TMWDS Chapter 13

“It's quite a sight, having such a fine pair together.”

As though hoping to erase the commotion that had come before, Count Modrov let out a loud, hearty laugh. Then he made an attempt to settle the matter.

“Well, then—shall we head inside…”

“Shall we go back outside, then?”

Ionna cut across the Count's words in a clear, ringing voice.

The Count's eyes widened for an instant, as if this had not been something arranged beforehand.

Leroy, too, had meant to talk things over in the parlor of the Count's residence, and found himself a little thrown.

Embarrassing to admit, but her entrance had left him briefly dazed—his mind gone blank for a moment.

She had been wearing an outdoor hat from the very moment she'd first appeared.

“The weather's fine—a trip outside wouldn't be a bad idea. Yonas, have the carriage prepared again.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

Thinking back on the commotion that had just occurred, he could more or less guess why she wanted to go outside.

Leroy decided, without comment, to fall in with her wishes.

They hadn't been in the entryway long, and the carriage was still waiting just outside the door.

Leroy asked to escort Ionna and led her out.

Count Modrov, looking flustered, trailed after them, but it only came together as the shape of them being seen off.

“I'll have her back before the sun sets. I'll see you again this evening, then.”

Leroy offered the Count a parting word, then climbed into the carriage after Ionna, unhurried.

Once Yonas had shut the door from outside and taken his seat beside the driver, they were ready to depart in short order.

The wheels picked up speed, and the carriage pulled quickly away in the direction opposite the Count's residence.

A brief silence settled in the sealed space.

Since Ionna showed no sign of explaining the situation, it was Leroy who spoke first.

“Is there somewhere in particular you'd like to go?”

At his question, Ionna blinked, as though only now coming back to herself.

She said,

“Somewhere on the outskirts known as a courting spot would do.”

Fortunately—or unfortunately—before Leroy could form any severe misunderstanding, Ionna added, of her own accord, the reason for the request.

“There may be watching eyes, so it would be best to go somewhere as close to open, level ground as possible.”

It was a voice too businesslike to belong to a woman who had come out to be looked over as a marriage prospect.

Then again, considering the true nature of their relationship, perhaps that was the fitting attitude to take.

Ionna and Leroy were a pair whose marriage had been arranged by someone else's will.

There had been no room for either of their own wishes to intrude on the matter. Especially not when the other party styled herself the Crown Prince's loyal hound.

And yet—why did he keep trying to read some other meaning into her?

“Is there a reason you insist on staying outdoors?”

Leroy asked, watching her steadily. Her answer, as before, was careful.

“Because I intend to say something that must not get out.”

“A message from the Crown Prince, I take it.”

“No. A personal matter.”

“……are you playing twenty questions with me now?”

Leroy asked, sounding thoroughly exasperated.

However he tried to piece together the scattered fragments of information in his head, he couldn't make out what she was really thinking.

And having no choice but to move entirely at her convenience in the meantime left him, inevitably, feeling stifled.

As if she understood his position, the woman offered a genuine apology.

“I'm sorry. It's the sort of subject where the atmosphere matters too.”

With nothing left to say, Leroy swallowed a sigh.

He knocked on the small window that opened to the driver's seat and said,

“……take us to the lake south of the old quarter.”

Even while addressing someone else, Leroy's eyes stayed fixed on Ionna.

Whether she had any complaint about the choice of destination or not, she only gazed out the window with a placid expression.

With her head turned slightly aside, the gauntness of her left cheek showed itself with unusual clarity.

The makeup had hidden the bruise flawlessly—but Leroy remembered, in precise detail, the mark buried underneath.

A work of her siblings, too, he'd heard.

Jealousy from the birth children over their adopted sister's talent. Not an uncommon thing.

Bullying that had probably begun in childhood, so early she likely couldn't even recall its start.

If there was one question left, it was why—now that she'd become a proper Imperial Knight in her own right—she still went on tolerating them.

Perhaps to her, even that much was nothing more than tiresome noise.

Just as she'd shown no distress at the unjust treatment poured over her, she sat now in this uncomfortable silence with the same stiff, upright bearing of a wooden doll.

Even the maid seated beside her had gone quiet as a mouse, giving the impression of little more than furniture.

