Chapter 11
Ines moved her lips slightly. The Cedric she knew was a man with strong pride.
He wasn’t the type to endure anger in a situation like this from their first meeting.
Of course, in her previous life, he had been endlessly kind and gentle to her as his wife, but right now, they had just met for the first time. And today was the first time they were having a conversation—an inevitably awkward relationship.
Yet Cedric showed no sign of getting angry or storming out of the room. Far from it, he sat there patiently, gazing at her intently. While making the awkward demand that she explain her reasons.
“Seeing as you can’t answer, it seems like at least there’s no reason on my side.”
Cedric said to her with a faint laugh.
Watching Ines, who was visibly flustered, Cedric slowly regained his composure.
To succeed in a hunt, one must corner the prey properly. The people of the Angel Ducal family, who knew this well, never let go of prey once they set their minds on it.
On the other hand, she seemed unaware. The fact that the more she tried to escape from him, the more she was being driven into a corner.
“I just don’t like you. Does dislike need a reason?”
“That’s hard to accept.”
“Pardon?”
“I want to be engaged to you, Miss Ines.”
“W-why?”
To the flustered Ines, Cedric said with a slight smile.
“Just like you, Miss Ines, I don’t have a particular reason for wanting to be engaged to you.”
Cedric continued, meeting Ines’s gaze.
“Unfortunately, it seems we won’t agree on this. In such cases, it’s customary for the side wanting to break the contract to pay compensation.”
“Compensation….”
I’ll do it. Just as she was about to reply like that, his voice reached Ines’s ears.
“Ten million ducats.”
“What?”
The annual budget for the ducal household was around ten thousand ducats. But ten million ducats? Yet Cedric, who had named this absurd astronomical figure, was serious.
“If it’s not ten million ducats, I won’t accept the compensation.”
“That’s… that’s unreasonable….”
“It’s not unreasonable. It’s strictly based on the contract. Besides, you’ve said you don’t want the engagement, well… that’s common. Marriages or engagements where both parties aren’t satisfied.”
Ines wasn’t unaware of that fact. She knew all too well that it was just her luck in her previous life that had been exceptional, and that many people married unwilling partners due to family circumstances.
The most prominent example was right nearby. The empress who had been engaged at around ten years old to someone nine years her senior, and three years after marriage, her husband took another wife. That “another wife” was her own aunt, so how could she not know?
To Ines, who couldn’t say a word, Cedric now spoke in a soft tone.
“In this situation, it’s impossible to grant your request, Miss Ines. But I hope you’ll happily accept the engagement with me. So, I’m asking this: your leg. When will it heal?”
“My leg? Why are you asking that….”
“Miss Ines Greenwood.”
“Yes… Duke Angel.”
For some reason, her persistent use of “Duke Angel” instead of his name made his chest feel tight, but Cedric didn’t show it and said to her.
“I’m asking you out on a date right now.”
“Wait a moment, Duke. I just told you. I don’t want the engagement. I mean it.”
Her expression hardened, wondering if he had taken her words about not wanting the engagement as a joke. A date. It was a word that couldn’t exist between her and Cedric.
“I’ve heard that you don’t want the engagement, Miss Ines. And that the strange story from the count I met at the noble council today wasn’t the count’s idea, but yours.”
At Cedric’s words, Ines looked at him in surprise. She hadn’t even imagined her father would listen to her, let alone that Cedric would insist on the engagement after hearing such things—it was utterly unexpected.
“That’s why I’m asking you out on a date.”
“So why would I….”
“During the date, if you find a flaw in me so significant that you can’t accept the engagement, I’ll cleanly give up.”
As soon as those words ended, Ines raised her voice.
“That’s unreasonable.”
But unlike Ines, Cedric remained utterly composed.
“I think you’re the one being unreasonable, Miss Ines. But out of respect for you, I’ll ask: why is my suggestion unreasonable?”
“Because there’s no way I could find a flaw in you, Duke Angel. How could I find something that doesn’t exist…!”
