Chapter 21
“Dearly beloved. We are gathered here today before God, and before this congregation, to join these two in holy matrimony.”
The pastor opens his mouth and begins to recite the officiant’s words again, slowly. Isaac stares, uninterested, at the pastor’s gleaming bald head. The woman seated to his left, however, seems deeply invested in this wedding.
She cannot take her eyes off the bride, and when Sergeant Walter smiles softly at the bride, she smiles along with him. As though she truly has never attended a wedding before, looking more excited than anyone else.
Isaac recalls the marriage proposal she abruptly made to him a few days ago. He remembers how, with a smile much like the one she wears now, she made a proposal that seemed to mock those lofty marriage vows, saying they only had to pretend to be husband and wife for exactly one year.
“Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, and be faithful only to her, so long as you both shall live?”
The vow the pastor recites in a dry voice drifts into Isaac’s ears.
The pastor then asks the bride. Isaac no longer hears the pastor’s words. He is too busy staring at the woman seated to his left, remembering the moment she so calmly proposed marriage to him as if bringing up business.
“Now these two have consented to holy matrimony, and have testified to it before God and before all of you.”
Clap, clap, clap. People applaud. But Isaac is still looking at her.
She, who had been clapping along with everyone else as if purely celebrating another’s joyous occasion, belatedly senses his gaze and turns her head. She looks at him.
Then, as though only just remembering, she stops clapping and asks,
“Have you thought about it?”
Now, of all times.
＊＊＊
The reception was held in the village square. Everyone who had been packed into the church had poured out there, so it was crowded to the point that there was nowhere to set foot. It was the situation Isaac hated most.
He has long since put some distance between himself and the crowd, standing tall with his large frame as he looks down at the others. He watches the heads of children scurrying noisily back and forth as if they were balls.
Isaac still cannot get used to the simple yet excessively intimate atmosphere of Lance Field. The special task force he had belonged to before had been stationed in mountains far harsher than this place, and the people there would usually take a detour with displeased faces whenever they encountered soldiers.
“Pinscher.”
“Major.”
Unable to keep watching him stand there like a post, Major Wells approaches him and abruptly offers him a drink. A fruit wine that perfectly matches the disgustingly bright mood of the wedding. The moment he takes a sip, the carbonation pops against his tongue. Isaac furrows his brows.
“……Don’t do that. Come dance, dear.”
Matilda shoots her husband a warning glare, takes his arm, and leads him away. As an added bonus, she glances once at Isaac as if telling him not to put any strange ideas into the man’s head. Isaac, unconcerned, takes another sip of the fruit wine he has half finished.
When the band that has arrived at some point begins to play a lively tune, couples flock over. They face their respective partners, preparing to step. They are free-spirited, without even the slightest precarious air of watching one another’s reactions.
In that freedom, where there is no need for anything like a dance card, is that woman.
Isaac gazes for a moment, blank-eyed, at Sasha Grayson in the crowd. That woman, pale enough to stand out more than anyone else, is smiling kindly as she faces some man.
Isaac then watches her dance with her partner. Without realizing it, he narrows his eyes and scrutinizes the man from head to toe. The man does seem to have put some thought into his clothes, but he is ordinary. The son of the local notable here wore clothing that anyone could tell was made of expensive fabric.
So, he was not that Hemsher or whatever heir.
No, why does that matter?
“Would you like to dance the next song with me?”
While he is shaking his head, a woman suddenly approaches and speaks to Isaac. She is a village maiden. Isaac does not recognize her at all, but she is also the honored person who received the bouquet from today’s bride just a short while ago.
“No, thank you.”
The woman, showing no particular sign of embarrassment at Isaac’s refusal, says, “It doesn’t seem like you have a partner.”
Isaac wordlessly gives her a cold sidelong glance. The woman arches one brow, clicks her tongue, and goes far away.
His adjutant Felix had been right. Isaac was rather popular here. Unlike the refined nobles, the people of Lance Field had never known about the ridiculous rumors surrounding him in the first place. Nor did they know about the tactless, rude things the nobles brought up whenever they had nearly forgotten them.
To the people here, he was simply someone who seemed a little difficult to approach. Apart from his intimidating build, there was something strangely quiet about his conduct, so if anything, he stirred curiosity.
The woman who had caught the bride’s bouquet returned to her group and said, “I got rejected.” The women exchanged glances. A short-haired woman coolly drained her glass and stood.
“All right. I’ll try this time.”
……Isaac Pinscher stood there, jaw clenched, with a face that looked murderous to anyone who saw it.
It was obvious they had made a bet among themselves. If he chased one woman away, the next woman came, and if he chased her away, another woman came. Every single one of them was moderately drunk, openly looked over his well-built, muscular body, and asked him to dance. Every one of them was bold. One woman even looked at him and smacked her lips.
It was, to anyone’s eyes, no different from them teasing him, but the people around them were busy giggling instead of stopping them. Some even jokingly told him that if it were them, they would have picked one of those women already.
……Damned backwater.
Isaac curses under his breath inwardly and quickly leaves the spot. However, he is a head taller than most adult men. Wherever he goes, people can spot him.
A woman who had been about to approach him calls after the back of his head with a teasing face, “Where are you going!”
Isaac, flustered, slips in among the dancers.
“Wait, I didn’t come here to dance……”
He mutters urgently, but a short, plump man takes his hand without hesitation and whirls Isaac, who is far larger than himself, round and round.
……Fuck.
He feels as though he is getting seasick. Even when he had been on a ship in the middle of a storm to infiltrate a certain archipelago, he had not felt this dizzy. The band, more excited than before, is playing a fast-tempo song, and accordingly, Isaac is spun around at an even faster speed.
He is a man far smaller than Isaac, but Isaac has no idea where this strength is coming from.
The moment Isaac finally escapes from the man, a middle-aged woman with a warm-looking impression takes his hand as if she has been waiting.
Isaac is caught helplessly by her too, and dances something he cannot make heads or tails of. Whether he openly looks disgusted or not, the woman instead scolds him, saying he has to step faster.
Everyone here is drunk, for starters. None of them is in their right mind.
“It isn’t over yet!”
“Let go.”
In the end, Isaac cannot take it anymore and turns his back. But before he can even take a step, someone grabs his sleeve and tugs hard.
“I said let go!”
Isaac, nerves on edge, snaps sharply for them to let go, then shuts his mouth.
Sasha, who had been smiling brightly without knowing why, looks up at him with a slightly flustered expression at his rough reaction.
“…….”
“Captain, are you all right?”
Sasha asks him with a worried face, but when the person behind her bumps her back, she instinctively takes his hand and pulls him along.
The song is still playing, and the two of them, amid the excited people, sway slowly in a state that is neither dancing nor simply standing still.
“……Your face is pale.”
Sasha says, looking up at him.
The same woman who, when Isaac had answered her question of whether he had thought about it with a flat “No,” had laughed it off without much disappointment, as if she had expected as much.
Thanks to their movement being noticeably slower than everyone else’s, the back of the man behind her bumps Sasha again. Isaac reaches out and covers her back with his palm, larger than most, pulling her toward him.
Whoosh, the distance between them closes. The fruit wine he drank earlier must have gone thoroughly bad. The area around them reeks of alcohol because of the drunk people, the music is loud, and every one of them is laughing boisterously.
Amid that uproar, Isaac looks down at the woman enjoying this reception with a face far more excited than before. Yes. Unlike him, Sasha Grayson looks happy.
“……First.”
Regardless, he leads her out of this chaotic crowd.
“We need to get out of here.”