Chapter 10

Chapter 10

“There are several reasons, but… that man has a surprisingly cunning side. If I falsely accuse him of something he didn’t do, I’m the one who’ll end up suffering for it.”

“That man?”

Recalling Viscount Calio, who had raged on about how she’d insulted him over a single bottle of wine, Leonard made a sour face.

“But he did put something in the glass today, didn’t he? It wouldn’t be a false accusation.”

“Not today. If I made it public, my benefactor would suffer for it.”

He probably didn’t even know, and yet he’s so lucky.

At Irenea’s murmur, Leonard’s eyes softened a little.

If that was the reason, it couldn’t be helped.

“Is that all you wanted to ask?”

“No. There’s one last question, the most important one.”

“Ah, I think I know what it is.”

Irenea’s eyes sparkled, as if she held a jewel-like flutter deep in her chest.

“You want to ask about what comes next, don’t you?”

“If you already have an inkling, this will go quickly. Tomorrow morning’s papers will surely carry your name and mine side by side.”

There was no way they wouldn’t. For the past week, he’d seen several articles speculating on who Marchioness Blair’s spouse would be.

“You can’t intend to break off the engagement the moment it’s made, so what do you plan to do from here?”

“I plan to ask you to marry me.”

“Is that so?”

Leonard asked back, his face saying he wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly.

“You’re asking me to marry you?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“Who else? Sir Leonard, whose name will appear in the papers right beside mine.”

From Irenea’s brightly smiling mouth came the name he had hoped it wouldn’t. With his insides laid completely bare on his face, Leonard asked again in a daze.

“Just now, that is, are you proposing to me?”

“Yes!”

Irenea nodded with a broad smile.

“Since you so readily played the part of my fiancé, you must have no one else in mind, no fiancée, correct? But you’re a nobleman too, Sir Leonard, so you’ll have to marry anyway for the sake of an heir, and in that case, how would I do as your partner? I can meet whatever conditions you want as far as I can. Except for divorce and infidelity.”

The words had poured out so fast he wondered whether she was even breathing. Leonard hadn’t properly caught even half of them, but he understood well enough what she was trying to say.

‘So, she’s asking me to marry her?’

Leonard simply couldn’t understand it.

‘If she knows even my body measurements, she must have investigated me.’

Wondering whether her investigation had fallen short, Leonard spelled it out plainly.

“You don’t seem to know much about me, but I’m a bastard.”

“And how is that Sir Leonard’s fault? No child in the world gets to choose their parents.”

“That’s not all. When I was young, I lived by begging for food, and when I got a bit older, I was sold to a mercenary band…”

“Let me say it once more. All of that is the fault of the parents who bore a child and took no responsibility. What fault could there possibly be in you, Sir Leonard, who merely lived the life the adults had decided for you?”

The eyes that looked straight at Leonard were perfectly clear, as if she truly meant it.

Before those lake-like eyes, which reflected his own face exactly, Leonard helplessly dropped his gaze. It was to hide his own wavering eyes, as unsteady as water.

“Do you truly… not consider that a flaw in me?”

“Do you consider it a flaw, Sir Leonard?”

“Isn’t that only natural?”

How could Leonard not? Everyone around him had pointed a finger and called it a flaw.

“If you marry me, I’ll make sure you never think that way again.”

As if telling him to leave it to her, for she was confident, Irenea placed a hand over her chest.

“Not only you, Sir Leonard, but everyone who ever made you think that way.”

* * *

‘Everything I told you was sincere, so please, Sir Leonard, do consider my proposal seriously.’

With those final words, Irenea stood, wished him a restful night, and left.

But contrary to her wish, Leonard did not sleep a wink.

He barely managed to close his eyes around the time dawn broke, and thanks to Edward, who came looking for him early in the morning, he had to wake after only a few hours.

“Count, please get up! Count!”

“Noisy… What, are there bugs in the room again…?”

“Aaagh! That’s an extremely rude thing to say about Marchioness Blair, who gave us this guest room!”

“Marchioness Blair…”

Only then remembering that this was not the inn where he was lodging, Leonard’s eyes flew open. But he was not fully awake yet.

Clutching his throbbing head, a result of not having slept enough, he dragged himself upright.

“What time is it?”

“A bit past ten. But Count, look at this!”

What Edward thrust forward in a great flurry was a newspaper.

A newspaper with Marchioness Blair’s name and his own side by side in the headline.

Beneath a photograph of him and Irenea standing side by side, taken who knew when, it was written in detail how Marchioness Blair had announced him as her spouse at last night’s ball.

Of course, the articles didn’t end there.

Unlike Marchioness Blair, whose every move drew attention, Leonard’s existence was not well known.