Thrown off by the word “date,” Ines unwittingly blurted out her true feelings. Startled, she cut herself off mid-sentence and covered her mouth with her hand. Cedric looked at her, who was flustered, with a somewhat playful glint in his eyes and said.
“No flaw to find… huh. So you think that, yet you’re asking to call off the engagement? You’re reinforcing my point once again.”
“Ah, no…. This is, I mean….”
Cedric’s eyes, watching the flustered Ines, held a soft smile.
They say you can’t hide a cold or love. The way Ines, sitting on the bed, looked at him was unchanged from the past, when everyone in high society had noticed her crush. Yet she says she doesn’t want the engagement.
She still liked him. And he felt the same about her. It had taken him a long time to admit his feelings. Now that he knew them, late as it was, Cedric wanted Ines by his side no matter what.
He didn’t know why Ines was hesitating about the engagement, but Cedric hoped she would desire him. Not in the pitiful way of the past, where she couldn’t even speak a word due to others’ gazes, but boldly, loving him from the seat beside him.
“I think it’s not a bad proposal for you either, Miss Ines.”
“Not a bad proposal?”
“Since we don’t know each other well, we need time to get to know one another before making hasty decisions.”
To persuade Ines, who wasn’t accepting his proposal at all, Cedric added one more condition toward her.
“As we get to know each other like that, perhaps I’ll be the one to get disappointed in you first and ask to call off the engagement.”
Unaware that it was bait he had deliberately thrown, Ines finally nodded eagerly.
“All right.”
Cedric felt a bit offended by the determination he sensed in Ines to make him disappointed no matter what. But he didn’t show his inner thoughts. After all, nothing would go as she wanted.
As they spent time together.
And got to know each other better, Ines would surely cast aside her strange anxiety about the engagement and soon show the face of a happy bride-to-be on the verge of marriage.
Yes.
Sudden changes make people tense. For Ines, who wasn’t bold by nature, it might be natural that the news of the engagement being set brought fear rather than excitement.
Cedric smiled at Ines across from him.
He didn’t worry about the possibility that she might truly come to hate or reject him, a situation flowing in the complete opposite of his expectations.
Ines Greenwood clearly loved him.
He truly didn’t doubt that fact.
* * *
When Cedric left and Marie, who had been avoiding the room, entered, Ines was sobbing quietly.
“My lady!”
Startled, Marie rushed to her. But Ines continued to pour out tears, face down on the bed for a long while. Marie’s attempts to soothe her were useless. The tears didn’t stop until all the moisture in her body seemed drained, leaving no more to shed.
“Are you all right now?”
Watching Ines cry made Marie tear up as well. It was such a sorrowful cry that just seeing it brought tears involuntarily. Ines nodded, rubbing her reddened eyes.
“Marie.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Go get my diary for me.”
Marie nodded and wiped her eyes with her sleeve.
The Prussian blue hardcover notebooks filled an entire shelf tightly. They were Ines’s diaries. She bought the same one every year, and there were already ten volumes. All the diaries were locked.
There was only one key that could open the locks. Ines had it made into a small pendant shape and wore it around her neck.
Ines held the diary and sank into thought for a while before giving Marie an order.
“I want to rest a bit. You can go now.”
“Will you be okay alone? I’ll stay with you.”
Marie’s voice was laced with worry.
“My lady, is something really wrong? You’ve been acting strange since morning. And now crying like this.”
To the kind Marie, she forced a smile.
“What could be wrong? I’m fine now. I was just startled this morning, and now I think it’s the medicine making me drowsy.”
Even with her explanation, Marie only hesitated and showed no sign of leaving, so Ines spoke in a firmer tone.
“I’m really fine now. Go and do what you need to do. You can’t focus only on me like this.”
In the end, Marie nodded. As her personal maid, there were many incidental tasks to handle in order to attend to her lady.
“Then ring the bell if you need me. I’ll come right away.”
“All right.”
Reluctant, Marie glanced back at Ines several times until she closed the door.
The introverted lady’s strange behavior from morning until now kept bothering her.
Especially the way she had stared into the mirror, oblivious to the glass shards under her feet—it was like she had seen a ghost.
☆▪︎▪︎▪︎☆
