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Chapter 65
Boom.
He left, and the iron door shut with a loud clang.
My first guest today was my husband.
“…Ha, ha, this is funny.”
I couldn’t stop the hollow laughter. It was too absurd, too empty.
I never imagined such a thing. That the Grand Duke would personally come down to this shabby underground pawnshop.
Even if only in name, he is still the ruler of Dvorka. For a sovereign of a nation to hide his identity and try to borrow money from such a shady place… and to do it by pawning the very wedding gifts I had given him.
The chances are high that this is no ordinary matter. If he had nothing to hide, he could have simply used his personal budget.
Moreno’s speculative remarks from before I left the lord’s castle today crossed my mind.
“A letter was found in His Grace’s desk drawer. We had some underlings who know a little Dvorkan read it, and the tone was unmistakably that of a love letter.”
“Not long after making a mess of things, he suddenly wants to buy a house. He claimed it was for his personal guards, but it sounds fishy. No matter how close he is to a knight, people don’t normally just hand them a whole house.”
The more I thought about it, the more unpleasant it became, though the money itself was nothing. For me, it was pocket change anyway.
The real issue was whether his words were true.
That a sixteen-year-old younger sister was being sold off as a concubine to a man forty years older.
If it were true, it would be truly pitiful.
But it was an obvious lie. As far as I knew, he had no younger sister.
If it wasn’t a sister but a lover, then his desperation might make sense.
Sixteen years old. Too young to be called a lover, and yet his desperation made it hard to say she wasn’t. Perhaps he even lowered the age to make her sound more pitiful.
A strange feeling welled up. That heartrending gaze beneath his hood, that desperate voice that seemed able to melt anyone’s heart. For him, it was almost too good an act.
The more I got to know him, the more I thought he was a clumsy man, terrible at lying.
But my chest felt cold. Maybe that, too, had been a carefully crafted mask. Pretending to be pure requires a higher level of acting than anything else.
Another hollow laugh slipped out between my lips. The pure one wasn’t him—it was me.
Perhaps the “treasure in the forest” mentioned in Queen Elizabeta’s letter referred to that girl. If so, everything added up.
“Why did you do that, Lady Alisa?”
Katarina’s sharp reproach shattered the silence. Her face was red as if burned, and she was fuming.
“Why are you angrier than me?”
I whispered back, afraid my voice might carry through the door.
“You knew from the start that man was lying. So why did you listen to all that useless nonsense, and even say you’d help him?”
“Because it’s amusing.”
“Amusing? Amusing, my foot! A mercenary guild—who exactly are you planning to use? Don’t tell me… your family’s—”
I silently nodded. Of course I meant to use the shadow organization of the House of Rasantia.
High-ranking noble families usually have at least one secret group that takes care of their “dirty work.”
My father used his to gather intelligence both at home and abroad, and to deal with middlemen who leaked business secrets. In particular, those who tried to steal Rasantium’s bomb-making technology. Kidnapping and assassination were their specialties—fetching one person from anywhere was nothing to them.
After I was granted the rank of Little Duchess, I, too, was given command over the organization.
I’d never yet ordered them to kill anyone. Recently, I had tasked them with monitoring the crown prince and his circle in Yorca. I could select a few from among them for my personal use.
“This time, I thought I’d bring in the woman the Grand Duke is searching for, and have a little face-to-face meeting.”
“…Are you serious?”
“There’s always the chance she really is his sister. And I just happen to have the means to confirm it.”
Smiling leisurely, I recalled the holy relic of Archangel Michael. That very item that Joachim, the highest priest of the Puran faith, had once offered to the Grand Duke as tribute.
When he had held it, it had shone with blinding light. If she really were his half-sister, born of the same father, then it would react the same way in her hands. Otherwise, as with me, it would show nothing at all.
“Vera should be in Yorca right now. I’ll have her go to Pardon Island, under the pretext of cooling her head.”
