Chapter 24

Chapter 24

“Did the memorandum really have a clause like that?”

Leonard’s mouth fell open. In a trembling voice, he asked Irenea, who still had her eyes closed.

“That’s what you get for not reading it carefully before you signed. Don’t go signing contracts carelessly wherever you go. At this rate, you’ll end up sold off.”

“I am realizing that most keenly……”

A breath that was somewhere between a sigh and a laugh slipped from Leonard’s lips, and a moment later.

At last, his precious lips touched Irenea’s. It was a light bird kiss, a gentle brush and nothing more.

Irenea knew how passionately he could kiss, so she found it deeply disappointing, but the man before her was a green young man, wasn’t he? They had a long road ahead, so for now she had to be content with one step.

Even as she thought so, unsatisfied, Irenea kissed Leonard’s cheek with a loud smack.

“You’re mine now, so don’t get hurt carelessly wherever you go, and don’t let just anyone touch you. Understood?”

“I will bear it in mind.”

“Now then, here comes a confession of conscience from your fiancée.”

Irenea crinkled the corners of her eyes and smiled charmingly.

“Actually, there’s no such clause in the memorandum.”

“There isn’t?”

From the look on his face, as though she had caught him off guard, he had evidently never doubted that the clause existed. Irenea could not hold back and laughed out loud.

“What, did you really think there was a clause like that?”

“When groom lessons are written in it, is there any reason a parting kiss would not be?”

“Ah, what a waste. If I’d known you would sign without reading it properly, I would have really put it in.”

While she giggled, the carriage arrived at the Boyle Inn on Ivy Street.

“Ah……. Lin, do you have a moment?”

“Of course. I have all the time in the world for you.”

Her rhythmic voice sounded like a joke at first, but when one looked at her brightly smiling face, it did not seem like a joke at all.

“Then please wait just a moment. I would like to introduce you to my aide.”

Rubbing the back of his neck for no reason, Leonard stepped down from the carriage, and just then Edward came dashing out of the inn, as if he had somehow known Leonard had arrived.

“My lord! My lord! Why are you so late……! Gasp!”

Edward, who had apparently already checked out of his room and was shouting fussily with a big luggage bag in hand, went wide-eyed at the sight of Irenea inside the carriage.

“M-Marchioness Blair?”

“M-Marchioness Blair, indeed, it is Marchioness Blair. Lin, this is my aide, Edward.”

“A pleasure, Edward. I am Irenea Blair. I look forward to working with you.”

“Gasp, the, the honor is entirely mine to meet you like this……!”

To Edward, who was fidgeting and stamping his feet like a dog that needed to pee, Irenea held out her left hand with a smile.

Then Edward’s face lit up, and he started to kiss the back of her hand, but stopped short and kissed the ring on her ring finger instead.

Kissing the back of an unmarried woman’s hand, or the ring of an engaged or married woman, was a greeting that could be offered only with the permission of a woman of higher rank.

Apart from the late Countess Elpiers and Jenis, Edward had never given such a greeting before, so he was thrilled. Without hiding his excitement, he asked Irenea.

“Ahem, Marchioness Blair. About the ring on your hand……. Did I greet you correctly?”

“Yes, you did. I am engaged to Count Elpiers at the moment, after all.”

“I knew it! So the article in this newspaper was true!”

Looking at the newspaper Edward had unfolded with a flourish, Irenea nodded to confirm that all of it was true.

Then respect and admiration mingled in the gaze Edward turned on Leonard.

“My lord, you are truly amazing……. How did you manage it with Marchioness Blair……”

Leonard felt slightly sour at Edward gazing at him with such respectful eyes.

He had been working with Edward for several years by now, and today was the first time he had received such a look.

“And here I thought you told me to be careful, since I might get a ring through my nose?”

“Pardon? Oh my, if Marchioness Blair says she’ll put one through, I should hand my nose right over!”

“So it seems. Lin, my aide says his wish is to have a ring put through his nose by you, so please do it for him.”

“Shall I? What should I use? A needle?”

“I’ll lend you my sword.”

When Leonard made a show of drawing the sword at his waist, Edward let out a yelp, clutched his nose, and scrambled backward.

“I, I, I heard that in the capital they cut off your nose if you close your eyes……!”

“That’s right. So keep your eyes wide open so that no one takes it.”

“My loooord!”

What an aide, so much fun to tease.

Giggling, Irenea looked at Edward with fresh eyes.

‘This is the first time I’m seeing his face.’

It was also the first time she had heard his name. All Irenea had ever heard from the Leonard of the past was that he had an aide.

‘He was quite a good fellow. Even after the family fell, he insisted on continuing to work under me.’

But the Leonard of the past had sent Edward back to his hometown.

It was not because the Elpiers family had gone bankrupt, unable to repay its debt.

It was because he had killed a noble to avenge Jenis and become a wanted man.

“You’ve packed everything, right?”

“Yes. I’ve saddled the horse, and I’ve prepared the canteen and the dried provisions in advance, too.”

“Well done.”

While Edward ran off to the stables to fetch the horse, Leonard bade Irenea farewell.

“Then, Lin, I shall be off.”

