Chapter 193. You just need to bring her here
It was around the time when noon was just passing by.
“Haaam—.”
As drowsiness flooded in, yawns burst out consecutively from the gatekeeper’s mouth.
“Damn it, did I eat too much……”
The potatoes obtained from the kitchen were so delicious today of all days that eating them up to his fill seemed to have become the source of trouble.
It was just when the gatekeeper, thinking this would not do, sprang up from his seat and was stretching.
Suddenly far away, he saw something coming toward this direction.
It was a carriage.
‘……Who is it?’
Tilting his head, the gatekeeper quickly retraced whether there was anything he had omitted from today’s visitor list.
However, no matter how much he thought about it, that was indeed not it.
Then, that meant it was an unscheduled guest.
In the experience of a man who had lived as Elfengreen’s gatekeeper for more than ten years, in such cases, the vast majority were unwelcome guests.
Just who on earth came to find the Ducal House at this hour, and without prior contact at that, the gatekeeper took a step with a heavily crumpled face to confirm that protagonist.
The moment the carriage finally came almost to the front.
“Hey, wh—”
The mouth of the gatekeeper who was throwing blunt words toward the carriage suddenly shut tightly.
That was only natural, because at that very moment, the gold leaf crest attached to the carriage door filled his field of vision.
A emblem that looked unusual even at a single glance, and an excessively glamorous carriage as if representing it.
Where on earth did I see that emblem…… while he was immersed deep in thought, finally the carriage window opened and the curtain covering the inside went up.
The one poking his head out from the inside was some man.
The gatekeeper, who was glancing at the man’s face and looking past into the inside, soon opened his mouth.
“That…… wh, what is your name and status?”
He tried hard not to show that he was flustered, but the words he spat out ended up getting twisted.
As if mocking that, at the lip shape immediately curving upward, the gatekeeper’s eyebrows crumpled sharply without him realizing.
“I came to see the Grand Lady.”
No, who asked him to state his business in coming; just as he was about to say a word to the man who was making an absurd reply while completely ignoring the question asked, the opponent took a step ahead before that.
“Marquess Constant.”
At those few letters of the name that came out of the man’s mouth, the gatekeeper’s expression suddenly hardened just like a stone.
“Wishes to see her, you may convey it so.”
Seeing the behavior of slyly indicating that next seat with his eyes while speaking, the gatekeeper’s complexion darkened even further.
‘……A storm is about to kick up here.’
While doing so.
“……Welcome. Marquess.”
On the face of Eleanor von Cheiste welcoming the entering Marquess, a deep sense of embarrassment that could not be hidden was clearly revealed.
Sending a letter from the Cheister family to the Constant family was roughly about a month ago.
Because in noble society, regardless of the reason, a broken engagement causes a greater blow to the woman’s side, it was a letter sent to discuss the procedures following it.
At any rate, the responsibility for this broken engagement lied entirely with the Cheister family.
However, what was strange was the Constant family, which showed no response whatsoever even as a month was passing since sending the letter.
They might well send a compensation for damages according to the unilateral request for broken engagement, or a letter of protest due to defamation, but they were quite simply silent without an answer.
Just at the moment when she was feeling frustrated as to what on earth they were thinking, Marquess Constant had barged in directly like this.
And at this point in time when Raymond had left for the Royal Castle and emptied his seat, of all times.
So how could she not be flustered?
Even so, it was a matter where she could not just turn away a person who had come to find her either.
For now, though she instructed to usher him inside, the situation of facing each other like this felt truly uncomfortable and awkward.
“Please sit over here.”
Eleanor von Cheiste said, pointing with her hand to the sofa inside the drawing room.
The Marquess, who was casting his eyes straight down, only then nodded his head and moved toward the sofa Eleanor von Cheiste pointed to.
“Until a moment ago, it seems there was a child.”
After giving instructions to bring warm tea, it was just when she turned her head.
At the Marquess’s words that flowed out indifferently, Eleanor von Cheiste’s face instantly turned into a troubled expression.
Though she had urgently sent the child up to the second floor before the Marquess came to the drawing room, she had not thought as far as that unique scent emanating from a newborn baby.
Even so, because she could not say no either, just when she was silent, the Marquess brought out another word.
