Episode 2
If she had known in advance that the man she had so stubbornly shown kindness to would wreck the party in less than two hours, she never would have let him into the mansion.
But of course, Sasha Grayson, poor woman, had no way of knowing that. She was devoting herself entirely to bringing this party she had organized to a successful close, and so Isaac was able to set his shabby state to rights and enter the party looking comparatively presentable.
With the help of the servants, Isaac dried his soaked body and was given a gentleman’s suit that they seemed to have prepared as if they had known this would happen. The clothes were larger than Edmund’s suit that he had been wearing, but they were still a little small.
“You must attend the party.”
Isaac recalled how his grandmother had ordered him with a stern face.
The party, which had already been underway for quite some time, continued smoothly without the slightest ripple whether he entered midway or not.
Yes. At the very least, thanks to her kindness, he looked far more respectable. The suit he had changed into was still a little short in the arms and legs, but it was not to the point of looking ridiculous as before.
When he entered, only a few people nearby glanced at him for a moment, startled by his towering height and build, before busying themselves once more with following the star of the party with their eyes.
With an expressionless face, Isaac followed the others’ gazes and looked toward the woman, Sasha Grayson.
A yellow chandelier, and beneath it a beautiful woman in a splendid dress. A woman who looked, to anyone’s eyes, like the star of this party.
The atmosphere of the party had already ripened to a certain degree. Then a noble-looking lady stepped forward with her glass raised and requested everyone’s attention. It was her aunt, the Duchess Grayson.
Miss Grayson soon smiled brightly at her aunt’s words of congratulations and approached her side.
Then, following her lead, she raised her glass as well and thanked everyone present for attending.
After that, she stood before a massive cake and, receiving everyone’s congratulations, cut into it.
With his uniquely gloomy eyes, Isaac watched her smile as she cut the cake and distributed it to the people around her.
“Ah, my apologies!”
Isaac looked down at the man who had suddenly come over and bumped into him.
He was a man of moderately tall height and a face so beautiful it seemed almost strange. When Isaac only nodded without answering, the man smiled politely and hurried past him toward the crowded side of the room.
The orchestra at the rear, having finished their preparations, soon began to play. Dance time had begun.
“What are you doing? Hurry and go ask Miss Grayson to dance!”
“Are you serious, Mother? You should have brought my brother instead.”
Listening to the conversation between a mother and son standing nearby, Isaac drank his champagne.
Despite his mother’s urging, her son showed no intention of moving.
“Give up. We should be grateful just to have gotten in here. Look. If you want to ask her to dance, you need to be at least that handsome.”
The son, whose family was not particularly distinguished and who was not outstandingly handsome either, looked as though he would rather die than make a show of being rejected after rashly asking that lofty heiress to dance.
The mother followed the direction indicated by her son’s chin and looked toward Miss Grayson.
The beautiful blond man who had passed by Isaac earlier was smiling as he asked Miss Grayson to dance. Watching the beautiful man and the coveted heiress converse in a favorable atmosphere, the mother murmured.
“The eldest son of the Osmond family. Even that ruined house came. Good heavens.”
The orchestra soon began to play elegant, formal music in 4/4 time, befitting the opening of a ball. Miss Grayson wrote the name of that beautiful man, Osmond, on her dance card and smiled as she faced him.
Despite the shattered state of his family, his beauty had worked. The middle-aged woman, Mrs. Robette, swallowed a groan and looked pathetically at her own son, who would not even try.
Miss Grayson then danced with three men.
For the first piece, she danced with a young businessman named Dylan Henson, who owned a textile mill, and for the next lively waltz, she danced with an up-and-coming painter named Elliot Favrel. After that, she danced a tango with a wealthy heir named Floyd Campbell.
Isaac knew nothing about them.
But even if he had not wanted to know, everyone around him was whispering each time Miss Grayson changed partners, openly listing their names, occupations, ages, and even the extent of their fortunes, so the information naturally reached his ears.
When the tune changed and it was time for the Viennese waltz, the opportunity was given to the beautiful eldest son of the Osmond family, Cedric Osmond.
With a face so neat and beautiful it could not be compared to the men before him, and with outstanding dancing skill, he led her in the dance.
The ladies nearby glanced at him with faces that were by no means pleased and whispered among themselves.
“Do you think that young Mr. Osmond, who has nothing but his face, has a chance?”
“Surely not. If she chose that man, Lady Rosalyn would claw her way out of her grave.”
In words, it was a birthday party, but in truth, this party was no different from a grand matchmaking event. To step into society was no different from presenting oneself to the marriage market of this refined yet extremely narrow world, and it was no exaggeration to say that Miss Grayson, who had inherited the vast fortune of her grandmother, the former duchess, was the most coveted offering in anyone’s eyes.
