Hazel Chernin’s mansion had been constructed so that one could travel to her place of business, a café, via an underground passage. Though such special construction had cost an astronomical sum, it was something easily possible for the current Hazel.
By the time they had nearly reached the café through the underground passage, a roar pierced through the floors. Gale removed his glasses, handed them to the person following behind, and quickly ascended the stairs.
“You lowly wretch!! What did you say, huh?! I told you to say it again!!!”
At the cracked voice unique to a boy whose voice had yet to finish breaking, the faces of those nearby turned deathly pale.
“Sob, sob, I beg your forgiveness, Your Highness. I beg your forgiveness.”
The woman prostrated flat on the floor wept in terror and begged, but Jake Deccan’s expression only turned crueler.
“It seems lowly things have lowly heads as well. You don’t understand a word I’m saying.”
Jake shook his head with a sneer, then suddenly grabbed the woman’s chin hard. His brown eyes overflowed with madness.
“What? My hair color is very beautiful?”
‘Your Highness’s hair color is intense and lovely like the sunlight at dusk. The reddish hue is truly beautiful.’
The woman, who had never dreamed that such a light compliment would bring about this result, hoped only that this moment would pass safely.
“They say lowly things only understand after a beating.”
Still gripping her chin, Jake looked around before picking up a nearby liquor bottle.
“Ah, oh, Your Highness, Your Highness! You mustn’t. You mustn’t……!”
As the attendant assisting him cried out in alarm, Count Chernin’s butler, Gale, arrived.
“Your Highness, the Crown Prince.”
Gale, having quickly arrived before Jake, bowed politely at the waist.
“I heard you experienced something unpleasant. I am truly sor—”
Slap!!
Jake released the woman and struck Gale’s cheek with that hand. As Gale straightened himself, the hand flew again.
Slap!!
After striking the same cheek repeatedly in that manner for some time, the breathless Jake kicked Gale hard in the knee. Gale, fallen to the floor, did not rise but instead bowed his body and pressed his head to the ground before Jake.
“The fact that you came means you’re telling me to stop about here, isn’t that it? Right?”
“Please forgive me, Your Highness.”
“You receive me as a guest when this is the best you can do managing your inferiors?!”
“Such an unsightly incident will not happen again. Please forgive me, Your Highness.”
“How dare you mention my hair color!!!”
The boy, who had been spewing venom, tried to stomp hard on Gale’s hand but hesitated. Since after all, he was Count Chernin’s butler; it would be somewhat troublesome if his fingers broke.
In the end, Jake tilted the bottle he was holding above Gale’s head. The golden liquid flowing from the bottle’s mouth soaked the back of Gale’s head and streamed down to pool on the floor.
“Manage your subordinates well. Understand?”
Once the bottle was empty, Jake carelessly tossed it aside and turned around. From behind, Jack Sachsen, who had been watching the entire scene, also rose from his seat.
As Jake was heading out through the VIP passage, he stopped in front of a mirror decorated with elaborate mosaics. In it stood a boy with the red hair unique to House Sachsen and the lowly brown eyes.
“Your Highness…….”
“Why. Are you afraid I’ll shatter the mirror? Afraid blood will fly?”
Jake, who had spoken sharply and sarcastically, tilted his head toward his cousin who had been quiet all day.
“Rather than me, I think you should be worried that our dear cousin might break.”
“…….”
“What news did you hear earlier that made you suddenly so quiet?”
At his pale younger cousin’s sarcasm, Jack smiled sharply.
“It was nothing, Your Highness.”
“If it’s interesting news, I’d like to know as well?”
“There was simply someone I was looking for, and I heard they were found, that is all.”
Jake surveyed Jack with curious eyes, but Jack only gave an enigmatic smile and did not answer.
Shortly after, when Jake boarded the carriage, the attendant finally sighed as if relieved. At the same time, the forced smile that had lingered on Jack’s face vanished without a trace.
Boarding the Sachsen carriage and crossing over to the First District, flames of foreboding surged within his chest. The news delivered while enjoying leisure at the café had been more than enough to turn his stomach inside out.
“The one who caught Grace’s eye is Duke Richmond……?”
He was already complicated and furious enough from sending a marriage proposal to Rosette Taylor. He had been awaiting only the day he would capture Grace and her man, so what now?
His tightly clenched fist turned white.
