“…What?”
“Do you intend to let people say that the old woman hoarded all these treasures out of greed and didn't give a single one to her granddaughter-in-law?”
“Madam, you know it is not like that.”
“What do you mean, it is not? If I give you something like this, would the pillars of Richmond Ducal Castle collapse? Or would Richmond's Blue Room disappear? Just what do you take me for, refusing every single thing I try to give you like some child who never received anything?”
Eliza's eyes flashed fierce and sharp as she pressed her.
“When I give you something, what did I tell you to do?”
“…….”
Grace bit the soft flesh inside her mouth. Then Eliza, who had deliberately opened her eyes wide and fierce, relaxed her expression, approached, and took Grace's hand.
“Just accept it. I give because I want to. I simply wish you would receive it gladly.”
At the warm touch, the warm voice, something in her chest felt as though it tingled again.
Grace lowered her eyes and moved her lips. But the words did not come easily, and several times she tried to speak only to stop. Unexpectedly, Eliza waited for her. Perhaps she was urging an answer. In the end, Grace succumbed to the gentle silence.
Grace raised her eyes to meet the old lady's wrinkled ones.
“Thank you.”
At that moment, the old tiger smiled. Then, as if she had been waiting only for this moment, she brought out the treasures and began to personally adorn Grace with them.
“Try this one on this time.”
“Oh my, how dazzling! Here, try this too! That's right, since this necklace is part of the set, this as well!”
“Ahahaha! Let's try this ring on this time! Yes, this is a design that looks prettier when a young one wears it.”
“You are still young even now, Madam.”
“Ahahahaha!”
The treasure-gifting lasted nearly two hours, and treasures amounting to half the collection were bestowed upon Grace.
But it seemed that was not the end. Just as Grace was about to leave the room, Eliza shouted as if she had just remembered something.
“Come back later when I call for you, understood?”
When Grace smiled awkwardly, Mrs. Isaac, who had followed her out, closed the door and whispered.
“You did well. For several days now, she has been choosing and rechoosing the jewels to give you, Miss.”
“…By the way, I thought I caught a glimpse of men's formal wear. Is His Grace trying on clothes today?”
At that, this time Mrs. Isaac laughed awkwardly.
“Yes…… that is the plan, but……”
Grace vaguely guessed the reason she trailed off and nodded to indicate she need say no more.
“It would be very good if you came at an appropriate time later, Miss.”
“As if my being there would make any difference.”
“It would.”
Mrs. Isaac opened her eyes wide and asserted firmly.
“It would make a difference.”
* * *
These past few days, Ares had come to earnestly reflect on what exactly “blood” was.
Had the personalities of successive emperors upon reaching thirty been so strikingly similar—as if stamped from the same mold, and unfavorably so—that historians had recorded their temperaments in the very first lines of the emperors' entries? He had always wondered why they had bothered to describe their personalities at all, but regrettably, he had come to understand in the worst possible way.
In other words, the personality descriptions must have been a kind of warning.
[The successive emperors generally carried out by the next day even what they had resolved overnight.]
Impatient beyond compare,
“Are you telling me it is still not done?! When will the ordered silk arrive?! Are you raising silkworms from scratch?!”
[Applying high and strict standards to all matters,]
Exasperatingly difficult to please,
“This won't do. I don't like it. It must feel bright yet weighty! How can chapel curtains be like this!”
[They never hesitated to speak blunt words to anyone.]
Quick to anger.
“Duke!!!”
When Eliza glared at Ares with the whites of her eyes showing and snapped at him, the maids including Mrs. Isaac gazed at the Duke with desperate eyes. If only he would just say he understood……
“What am I to try on again?”
Just as expected.
With a look as if her insides would burst, Eliza pointed at the clothes laid out beside Ares.
“That, the thing beside you, Duke!”
“I believe I have tried it on before.”
A drawling tone so befitting of a man picking his ear while speaking—it seemed the Queen's anger had reached its limit.
Eliza bit her teeth tightly and forced a smile.
“Mmph, 's 'cause y'haven't twied it on. Twy it on once an' come ouht. This ol' gwandmothah's cuwious. Hm?”
