Chapter 59
“Four years?!”
Eneka shrieked again.
“Really? It’s true? That long? How can you talk about something like this so calmly?”
“Yes. If it weren’t true, how else would I have the young master’s watch?”
Eneka looked devastated by the shock. She clutched her own head, muttered with her face buried in her knees, then shot up and paced in circles.
She lifted her head to the sky and repeated the motion several more times. Once she’d calmed down a bit, she came back to Luirene’s side and asked in a voice heavy with gravity.
“So does that mean you… you’re going to be the Marchioness in the future?”
“What?”
Luirene burst out laughing. After all that time waiting for her to collect her thoughts, this was the question she got. She felt the tension drain out of her.
“This isn’t the time to laugh! I’m asking you seriously.”
“Who knows? I certainly don’t. Does anyone in this world exist who can guarantee their own future?”
“Still, being together for over four years… that means it’s a relationship with real commitment. It’s incredible. I never suspected a thing.”
“It stretched long because the young master was away studying. The time we’ve actually spent together isn’t much.”
“You two became… that kind of thing before the young master left to study abroad?”
“Yes. You’ve seen the scar on my leg, right?”
“Well… I happened to see it by chance.”
“That scar—it came from the time the Marchioness nearly found out about my relationship with the young master. The Marchioness caned me.”
“What…? Something like that happened? And you still weren’t thrown out of the mansion?”
“No. I managed to cover it up somehow. But that incident is what ultimately led to the young master leaving to study abroad.”
“Don’t tell me… the reason the young master went away to study was because of you?”
“You could say that.”
“What the hell… Now you’re starting to sound like the protagonist of some novel.”
The protagonist of a novel. Luirene felt strange.
“I’d rather not become a story.”
“Give it up. Once you get tangled up with nobles, a peaceful life is out of the question.”
They looked at each other and snickered. After the laughter faded, Eneka spoke first.
“It’s a secret from everyone else, right?”
“Eneka.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t tell a soul.”
“……..”
“I’m the type who pays back a debt, no question.”
Decoding that those words really meant so you can set your mind at ease, Luirene finally burst into a huge laugh. There was a limit to how clumsy someone’s way of expressing things could be—Eneka truly had no knack for it whatsoever.
Eneka’s face went red and she exploded, ‘I’m being dead serious here, why are you laughing?’ Even as she raged, Luirene somehow felt closer to her than before. It seemed like she’d have no more worries about the bookstore.
* * *
That same afternoon, Hitaon was attending Broil Pesche’s engagement celebration.
The celebration was held in the banquet hall of the Pesche County estate. The invited guests were much the same as those he’d met at the riding competition. Today, Hitaon responded to the social gathering with a dutiful attitude. It was Broil’s moment in the spotlight, and unlike at the riding competition, there was no corner to slip away to under the pretext of tending to a horse.
The table prepared for the guests was delicately adorned with white lilies and yellow freesias. The walls and ceiling matched the tone, decorated in white and silver, and the voluminously billowing curtains swayed gently in the breeze.
The interior, decked in white and pale light, felt almost like a wedding hall. Across the room, Broil—arm in arm with his fiancée, making the rounds to greet people—caught his eye and flashed a cheeky wink.
‘That maid you were seeing before you left to study? I sorted that out long ago. Gave her a generous sum and sent her off to the outskirts. No point keeping someone like that close—trouble down the line. Messing around with fire has its season, doesn’t it?’
Messing around with fire.
So he kept one woman to mix bodies with for pleasure and another to stand beside at a chaste wedding ceremony? Why not combine the two into one? There was only one reason. A simple lack of heart. Hitaon couldn’t relate to such a way of thinking.
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