Vera, one of the organization’s high-ranking leaders, had been one of my father’s most trusted confidants. She was the daughter of the famed Mercenary King who once dominated the kingdom, and no one could match her thoroughness. I’d heard that no matter how far into the wilderness someone fled, if Vera set out to find them, she always brought them back.
“Understood. I’ll contact Vera.”
“Ah, I’m looking forward to this.”
I leaned back more deeply against the sofa.
David Michael. What kind of expression will you wear when the truth is revealed?
How will the face of a man who seemed endlessly ascetic and noble twist?
A twisted curiosity coiled inside me.
Back from the pawnshop, I immediately slept. Before long, dawn broke. I dragged my stiff body up, dressed, and stepped out. After being gone for three whole days, I had a mountain of tasks left undone.
Breakfast… I’d skip. Sitting across from that man first thing in the morning would be uncomfortable.
And right as I stepped outside my room, I ran into an uninvited guest.
“Shouldn’t you rest more? You look tired.”
A worried voice addressed me.
The Grand Duke was leaning against the corridor wall in front of my chamber, waiting for me.
He stepped toward me, one pace at a time. The dawn light filtering through the window at the end of the hall cast over his profile, tracing delicate curves around his subdued eyes. His face was sculpted to terrifying perfection.
“What brings you here at this hour?”
I glanced at the wall clock in the corridor. Not yet seven o’clock.
As always, the Grand Duke was impeccably dressed. His silver hair was perfectly in place, not a strand out. A pure white lace cravat, a soft gray jacket, and the faint, clean scent of soap.
He could have walked straight out of a fairy tale as a prince. He seemed like a completely different man from the one I had met in the pawnshop yesterday.
“I came because I have something to say to you.”
“I don’t have anything to hear from you.”
My words came out sharp and barbed.
Perhaps embarrassed by my curt reply, he lowered his long lashes and smiled bitterly. As his hand brushed the back of his neck, dawn light pooled there, and his graceful neckline seemed as sorrowful as a deer’s.
Today his beauty was painfully blatant. If I kept looking, I felt I might be bewitched, so I averted my eyes. It made me uneasy, but I had to admit it—I was painfully weak against his appearance.
“My rash behavior has troubled you. Please allow me the chance to beg forgiveness.”
His tone was solemn, courteous. At least outwardly, he seemed to acknowledge his wrongs.
“What rash behavior, exactly?”
“Leaving Blansk on horseback without a word to you.”
“….”
“Causing trouble in the middle of Yorca and being dragged before the crown prince. Shifting all the responsibility onto you. Forcing you to nurse me for three days while I was drugged. All of it.”
He calmly recited his faults, then lifted his eyes. My face reflected clearly in the sharp focus of his violet gaze.
Placing a hand firmly on his chest, he bowed his head deeply.
“I have no excuse, so I won’t make one. I’m sorry. And thank y—”
Before he could finish, I grabbed his wrist and pulled him inside the room. This wasn’t a conversation to be overheard in the middle of the hall.
“The servants might see.”
I shut the door behind me awkwardly.
“What if they do? My fault is clear. It wouldn’t be strange to apologize in front of everyone.”
The Grand Duke released his wrist from my grip, only to gently clasp my hand instead.
That’s when I was caught off guard. Suddenly, still holding my hand, he dropped to one knee. He brought my hand to his forehead and closed his eyes.
It was the traditional Dvorkan ritual of atonement. I had seen the people of Blansk press their foreheads to the goddess Puran’s statue hand while praying.
But this insane man was doing it to my hand. Startled, I yanked my hand away as though scalded and pulled him back up.
Gulp.
For a moment, I almost fell for it. His manner of apology seemed so sincere.
Now I wondered: if I brought before you the woman you’re so desperate to find—if it turned out she wasn’t your sister, if it was exposed that you pawned our wedding gifts—would you still apologize to me like this?
Or would you deny everything?
Compulsively, I blurted out the question:
“…Were you trying to run away from me?”