“(It's because you haven't tried it on, so try it on once and come out. This old grandmother is curious. Hmm?)”
Then Ares likewise refused to be outdone and smiled perfunctorily.
“Grandmother—I truly cannot tell the difference between this outfit and that one. Yes?”
“Your eyes…!! Ah……!”
What is the scariest thing in the world? It is shamelessness.
Eliza, so overcome by Ares's shamelessness that she sank into lamentation, closed her eyes; Mrs. Isaac hurriedly stepped forward to put out the fire.
“Madam. His Grace has already tried on three sets of clothes. How exhausting it must be for him. Please rest a while and return later……”
“Why return later. I shall decide on this one.”
“…….”
Mrs. Isaac looked at him resentfully, but regardless, Ares had no intention of changing into yet another outfit that looked the same whether he rolled forward or backward.
For several days now, no matter how he thought about it, he had been doing so many things that were a waste of time that his patience had long since reached bottom.
Eliza slowly opened her eyes and glared at Ares. But Ares, too, could endure no longer and met her gaze without yielding.
“…….”
“…….”
As the ladies-in-waiting and maids, sensing what was to come, sighed simultaneously, the old tiger finally exploded.
“Fine, then do as you please!!”
“What have I done as I pleased until now?”
“My marriage?!”
“Precisely.”
“…Ha! What did you say?!”
It was the moment when two tigers bared their claws and teeth at each other in earnest.
“Um… Madam.”
Mrs. Rexton called out to Eliza on behalf of the terrified maid. When Eliza snapped her gaze toward her, Mrs. Rexton spoke with a troubled expression.
“The jeweler has arrived.”
And so the pitiful and unfortunate jeweler and gemcutter were thrown between the two angry tigers like prey.
Merely entering the room with the grand chandelier was overwhelming enough, but the towering Duke suppressed the other's spirit with his mere presence, and the old lady seated across from him was no less imposing. Moreover, both of them seemed so distracted by the jewels laid out, staring so fixedly that it was enough to make one faint from the pressure.
By the time the merchant wiped sweat from his palm with a handkerchief for the fifth time, fortunately, a savior appeared.
“Madam. Your Grace.”
The moment a spring-breeze-like call was heard, the faces of everyone in the room brightened. When they turned their heads sharply toward the sound, they felt as though they were seeing light for the first time.
“I am sorry to be late.”
The maids and ladies-in-waiting who had been anxious during the clash of the tigers sensed a fragrance that could not possibly be felt from Grace's gentle voice.
“Thank goodness.”
One maid mouthed, and her colleague beside her also let out a sigh of relief.
The young lady who would soon become the young madam of Richmond was the only person who could gently move between the two unrelentingly fierce masters.
“Grace, come here.”
When Eliza, who had been radiating coldness, affectionately called for Grace as if she had never done so, even the ladies-in-waiting felt like cleaning out their ears. But on the other hand, they understood her change in demeanor. It was because they, too, could not take their eyes off Grace as she walked in gracefully.
Perhaps because she had been fixing her makeup and hair to match her dress, unlike earlier, her hair was swept up and she wore light makeup. Her slightly more defined features and the healthy color in her cheeks made her look like a freshly bloomed flower.
At Eliza's gesture, Grace approached and sat beside her. Eliza's dark eyes sparkled as she looked Grace over.
“As expected, I knew an updo like this would suit you!”
“The maids are quite skilled.”
“When I married, I had my hair done in the very same style as yours now.”
“You must have been truly beautiful. Of course, you still are.”
“What was that? Ahahahaha!”
Eliza burst into a hearty laugh as if she had never emanated coldness, and in that time, Grace glanced toward Ares and offered a light curtsy. He merely looked at her with a somewhat stiff expression, as if his mood were foul or uncomfortable.
Then Eliza pointed at the jewels the merchant had laid out with a bright face.
“Let us choose.”
As she did so, Eliza conveyed a strong will to Grace with smiling eyes.
'I have already received too much'—forbidden.
'Madam'—forbidden.
'It is enough'—forbidden.
Then she picked up the large diamond ring that had caught her eye.