TMWDS Chapter 9

She'd wondered why he'd bothered coming out to greet her in person—but it seemed someone had already stitched her injury and Nils together into an entertaining piece of gossip.

The content was probably not so far from the truth.

"Or did you go around badmouthing your own brother! Have you got sense in that head or not! Smearing filth on the family's own face, no less—"

Ionna, having reached the third-floor corridor, finally stopped walking.

She turned slowly and looked down at Hayden. He flinched visibly at that, then shut his mouth.

Ionna had never once spread word of who had struck her.

Nils was simply infamous enough as an inferiority-riddled fool that the rumor had spread on its own.

Ionna spoke as though mocking Hayden for coddling his disgraceful heir.

"Does erasing the mark on my face without a trace restore the family's honor?"

"……."

"So it's a household where you can strike someone, so long as word doesn't get out. I wonder who's smearing filth on the name Modrov right now."

At her pointed remark, Hayden cleared his throat to cover his fluster.

He tried to find something to say in his defense but couldn't come up with a reply that would restore his dignity.

"Well—because of Nils, both you and I are in quite a difficult spot. In two days we're meeting the Duke, and the face of the bride-to-be has ended up looking like this……"

She'd already run into the Duke that very morning, but Ionna kept it to herself and let her voice come out pained.

"If I go to meet him looking like this, isn't it possible the Duke, put off by this ridiculous state, might call off the match?"

Of course, Ionna knew Leroy wasn't the sort of man to do such a thing.

Here, "the sort of man to" meant one who treated the appearance of the woman at his side as a measure of his own success.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Hayden was very much "the sort of man to," and at the thought that his daughter might follow through on that threat right now, he grew thoroughly frightened.

'That block-headed chit couldn't know a man's heart if it bit her. She won't know how to play sweet on her own—I'll have to doll her up so she's at least bearable to look at before I send her out.'

The Duke was surely already plenty displeased about this forced match as it stood.

And if the bride-to-be turned up to their very first meeting with a bruised face on top of it—how great an insult would he take that to be?

If the other party used this as grounds to raise an objection, it could, in the worst case, run counter to the Imperial Household's own wishes.

Hayden forced his crumpled expression back into shape. A benevolent smile rose to his lips, and the corners of his eyes creased warmly.

Ionna watched that dramatic transformation with considerable interest.

"Ionna, that's taking the joke too far. Well—no wonder you got worked up over that wretch Nils. He's been careless and hot-tempered since he was small. Family's meant to cover each other's faults and coax each other along, and seeing you cut it off so coldly, like chopping a radish, well—it stung me a little, that's all."

Ionna only nodded, her expression indifferent.

"Seeing you go so far as to send even your maids away, courting inconvenience—I've been worried the whole time too. It was all out of concern for you that I felt so stifled about it, and if my clumsy way of showing it caused a misunderstanding, I'm sorry."

It was a tongue that told her plainly enough how he'd clung to the Crown all these years as a fawning, self-serving toady. His skill at dressing up his own past conduct was considerable.

Not that there was so much as an eyelash's worth of sincerity in it, of course.

"There's nothing for you to apologize for, Father."

Ionna answered in a mild voice.

At that, Hayden brightened as though relieved.

"Then—"

"Wasn't it Nils who struck me? So it's Nils who ought to come and apologize himself—not Father, who did nothing wrong here. That would be the proper order of things."

"Ionna! Nils had his teeth broken! Wouldn't it be better for both you and Nils to let this settle here!"

"How can the matter be settled when the two of us who are actually involved haven't reconciled? If there's fault on either side, you apologize to each other and untangle it."

Ionna countered, her tone innocently puzzled, as though she genuinely couldn't understand.

Unable to find a rebuttal, Hayden ground his teeth.

After steadying his breath for a moment, Hayden finally threw up both hands.

"If Nils comes and apologizes to you himself, will you truly reconcile with him? ……And take your maid back in as well?"

"Why wouldn't I."

"……Go wait in the study first. I'll go fetch Nils."

Ionna said she understood and went quietly down the stairs.

She heard Hayden blow air out through his nose as though his pride had been wounded, but for now, she only laughed at it inwardly.