＊ ＊ ＊
The first snow falling heavily over the Richmond ducal estate began to lessen around midnight, and within the estate, piled high with fine snow, the lights did not go out all night. With the families that had manipulated Richmond for over a decade, including Count Lynnco’s household, having returned to secular life, the urgent matters to be handled were mountainous.
The bureaucrats, overcoming fatigue while processing mountains of documents, habitually craned their necks to look at the large desk.
“…….”
What a pity. Such a pity.
These past few days, whenever they craned their necks like this to stare at the desk, a young lady had always been sitting there upright, preoccupied with document processing. Green eyes sparkling with intellect were calm yet somehow warm, and when approached because something was needed, she would listen without ever frowning. Obtaining meaningful answers was a given.
However……,
“!!”
The bureaucrat who met eyes with Ares jerked in surprise and quickly ducked his head. His heart pounded so fast that the slight drowsiness creeping in vanished completely.
Currently, seated at the desk where Grace had sat, was a pitch-black panther. Compared to Grace, who had been the very model of proper posture, the Duke’s posture was the very model of indulgence, debauchery, and insolence. For one thing, he sat at a perfect right angle to the desk, using it as an armrest of sorts for his right arm, while leaning back leisurely in the chair with his long legs crossed.
Despite his posture looking extremely insincere, he quickly and accurately grasped the documents. And he stared fixedly at the bureaucrats standing awkwardly because they didn’t dare ask.
Are you asking because you’re incompetent and don’t know this?
With exactly that kind of look.
Then such words naturally popped out.
“I will look into it.”
What else could they do but do it.
The bureaucrats, struck by uncontrollable sorrow, harbored the resentful thought, ‘Won’t you call Lady Grace for us.’ But soon realizing that Grace was actually a foreigner and someone with no authority whatsoever in Richmond, they sank into even greater sorrow.
Meanwhile, Ares was simply exasperated by the way the bureaucrats kept craning their necks and staring at him from everywhere. Their thoughts were plainly visible.
“I suppose you kept asking when Grace was here.”
“Oh, don’t even mention it. It was so bad that I went around telling them to stop asking and just handle it themselves.”
As Lady Rexton, who was pouring tea into an empty teacup, answered with a smile, Ares’s gaze toward the bureaucrats grew even fiercer. But that too was only for a moment; he turned his eyes to the work he had to do.
It was a situation where Joseph’s report that he had taken control of Steel Gorge had been delivered via falcon. After confirming that the relevant documents had been properly drafted and affixing his seal, Crimson appeared. As he appeared, the stench of blood rushed in. It was because he had still been unable to remove his armor.
“I have confirmed there are none. I have stationed knights in the office and Chandelier’s room.”
Crimson, who reported that nothing unseen was present, added in a very low voice.
“Andrew is in front of the young lady’s room.”
“…….”
“Shall I deploy one more?”
Ares nodded to indicate he should, and Crimson saluted with a disciplined posture before leaving the room. After he left, Ares lowered his eyes to his work. However, this time he couldn’t concentrate on the documents easily.
Like waves ceaselessly surging toward land, Grace surged in again.
‘Marry me.’
In the corridor where snow poured down like a lie, he had worried that his heartbeat might somehow reach her ears. Grace had been speechless with her eyes widened in surprise, and Ares realized for the first time in his life that someone’s silence could strangle him.
Unable to bear looking at that pale, fair face, he had stared pointlessly at the snowman and added words that sounded like excuses.
‘You won’t be an obstacle to retrieving Taylor. Since it’s a marriage that will be annulled anyway.’
The person Grace would hold the wedding with would be Walter Richmond, so the moment his identity was revealed not to be Walter but Ares Deccan, the two people’s marriage would become void.
Though the words he had spat out pricked somewhere in his chest like thorns, a detached voice of assent was heard.
‘I suppose so.’
When he suddenly raised his eyes, Grace was looking up at the sky pouring down snow. Then she turned her head toward him, who hadn’t even realized he had stopped breathing, and like snow that fell lightly yet ultimately overwhelmed everything, she bore down upon him.
‘When day breaks, let’s go to obtain the Dowager Duchess’s permission.’
At that monotonous and bland decision without even a handful of warmth, Ares was convinced.
That even kissing his lips without hesitation had been just this degree of blandness to her, and that she had probably already forgotten.
In the end, Ares covered his eyes and laughed.