I’m Not the One Who Seduced the Grand Duke Chapter 34

“What? Who is this, talking to me like we’re close—ah. It’s you, Alberto.”

The count’s brow naturally furrowed as he irritably raised his head.

The man who had suddenly approached him and spoke as if they were old friends was the head of House Cronel.

Cronel was a neighboring house whose territory bordered Valentine’s.

Because their status and wealth were similar, the two families were naturally regarded as rivals.

However, there was one clear difference between the two houses.

‘Hmph. I hear he’s still hovering around the Marquess, trying to maintain some connection with Zaherette, isn’t he? Instead of wasting his time on that, he should properly manage his own territory. Pathetic fool.’

Gerold Valentine scoffed inwardly with a crooked smile.

He was about to needle him as usual when—

“Heh heh. Gerold, surely you didn’t come here for a drink because you were feeling frustrated, did you? If so, I’m afraid I might feel a little sorry for you.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Oh dear, oh dear. You really don’t know yet?”

Count Cronel laughed cheerfully.

“The Marquess of Zaherette has decided to join hands with House Cronel this time. She’s even going to develop the roads for us. Ha ha!”

“……What?”

“That’s not all. Apparently, the Roar Trading Company’s main route will pass through our territory from now on. As it happens, we just finished reaching an agreement on the toll issue today.”

“What did you just say?!”

“My, my. Why are you getting so worked up? Isn’t all of this because of your own greed in the first place?”

Count Cronel laughed heartily and slapped Gerold on the back with a hearty thump as the latter trembled.

“I hear you told the Marquess you were going to raise the toll fivefold, didn’t you? My friend, you certainly have some nerve! Well, thanks to that, we’ve made quite a profit ourselves. Ha ha!”

“……”

“You must be having a hard time. You already have plenty on your mind with your son and daughter, and yet you still had to let greed get the better of you……. Without Zaherette’s trading company passing through that land, it probably won’t be profitable at all. But you still have to pay taxes, so what are you going to do? Owning it might actually be more trouble than it’s worth!”

The golden eyes of Gerold Valentine shook.

‘Road development? Tolls? An agreement? What the hell is he talking about?’

Then what about Valentine?

What about our land?

“Get out of my way!”

Gerold shot to his feet, shoved Count Cronel aside, and stormed out.

“What the hell happened? Zaherette decided to take a detour? No, that should have been impossible. Duke Blanche himself guaranteed that nothing like that would ever happen!”

“Raise the tolls. Then naturally, the others will follow suit.”

“Heh heh, don’t worry. As long as Zaherette is dealing with plants, they won’t be able to take a detour. The value of their goods would fall.”

“They’ll have no choice but to bow their heads to you.”

Yes.

The Duke had definitely said that!

“This means I’m the only one getting screwed oooooover!”

The half-drunk count, his eyes bloodshot, hurriedly climbed into his carriage.

His destination was the Valentine estate.

He had to get back and figure out what had happened as quickly as possible.

Otherwise, he might lose not just one thing, but everything he had.

 

***

 

“So it looks like Count Valentine finally raised the white flag.”

“I suppose he had no other choice.”

I spoke while looking at Leon, who had just entered my office, and his aide.

He nodded as though he had expected this, staring at the pile of letters stacked on one side of my desk.

‘Hmm. This is starting to get annoying.’

There had already been twelve today alone.

What did I mean?

People from the Valentine estate had come and left letters.

Even though I told them I had nothing more to say and that they should go back, the count’s estate kept sending people over, and we kept ignoring them.

Perhaps realizing that wouldn’t work, they started sending letters instead.

And this was already the twelfth.

‘I should just tell them I’m not accepting any more letters.’

Thinking that, I suddenly looked up.

There was another pile of colorful letters on the other side.

“What are those, Erna?”

“The lords who tried to raise their tolls along with the count while they had the chance. I suppose they all realized they were in trouble.”

