TPES 23

Chapter 23

“Espin. You’re back already?”

When I returned home, the Countess and Rose were waiting for me.

Looking around, I saw the maids standing with their eyes lowered, their expressions gloomy. A few of them were shrinking back, and judging by the redness swelling on their cheeks, it was obvious that they had been taken out on in my absence.

This was how she had always treated the servants—coercively, standing above them and controlling them.

And it was easy to picture how she had been tormenting Espin through the servants who followed her.

“Yes.”

“How about having tea with your mother?”

Though the Countess spoke with a smile, her eyes were not smiling at all. Rather, they were calculating how she would deal with me.

So the Count must be at home.

Otherwise, there was no way the Countess would speak to me in such a gentle tone. On top of that, she was deliberately speaking in a very loud voice, clearly trying to show the Count how much she cared for me.

“I’m tired.”

I deliberately answered loudly as well. At that, the Countess’s expression twisted.

“Then I’ll be going up first. Let’s have tea another time.”

Having no excuse to stop me, the Countess ground her teeth.

As I passed them and went into my room on the second floor, Rose followed me in with angry strides.

“Hey, what’s wrong with you?”

“What?”

“What do you mean, ‘what’? You don’t know?”

“Yeah. I don’t. What exactly did I do?”

When I refused to back down, Rose’s brows furrowed deeply.

“Because of you, we couldn’t go shopping today.”

“Then go by yourselves. Why couldn’t you?”

“Well, obviously, our budget—”

I already knew the answer.

I had once checked Espin’s budget records to see how much money Sebastian had wrung out of her. There, listed under clothing expenses, were receipts for dresses Espin didn’t even own. According to the butler, they were supposedly gifts I had bought for Rose and the Countess.

Gifts, my foot. I was just being shaken down.

Their suggestion to go dress shopping together today meant buying their dresses with my money.

“You were planning to buy them with my budget?”

“What are you talking about? You gave them to us as gifts. You were the one who gave up your share first because your sister’s budget was short. Don’t you remember?”

“Nope. I don’t. And that’s not happening anymore, so wake up from your dream.”

“What? Hey, with the social season coming up, do you know how many new dresses we need?!”

“Then go talk to Father about it.”

At the mention of Father, Rose could only snort angrily, unable to say anything.

“If you’re done talking, can you leave?”

“Hey, do you think there’s anyone in this mansion on your side? No one here likes you. My mother and I are kind enough to think of you as family. You should know your place.”

At her words—yet another round of gaslighting—a hollow laugh slipped out of me.

“Oh, really? But isn’t the one who doesn’t know her place actually you?”

“What did you say?”

“It’s true. I’m Father’s daughter. You’re not.”

“Hey! Father said he thinks of me as his real daughter!”

“So what? People don’t even think of you as a noble.”

“What are you talking about? Everyone—”

“Everyone what?”

Rose couldn’t answer.

“If you can’t answer, don’t force it. If we’re done here, please leave.”

Rose glared at me for a long moment, then left the room far more meekly than I had expected.

“To be gaslit by someone like that… you really were pitiful.”

I looked at Espin in the mirror.

Espin, with her innocent face that knew nothing. A pitiful child who had been deceived by someone like that, unable to see what she had, thirsting for an invisible love.

I gently patted Espin’s head once.

The next morning, around the time the knights were starting to arrive one by one.

Haren and his subordinate, who were in the office, let out deep yawns.

Haren, who hadn’t slept a wink while carrying out the task Travis had ordered yesterday, forced his sleepy eyes open and picked up his pen again.

“Didn’t you go home?”

Travis, who was coming into the office, spotted him and asked.

“Vice-Captain.”

“You’re here.”

When Travis walked over to him, Haren handed over the documents he had investigated all night.

“I think this man really is the swindler. Here’s the evidence.”

Haren held out the clothes Sebastian had been wearing.

“You see the embroidery on the inside here?”

It was the name Farnus, stitched carefully, one stitch at a time.

“This was that woman’s younger brother’s clothing. Looks like he took it too. It was something they’d bought at great expense to wear to a wedding.”

“Then he really was the swindler.”

“Yes. I think we can just send him straight to trial. He’s a real piece of work.”

“All right. Send him to trial.”

There was no need to look further. Since there was someone who had lost their life because of his fraud, he was unquestionably a criminal.

“But where do you think all that money is now?”

Tom, one of Haren’s investigators, asked as he looked over the report.

“Tom. That’s obvious. He must’ve entrusted it to someone else. People like that always hide their money. They know it’ll be confiscated the moment it’s discovered.”

“Still, he even took out loans beforehand, so it seems like he must’ve had a huge sum.”

At Tom’s words, Haren waved his hand dismissively.

“All swindlers are like that. He probably wanted to make one big score and change his identity. He must’ve been planning to flee to another country.”

“Is that so?”

Travis listened quietly to their conversation.

Even with Sebastian clearly confirmed as a swindler, he couldn’t shake this uneasy feeling.

The woman’s face that had been appearing in his mind from time to time over the past few days.

He couldn’t define what his intuition was pointing to, nor the emotion he was feeling now.

“Yeah. Haah, I’m tired.”

Haren yawned conspicuously and shot Travis a sideways glance.

“Haren, Tom. Good work. Go home early today.”

“Yes!”

In high spirits, Haren threw on his coat, then suddenly spoke as if something had just occurred to him.

“Oh, I’ll go tell Espin. I think her heart will be at ease once she hears that Sebastian is being sent to trial.”

In the Empire’s system, where cases sent to trial usually ended in guilty verdicts, Sebastian wouldn’t see the light of day for years.

“Vice-Captain.”

“What is it, Tom?”

“Um… would it be all right if I came along?”

“To see Espin? Why?”

At Haren’s question, Tom lowered his head, hesitating and unable to answer easily.

“What is it—don’t tell me you’ve got feelings for Espin?”

Tom nodded.

“Yes.”

To be honest, there were plenty of men who wanted to meet Espin. If one married her, a blood relative of Count Leon, they would naturally inherit Count Leon’s title. That was why, especially within the knight order, there were many who had their sights set on Espin.

“Tom. I care about you as a subordinate, but no.”

“What? Not even if I just go to make her acquaintance?”

“No. Sorry, but you’re not Espin’s type. Espin likes someone more like our Captain.”

Tom raised his head and looked at Travis standing before him. His eyebrows drooped endlessly, as if he had completely lost his fighting spirit.

“Hm. I’ll be on my way, then.”

Travis hadn’t done his morning exercise yet, but with his heart pounding rapidly, he quickly turned away. It was probably because he’d skipped his morning workout and his body was reacting strangely.

Watching Travis’s hurriedly retreating back, Haren smiled faintly.

“Tom. Our Captain’s face was red just now, wasn’t it?”

Having been unable to confess to Espin and then struck down by a proxy blow from Haren, Tom didn’t answer a word.