spill from her eyes, so she hit him again; and since she had already hit him twice, she hit him one more time, and kicked him in the shin too.
……And once she had beaten him until she felt relieved, the thing that hurt most had been her own hand.
“Did you investigate me?”
“Investigate is too strong a word. I was merely curious about your reputation, Captain, so I asked a few people who might know.”
“……My reputation. Then you must have heard it all. Now I know why you acted as if you knew everything about me.”
Isaac muttered darkly. Rather than angry, his expression looked sullen, but the air froze over in a way different from earlier, when he had been bluntly spitting words at her.
“I’m sorry if I offended you. But it was never excessive. Of course, after I decided to make that proposal to you, I did look into things a little more thoroughly. I had to make sure your family had no connection to the ducal house, I mean, that is…….”
“…….”
“That was excessive. ……I’m sorry.”
To think she had unilaterally decided to marry him and looked into his family beforehand. What a chilling thing to do.
Her words were worse than saying nothing at all. Just as Sasha had inwardly picked apart that rough man’s speech and behavior out of anxiety, she was now getting it all returned to her harshly.
The Sasha Grayson who was always serene, who calmly smoothed over even her own mistakes with an elegant smile, was not here. The woman here now was not Sasha Grayson. She was.
……She was.
‘……I am.’
When she abruptly shut her mouth and stared only at the ground, Isaac strode toward her. Then, his blue eyes gleaming gloomily, he spoke to her as if chewing out each word.
“I hate it when someone talks about me behind my back.”
“……I’m sorry. In truth, who would like that? But I really only tried to learn a little about you, Captain. I never spoke ill of you with anyone.”
“So, what did you find out about me, Miss Grayson? Aside from my family. Tell me. What did they say about me?”
Sasha’s lips parted slightly, as though she were hesitating. Isaac let out a hollow laugh, as if he already knew.
It was obvious. It was obvious what they had said.
“……That you…… went on a marriage meeting with the young lady of the Livril family and didn’t say a single word throughout the entire meal.”
“…….”
“……And that when you went to see a play together, as soon as it began, you openly tilted your head back and slept while snoring…….”
“…….”
“That you were so rude and insincere it made one doubt whether you had any intention of making the marriage meeting work at all…….”
“Enough.”
Isaac cut her off, his face flushed red for an entirely different reason.
“You went around digging up that kind of nonsense?”
“Pardon? That was the most important matter to me. It would be troublesome if you had a lover, Captain, so I wanted to find that out in advance……. So please don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying I naturally had you in mind as a marriage partner…….”
The more she tried to salvage it, the more incoherent she became. Without even listening to the end, Isaac again said, “Enough,” and cut her off.
“Did you perhaps behave that way at the last marriage meeting you ruined as well, Captain?”
In the end, Sasha could not overcome her curiosity and asked anyway.
Isaac let out a sound of disbelief. “Ha.”
“That was because she started by interrogating me in detail about what happened at your birthday party.”
“……Ah, I see.”
“Saying I marched around with men hanging off both arms, that I beat down eight opponents all by myself. Such ridiculous…….”
“It is true that you had two men hanging from your arms. Though of course, you immediately threw them away.”
Sasha, having returned to her usual calm expression as if nothing had happened, refuted him, then paused for a moment.
But she continued with an irritatingly composed face.
“I told you at the time, didn’t I? That the rumors had been somewhat exaggerated and caricatured.”
Before they knew it, the two of them had completely left the regiment facilities behind. They were in the middle of a broad field road in Lance Field.
Far below, clusters of private houses could be seen faintly, and nearby, red windmills stood here and there.
Isaac was silent for a moment. Then he shot Sasha a sidelong glare.
He thought he would have to correct what he had told Felix about her. She was not a swindler. Not a swindler—she simply seemed to be a rather strange person in and of herself.
“I’m sorry if I offended you.”
Regardless of what conclusion he had reached inwardly, she took one step toward him and apologized again.
“But how should I put it……. Because our situations are similar, I thought it had to be you all the more, Captain.”
“What exactly is similar?”
Even though his speech had grown openly curt, she paid it no mind.
“I told you then, didn’t I? That both of us are in a position where we ‘must marry.’ As you told me at the time, Captain, you can inherit your title and fortune only if you marry.”
