Together with the key to the Blue Room, Richmond’s treasures returned all too easily to the Duchess’s embrace. Lady Rexton—mother of Joseph Rexton and the one who had served the Duchess for many years, tending to the treasures—had personally come to collect them.
“A box is missing.”
“That’s all there is!”
The Countess’s lady-in-waiting raised an eyebrow, but Lady Rexton fired back immediately.
“One hundred fifty-two pairs of earrings, three hundred forty rings, two hundred twenty necklaces, forty-two tiaras, one hundred thirty brooches. I can stay up all night tonight writing an inventory of what is present and what is absent. May I hold you accountable for the missing items?”
“……Wait. I shall check again and return.”
Flora, too, could not escape her piercing gaze.
“My lady, do take off your necklaces and earrings.”
And so the treasures vanished so futilely. In their place remained only shame and contempt.
“For the same reason as your mother, you can no longer reside in the castle. I have ordered the maids to pack your belongings separately, so see to them yourself. Leave the castle within a week.”
When Lady Isaac added these words as if in afterthought while turning to leave after finishing the collection, Flora felt as though she had been plunged straight into the abyss.
Flora ran mindlessly toward her room. Her chamber, once decorated like a flower, was now desolate and disordered, like a scene from a fallen kingdom.
“What do you think you’re doing?!”
Flora shrieked, but the maids offered a greeting that was little more than a nod before resuming their tidying.
How fickle these creatures were. Only this morning they had treated her as though she were the Duchess herself, yet now, mere hours later, she was treated like an unwelcome guest.
Just then, a soft voice came from behind Flora.
“As expected, your face, your heart, and even your name are all like a flower.”
Startled, Flora turned around. There stood the one who had run up to her that morning, calling out to her, only to be humiliated.
“You said it would be difficult for us to be on familiar terms, but I didn’t know you said that for my sake.”
*‘I’m afraid it’s rather difficult for me to be on familiar terms with you now. You know what I mean, don’t you?’*
She giggled as she looked at Flora’s belongings, packed up in bundles by the maids.
“Y-you—.”
“‘You’? Didn’t we agree to speak politely?”
Flora glared with bloodshot eyes, biting her lip hard.
“You never know what life brings. Just this morning you were strutting around as if you were the Duchess.”
“Watch your mouth.”
“You watch yours. Your father is in an underground prison cell, isn’t he? Rumors are rampant that Reuwen will have its territory confiscated and its title stripped. Then you know, you might become a commoner by tomorrow.”
“……”
“How dare you—you won’t even be able to stand face to face with me like this.”
Flora felt as though she had swallowed molten lava. Her throat burned, her stomach felt like it was melting and rotting away, and she could only breathe in shallow gasps.
“There are plenty of people who hold a grudge against you. Did you act a little too nasty? Whenever someone got engaged, you’d put a spoke in their wheel, then go around comforting them like you knew nothing. Hilarious, really.”
She spat out the words as if snarling, then suddenly put on a sickly sweet smile and offered a formal greeting.
“Well then, do check carefully that nothing is missing. Even when you think you’ve packed everything, there’s always something left behind once you turn around. If you leave something behind, you won’t be able to come back for it now, will you?”
The sneer of the one who had been groveling to such a servile degree stabbed at Flora’s heart. Her stomach, which had been boiling like molten iron, went cold, and her chest felt so full of acrid smoke that no matter how deeply she swallowed her breath, she could only suffocate.
Perhaps because she could not breathe properly, she felt dizzy. Flora staggered and collapsed onto the sofa.
Could this be a dream?
As if mocking the thought she had desperately clung to, a sneering voice echoed through her mind.
*‘Then you know, you might become a commoner by tomorrow.’*
A sharp sense of crisis assailed her.
Me, a commoner? Reuwen ruined?!
“It’s absurd. It can’t be.”
By Dekan’s noble law, a vassal belonging to a house was, in the broad sense, a subject of the Emperor. Arbitrarily confiscating territory and title without any crime was a clear violation of the law.
“They can’t ruin Reuwen. Yes. They can’t.”
Flora wandered about the room muttering like a madwoman. But in her mind, the image of the soldier pointing at her father and confessing his crime, and the sight of her father being dragged away, rose ceaselessly. The quagmire of her thoughts pushed her gradually toward the abyss. An anxiety she had never experienced in her life grew massive, as if it would burn and consume even a single strand of Flora’s hair.
Then, when her nerves had stretched as taut as a rubber band on the verge of snapping, the Countess’s lady-in-waiting came to fetch her.
“The Countess summons you. Follow me.”
＊ ＊ ＊
She had come quite a long distance from the capital to Richmond, and indeed, it had been worth it. The noblewoman’s jaw dropped in awe, her face falling open like a fully bloomed peony.
Never had there been such beauty.
The man’s moniker was the Red Moon.
She had thought it childishly trite, assuming a man’s beauty was all the same. The only time she had gasped at hair was at the golden locks of House Taylor. Yet the man’s curly silver hair was soft and dreamlike, like the moon in a clear autumn night.
In contrast, the pupils set within his sharp eyes were a vivid scarlet. A color that made one wonder how such a hue could exist, like drops of blood freshly beading upon a wound, yet sent chills down one’s spine.
“Ah—I really didn’t want to come to Richmond. Still, I suppose there was one good thing about it?”
Dressed in a loose tunic, he came and sat across from her, pulling his lips into a smile.
“Thank you for taking the trouble to come here.”
The noblewoman of petite, plump build opened her mouth, feeling as though she were spellbound with her eyes wide open.
“Ahem, indeed it was trouble. I’ve heard the rumors. A commoner man of outstanding beauty who leaps over noblewomen’s heads and is so capable that he rakes in money?”
“You flatter me.”
“Flattery, my foot. It’s only natural for a commoner to come running when a noble calls. They say if the information isn’t to your taste, you won’t even show that pretty face of yours? Even if you die a miserable death someday, you’ll have only yourself to blame, understand?”
Despite the noblewoman’s arrogant sneer, Eric merely smiled with his eyes curved into crescents. She crossed her arms, waggled her fingers, then gestured with her chin at her glass.
“Pour me a drink. I’m parched.”
Eric picked up the wine bottle with a smile.
“My drink comes at a rather steep price.”