Episode 55
It was early the next morning.
Sasha woke earlier than usual. She had talked with Isaac until late the night before and had only just managed to fall asleep near midnight, yet her eyes opened early. Apart from her heavy, sluggish body, her mind was strangely clear.
The first thing she did upon rising was not wash her face, but open the window of her room. The Chlorans pot she had placed on the windowsill needed abundant sunlight even more than water. Sasha let the pot drink in the warm sunshine to its heart’s content, then opened the notebook beside it and made a check mark.
For at least the next two years, Sasha had to care for that pot and keep it from withering if she wanted to receive the 300 ond inheritance.
An ordinary factory worker in this country had to work an entire month without a single day off just to barely get 80 ond in hand. Yes. In other words.
……In preparation for any unforeseen circumstances, Sasha had to make sure this pot did not wither.
Of course, if she successfully maintained the fake marriage for a year and came into the enormous sum of over ten thousand ond, three hundred ond would feel like pocket change.
“It is simply something I am saying now, at this late hour. I am asking whether you are truly all right with someone like me.”
……In preparation for any unforeseen circumstances.
Sasha, who had been staring straight ahead with a strangely cold, hardened expression, snapped her head around at the sound of a knock from beyond. A maid entered with a small basin of warm water for washing and greeted her politely, saying, “You’re up early.”
Sasha nodded and sat down before the basin the maid had set down.
“By the way, letters arrived this morning, miss.”
“Put them on the desk. I’ll check them later.”
Lately, Sasha had been so entirely preoccupied with Isaac Pinscher, that man, that she had hardly looked at her letters at all. It was not a serious matter. Ever since she had beaten Jeffrey Grayson and driven him out of the mansion, whether because the duke’s family had done something or not, the number of letters sent to Sasha had dwindled to nearly one-tenth.
No, perhaps the duke’s family had not done anything at all. It was simply the rumor. The rumor that Sasha had beaten her cousin, who would one day become duke, and earned the duke’s family’s displeasure had likely spread to everyone. People who were frightened in advance must have stopped sending her letters.
Without the duchess needing to trouble herself at all, Sasha had become isolated not long after publicly presenting herself to society.
Because of none other than Jeffrey Grayson, her son, and the damned outrage he had committed.
“This is better, actually. Writing replies to every single one was annoying.”
The people who still sent her letters despite the situation becoming like this were probably that sort. Reporters somehow trying to dig out whether she had truly become estranged from the duke’s family, or petty nobodies with nothing to lose who cared only for her fortune regardless of such things.
Sasha Grayson, once coveted by everyone, had now become a woman whose only thing worth looking at was, in an instant, her wealth.
“I’ll gather the letters here.”
The maid soon returned with a tray of letters and spoke. Watching her pour the few envelopes onto the desk, Sasha nodded with an indifferent face.
Among the envelopes, three identical purple ones were stacked together, but she paid them little attention and turned away to finish washing her face.
＊＊＊
As a rule, the sooner all preparations were made, the better.
“……Rings?”
“Yes. We need to prepare wedding rings. Engagement rings too.”
Her manner of bringing it up so easily made all of this feel like a game of house. Isaac, who had been eating well-toasted bread in the breakfast room, looked at Sasha, who had come to sit across from him, with a displeased expression.
Contrary to what the butler had said about her not usually eating breakfast, a maid soon approached and set hot coffee and a pastry before her.
Had that been a lie? Isaac’s brows drew together.
“And I’ll need to have a wedding dress made. Along with the frock coat you’ll wear, Captain.”
“……All of that today?”
“Looking at rings won’t take long, and I’ll have the dress fitted by myself, so you can see to your business with the tailor elsewhere, Captain.”
That attitude of hers, as if she were briskly sweeping through the matter, made all of this feel even more like playing house.
“……There is still a month left until the wedding, Miss Grayson.”
“The sooner, the better for me. If there weren’t procedures to follow, I would have moved it up to two weeks. And it’s better to prepare everything in advance. We don’t know what might happen in the meantime.”
At Sasha’s firm tone, Isaac furrowed his brows with an even more dissatisfied expression than before.
She seemed like someone who had been waiting only for this day.
Isaac knew that Sasha was clinging to this marriage more desperately than he had thought, but not knowing the exact reason, he shifted his eyes with a dubious expression.
That woman was, how should he put it? Sometimes she acted a little strangely.
“That is all well and good, but is there really a need to rush like this?”
“The sooner we do it, the sooner it’ll be over. The more we drag it out, the longer you’ll have to keep seeing my face.”
Sasha asked him with a calm expression as she drank her coffee.
Isaac froze, dumbfounded. It was as though she were asking him, ‘Would you like that?’
“……No. As you said, it would be best to hurry.”
“I’m glad we see eye to eye.”
“That does not mean I dislike you, Miss Grayson. I simply find all of this uncomfortable.”
“So do I. I don’t dislike you either, Captain. Rather, it’s the opposite.”
“……Pardon?”
“It isn’t that kind of ‘I like you,’ so you don’t need to look so horrified.”
“…….”
Since last night, he had felt as though that woman was toying with him.
With a stiff face, Isaac merely chewed on his bread, then timidly turned his body away from her and toward the wall as he continued chewing.
The maids attending them were watching all of this with interest from a distance. In particular, they focused on how that enormous man could not even properly meet the young lady’s eyes, his face turning red, then pale, then red again.
A maid who was standing nearby with a tray of new cutlery in case of any unforeseen situation spoke softly enough that only the colleague beside her could hear.
“What, Sara. I don’t think it’s the sort of situation we needed to worry about after all?”
“Right?”
“If anything, they look like a typical couple. Everyone was worrying for nothing.”
＊＊＊
After finishing breakfast, Isaac took a brief walk around the mansion grounds. He passed through the well-tended garden and circled all the way around to where the greenhouse stood.
The height of the brick wall was adequate. It was a high wall, far taller than Isaac himself. It was the sort of tall stone wall that would have been fashionable over a hundred years ago. The old mansion, in many ways, reminded Isaac of the mansion belonging to his grandmother, First Lady Caroline.
To call it simply an old person’s taste, their grandmothers seemed similar in many respects. Had Sasha Grayson truly only loved her grandmother?
The question occurred to him all over again.
As he recalled what Rachel had said, that before her grandmother died, Sasha had lived trapped in this mansion, unable to properly interact with people.
And as he recalled the way Sasha had behaved toward compliments about the servants of this mansion with an attitude so dry it was almost displeased.
“Captain Pinscher.”
“…….”
The long train of thought abruptly snapped. Normally, even if he had only heard the sound of someone’s footsteps, Isaac would have turned around at once, but he had been so immersed in his own thoughts that he had grown duller than usual.
“I apologize if I have interrupted your contemplation, but the jeweler has just arrived at the mansion.”
“…….”
Right. The rings.
He remembered the conversation he had had with Sasha a short while ago.
Isaac nodded with a blunt expression.
“Understood.”