Joseph pricked up his ears and craned his neck toward the top of the stairs.
What could those two be talking about? He was curious about the lady who had splendidly crashed the wedding, and equally curious about Walter, who had scurried after her like a bee chasing a flower at her call.
What is it? I’m dying of curiosity!
“Your neck will snap.”
The moment the sudden voice reached him, Joseph drew his sword from inside his coat and swung. The blade stopped precisely before a slender nape. The one who had approached without a sound was a woman with a youthful face covered in freckles.
“Who are you?”
Joseph asked fiercely, but the woman instead opened her eyes wide.
“And who am I?”
What are you going to do about it?!
Unwittingly pushed back by the woman’s momentum, Joseph soon came to his senses and put on an even fiercer expression.
She was definitely not someone who had entered the inn by chance. Despite having a blade aimed at her throat, her relaxed attitude, and above all, the fact that she had moved without him sensing her—
“Answer properly when you’re asked.”
To the threat posed by Joseph, whose large frame was enough to intimidate most grown men, the woman responded with an even greater outburst.
“You’ll stab me if I don’t answer? Go ahead, stab! Stab! Try stabbing me here!”
Far from fearing the blade, she stretched out her neck and opened her eyes even wider. They weren’t merely sanpaku eyes—were they yonpaku or what? The whites of her eyes gleamed to a frightening degree.
As expected, fighting was all about momentum.
“When did we meet that you’re speaking so casually? Is this your house?!”
No.
Joseph had almost answered without thinking.
“This is why knights get called ignorant—because you pull out your blades before your words!”
The bone a beast had bitten years ago suddenly began to throb.
“Aren’t you going to put that away?!”
“So who are you……”
As Joseph asked in a shrinking voice, heavy yet light footsteps rang out in harmony from the stairs. A clear voice followed.
“Jesse?”
“Yes, my lady!”
Contrary to her lively reply, Jesse glared fiercely at Joseph and pushed the tip of the blade away with her index finger.
While Joseph awkwardly sheathed his sword, Grace came down the stairs first, followed by Walter. He stood half a step behind Grace, looking quite natural.
Joseph paused for a moment. Somehow, the two gave off an air like newlyweds. But only for a moment—the atmosphere shifted when Walter moved. He stood between Joseph and Grace and first introduced Joseph.
“Joseph Rexton, my aide.”
At Walter’s introduction, Joseph quickly put away his sword and took a formal posture toward Grace. Then Grace gave Joseph a light greeting with her eyes and, pointing to Jesse, spoke.
“This is Jesse. She will be accompanying me and assisting with necessary tasks from now on.”
Jesse politely bent her knee and greeted Walter.
“I am Jesse, handmaiden to the lady.”
“Before that, she is also my teacher.”
“Teacher?”
Seeing Jesse’s youthful face, Walter asked quizzically, and Grace smiled brightly at Jesse.
“She taught me guts.”
At that, Jesse twitched her nose, and Joseph recalled those yonpaku eyes that had rolled moments ago and muttered inwardly.
That wasn’t guts, it was madness…….
At the same time, his head became a complete jumbled mess. Just how were things progressing?
Moreover, his master’s ensuing explanation was enough to push him into even greater confusion.
“From now on, Lady Grace will be going with me to Richmond as my lover. Joseph, procure a carriage.”
“…Yes, ……what?!”
Joseph jumped and looked at Walter, but there was no way his curt superior would add a lengthy explanation.
“Your Grace?”
Please give me a proper explanation!! Lover?! All of a sudden?!
As Joseph gaped his mouth as if driven mad, Grace extended her white, beautiful right hand to him and smiled as gracefully as her name.
“Nice to meet you, Sir Rexton.”
With a tingling back of his head, Joseph just stood there with his mouth hanging open. Jesse beside him once again showed her yonpaku eyes, and Grace slightly wiggled her fingertips and whispered softly.
“I look forward to working with you.”
She was a slender woman barely the thickness of his forearm, yet strangely, he felt compelled to submit. The sight of her neatly stacking and returning gifts before Count Saxon wavered like a hallucination.
“Ah…, yes. My lady.”
Joseph pressed his lips to the back of her hand as if entranced, and only then did Jesse relax her eyes. Somehow, she looked very pleased. Joseph felt a chill down his spine, as if hearing a voice say, *I raised her well.*
“Move quickly, Joseph.”
