TMWDS Chapter 15

“……At the very least, it's clear she's been an excellent mistress to you.”

There was a faint note of admiration in Yonas's voice.

Marsha wondered at the reason for it, but wasn't given the chance to continue the conversation. In the distance, the figures of Ionna and Leroy were drawing near.

It had hardly been any time since the two had gone off to walk the lake—why were they back already?

Marsha left Yonas behind and hurried over to Ionna.

“My lady, your hat…”

“The wind took it, out to the lake.”

“We'll need to fix your hair up again, then. Come along, quickly into the carriage. And the two gentlemen, if you'd be so kind as to wait outside a moment.”

The wind must have been fierce; her carefully arranged hairstyle had already come undone.

Marsha hurried Ionna toward the carriage. Ionna followed obediently.

Yonas, having watched them go, turned his attention to his master.

Leroy stood some distance off, staring after the spot where Ionna had disappeared, his expression grave.

Yonas sidled up to him, feigning nonchalance, and asked,

"What did you two talk about, that you're making a face like you've seen a ghost?"

“Yonas.”

“Yes.”

“If a woman proposes marriage and offers her entire fortune as the price of it—how is a man meant to take that?”

Yonas was thrown by the absurdity of the hypothetical.

Of course, he had enough sense to read context, and so he could easily guess that his master was describing something he'd actually just experienced. Regardless of how nonsensical it sounded.

“……Did Lady Ionna say that to you?”

Yonas asked, sounding dazed.

Leroy only gave a short nod.

Yonas's reaction wasn't so different from Leroy's own had been earlier. He asked, sounding utterly dumbfounded,

“Why, in the world?”

“That, I don't know either.”

Leroy didn't bother explaining that she'd also declared she meant to become head of the family.

Her having offered to hand her personal fortune over to him entirely would already sound strange enough on its own.

That Ionna and the Crown Prince were lovers was, for now, a fact only he knew—so he hadn't expected a proper answer from the start, anyway.

“Honestly, could there be something wrong with her? Mentally, I mean?”

Yonas said abruptly, after a long stretch of turning it over in his mind.

He raked a hand roughly through his hair, adding grounds to his own suspicion.

“I mean, weren't we both thrown off before too, when she suddenly started putting on this act like she was being kind? Come to think of it, it's been odd since then. She looks normal enough on the outside, but she's the Crown Prince's right hand—who knows what's really going on with her. Having met her only twice, what could possibly—”

“No.”

“Huh?”

At Leroy's denial, Yonas asked back, looking blank.

Fixing his gaze on the figure beyond the small window, Leroy said again,

“It's not that we've only just met twice now.”

“Ah, you did say before that you'd already met her once, didn't you…”

Yonas trailed off, seeming to remember only now.

Focused on the fact he'd been reminded of, Yonas failed to dig any deeper into why his master had cut the thread of conversation the way he had. The topic naturally shifted to the past.

“When was that, though? Lady Ionna doesn't seem to remember it at all.”

“It was a long time ago. We weren't in any regular contact, so it's only natural she'd have forgotten.”

“……But you remember it, sir?”

Yonas narrowed his eyes, looking suspicious of something.

Just as he was about to press his master further—

The carriage door opened, and Ionna stepped out.

Perhaps thanks to a skilled hand, she looked considerably more composed now.

Ionna spoke in a voice as tidy as her appearance.

“Thank you for waiting.”

“It seems this wasn't the best choice of place for a proper conversation. If it's alright with you, shall we move indoors?”

“No—I think it would be best to end things here for today. You'll need time to think over the proposal I made, as well.”

Her manner was matter-of-fact. As though she'd finished her allotted portion of persuading him for the day.

A stubborn, prideful urge rose in Leroy, and he caught hold of her arm.

“There's also the option of talking further and coming to understand each other better. I told the Count I'd have you back by evening.”

“If you're worried about drawing criticism over such a short visit, there's no need. I'll be home in time for the evening as promised.”

“There is no circumstance in which I send home, unescorted, a lady I have taken out myself. Do you mean to make me out as a man who doesn't even know the first thing about common courtesy?”

At Leroy's question, Ionna looked somewhat taken aback.

She clearly hadn't expected him to hold her back this insistently.

But Leroy thought it was she who was being needlessly stubborn. If word got out that she hadn't been treated properly, it was she, not he, who would be the one to suffer for it.

“No, it's not that… I simply assumed you'd let me go. Since I made you such an unpleasant proposal.”

The moment Ionna finished speaking, Leroy felt a curious gaze prick the back of his neck.

Without turning around, he ordered Yonas to go wait by the carriage.

Perhaps because Ionna was present as well, Yonas obeyed without his usual grumbling.

Watching Yonas walk off, Ionna offered a compromise after a moment.

“In that case, shall we head back toward the city center for now? If you'll wait somewhere convenient, I'll come find you again once the time comes.”

“Is there really a need to go to such trouble, moving separately like that?”

She'd gone so far as to offer her entire fortune to this marriage, and yet she was reluctant to simply stay in his company.

He had only offered, after all, to see her home.

“I'll be visiting a place that wouldn't be appropriate for Your Grace to accompany me to.”

Ionna's explanation did nothing to improve Leroy's mood. It meant she'd intended, from the very start, to cut their meeting short and go somewhere else entirely.

Leroy looked at her for a long moment and said,

“Very well. It seems my distrust of you is only deepening.”

“I don't intend anything that would harm you, Your Grace.”

“If you don't mean to keep secrets from me, then tell me the truth. Where are you going?”

In the end, it was Ionna who stepped back first. She swallowed a troubled sigh and answered.

“I mean to go to Pasha Street.”

Had he heard that correctly. Was there any chance it was some other word with a similar sound.

Pasha—that was a district everyone knew for pleasure and vice.

Choosing to head there immediately after a matchmaking meeting was, to put it mildly, an unconventional choice of destination.

He'd thought that after her earlier proposal, nothing could surprise him further—a complete miscalculation, it turned out.

Leroy asked, clinging to a last shred of hope.

“……Is there some wholesome establishment there I'm unaware of?”

Only then did Ionna seem to realize her statement could be misread, and she let out a small “Ah.”

Perhaps wanting to give as respectable an impression as possible, she straightened, standing tall and upright. She said, as if to reassure him,

“Don't worry. I'm not going to meet a man. There's a woman there I need to see.”

Naturally, her answer did nothing at all to reassure Leroy.

Ionna's father, Hayden Modrov, was a man who, by any objective measure, offered nothing to earn a favorable opinion. His selfishness and opportunism were problems enough, but worse than either was his attitude toward marriage.

Even before his wedding, he'd left a long trail of affairs, and he hadn't slowed his dissolute habits after becoming a married man, either.

He went on seeing a great many women, and—perhaps inevitably—fathered children outside his marriage.

Ionna could have staked everything she had on the certainty that she wasn't the only hidden illegitimate child in House Modrov.

Hayden had kept mistresses without pause even while the Countess was still alive. It was only natural that his conduct grew more brazen after her death.

Even now, Hayden had a lover the entire household knew about.

It was precisely that woman Ionna was going to see.

“If it makes you uncomfortable, you're welcome to wait outside.”