“Well, that’s what they get for not knowing when to stay quiet. They took their chance to provoke you, and now look at them.”

Exactly.

When I unexpectedly became worried over the toll dispute with Count Valentine, some people thought, Oh? So this actually works?

And they committed the outrageous act of trying to pressure me with tolls as well.

But that had been several days ago, and the situation had completely reversed in the blink of an eye.

So now they had all realized their mistake and immediately sent letters of apology.

‘Claiming it was a mistake, or that there had been a problem in the administrative process. All sorts of ridiculous excuses.’

“Well, the result isn’t bad. I had the chance to weed out the people who were trying to tighten the noose around Roar and Zaherette.”

“You’re pretty ruthless. Scary.”

“I suppose I am. I’m quite decisive when it comes to cutting ties.”

“Then I’ll cut people off without hesitation if I don’t like them, too.”

“Of course.”

When I answered honestly, he smiled faintly.

I wondered if my overly honest answer might have hurt his feelings, but fortunately, that didn’t seem to be the case.

Instead, he even nodded as though he had expected nothing less.

“Oh, right. I heard Count Oscar filed a divorce petition this morning. It looks like he really intends to divorce Sylvia Oscar.”

“Really? So it finally came to that.”

“It’s actually fortunate for Count Oscar. The two of them don’t have any children yet. If they did, things would have gotten complicated over inheritance rights.”

Perhaps it was better that it had happened now.

Count Oscar’s family had been quite friendly toward Zaherette to begin with.

It wasn’t just the humiliation. He probably had no desire to make an enemy of us because of this incident.

‘I heard the bail alone that the count paid to get his son, Gerold, out of prison amounted to several times his annual income. And on top of that, there’s the compensation he has to pay to the Marquess’s house and the Grand Ducal house.’

He might even have to sell not only Valentine’s territory but the estate itself.

And that was probably—

‘Because Leon is involved as well.’

He was of imperial blood.

When I checked the contents of the complaint that had been filed, it even contained a carefully worded charge for deceiving a member of the imperial family.

Apparently, that had caused the fines and compensation to skyrocket to astronomical amounts.

In other words, it was the price of his life.

“We’ve had quite a headache because of all this, but now that everyone’s too scared to say a word to us, I suppose it isn’t entirely a bad thing.”

“Exactly. We’ve shown the world what happens when someone picks a fight with the Marquess of Zaherette and the Grand Duke of Bernstein.”

This incident had certainly changed how people viewed Leon.

Until now, he had been seen as the Grand Temple’s star priest, a friendly clergyman who treated everyone equally with warmth and kindness, literally approachable to everyone……

But the truth was that he was the head of House Bernstein and a prince of the Imperial Family.

“By the way, I’m sorry. I called you over so early.”

I swept the troublesome letters into a box and looked at Leon.

“Now that the count’s matter has been settled, I think it’s time we settled this matter as well.”

“Does that mean I finally get my answer today?”

“Yes. Thank you for waiting.”

I nodded.

“I was the one who called you here first, but I got so caught up in work that I made you wait for quite a while.”

“It’s all right. Watching and waiting was rather enjoyable, actually.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

I took an envelope out of the drawer.

It was the envelope containing our engagement papers.

“I’ve decided to accept your proposal.”

For a moment, the brightest light I had ever seen appeared on Leon’s face.

Like a man who had finally obtained something he had long yearned for.

‘Why does he look so happy?’

I could have sworn he said it was because of responsibility, principles, or something along those lines.

I didn’t quite understand, but since he seemed satisfied, I figured that was all that mattered.

Holding a quill, I reached toward the document.

I was just about to sign in the blank space when—

“Ah, but before that, there’s one thing I’d like to confirm.”

“What is it?”

He looked at me when I asked if I could ask him just one thing.

He wore a dazzling smile, as if he were willing to answer absolutely any question.

But that didn’t last long.

“The person who did that to Gerold Valentine while he was in prison…… that was you, wasn’t it?”