Joseph turned his head creakily to look at his master. Although he radiated heavy gravitas, Walter too was someone prepared to do any mad thing without hesitation if necessary. One could not even guess what lurked beneath that rigid mask.
In the end, unable to ask anything, Joseph turned his stiffly frozen body, mechanically gathered money, and left the inn.
Tossed into the noisy streets, he shuddered once. It was frustrating, as if he had missed a piece of the story, and above all else…….
“I feel like I’ve become the weakest link……?”
Such intuitions had never been wrong. It must be true. He scratched his tingling back of the head and quickly disappeared into the crowd.
＊ ＊ ＊
Joseph’s intuition became reality before long.
Having spent the past ten years at the Wall of Death and done all manner of things, being a coachman was a first. The beloved horse that had carried him through hordes of monstrous beasts had also fallen into the predicament of pulling a carriage.
Yet the reason he didn’t feel worse than expected—no, rather why he felt good—was because Lady Grace’s smile, who had suddenly become his superior’s lover and companion, seemed to compensate for the past ten wretched years.
She was incredibly kind.
“Sir Rexton.”
Joseph was startled to learn that his name could sound so sweet.
Who had called him the most all this time?! That cold face devoid of humanity, those fierce eyes, that superior who had built walls against the word “kindness”—whenever he called him, Joseph’s heart had always thumped violently. He had inwardly begged and pleaded for him to stop calling his name!
Not only did our lady call him kindly, but she also spoke beautifully.
“To make an excellent knight drive a carriage. I’m sorry.”
“Not at all!! My dream was to be a coachman!”
Without realizing Grace had already become *our lady,* the words leaped from his mouth without passing through his brain.
He could feel Walter and even Jesse looking at him as if dumbfounded, but Joseph did not regret his words. Because Grace burst into laughter.
The composed demeanor with which she had ruined the wedding was nowhere to be seen. Clear, bell-like laughter echoed behind him, and a wind carrying the sweet fragrance of fruit tickled his cheeks. Was this place heaven itself?
Then, Grace, who had been staring at Jesse, suddenly asked.
“Jesse, what were you planning to do if I hadn’t come then?”
Jesse, understanding Grace’s words immediately, scratched her nose and grinned.
“Then instead of the lady, I would have smashed Count Saxon’s head with a wine bottle, wouldn’t I?”
“……?”
“??”
Walter, who had been leading on horseback, and Joseph, who was driving the carriage, turned their heads simultaneously.
Through the wide-open carriage window, the faces of the two women were half visible.
“My lady, but is your wrist alright?”
“It stings a bit. Practice is indeed different from the real thing.”
“Looking at the bruise, I think you chose too thick a bottle. You should have chosen one suited to the lady’s strength. And next time you swing, you must use your entire arm, not your wrist.”
At Jesse’s advice, Grace raised her right arm and swung it through the air several times. It was clearly a motion meant to strike something properly.
Walter and Joseph inevitably recalled the swollen blue eyelids of Count Saxon.
“…….”
“…….”
The two, who had been briefly silent, looked forward at the same time as if by promise, when more whispering was heard from behind. A voice as soft as the gentle breeze rode upon it.
“When I meet that man again, I won’t strike him with something as petty as a wine bottle.”
Joseph involuntarily gulped at the savage meaning carried by that lyrical voice.
Meanwhile, Jesse stared at the sparkling Grace and slowly embraced her. Hiding a wretched feeling as if her heart were breaking behind laughter.
Jesse had been prepared to die in Grace’s place, but she could not walk her path for her. Grace had sworn revenge, and for this, she had thrown herself in entirely.
Not content with humiliating the Empress’s nephew and overturning the marriage, she had declared before everyone that she had a hidden lover. For a noble young lady, it was tantamount to social suicide. Moreover, now the House of Duke Taylor would also cut off Grace to avoid the Empress’s wrath. No matter that she bore the shield of being the Duke of Richmond’s lover, the depth of humiliation she would suffer would grow even more unfathomable.
“Don’t worry.”
As if looking into Jesse’s heart, Grace whispered. The two looked at each other, then looked out the window at the same time as if by promise. The Taylor estate spread out expansively. Unharvested wheat rippled, and the people passing between them looked like mere dots.
They had finally taken the first step to reclaim that land. They would not stop, nor would they collapse from exhaustion.