Perhaps for that reason, every paper carried at least one article introducing him.

The reporters probably hadn’t slept a wink writing these, had they? With that thought, he flipped through the paper, and one article caught his eye.

An article that used the negative word “bastard” to stir up a peculiar suspicion.

Leonard checked the name of the press that had written it.

Lotus Press.

“As expected, Matthias again.”

“Huh? What do you mean… Whoa!”

Edward, who belatedly checked the headline Leonard had seen, quickly snatched the paper out of his hand.

“I’m sorry, Count. I thought I’d screened them all, but it seems I missed one.”

No wonder every paper had left out his origins and focused solely on the fact that he was head of the Elpiers family and had won the honor of Anup for the first time in a hundred years. Edward had apparently already screened them once.

Wouldn’t the papers Edward had set aside be the ones emphasizing that Leonard was a bastard and a former mercenary, dragging down his reputation?

“Never mind the apology, just hand it over.”

“What? This? Why? Surely you don’t mean to read it?”

“I’m curious what they’re going on about.”

“But why on earth would you…”

Leonard pulled the paper directly from Edward’s hesitating hand and checked the article.

The content was far worse than he’d expected.

The reason that he, born a bastard and wandering the continent as a mercenary, had suddenly been able to become Count Elpiers.

It was that he’d had an affair with the late Countess Elpiers.

“Is this guy completely insane?”

“Hhhhk…! A-an affair? What do they take our Madam for! Count! Sue them for spreading false information! Right now!”

Edward, who had attended the academy through the late Countess Elpiers’s patronage, regarded her as the benefactor of his life. That was why, unbothered by his pittance of a salary, he worked under Leonard, to repay the debt of gratitude he had yet to settle.

It was only natural that Edward would rage on seeing an article that damaged the late Countess Elpiers’s honor.

“How can people who call themselves reporters print low rumors fit only for drinking-table gossip in a newspaper! Count, kill them all. Please?”

“And then I go to prison?”

“You can fight an honor duel!”

“If Matthias had spouted that nonsense with his own mouth, I’d have thrown down my glove on the spot. But can’t you see this?”

At the end of the article Leonard was tapping with his hand, the place where the reporter’s signature should have been was blank.

“An anonymous submission…”

In the press industry, where each scoop became one’s own career, reporters always signed at the end of the articles they wrote.

There was only one case in which an article ran anonymously. When the writer was afraid of retaliation from a powerful figure whose disgrace had been exposed, and so couldn’t reveal their name.

“If I go to Matthias and throw down my glove, people will say I’m doing it because I have something to hide. Better to leave it alone.”

“B-but…”

Crumpling the paper and stuffing it into the wastebasket, Leonard soothed the tearful Edward in a gentle voice.

“The moment I catch him in something, I’ll throw down the glove and crush him. That settles it, doesn’t it?”

Though the content was not gentle at all.

“Yes! I’ll rely on you, Count!”

Sniffling once, Edward nodded briskly. But still unable to shake off his resentment, he privately cursed Lloyd Matthias a little.

‘What a cowardly, petty man!’

Lloyd had already challenged Leonard to a duel and lost in a humiliating way.

That was exactly why he was desperate to devour Leonard, and the fact that he ran such filthy articles through the press his family operated showed just how petty a man he was.

If your honor was ruined by losing a duel, you should think about challenging him again to restore it!

Muttering that the Count was pitiable for having been caught by such a fellow, Edward tidied the newspapers Leonard had finished with.

“By the way, Count…”

Just as he was about to ask what had happened with the engagement to Marchioness Blair, Leonard looked at today’s date printed at the top of the paper and said, “Ah.”

“Come to think of it, it’s tonight, isn’t it?”

“Tonight? …Ah! You mean the auction? Yes. It’s tonight.”

Nodding, Edward carefully glanced at Leonard’s expression and asked.

“I know it’s a late question by now… Count, are you truly all right with putting the family heirloom up for auction? It’s the symbol of the Elpiers family.”

The moment that item appeared on the auction stage, people would surely love the chance to curse Leonard again. No matter how desperate for money he was, selling his family’s heirloom. This was why you shouldn’t take in a bastard of tainted blood.

“With the house about to collapse, what does a mere sword matter? First, people have to live.”

That was right, he had no room right now to agonize over a bolt-from-the-blue proposal.

If the sword he had put up at tonight’s auction sold at the price agreed upon with his employer, there would be much to do.

The first task was to pay off the Count’s family’s enormous debt.

Recalling the employer who had somehow learned his secret and made a covert proposal, Leonard let out a small sigh.

***

Hi everyone! I’ll be releasing at least 10 chapters every day. Hope you enjoy reading!💕🫶