TMWDS Chapter 27

“…….”

“If you keep avoiding me like this, I'll start to think there's some kind of problem between us.”

Unwilling to further wound his own pride with excuses, Hayden finally asked, curt.

“What business do you have.”

“That, I'd rather discuss quietly, inside.”

Saying this, Ionna pushed the door open with her palm.

The door, its lock already broken, swung inward without resistance.

“……Come in.”

Permitting her entry with an expression that plainly wished otherwise, Hayden went in first.

Ionna followed behind him, quietly taking in her surroundings.

The room was twice the size of the one she currently occupied.

As the master's quarters, the light was excellent and the view just as fine—and, more than anything, it occupied the most convenient position in this needlessly sprawling estate, offering easy access to anywhere else in the house.

Ionna felt an odd pang of loss.

'This used to be my room.'

Everything about how she lived and what she used had changed completely from the days when she'd been head of a house and wife to a wealthy man. She'd never thought of herself as particularly attached to such things—but losing something she'd once had felt, somehow, different from simply not having it.

Even a moment ago, breaking a perfectly good door hadn't really been about intimidating Hayden.

It was only that the sight of him walking so naturally into this room had grated on her.

'I should rein it in a little.'

Until she'd accomplished what she'd come for, she needed to treat Hayden as her superior, at least in form. It wouldn't do for him to derail things out of pointless resentment.

“Well then, what is it you want to say.”

Hayden opened with a tone that all but announced he wanted her to say her piece and leave.

An arrogant attitude—but reaching an agreement of sorts, for once, felt oddly welcome.

Ionna answered without delay.

“Nils sent an assassin after me.”

He hadn't come yet, but he would soon.

Settling her expression into something appropriately grave, Ionna composed her face.

The effect, apparently, was convincing enough that Hayden's eyes went wide.

“W-what did you say?”

Hayden's expression, as he asked again, looked almost bewildered.

It was, admittedly, an unreasonably heavy topic to drop first thing in the morning.

Ionna spelled it out again, slowly, so he could follow.

“Exactly what I said. Nils is trying to kill me. The reason, more or less—I imagine my recent success stung him. And getting rid of a rival, while he was at it.”

“W-wait, wait. What kind of nonsense is this. Nils sent an assassin after you? Someone actually came after you? And how did you even find out it was Nils who sent him?”

A question that all but announced he was searching for an exit.

Ionna trampled the attempt with calm authority.

“I caught him and dealt with him myself. That's how I traced it back to who sent him.”

The color drained from Hayden's face.

Even to Hayden, his son struck him as more than capable of something like this.

Nils had plenty of ways to raise money for a hired killer. He was always sneaking into Hayden's study or storerooms to pilfer things worth selling—hidden cash, worthless land no one would miss, old jewelry long out of use. The means were endless.

“I-I'm sorry, Ionna. I raised him wrong. How could he do this to his own sister, damn it—”

Hayden, desperate to see Ionna married off safely and win favor with the Imperial family, immediately bent his stiff neck.

Even as he did, his mind was spinning at full speed to find a way out of this.

He needed to quietly rein in his son before he did something even more absurd—which meant, first, keeping Ionna's mouth shut.

He raised his head sharply.

“R-right. If you've come to me, there must be something you want in exchange. I'll give you whatever it is. Go on, tell me.”

The way he handled the situation was undeniably efficient—but there was one obvious thing missing from it.

Concern for his daughter.

Even knowing his daughter had come within a hair of dying, Hayden's worry ran entirely toward Nils's welfare.

'Not one degree different from what I expected.'

Ionna's family had abandoned her so long ago it predated even her death—she felt no fresh betrayal at this. Dredging up such stale feelings to pity herself over would have been too tiresome, too many times repeated.

Too weary even to point it out, Ionna went straight to business.

“Glad to see we can talk quickly. What I want is…….”

“What you want is……?”

Hayden leaned toward her, upper body bent low, waiting for her verdict.

Having sufficiently taken in the pathetic sight, Ionna held his gaze and said,

“Formally declare Nils heir to House Modrov. Officially.”

“……What?”

At Hayden's dumbstruck reaction, Ionna nearly laughed.

“It's obvious why Nils did it. He's not even acknowledged as heir, let alone made count—and here I am becoming a duchess. Of course he'd be resentful.”

With the marriage of a lifetime approaching, I'd rather not die young over some misunderstanding that I'm after this one little house of yours.

Ionna added this in an unhurried voice.

Even so, Hayden remained frozen, still unable to grasp what to do.

Ionna, exercising her patience, supplied him a reason he could accept.

“If I use this incident as leverage to demand something significant, you'll spend your time wondering what hidden agenda is behind it. Isn't that right?”

“Hm, ahem…….”

“I'm just a blade for hire. Scheming's not my line. I don't want to be murdered out of nowhere without even knowing why I'm dying. If you make sure Nils never pulls something like this again, I won't push the matter any further.”

Faced with generosity he hadn't dared hope for, Hayden failed to produce a proper answer.

By his own reasoning, he simply couldn't make sense of Ionna's request.

It was a long while before Hayden's mouth finally opened.

“……You want me to name the son who tried to kill you as my heir?”

“Naturally, you'll need to lecture him properly, so he behaves in a way that fits the weight of the position.”

Ionna replied as though she'd been waiting for the question.

Hayden asked again, thinking to himself how strangely smooth his daughter's tongue had gotten, when she'd always spoken like some kind of machine before.

“You…… really have no ambitions toward the head-of-house seat yourself?”

“Were you planning to give it to me if I wanted it?”

At Ionna's incredulous question, Hayden cleared his throat and turned away.

Of course, he had no intention whatsoever of handing the house over to Ionna.

The only reason he hadn't formally settled Nils as heir until now was that it made his troublesome son easier to manage. Keeping him in the ambiguous position of a mere member of the household made it easier to smooth over whatever messes he made.

That ambiguous treatment was exactly what had fed Nils's inferiority complex toward Ionna.

“Half the reason Nils torments me has always been that inferiority. The other half is my blood—and that's not something I can do anything about.”

At the uncomfortable reference, Hayden turned his head away as if he hadn't heard.

Whatever filthy-blood insults he'd hurled at Ionna over the years, he couldn't entirely ignore the fact that her birth had, after all, originated with him.

“Last time you shouted at me so fiercely I got heated and said some rather unhinged things, but I'll be leaving this house soon anyway—what would any of that even matter? If it's a seat I can't have, better to hand it over quickly and shed the pointless suspicion.”

At the plausible explanation, the suspicion clouding Hayden's face gradually eased.

Come to think of it, it wasn't so strange, really, that Ionna would make a proposal like this.

Difficult as her attitude had been lately, she was, fundamentally, an obedient sort by nature.

'Well—she is about to become a duchess. The way she's been treated has honestly been too much, considering.'

Having attained a standing incomparable to before, if the poor treatment continued, it made sense she couldn't hold her tongue forever.

Ionna's pride, carefully kept low all this time, rising to meet the sky was hardly a welcome development—but it wasn't something he could suppress forever, either.

Better, then, to reset the relationship amicably here, while he still could. It would work in his favor too.

Having settled his thoughts, Hayden answered in a gentle voice.