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Chapter 20
“Do you expect an answer if you just keep staring at the Chancellor?”
At Cain’s snide remark, Marien looked him in the face.
Like Vaileon had earlier, she wanted to force a businesslike smile. In reality, however, she had to be content with not glaring at Cain as if he were her mortal enemy.
“After you ran off, I checked the scene. The bathroom in the inner part, you know.”
Hair-removal cream!
Marien swallowed dryly without thinking.
“When you left, the tiles and everything else were smashed by the kick I gave when I came out, so almost all traces of you were wiped away.”
That’s a relief, Marien thought inwardly. Strange as it was, that man’s nasty temper could be useful sometimes.
“You clearly had planned something worse than cutting my hair that day. But you were caught halfway through and stopped with the scissors.”
“Are you suggesting I was plotting to assassinate the Duke or something?”
“No.”
Cain said sharply.
“No matter how stupid you are, you should know you can’t kill an immortal.”
How does he manage to lace every sentence with a petty insult?
“Come to think of it, from our first meeting you kept going on about dark hair and showed an enormous interest in my head,” he persisted.
“Now tell me why you’re obsessed with my hair.”
“Hah.”
Marien sighed. Who’s the one over-obsessed with hair right now, saying that?
She actually wanted to ask how she’d managed to keep the fact that her hair was his weak spot hidden for so long.
Is it really a secret kept from everyone? Or is everyone just pretending not to know?
“Answer me. Who told you to cut my hair?”
“There was no mastermind. Do you have a bad memory? I like the Duke… Yes, like lovers keep each other’s locks, I wanted to keep some of yours.”
Marien forced down the queasy feeling in her stomach and continued her explanation as best she could.
“So I told you I cut it for that reason.”
“I don’t believe that at all.”
“Believe me.”
Marien stole another glance at Vaileon. He was still glaring at Cain with a hard expression.
‘Well, it’s understandable he’d be angry. After loving Odette for so long she chose someone like this. And he’s rude, to say the least.’
Marien repeated the closing lines Vaileon had suggested to her.
“Anyway, I should have asked the Duke’s permission first. Um—sorry. If you hate that I have your hair, I’ll return it tomorrow.”
“…….”
“I won’t do something like this again.”
Cain stopped his interrogation for the time being, though he hadn’t entirely let go of his suspicion.
Marien looked for an appropriate moment to get up from her seat.
“What I want to know is why you didn’t cut all of it.”
Are you insane — it’s still not over?
Marien let out an exasperated huff.
“How many times do I have to say it? I only wanted enough to keep. And if you’d cut it all off you’d have been exhausted and collapsed—what’s with the posturing?”
For a moment she felt as if the temperature around Cain dropped by at least fifty degrees.
He pulled a large pair of scissors from under the table and lunged across toward Marien, past the tabletop.
It all happened in a matter of seconds.
“Chancellor Bieres, don’t get the wrong idea. I’m just giving your aide here a chance.”
Cain flicked his razor edge with a look.
“Go ahead—cut as much as you want.”
Marien watched the two men locked in a tense standoff. If it hadn’t been for Vaileon, she would’ve been helplessly grabbed by the wrist.
“Bieres, he says you can take your hand away now.”
Cain said. His tone was leisurely, but it was a threat.
“If you keep this up, you’ll break your arm.”
“You put your hand down first, Blackwood.”
Marien thought she must have misheard. Was that really the polite Vaileon Bieres speaking like that?
Cain must have been thinking the same, because he raised a black eyebrow.
Just then, the distant sound of the bell struck one o’clock.
“Sir Bieres, we should be going. You have another appointment.” the 4th Princess’s attendant said, the voice laced with urgency.
Marien carefully placed her hand on Vaileon’s arm. He had tensed so much she could feel it even through his clothes.
Fortunately, both men accepted Marien’s attempt at mediation. Their arms slowly returned to their places.
Marien worried less about the scissors Cain still held than about Vaileon’s arm, which had completely borne the force of the other man’s aggression.
Cain was the kind of person who could casually break down a door. Would Vaileon’s arm be okay?
As the two men left the reception room, Cain called back.
“If that crazy rabbit has someone she likes, it surely isn’t you, Chancellor.”
◇ ◆ ◇
Vaileon studied the investigators’ report for a long time. There was nothing wrong with its contents. It was a fine product fitting of competent people.
The real culprit they had pointed to was listed on the last page of the report.
Anyone who had read the preceding pages carefully would know the investigators’ conclusion was correct.
Knock knock.
A familiar face entered the study.
“Sir Bieres, the Fourth Princess requests your presence.”
“Did she say what for?”
“She said she just wanted to see you briefly.”
Marien pricked up her ears. She clearly wanted to peek out from behind the partition, but restrained herself. Vaileon didn’t like leaving the third aide alone.
That little fluffy rabbit of an aide who might cause trouble at any moment.
She was quick to threaten others’ lives, yet rather oblivious when she herself was in danger.