So it was that when they reached their destination, and Leroy watched the two of them step down from the carriage, he felt an odd, almost unfamiliar sensation at the mere fact that they moved at all.

“If it isn't too rude to ask—could the two of us go on alone from here? There's something I need to discuss privately.”

Ionna, her dress straightened with the maid's help, asked a question he hadn't expected.

Send away his attendant.

For a moment he wondered, absurdly, whether she meant to attempt an assassination once they were alone together. There seemed to be more than enough room beneath the fullness of her skirt to conceal a sword.

“Very well.”

Leroy let out a short, humorless laugh at the absurd thought, and offered her his arm.

Ionna accepted his escort, looking relieved.

The two of them began walking slowly toward the lake.

Though hers was a profession more accustomed to doing the escorting herself, she took to the arrangement with surprising ease.

Because of that, Leroy found himself, without meaning to, recalling a man who remained behind her like a shadow.

“Let's not waste words. I hold that girl dear.”

When the Crown Prince had said this, in the privacy of their audience, Leroy understood at once exactly what he meant—but pretended not to, and deflected instead.

“Is there anyone alive who doesn't know Your Highness holds Lady Ionna dear?”

“Of course she's a loyal subject. But she's also a woman I keep close and treasure.”

“Giving a treasured woman over to another man—that's a cruel joke, Your Highness. Or else a rather poor taste in humor.”

At Rihardt's brazen declaration, Leroy sneered back, making no effort to hide the thorn in his voice.

He'd already been finding the marriage the man had unilaterally arranged troublesome enough. And now the Crown Prince, not satisfied with that, seemed set on committing an insult beyond bearing.

“This is how emperors typically keep their mistresses.”

“Duchess, no less—that's an excessive position to hand over to a mere mistress.”

Leroy gave a cold, mocking laugh. Rihardt spoke as if to set him at ease.

“I have no wish to make our relationship public. So House Hance's standing—the thing you're worried about—will be kept reasonably safe. For someone who wants his house's influence restored to what it once was, isn't that a fairly good bargain? You'd be gaining the backing of the man who'll soon be Emperor.”

In other words: in exchange for giving the Duchess's seat to the Crown Prince's lover, Leroy would gain the Imperial family's protection.

Rihardt spoke of it as though it were a thoroughly appealing proposal, but the thought that it was a repulsive bargain didn't change.

“However House Hance chooses to treat her, I won't involve myself in that at all. Only—she'll go on living, after the marriage, exactly as she has been. Not a shred different from her unmarried days.”

Leroy didn't answer. It occurred to him, out of nowhere, to wonder whether this was even a manner of arrangement the Crown Prince's lover herself had agreed to.

In the silence, Rihardt picked up a cigar with his thin fingers. He lit the end, and smoke soon spread in every direction.

Through the hazy smoke, Rihardt watched Leroy steadily and said,

“……I'm rather possessive, you see. If she ever marries, I'd want it to be to someone she could never truly be joined with.”

“…….”

“You’re not a man with the stomach to bed my woman, are you?”

There was a clear, unmistakable lust in the man's eyes as he said it.

Leroy understood, by instinct, that what he'd just glimpsed was the Crown Prince's greatest hidden secret.

This wasn't a reward, or some kind of gift, given to a beloved mistress.

The Crown Prince was trying to fasten shackles around his lover so she couldn't run.

He himself could never marry her—and so he meant to seal off her path to marriage before it could open elsewhere.

To choose the most suitable husband, the Crown Prince had even factored in whatever ill will Leroy might harbor toward the Imperial family.

Turning the conversation with the Crown Prince over in his mind, Leroy was slowly beginning to guess at what the woman before him meant to say now.

Probably something they'd need to align their stories on going forward—or else she meant to negotiate the terms of their life together after marriage.

The thought made the whole situation abruptly, deeply exhausting.

So when Ionna, who had by then stopped walking, turned to him and said what she said, Leroy thought for a moment he must be dreaming. Or else that he had, without realizing it, gone mad.

“Duke Leroy. I am formally proposing marriage. Please marry me. I will make certain you are happy.”

In his defense—anyone would have reacted the same way.