“……You too?”
Back then, he had not seemed to be properly listening to her at all, but now he finally listened a little more carefully and asked anew.
Sasha looked at him with a strange expression for a moment and did not answer immediately. After a brief silence, she nodded with a composed face.
“Yes. Me too. I can inherit Dilton Mansion only if I marry.”
It was not a lie.
It was by no means a lie, so there was no need for her conscience to prick her preemptively.
“……Hmph.”
He openly snorted and turned away. Contrary to her hopes, he did not look as though he had heard her and felt a sense of kinship. Absolutely not.
“…….”
Sasha looked at him for a moment, her face expressionless.
It was already ruined.
In terms of conditions, there was no one better, but it seemed she had ruined this far more than she had expected. Perhaps ever since she had soundly beaten Jeffrey Grayson, the impulse-control device in her head had broken.
Just as she had belatedly checked her own swollen hand after thrashing Jeffrey Grayson, an inexplicable sense of disgust and emptiness filled her mind.
It was strange to say so herself, but her objectively rather pretty looks, or her gentle and considerate-seeming manner that made anyone want to like her, already seemed useless against that man.
Yes. That man simply had no interest in her.
Then how on earth was she supposed to persuade him? If appealing to a sense of kinship did not work, how was she supposed to persuade that man? Perhaps he was not in such a desperate situation in the first place. Otherwise, how could he behave so disgracefully at every marriage meeting…….
“……I’ll go back alone from here.”
The man was silent for a moment. Then,
“Why did you come alone this time? What about that maid who was supposedly monitoring you?”
he asked, as though he had, belatedly, been listening carefully to her conversation.
Sasha turned away sharply.
“That maid…… went back to where she originally came from when her master left the mansion. To begin with, Jeffrey Grayson, that…… boy, was the one who had brought her.”
Isaac was silent for a moment. Just as she had not been interested in the details of his circumstances, he likewise had no particular interest in her. Nor any will to know. Now that he was taking out only the fragments he had heard and trying to fit them together, something seemed a little strange.
“……Are you perhaps being mistreated at home?”
Isaac asked. For someone who had asked so bluntly, his expression had softened compared to earlier.
“…….”
“If you don’t want to answer, that’s fine.”
Isaac sighed, then gestured to her with his eyes, as if telling her they should continue down.
Sasha looked at him with expressionless eyes, as though he were stubbornly insisting on escorting her all the way to the end. Soon, however, she obediently nodded and followed after him.
The dirt road was not well maintained, so it was somewhat rough to walk on in shoes. Isaac hesitated, then held out his hand to her, and Sasha did not go out of her way to refuse, taking his large hand.
Her hand was absurdly small. Isaac thought he should not have offered his hand for no reason, and quickly turned his head to face forward.
Contrary to his expectation that she would slip her hand out as soon as they descended the low hill, Sasha calmly tucked her arm into his. She looked accustomed to it. He, however, was not.
“Look for someone other than me.”
Isaac suppressed his awkwardness and said something similar to what he had said a few days earlier.
“I wonder. I don’t know if I can find one. Someone who has no business ties whatsoever with the Grayson ducal house, and who can keep from being frightened in advance by the duchess’s influence……. Would there be another person like that?”
Isaac knit his brows as he listened to her peculiar words. Regardless, she stared straight ahead with the face of someone who had given up on everything.
“My aunt wants me to marry her son, the young duke.”
Sasha said evenly.
“Do you remember the men I danced with on the day of my birthday party?”
“No.”
“They were men I had in mind as potential marriage candidates. But when I returned to the mansion, every single one of them had been frightened and had sent letters all at once saying they no longer wished to associate with me.”
“…….”
“On top of that, I went and did something absurd to that precious young duke……. Why on earth did I do that? I should have been a little more careful, but at the time, in a fit of anger…….”
Sasha muttered in a somewhat gloomy, low voice.
As if that dark current was not unfamiliar to him, Isaac asked,
“Did you kill him?”
Sasha coughed as if she had choked on water she had not even drunk.
“No, kill him? I only hit him! Just like you did at my party, Captain!”
“……Ah.”
Then, well. Isaac shrugged, as if to say just that.