54.
I threw myself forward and felt the weight of the little one slam into my chest as he came into my arms.
I rounded my back and held him tight.
Just like that, my body plummeted helplessly. But if I wanted to catch the little one, this was the only way.
As we fell, I reached out and grabbed a tree branch. The strain shot into my wrist, and using the recoil, I adjusted our landing point in that brief instant.
But the branch snapped at once, and my body dropped limply.
People turned away with their eyes shut, people swallowed screams, and then……
“……”
“……”
Onto the net the flustered servants had half spread out.
Ignoring the servant’s dumbfounded face, I reached past the net and pushed myself up.
Then the little one rolled out of my arms.
He looked startled, but otherwise fine.
Thank goodness.
“It, it, it broke……”
Just then, I heard a maid looking up at the tree and muttering with a deathly pale face.
In the distance, I could see Daena, her mask shoved halfway up onto her forehead, striding toward us in a huff.
‘Ah…… Did I cause trouble?’
If things took a bad turn, I thought it would be better to draw a line between myself and Daena.
With that in mind, I tried to give her a look, only to realize she couldn’t see it because of the mask, and turned my head away as if ignoring her.
“Wait, you’re—Hamel!”
But there was someone who recognized the little one.
It was an old man who had been standing back with a faint frown at the commotion in the previously quiet rear garden,
but the moment he confirmed the little one’s face, his complexion changed drastically.
“You? Why on earth are you here? What about Prisa?”
“No, wait. Then was he a child of the Briteer family?”
The people who had been looking more at the broken tree than at the child’s safety changed their attitudes in an instant as well.
‘Briteer?’
I remembered that the family being engaged to the Erdel house this time was the Briteer family.
Naturally, many people from that family would have come too, so it wasn’t strange for a child to be among them.
It was precisely then.
A middle-aged man with a crimson face and a half-bald forehead,
and a young man I recognized appeared together in the rear garden.
The middle-aged man clutched the back of his neck and shouted, fuming.
“Who was it! Who on earth did this! How dare, how dare……!”
Instinctively, I stepped forward, shielding the little one clinging to my leg.
“Was it you?”
Without even knowing who I was, the middle-aged man—whom I presumed to be Count Erdel—pointed a finger at me first.
It was obvious he unconsciously took it for granted that among young women, there was no one he needed to be careful about treating carelessly.
“You don’t even know what kind of tree this is! A tree the likes of you could never dare compensate for! That’s what, that’s what this tree is!”
Daena, who had been walking toward me, flinched and stopped.
It seemed she belatedly judged that she shouldn’t act as if she knew me.
Fortunately, since I hadn’t looked at her at all from a while ago, if she quietly stepped back now, it seemed she could avoid getting involved in this matter.
As long as no one who knew I was “Daena’s niece” spoke up tactlessly.
I bowed my head lightly to express regret.
Right on cue, an elderly lady beside us added a word.
“It was an accident. Please be understanding, Count.”
“An accident? What accident? This is a disaster! Do you know how much that costs! Even with bad luck, why did it have to be on a day like this!”
I took the accusations pouring down in front of my face with practiced ease and thought little of it.
‘Then was I supposed to watch the little one fall from the tree? Is that even speech, or is it shit?’
When high nobles were involved, even reasonable things tended to become impossible to judge sensibly.
“Did you do this to make me go mad, to spite me? This damned wench……! I absolutely won’t let this slide!”
The Count was so furious he was practically jumping up and down, as though he had even forgotten the man standing beside him.
But the others couldn’t do the same.
The red-haired man who maintained his silence gave off an air that made him difficult to ignore just by standing still.
His frame and solid body looked like an entirely different species from the ordinary nobles commonly seen in the capital.
The black evening attire fastened tightly all the way up to his chin and the white gloves were almost like……
An undertaker.
And perhaps one who would personally bestow death.
‘It’s that man.’
‘Is that him?’
‘The very one surrounded by all those rumors……’
Following that sequence of thoughts, his identity was naturally revealed,
and Duke Gladinair lowered the hands he had clasped behind his back.
Even at that action, which held no particular meaning, everyone stiffened with tension and trembled.
Having pieced together the entire situation by reading the room, I let out a low sigh.
I had recognized the duke as well.
Red hair so deep and vivid it seemed to stain the eyes beneath natural light was rare, and……
There also weren’t many people whose size could make the Count beside him look like some little runt.
For some reason, the spot where he stood apart felt chilly, as though the temperature there alone had dropped sharply.
In any case, by the time the faces of the servants kneeling under the Count’s tirade had turned not merely white, but blue,
“Then are you saying, Count, that my child’s life is worth less than that paltry tree?”