Yes. An offering.
Compared to her, Isaac was the least popular offering. A troublesome nuisance his family did not know how to dispose of.
As the song ended, Isaac watched Osmond leave a reluctant kiss on the back of her hand. Then he watched expressionlessly as she exchanged greetings with Osmond and looked around with a slightly tired face.
Their eyes met.
It was only for an instant, but Isaac quickly tore his gaze away from hers and set down the champagne he had been drinking. Then he strode straight toward the terrace.
The terrace was in a dreadful state from the rain that had continued to fall.
All sorts of decorations the servants had worked hard to prepare stood lined up in a corner, as if all that preparation had been for nothing, and beside the damp, soaked tables, the sight was rather dreary.
Isaac paid it no mind and continued walking deeper into the terrace. At some point, the rain had stopped. Instead of sitting at a wet table, he stood with his back against a pillar and took a cigar and a knife from his breast pocket.
He cut the end of the cigar into a neat circle and placed it between his lips. Then, when he lit it, sour smoke filled the air around his face.
Exhaling the acrid smoke, he looked toward the inside of the doors where light was spilling out. Just what had his grandmother expected when she sent him here?
He imagined approaching that glittering heiress he had just seen and asking her to dance. The thought alone made him feel like vomiting.
He simply wanted the party to end quickly. In any case, he had carried out the minimum order of attending the party, so his grandmother would surely be generous enough to overlook his having given his cousin Rachel Works a hard time.
He was just lightly flicking ash from the end of his cigar when, with the creak of the door opening, someone entered the place where he was alone.
“Why did you just let her go? You should have pushed harder there!”
“Robert, that would have been rude to her next dance partner as well. For now, I made a definite impression on her today. This much is enough.”
No, there was one more person.
The outdoor terrace was dim, without a single light. There was only the light leaking through the crack of the door and the moonlight above, so it was dark on every side.
If one truly wanted to rest, it would have been better to go out into the corridor and find one of the guest rooms separately prepared for the visitors.
“So, what do you think? Do you think that woman has fallen for you?”
“……That’s, well. I’m not sure, Robert. I don’t know if she’s fallen for me, but I was one of her dance partners, wasn’t I? I became one of those four. For now, that alone is enough to……”
The fact that they had gone out of their way to come to a place like this, where no one was likely to come.
It meant either that, like Isaac, they simply disliked people and had quietly avoided the crowd.
“Ask that woman out at once. Drive in the wedge before some other bastard lures her away.”
“……Robert. Realistically, marriage with her may be difficult. Look at the men she danced with today. Every one of them was either wealthy or from a good family.”
Or that they were looking for a place to discuss something private, something difficult to speak of openly among themselves.
“Marriage may have to be watched a little longer…… but perhaps, perhaps there may be a chance as far as becoming her lover.”
“……Her lover?”
Thud.
A dull impact rang out.
Isaac, in the middle of taking out a new cigar, reflexively looked that way.
Two men.
Isaac recognized the taller man at a glance. It was the man called Osmond, who had danced with that heiress earlier.
“Hey, you son of a bitch. Do you think I invested in you just to be satisfied with that much? Her lover? Hey, do you think I invested in you so you could take pocket money from that woman as her lover? These clothes, the invitation, even the carriage. Do you know how much I poured into you?”
“Robert, wait…… Let go.”
This time, a lighter sound of friction rang out than before.
“This fucking—if all you’re going to do is take pocket money, then spit back everything I invested in you. Right now. Do you have that kind of money?”
Thud, again.
As he was struck by the man smaller than himself, Osmond’s body staggered.
“You don’t.”
“…….”
“You don’t, you bastard.”
The shorter man avoided Osmond’s face, which at least had value, and drove his fists into his shoulder and chest as if shoving them in.
Isaac had witnessed that kind of violence, the sort that crushed a person down, countless times, and had experienced it as well.
“Forget the other bastards and whatever else—make that woman fall head over heels for you. That’s your specialty, isn’t it? Before that woman comes to her senses later, daze her somehow. That’s your specialty, isn’t it?”
“…….”
“Even if your family isn’t what it used to be, you’re still a noble too, aren’t you? I’ll handle the money, so you focus on your job.”
What an exceedingly blatant conversation.
There was not a single servant passing nearby. They were all busy minding the hall inside.
Yes. That was why Isaac, and those men as well, had come here, was it not?
“I’ll take care of everything after that. I’ve already found someone who handles that side of things cleanly. Do you know how much I had to do to persuade that person……”
How much.
The man, Robert’s words, cut off there.
He followed Cedric Osmond, who was staring beyond his back with startled eyes, and turned his head to look that way.
“……What bastard is there?”
Only belatedly catching the acrid smell of cigar smoke, Robert turned to look toward Isaac.