TMWDS Chapter 17

Ionna had already known what would happen if she told them she meant to visit the Count's estate on the anniversary of the Countess's death.

The Count and all his children would band together, most likely, to drive her out.

But their fury would end up landing on their father regardless.

He was, after all, a man who'd kept another woman even while his wife lay dying. His children would be forced to relive their old grievances whether they wanted to or not.

"Come to think of it, I was out of it and didn't even get you anything to drink. It's cold out—you want some tea before you go?"

Fleur asked, her manner considerably softer now.

The offer she'd just received was interesting enough on its own, but there was something rather satisfying, too, about the fact that this stiff knight had bothered to use honorifics with her, to extend her that much courtesy.

"That won't be necessary. You seem quite tired—we'll be on our way, so please, rest easy."

Ionna, of course, declined the offer politely.

Fleur had expected as much, and rose at once to see the two of them out.

They stepped outside to considerably warmer farewells than they'd received on their first visit.

Mindful of listening ears, neither of them spoke a word until they'd left the building entirely.

Evening must have been drawing near; the streetlamps were beginning to flicker on, one by one.

Leroy, who had been following Ionna in silence, spoke up abruptly.

"That talk of becoming head of the household—was that sincere?"

"Only if the Count and Nils turn against each other do I stand a chance."

"That's too troublesome and too dangerous a scheme to run for someone else's benefit. If you told me you actually wanted the headship for yourself, I'd take your proposal more seriously."

"Then in the end, after all your deliberation, you'd refuse. You wouldn't want to take the gamble of handing power to your enemy's own hands."

Her words were true, so Leroy fell silent.

Her offer to hand over her entire inheritance was clearly outlandish—but without it, there was no reason for him to help her seize control of her house in the first place.

"Then why? What reason could you have to do all this, betraying your liege in the process?"

At last, Leroy pulled the question he'd been carrying the whole time out into the open.

The other party had offered him arguments so thin they hardly seemed like an attempt at persuasion.

No—she'd explained the method in full, but never once revealed the motive.

Leroy looked at Ionna with an expression that demanded an answer.

She hesitated a moment before speaking.

"I've come to learn, rather late, that the person I once served with such loyalty wasn't worth it. That's all."

That she'd come to learn she'd been loyal to someone unworthy of it.

The answer was vague, but it lent a certain conviction to Leroy's assumption that she'd had a change of heart after being betrayed by the Crown Prince.

Did she intend to keep whatever had happened between her and the Crown Prince hidden to the very end?

If that was the case, then her secretive manner made a certain kind of sense.

Leroy found himself recalling, unbidden, the Crown Prince's face as he'd declared he meant to keep the woman he loved hidden away forever.

To have loved a man that vile—how foolish could a person be?

And to try to destroy herself over having been betrayed by a man like that—that was foolish in equal measure.

By this reasoning, he stood to gain a great deal—and yet Leroy caught himself hoping, absurdly, that she'd never had to go through anything of the sort at all.

"…Then you'd best reconsider it after all. A thing you mean to give your whole life to deserves long thought."

If only to keep from ruining her own life any further, she needed to be more careful.

At Leroy's counsel, Ionna answered without the slightest hesitation.

"Even if I were given that time, I'd still choose you."

Naturally, Leroy found this thoroughly absurd.

He asked, as if to frighten her off the notion.

"Even if I told you I don't trust you?"

"Trust between spouses matters, certainly—but at least where you're concerned, I don't think I need to be so greedy about it."

"Why is that?"

"Because no matter how much you might suspect me of being some filthy spy for the Crown Prince, I know you're not the kind of man who'd betray the woman he'd made his wife."

Leroy was seized, then, by a genuine bewilderment. He'd never done anything to earn that sort of assessment from her.

He hadn't even decided yet whether he meant to accept this marriage proposal or refuse it.

No—to be more honest, his mind had already tipped decidedly toward the latter.

He could hardly go bowing his head first to the Imperial family, who were practically his house's mortal enemy.

Leroy's decision to meet with Ionna at all had been driven, purely, by personal curiosity.

And yet Ionna's behavior, rather than satisfying that curiosity, had only inflated it considerably.

Leroy stopped where he stood.

A thought crossed his mind, sudden and unbidden.

In exchange for this reckless, excessive trust she'd handed him—couldn't he at least pretend to believe it, for a little while?

"Earlier, you asked how much I was willing to invest to test your sincerity."

"Yes."

"This time I'll ask. How much would it take to test yours?"

It was a question he'd waved off entirely before, without so much as listening. Unlike his own coldness then, Ionna answered his question in earnest.

"Roughly a hundred thousand gold should do it, I'd think. Not that it would ever come to that, but even then, you'd suffer no loss—House Modrov is preparing precisely that sum as my dowry."

It was far too large a sum simply to hand over as a test of someone's sincerity.

But if it meant securing House Modrov in exchange, there could hardly be a luckier gamble to make.

Ionna had said he'd suffer no loss, but if the venture failed, she'd surely refuse the dowry as well—which made the condition essentially meaningless.

Perhaps that, too, had been said purely to set his mind at ease.

Ionna added, looking at him with confident eyes.

"Call it a bet where I've put up my own bride-price as the stake."

That evening, Ionna returned safely to the Count's residence, escorted home by the Duke.

Contrary to what everyone had assumed—that he'd resent having been forced into this meeting—the Duke had shown remarkable respect toward his prospective bride.

He'd even announced, before leaving, that he intended to come see her again.

At this, Count Modrov breathed a sigh of relief—though the outcome hardly satisfied everyone in the household.

Yvonne's room, in particular, might as well have been in mourning.

At the news that Ionna had come home smiling, Yvonne wailed as though the world itself had ended.

"How's that bitch supposed to become a duchess? Has everyone lost their minds? Does any of this make sense to anyone?!"

Unable to contain her fury, Yvonne began flinging whatever she could get her hands on.

A piece of porcelain shattered and a fragment skimmed past the cheek of a nearby maid. The maid clapped a hand to her face at the sudden sting.

Catching sight of this, Yvonne's eyes flashed and she advanced on her.

"What's that face for now? Do I have to worry about your feelings too?"

"N-no, my lady. That's not it at all. I only—it's just that seeing you cry like this is so upsetting to me, that's all…"

"Right? You don't have any complaints about me, do you?"

At Yvonne's pressing, the maid nodded frantically.

But Yvonne didn't stop there—she thrust her face right up against the maid's.

"Go on, tell me. Is there anyone more pitiful than me? That girl who ruined our whole family doesn't get punished by heaven—no, she gets to live even better than I do. Nobody even knows there's filthy blood running in her. You understand? Do you have any idea how rotten I feel inside?"

"Everything you say is right, my lady. I'm angry too, but—I keep thinking of how you must feel, and I could never presume to know your feelings…"

The maid racked her brain trying to appease Yvonne, but her fear made it hard to get the words out properly.

At that, as if she'd been waiting for exactly this, Yvonne seized a fistful of the maid's hair.