“Go safely and come back safely.”

She wanted to follow him as far as the outer wall and watch him leave, but right now every minute and every second counted.

Hurrying the coachman, Irenea returned to the manor and immediately summoned Kiri and Hawk.

“You called for me, Marchioness?”

Unlike Kiri, who came running at once and reported on the task Irenea had assigned, Hawk, who had been training in the practice yard, arrived a little later.

Because he had come running right after washing up, water was dripping from his silver hair. Irenea, who had expected as much, handed him a towel she had prepared in advance, and said.

“Hawk, run one errand for me. Get ready right now and go to the Elpiers domain.”

The Elpiers domain……. It was not a place one could go and return from in a day or two.

Hawk shook out his wet hair with the towel and let out a short sigh.

“Forgive my presumption, Marchioness, but you keep leaving me behind, so you seem to have forgotten that I am your personal guard knight……”

Beside him, Kiri nodded that he was right.

“Does it really have to be my brother who goes?”

“Yes. There’s a lot I need to entrust to him.”

Irenea held out to Hawk the bag she had prepared in advance after hearing Kiri’s report.

Hawk took the bag and checked what was inside, and agreed with Irenea that he was the one who must go.

That was how important the things in the bag were.

“You don’t need to worry about my protection. There are the knights, and Selen is keeping watch over me separately, isn’t she?”

“Even so……”

“In any case, His Majesty has ordered me to stay confined for a month, so I won’t be going out. Besides, I’ll be busy preparing for the wedding and won’t be receiving guests, so there’s no need to guard my side.”

“Pardon? What is all that about?”

“We’ll talk about that later.”

Both pieces of news were startling, and while Hawk blinked his ash-gray eyes, Irenea gave him his instructions.

“First, once you leave the marquis’s manor, the very first thing……”

The more he listened to her orders, the more things there were that he could not understand, but since it was an errand from the lord to whom he had sworn loyalty, he nodded and said he would do as instructed.

* * *

The bell chimed.

The great door of the Mercenary Guild headquarters swung open, and the sound of a bell rang out briskly.

The sound carried across the wide lobby with its reception desk and notice board, and even into the tavern on the right, separated by a waist-high partition.

Among the people already flushed red with drink, two middle-aged men sitting across from each other at one table turned their heads at the same time.

Fortunately, after six fruitless attempts, they were rewarded for their long wait.

“Michelle! Why are you so late?”

“Hurry up and come sit. You weren’t spotted by Ray, were you?”

“What do you take me for? Have you forgotten that I’m the one who taught that boy stealth?”

Before she had taught him herself, Leonard had already mastered stealth to an expert level……. Instead of retorting so, Heath pulled out her chair for her.

Meanwhile, Bin fetched a mug of dark beer and set it down in front of Michelle.

No sooner had Michelle settled easily into her seat and wet her throat with the cool dark beer than Heath pressed her as if interrogating her.

“How did it go?”

“Well, I’m so hungry that I can’t tell whether the person I saw was really Marquis Blair or not……”

“Ah, here she goes again.”

The “here she goes again” was not quite fair. When there was an opportunity worth it, all of them were equally devoted to fleecing the other party.

“I knew you’d do this, so I ordered ahead. Here, the three-sausage set.”

“Haah……. I come back after all that hardship, and I’m supposed to eat ground meat……. Tears are welling up, and my throat is choking up, just choking.”

“……Would a whole roasted pork hind leg do?”

“Order another dark beer for me too.”

Bin ordered a whole roasted pork hind leg and two dark beers, and sold the now-unneeded plate of sausages to the next table at half price.

“Considering how hard I’ve worked, I should be eating a whole roasted pig, not just a hind leg, but I’ll settle for this, I will.”

Only after Michelle had cleanly polished off the roasted hind leg, leaving nothing but bone, did she tell them what she had seen.

“They really must be engaged. I saw Ray getting out of Marquis Blair’s carriage.”

“Really? Was the Blair crest definitely on it?”

At Heath’s counter-question, Michelle nodded.

“Ray had Raze Messer hanging at his waist, too. And he went out through the west gate with Eddie.”

“The west gate means……”

Bin, who had the geography of the entire empire memorized, stroked his chin and said.

“Did he go to the Miles domain?”

“If he’s gotten the money, he’d have gone to repay it. The repayment date is only a few days away.”

Weighing one circumstance after another, it seemed that all the news in the newspaper was true.

All of it, that Leonard had become engaged to Marquis Blair and that she had given him five hundred million Larks as a marriage settlement.

“……Suspicious.”

At Heath’s heavy mutter, Michelle nodded.

“Right, it’s suspicious. Marquis Blair is a businesswoman. There’s no way she’d do something that loses her money.”

“Yes, there must be a trap in it somewhere. Five hundred million is absurd.”

“Anyway, it is a fact that Marquis Blair won Raze Messer at the auction for five hundred million.”

Bin wore an exceedingly generous smile. Naturally, since his pockets had grown generous.

“Now all of your savings are mine.”

“No! Never! This has to be a trap!”

Realizing that the roasted pork hind leg she had just eaten had been her last supper, Michelle cried out in a resentful voice.