Seeing Clyde standing there with a slightly cocked posture, Beatrice subtly avoided his gaze.
“Ah, right now, I’m a bit….”
“A bit?”
“A bit tired….”
As she trailed off while blatantly massaging her shoulder, Clyde naturally picked up her words.
“Why wouldn’t you be? In order to investigate in the middle of the night, you jumped out of a window, ran into an assailant, got dragged off to prison, and exploded Orichalcum with your bare body to prove yourself on the spot. Naturally, you must be tired.”
“….”
It was obvious he was rattling off the list on purpose to provoke her, but Beatrice simply kept her mouth firmly shut.
Because when laid out like that, her track record was so dazzling that she wouldn’t have an excuse even with ten mouths.
‘Instead of maid lessons from Lady Kaya, I should have taken acting classes.’
Or at least infiltration training….
“Anyway, since you are tired, I will keep it brief. Or would it be more comfortable to speak in your room?”
“Good grief!”
What on earth was he talking about!
Saying that was absurd, Beatrice hurriedly waved her hands.
“Sir Dalton, I believe you got married not too long ago, did you not? A room is absolutely out of the question!”
“My, you misunderstand. I hadn’t the slightest intention of visiting alone. When I have a wife who is the loveliest, cutest, most beautiful, and even the most adorable in the entire world, how could I ever dare behave like that?”
“….”
“Of course, my wife, Bea, has a heart as soft as silk, is deeply thoughtful and kind, so she is hardly the sort to be suspicious over something like this. Even so, wanting to keep one’s sole other half in the world from having even a speck of worry—that is what love is, after all.”
Ugh.
Beatrice barely held back the urge to squeeze her eyes shut.
For she realized he was testing her, previously through provocation and now with embarrassingly cheesy words.
As if determined not to miss a single micro-expression of Beatrice’s, Clyde took a step closer.
“In that case, let us make it brief and direct right here, where there are many eyes. Lady Kruger, you….”
“A short while ago, the Marquis said he would let me know a place to stay and mentioned it, but he said the Downer Marquisate’s garden is decorated extraordinarily well!”
Cutting Clyde off, Beatrice rattled off the boasts the Marquis had made one after another.
“What did he say again? That there’s a fairly deep lake and the training grounds are spacious. He said his son loves it, too. I’m dreadfully tired, but suddenly I felt like checking it out. There are so many people here that my head aches a bit…. Would you like to accompany me, Sir Dalton?”
It was both a reproach asking if he was out of his mind to talk here, and an unspoken message to go with her while she was asking nicely.
Clyde, who understood her words with utter ease, gave a light nod.
“Thank you for the invitation. I was just hoping to get some fresh air myself. Shall we go now?”
“…Yes!”
Now, there was no choice but to face the problem directly.
Grinning through gritted teeth, Beatrice forced a smile. At that, Clyde smiled back at her.
With that arrogantly handsome, unpleasant smile as always.
* * *
To one side of the hallway leading to the outer garden.
Once they reached a quiet area where footsteps were sparse, Clyde stopped in his tracks.
And he naturally positioned himself in front of Beatrice.
It was a posture that trapped her against the wall, but it was not done on purpose.
It had simply happened because Beatrice, trying to get as far from him as possible, had been subtly widening the distance between them.
With one hand in his pocket, Clyde looked down slightly at Beatrice.
The soft, scattered light of the afternoon sun settled along his shoulders and profile.
It was a picture-perfect sight from which anyone would be unable to tear their eyes away, yet…….
‘…Ah, I’m screwed. Like this, it’ll be hard to run away at the crucial moment.’
In Beatrice’s eyes, all she could see was an escape route that would be difficult to secure.
It was quite a reasonable concern.
For he lightly braced an arm against the wall and tossed a direct fastball at her without further ado.
“Beatrice, what are you doing here?”
“….”
For a moment, Beatrice’s eyes wavered.
She had prepared to feign ignorance, expecting him to ask for her identity, but to think he would cut straight in like this!
“Uh, well, um? Beatrice? Who is that….”
Dammit!
