Chapter 23
“Chloe, that colt-like thing. What on earth has she……!”
Adrien paced back and forth, restless and anxious.
He wanted to run over and drag her away, but he was afraid of running into Lionel, so he couldn’t move rashly.
At that moment, a deep shadow fell over Adrien.
“Who’s that. Isn’t that the Empire’s dog, Colonel Valheim.”
This man, whose build was large enough to be at least a head taller, was the leader of the Rebels.
His drooping eyes, revealed beneath the hood, glinted sharply.
“You didn’t call him here, did you?”
“Am I crazy enough to do something like that?”
Adrien quickly shook his head.
“Then don’t just stand there blankly—move. Unless you want him to know we’re here.”
The man’s rough, grating voice like scrap metal echoed low in the corridor.
He pointed at Chloe with his chin and sneered.
“Still, the daughter seems to have better instincts than her father.”
While Chloe drew Lionel’s attention, the Rebel group vanished into the darkness at the end of the corridor.
Adrien, hurriedly chasing after them, bit his nails.
There was a pile of crates hidden not far from where Lionel was.
If left as is, it was only a matter of time before they were discovered.
Cold sweat ran down his temples.
“Damn it, when luck turns bad, everything……!”
***
“Oh my, isn’t that Your Grace? I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Chloe approached Lionel, pretending to be pleased.
“Have you come to watch the performance? Well, today’s performance is quite the anticipated one, after all.”
However, Lionel didn’t even glance at Chloe.
As if it were too bothersome to spare even a few seconds.
He even seemed not to recognize Chloe.
Chloe thought there was no way that could be true, but unable to contain her curiosity, she subtly asked.
“You don’t happen to not know who I am, do you?”
“I’m not in the habit of remembering useless things one by one.”
At the short and clear reply, Chloe’s eyebrows twisted.
A surge of anger rose within her.
At the banquet hall, at the wedding venue. They had met several times already, and he couldn’t remember?
There was no way she left such a faint impression. She was dumbfounded.
Chloe forcibly restrained her expression from turning venomous.
“I’m Agnes’s older sister. Chloe Bardo!”
“Ah.”
That was all.
As if he had no interest from the start, Lionel started to walk again.
The flustered Chloe hurriedly opened her mouth.
“Oh, today! Do you know who the star of the stage is?”
In case Adrien and his group were discovered, Chloe raised her voice a little higher.
“She’s a dancer I’ve been sponsoring for some time. You probably know her too, Your Grace? Floris Loren.”
Lionel’s steps stopped.
Floris. He never thought he’d hear that name again.
He had cut ties with the nobility, and now she seemed to have latched onto the Bardo trading company.
Her vitality was truly tenacious.
“In fact, the stage Agnes took at the last banquet was originally Floris’s. It was a stage that didn’t suit her station.”
In Chloe’s words, there was a subtle sneer toward Agnes.
“If Your Grace is alright with it, would you like to meet her for a moment? Even though she looks like this, Miss Floris is quite famous in the capital.”
Chloe acted as if she were making a sweet offer that he absolutely couldn’t refuse.
It was something she could say only because she didn’t know what kind of treatment Floris had received from Lionel in the past.
At that moment, a familiar figure appeared behind Chloe.
As Lionel shifted his gaze and approached, Chloe triumphantly lifted her head.
“Oh my, it seems you’re interested in meeting her. Then I’ll take you to the waiting room right away, huh……?”
However, Lionel simply passed right by Chloe.
In an instant, Chloe’s head drooped in embarrassment as she found herself talking to thin air.
“Excuse me, Your Grace?”
“Since you’re being noisy, why don’t you shut that mouth.”
At the sudden warning from Lionel, who had shown no reaction until now, Chloe hiccuped and gasped.
“It seems there’s some misunderstanding. Are you in a position to exchange words with me?”
“But my younger sister is the Duchess—”
“That doesn’t make you a noble, does it.”
No matter how connected through marriage, the difference in status was clear.
An unkind explanation flew toward Chloe, who seemed to have forgotten that.
“You said you’re sponsoring Floris Loren. You’ve picked something perfectly suited to the Bardo level. Cheap taste must be a family trait.”
Chloe looked resentful but couldn’t find words to retort and closed her mouth.
Lionel, completely passing by Chloe, looked askance at the head butler who was approaching while catching his breath.
“Simon. Why are you here instead of at the mansion?”
“The thing is, Lady Agnes said she had something urgent to tell Your Excellency, so I brought her here…….”
“Agnes?”
Lionel pressed his forehead.
“You brought her all the way here just to say a few words?”
This wasn’t some children’s playground.
Lionel was dumbfounded.
He had just received a report that she had barely gotten out of bed around noon.
In that condition, she should quietly recuperate.
What was she planning to do by wandering around recklessly and collapsing again?
Noticing Lionel’s displeasure, the head butler wiped his forehead with a handkerchief.
“I apologize. However, she insisted on coming even alone, so there was nothing I could do.”
Lionel let out a short sigh.
“Fine, take her back. I’ll hear the story in the evening.”
“Wouldn’t it be good to at least show your face for a moment……. Otherwise, she will probably keep waiting for Your Excellency.”
At Simon’s words, Lionel fell silent for a moment.
“She’s waiting near the entrance. Shall I bring her……?”
“No. I’ll go.”
He absolutely hated anything troublesome and bothersome.
However, just as with his unorganized emotions, this time too, Agnes was an exception to that bothersomeness.
Lionel immediately turned his steps. Without even glancing toward Chloe.
Chloe, treated like an invisible person, only stomped her foot hard against the ground after Lionel had walked away.
“What the hell? Did he just ignore me? So annoying, really!”
Hearing that frivolous outburst, Lionel left a short order to the knight beside him.
“Monitor whether Chloe Bardo does anything foolish.”
Lionel’s eyebrows furrowed deeply.
Of all places, at this location where terrorism might occur, two people bearing the Bardo name appearing at the same time.
“There’s no coincidence like this.”
Or perhaps, it might not be a coincidence.
Click.
Lionel’s eyes shone coldly as he habitually spun his zippo lighter in his hand.
“I’ll find out what their scheme is this time.”
***
With his nerves on edge, Lionel turned the corner of the corridor following Simon’s guidance.
“Wait here.”
Simon had him wait a short distance away. Lionel turned the corner alone.
After passing a space with a cute souvenir display case, he saw Agnes at the end of the path.
Unaware that Lionel was approaching, Agnes was fixing her gaze intently on something.
Following Agnes’s line of sight and turning his head, the stage came into view.
More precisely, what Agnes was looking at wasn’t the stage itself but the pile of props behind it.
From Lionel’s viewpoint, he couldn’t notice that fact.
“You didn’t come all this way because you missed me. What’s your business?”
At Lionel’s presence, Agnes startled and raised her head.
But Agnes couldn’t readily speak.
She was worried that what she was about to say would sound like crazy talk.
‘If I say that terrorism will soon happen in a perfectly fine theater, will he believe me?’
Agnes’s white teeth bit her lower lip hard enough to draw blood.
Lionel reached out his hand toward Agnes unconsciously.
Before she could even dodge.
His rough yet delicate fingertips firmly pressed against her plump lower lip.
Then, a faint soap scent brushed past his nose.
It wasn’t the gunpowder smell that always came from Lionel.
“You said you came because you had something to tell me.”
Over the bitten mark, Lionel’s finger slowly slid.
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