She was about to be treated to something entertaining, and she had no intention of ruining it by being impatient.

Thinking about it, the whole thing was absurd.

Why would that stubborn tyrant lower his head first over something as trivial as showing a little injury?

Ionna was a woman who didn't consider the mark on her face any fault of her own, which was exactly why Hayden's fuss over it struck her as merely ridiculous.

Hayden seemed to have taken it differently—but what Ionna had actually tried to hide, however clumsily, with her makeup wasn't really the injury. It was her disgraceful family.

"If the Duke found out, he'd probably think this household was even more exhausting."

Ionna murmured with a short laugh and opened the door to the study.

'Come to think of it, this is where I first realized I'd gone back in time.'

Ionna looked around the room with fresh eyes and slowly took a seat.

Because it was a similar arrangement, she hadn't fully registered it at the time—but every piece of furniture she'd replaced after becoming head of the household had reverted entirely to its previous owner's taste.

Ionna leaned back against the chair, settling her uncomfortably bristling nerves.

She'd been waiting for some time when a sudden shout rang out from beyond the wall.

"Fadher, I reawy hade thith! Why thould I, no, wouldn' it be even better if the wedding got called off!"

It seemed Hayden had failed to persuade his son with gentle words.

Perhaps realizing kind words alone weren't going to work, Hayden ended up raising his own voice as well.

"Shut your damn mouth, you clown. I told you, all you have to do is apologize and it's done—what's so hard about that, that you have to carry on like this?"

"Fadher!"

"You keep disappointing me like this! At this rate I'd honestly rather put Yvonne in your place!"

"H-heh, heh……. Thath too much."

Along with the graceless sound of Nils sniveling, footsteps drew steadily closer.

It seemed he needed time to calm himself, because it was only after a moment that they opened the door and came in.

Sitting across from Ionna, Nils kept his mouth shut tight and only glared at her. At that, Hayden shot Nils a warning look.

Reluctantly, Nils spoke.

"Thorry."

"Sorry for what? You left that part out."

At Ionna's indifferent counter, Nils's expression flared with resentment.

But under Hayden's silent pressure, Nils's temper eventually deflated.

Nils muttered, his face considerably wounded in pride.

"Fer raithin' m' han wivout leave...... thorry."

"There, see, Nils is reflecting on it properly, isn't he. Ionna."

Judging this was as far as things could go, Hayden hurriedly cut in, casting himself as mediator.

"Didn't you say a moment ago, if there's fault on either side, you apologize to each other and untangle it? So you go on and say you're sorry too. And let's put this matter to a clean close right here."

For a father to personally step in and broker reconciliation, with his eldest son's very teeth broken, was, in Hayden's own accounting, a considerable concession.

Not that she had any real intention of apologizing properly to a creature like Nils, of course.

Crossing her legs in an easy posture, Ionna went on, breezy and casual.

"Wasn't tryin' to, but well, ain't that a shame it hurt, Nils. Should've just dodged it, then. But you're the one who was wrong first, aren't you."

Ignoring Nils's face slowly flushing red, Ionna gave a light puff of breath over her fingernails.

There wasn't actually any dust sitting on them, but she knew for certain this was a posture that drove the other party thoroughly up the wall.

It was, after all, exactly the attitude Nils himself had always worn whenever he'd had to make some public apology.

"Ionna, what kind of attitude is that just now! Is this a time for that sort of joke!"

"I did apologize just as you wanted, didn't I. Well, if there was something lacking in it, Nils should be generous enough to understand, being the elder here."

Calmly deflecting Hayden's scolding, Ionna smiled crookedly.

She hadn't quite realized it before, but mimicking Nils's own hooligan act turned out to be rather convenient, and even fun.

Look at those mouths hanging open in disbelief. Wasn't this the most entertaining sight she'd seen in her life.

Unable to bear it any longer, Nils shot up out of his seat right on cue.

"Thith—thith is what I get for going eathy on you, no thense of your plath at all……!"

Ionna looked up at him for a moment with a flat, level gaze.

Turning to Hayden, she said, as though genuinely regretful:

"It seems Nils truly has no intention of reconciling with me…… What should we do about this, Father?"

She could feel Hayden grinding his teeth behind his closed lips.