“The reason I walked all the way here today is to give a reply to the letter you sent.”
“…….”
It was as expected because of that, such a thought passed rapidly through Eleanor von Cheiste’s head.
However, a single question followed right after.
If so, why.
Why did he pick and come on a day when Raymond, the party concerned, emptied his seat, of all days, that was it.
That reason could be known without passing very long.
“That wench.”
At those cold words that came out of the Marquess’s mouth, Eleanor von Cheiste’s body flinched and trembled in an instant.
“That wench who is said to have given birth to a child, I want to meet her once…….”
“…….”
Those words handed over implicitly were a tone that sounded as if recommending, but in reality, the contents were not so at all.
He was proudly demanding that something, which became the decisive cause of this catastrophe, be dragged before him.
Of course, she understood his angry heart, but even so, she could not bring Deborah to this place as he wanted.
That was a matter Eleanor von Cheiste herself did not feel inclined to, and above all.
It was because her head was throbbing painfully when thinking of the reaction Raymond would show after learning that fact.
Didn’t he make all that fuss just because she said a single word to leave the child behind and depart quietly?
She did not want to provoke her son’s nerves any further here.
“Her physical condition has not yet fully recovered, so……”
Instead of a sharp refusal, Eleanor von Cheiste chose a roundabout expression that did not touch the opponent’s nerves.
However, listening to those words, the Marquess’s expression turned fierce in an instant.
“It seems deep affection has already grown for that lowly thing. Seeing how you cover and defend her like this.”
“It is not that—”
“I thought the agreement of opinions between the former Grand Lady and me—no, our two families matched quite well.”
The Marquess reached the point of committing the rudeness of cutting off the Grand Lady’s words in the middle.
It was an action done while knowing all that the side standing at an advantage due to the unilateral cancellation of engagement was Constant.
“Yet for merely a single lowly thing becoming pregnant, to easily cast away a promise between families like this.”
Though her mood was unpleasant at the sound spat out as if censuring, no, more than that.
“What does that……”
To easily cast away…… the meaning that word signified was somehow strange.
Of course, the one who broke this engagement was Cheister, but she thought Constant would also naturally agree.
No matter how common an occurrence a bastard was in noble families, even so, wasn’t it Constant?
That Constant who was said to have barely seen a child after a whole five years of marriage.
The extreme affection the Marquess couple poured onto their one and only daughter was to the extent that there was no one in social circles who did not know it.
That is why she said it.
They would not send such a daughter to a man who had seen a child from another woman before even holding a wedding ceremony.
No matter if the counterpart was the great Cheister.
Looking at Eleanor von Cheiste who was blinking her eyes rapidly in doubt, the space between the Marquess’s brows furrowed slightly.
“By any chance—are you thinking of making the child born by that lowly thing the successor?”
“…….”
At the sharply penetrating question, her words were blocked in an instant.
Of course, unlike her expectation, the born child was extremely adorable.
A child who resembled her son so closely like that, how could she not love him?
That is why she also said she would personally raise him.
However—
Regrettably, such feelings and making him a successor were separate things.
Making a child who was a bastard into a successor was a matter that could not be done either, but even if it could be done, that procedure was excessively difficult and rough.
Above all, the thing that weighed most on her mind.
The fact that one of those methods was precisely elevating the woman, who was the child’s birth mother, to noble status.
That…… was something that could not be.
That child, a lowly orphan whose parents were not even known, becoming the Duchess of Cheister, it was a thing that could absolutely never happen.
Eleanor von Cheiste, who organized her thoughts like that, shook her head toward the Marquess.
“No, that is a thing that cannot be.”
At Eleanor von Cheiste’s decisive answer, the Marquess’s fierce lip shape curved softly in an instant.
“As expected. I thought if it were the Grand Lady, you would speak so.”
“…….”
“That is why I say this. If the Grand Lady cannot do it, I will meet that thing directly and admonish her so she understands well.”
At that time when the softly echoing voice felt as if Satan was whispering into her ear.
A flashing gleam passed through the Marquess’s golden eyes.
“The Grand Lady just needs to bring that wench before this place.”
“…….”
Then, saying he would take care of and resolve everything himself.
At that cold tone where overbearingness and recommendation subtly blended in, Eleanor von Cheiste’s face sank heavily in an instant.