In her fluster, the words she stammered out were so terribly clumsy.
How could someone who knew he was married not know his wife, Beatrice!
Clyde’s smile deepened slightly.
At the sight of her habitually adjusting her glasses, Clyde leaned in slightly and spoke again.
“You were fiddling with your glasses earlier, too. Did you place an enchantment on them? No wonder you look nothing like yourself. Did you make them yourself?”
“…I didn’t, though.”
“You didn’t? Then it must be the handiwork of Her Majesty the Empress or Father. Given that the Head Maid took your side, it’s most likely Her Majesty, though.”
“No, it’s not that—I’m telling you, I’m not this person named Beatrice!”
Beatrice knew that blurting out such words made her sound thoroughly pathetic.
The match had already been decided the moment Clyde wrapped his arms around her and dropped his honorifics.
Even so, having come this far, her pride wouldn’t allow her to meekly admit it without playing dumb at least once.
Beatrice blinked needlessly as she added:
“You have the wrong person. I am Ria Kruger! Ria Kruger who came to help Head Maid Nao with administrative assistance on this dispatch! I-it’s troubling if you misunderstand like this!”
“Misunderstand…”
Murmuring the word Beatrice had uttered, Clyde spoke nonchalantly.
“I apologize, but I do not believe I am mistaken. Because I doubt there are two people in this world who charge headlong without looking back once they set their mind to something, and who have the habit of meeting my eyes whenever something happens.”
“….”
“However, since you claim otherwise, very well. Lady Ria Kruger, then shall we prove it this time as well, just as you did in the meeting room?”
“…What are you going to do?”
“It’s simple.”
Shifting his stance slightly to cut off any space for Beatrice to escape, he leaned in a little closer.
At a distance so close it reminded her of what had happened in her room not long ago, Beatrice’s shoulders flinched.
Clyde’s fingers grazed her cheek and reached for her glasses.
Only then realizing what he intended to do, Beatrice was just about to part her lips to say something—
“Just what do you think you are doing?”
A coldly sunken voice sliced between the two of them.
At the end of the hallway, which they turned to look at reflexively, stood a man with dark navy hair.
Carrying a coat draped over one arm as if he had only just returned, he stared fixedly at the two of them with silver-gray eyes.
Narrowing his eyes as if assessing the situation, he strode over without hesitation the moment he saw Clyde’s face.
He then stepped very naturally between them, blocking one from the other.
“I do not know the exact nature of the situation, but it seemed rather improper, so pardon the intrusion. For now, might I escort this lady and take our leave, Sir Clyde Dalton?”
“…It seems you know who I am.”
“Yes. I saw you from afar when I accompanied my father to an audience with His Imperial Majesty the Emperor. Even without that, it is hardly easy not to know you in this Empire. Rumors that you formed a family with Lady Beatrice, daughter of Count Hartwell, have spread even to our territory, after all.”
Our territory…?
Tilting her head at the slightly peculiar phrasing, Beatrice’s eyes widened slightly.
Because on closer inspection, the man before her bore quite a resemblance to the Marquis.
“…Don’t tell me, the son the Marquis couldn’t stop bragging about….”
As if having heard Beatrice’s murmur, the man cast his gaze slightly downward and curved his lips into a faint smile.
“Father must have made a fool of himself again. I would appreciate it if you called me Cassian. However, rather than exchanging pleasantries right now, I would prefer to settle this situation…. How about it, Sir Dalton. Shall we postpone our greetings for next time?”
“….”
Clyde’s blue eyes brushed past Cassian’s silver-gray eyes and landed on Beatrice.
Reading the hesitation in the unfamiliar-colored eyes behind those large, heavy-looking glasses, he finally took a step back.
For this was a matter between him and Beatrice, not something meant to put her in a difficult position before others.
“Of course. Let us meet again later. Lady Ria Kruger as well.”
“So you are Lady Kruger. Shall we?”
“Huh? Yes? No, wait…”
Just as she was agonizing over what to do, she saw Clyde tip his head to the side.
It was a gesture that meant they would talk later.
Comments (0)