A clear yet somehow weighty beautiful voice rang out.
As if displeased that the elderly lady had stepped forward first, she clicked her tongue softly and withdrew.
The woman who slowly walked forward through the crowd was astonishingly beautiful.
‘She isn’t wearing a mask.’
Her glossy blond hair, shining enough to dare be compared with Rohwinas, flowed down in curling strands like skeins of thread.
The woman, who had a delicate yet somewhat dry impression, reached out her hand.
“Hamel, come here.”
The little one, who had peeked his head out, spotted the woman and suddenly began to tear up.
With his face bright red, the little one finally burst into tears and ran toward her.
When he was about to fall after only a few steps, the woman easily caught him and lifted him into her arms.
A deep sense of relief flashed through the woman’s eyes for the briefest moment before vanishing.
“No…… He was your child……?”
The Count’s anger lost its destination and hovered awkwardly in the air.
‘The Count is using formal speech?’
Only after soothing the little one, who was wailing in her arms, patting him for quite some time, did the woman turn her gaze toward the Count.
“I don’t know what compensation you desire, but since this concerns my child, I shall take responsibility.”
“Ah, no…… But how could that be…… By what means……”
With his face turned ashen, the Count barely tore his lingering gaze away from the beautiful old tree with the broken branch and answered.
“Understood…… Your Highness, Former Imperial Princess.”
I flinched, my shoulders trembling.
But as if everyone except me had known that woman’s identity, I was somehow the only one surprised.
Everyone bowed their heads and offered the woman belated greetings.
I followed suit and bowed as well.
If she was the former imperial princess……
I was certain I had heard news of her marriage before.
“There is no need to call me that anymore. I am now a member of the Briteer family.”
“……Yes, Marchioness.”
Because the complicated kinship relations of the long-standing social world had been one of the main causes of my migraines even four years ago,
I kept my words to myself so as not to make any mistakes.
‘Then the one I saved is…… by blood, His Majesty the Emperor’s nephew?’
After handing the little one over to his nurse, the former imperial princess slowly approached me.
It was an act that completely ignored the Count, but naturally, the Count did not dare step forward.
‘As expected, status really does solve everything.’
“Thank you.”
“Not at…….”
As I answered and was about to bend my knees in another curtsy, I belatedly realized that my dress was still hitched up in a dreadful state.
I hurriedly untied the hem I had bundled up and let it fall.
“My apologies, Your Highness. Ah, no, Grand Lady.”
I quickly picked up the shoes that had been lying a little ways away and hastily shoved my feet into them.
“It’s all right. Take your time.”
The former imperial princess, who had been watching me with a slightly flustered expression, turned her gaze away for a moment.
It seemed she intended to say another word to the count while she was at it.
“If I had not received word from the duke and arrived in time, judging by your attitude, Count, you might even have raised a hand against my benefactor.”
“N-no, I would not.”
“Then apologize.”
“…….”
The count fell silent, unable to open his mouth, as if he had swallowed honey.
“Grand Lady, it was thoughtless of me, and a child of your house nearly came to harm……”
“Not to me. To her.”
“…….”
The count’s complexion darkened even further after he had tried to gloss over it.
Then, as if only then remembering his existence, the count turned to look at the duke.
The duke said one thing to the count staring at him.
“Why are you looking at me?”
At just that one sentence, the count lost his nerve, lowered his eyes, and bit his lip.
And in the end, he turned toward me.
“I-I’m sorry.”
“Count, is that all?”
The former imperial princess narrowed her eyes. When even the faint gentleness lingering around her lips disappeared, her expression turned cold enough to make one’s knees go weak.
In the meantime, having just barely managed to put on my shoes, I cleared my throat and raised a hand.
“Um, I’m sorry to interrupt your conversation.”
“…….”
“But I think that’s enough. It wasn’t as if he said anything all that harsh……”
I didn’t know which part of my words was unexpected, but a small stir spread among the people.
‘When did this many people gather?’
As if they had come to watch a fire from across the river, quite a few people had, at some point, gathered in the rear garden.
‘There’s nothing good about drawing more attention. If the former imperial princess asks my name here now……’
The former imperial princess tilted her head as if puzzled and asked,
“He said, ‘someone like you,’ did he not?”
Ah. True.
He had said that.
“Ah, yes.”
“He also said, ‘you damned wench,’ did he not?”
“Er…… um.”
“What part of that, exactly, is not harsh?”
This time, the former imperial princess quite clearly—almost as if doing it on purpose—tilted her head to the side again.
“It was extremely insulting.”