She didn’t perceive a threat as a threat until a knife was at her throat.
Eh, this is nothing serious.
He kept telling himself that, even if anyone else would think it a big deal. Again and again.
Would it be safer to have her where he could see her? So he moved Marien’s desk into his study, took her in at his manor, and they commuted to work together.
To do anything beyond that—be together constantly—would require being with her twenty-four hours a day.
“You’re kind and considerate, Sir. I appreciate it, but to me it’s a little excessive. It gets… tiresome.”
Odette’s words always popped into Vaileon’s head when his bad habit surfaced.
What she had once said so calmly had pierced Vaileon’s heart like an ice spike.
Over time he thought it had melted away. But since his chest still ached, apparently it hadn’t.
‘I mustn’t let her get tired of me.’
Vaileon steeled himself.
‘I must keep to the proper boundary.’
Marien supported and cheered on his feelings for Odette. Perhaps that was why he had been unable to refuse her many outrageous proposals.
He didn’t want to disappoint someone who believed in him.
Marien’s eyes shone with trust. She believed in a love that even Vaileon himself wasn’t sure of.
If those eyes ever changed, he thought he wouldn’t be able to bear it.
“Sir Bieres?”
The Fourth Princess’s attendant’s voice carried a hint of puzzlement.
“Is it hard for you to leave your seat?”
“No….”
He had already arranged that when he was absent a guard would enter his study and not leave Marien alone.
After all, this was the Chancellor’s office. Unless Vaileon committed a serious crime, even the Crown Prince could not lawfully barge in with force.
He also had things to discuss with Odette.
“Let’s go now.”
Vaileon put the report into the drawer and approached Marien’s desk to give her a brief explanation. The first aide waved as if no explanation was necessary, smiling cheerfully as he saw them off.
“I’ll protect the office. Go on!” he said.
Marien mouthed a few words silently, her expression bright as if she were happy on his behalf.
‘Have a good time with His Majesty.’
Vaileon felt an odd sensation. He nodded slightly and left the study.
◇ ◆ ◇
When he entered Odette’s parlor, a different scent greeted him than usual.
It was a cool, clean fragrance—something that would suit a cold winter wind. Vaileon recalled that such scents were specialty products from the northern provinces.
“It’s a gift from the Duke of Blackwood.”
Odette spoke without taking her eyes off the chessboard.
“How is it? Do you like it?”
“You don’t easily find top-grade items like this in the capital. The Duke seems to have put a lot of thought into it.”
“He’s a hard one to handle. But it doesn’t matter. Even if I don’t know what he’s thinking inside his head, on the surface he’s treating me well.”
Odette tapped the king’s head with her finger.
“The Crown Prince and the Second Prince, who came yesterday under the pretense of a hospital visit, both smelled it and left.”
“Is she unwell?”
“No. I’m always the same. The hospital visit was a pretext they made up. They want to create a scene where they attentively care for the often-ailing Fourth Princess and thereby elevate themselves.”
A soft curve formed at the corner of Odette’s mouth.
“Of course, one of them failed to keep their expression when they smelled it.”
“The one who failed must have been the Crown Prince.”
“You’re quick to read him,” Odette said.
She moved her fingers. A pen, a sword, a needle—her slender fingers, which seemed unused to holding anything heavy, rested on a knight.
“When I first met you I was twelve. Ten years have already passed. The only thing I’m grateful to the Emperor for is sending you to me.”
“A high compliment…”
“Bieres.”
Odette cut him off.
“Why do you think I asked to see you?”
Her rose-colored eyes turned to Vaileon.
Hair like silver threads woven from moonlight, pale skin. She always wore a faint smile, but it was mere deception.
Her eyes penetrated another’s intentions; anyone who’d met her even once would know she was no ordinary person.
Odette Rose.
She looked like prey but was in truth a hunter waiting for the right moment.
There had been a time when Vaileon had wanted to be her favorite hunting hound.
“Is it to hold me accountable for poor subordinates?”
Odette flicked her finger lightly. A white knight toppled across the chessboard.
“You’re unusually to the point today. Going straight to the matter.”
“I prefer this way.”
“Mm, much better.”
Odette still hadn’t invited Vaileon to sit. Today was clearly a session for reprimand.
“You agreed to work with me. Then you must know how much I’m counting on an alliance with the Duke of Blackwood. You’re not someone who doesn’t know why I chose the Duke.”
The Emperor had taken Odette into the palace to keep her father’s family in check, but he had also more or less left his daughter to her own devices, as if her survival afterwards depended on her own cunning.
So when Odette first came to the palace, in some ways it was tougher than being confined to the estate.
Enemies were everywhere.
The Empress and the imperial consorts had already formed solid factions within the inner palace. They would not tolerate some cuckoo chick settling in their nests.
Short of poisoning the Fourth Princess outright, the Emperor would turn a blind eye to most inner-palace harassment.
The problem was that those inner-palace women knew that too.
