Chapter 34

34

Before long, Jenis shook her head.

‘Oh, come on. Surely not.’

It wasn’t as if he wanted to get close to me, so why would he bother?

To shake off the pointless thought, Jenis downed the rest of her apple cider.

The fresh scent of apples lingering in her mouth was so crisp and pleasant that she thought she could understand why Elizabeth had been sorry to see it go.

“By the way, Miss Jenis, I’m sure the invitation came as a shock, so thank you for accepting so graciously. Sir Hawk didn’t behave rudely, did he?”

“Not at all. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but he actually helped me a great deal. If you hadn’t sent Sir Hawk, I would have been in real trouble. It’s late, but please accept my thanks.”

Jenis pressed a hand to her chest and bowed her head deeply, and Irenea waved her hand, saying there was no need for that.

“We’re going to be family soon. If you need help with anything else, or if anything is uncomfortable for you while you stay here, don’t hesitate to tell me.”

“Yes, thank you for your kindness.”

“There’s really no need to be so formal.”

The eyes smiling at Jenis were full of warmth.

How could she look at someone she’d only just met with eyes like that?

Suddenly reminded of her late mother, Jenis felt her chest flutter.

“Um… My brother went to the Miles estate to repay a debt, didn’t he? Do you happen to know when he’ll be back?”

“Shouldn’t he be back soon? Judging by the distance to the Miles estate, he should have arrived by now…”

Where on earth was he, and what was he doing?

Letting out a soft sigh, Irenea smiled at Jenis as if to say there was nothing to worry about.

“He’ll be back before long. At the very latest, he’ll arrive before the wedding.”

“…It can’t be, right?”

“Hm? Elly, what did you say?”

“Nothing.”

Shaking her head, Elizabeth glared fiercely at the steak on her plate and sawed at it roughly with her knife.

Her movements were so forceful that they drew the eye on their own, but Jenis consciously kept her gaze fixed on her own plate.

That was because, unlike Irenea, she had heard what Elizabeth muttered.

‘Surely he isn’t only after my sister’s money?’

My brother wouldn’t do something like that.

But the more she chewed over that mutter, the more frightened Jenis became.

She remembered clearly what kind of thinking her brother had held when he made his debut in society.

‘Marrying a woman who’ll pay off the debt. In our current situation, that’s the most likely option. What else can I do? I have to put this face our father passed down to some use, at least.’

Even so, hadn’t he put that face to use a bit too well?

Before she knew it, Jenis had been stealing glances at Irenea, and when their eyes met, she gave an awkward smile.

“I don’t know whether the food suits your taste. If there’s anything you’d like to eat, say so. I’ll tell the head chef to prepare it.”

“No, it’s fine. Everything is delicious.”

Even now, there was nothing but fondness in the eyes Irenea turned on Jenis, which only made her feel more uncomfortable at the table.

‘Brother… Where on earth are you right now?’

For more reasons than one, Jenis wished with all her heart that he would hurry up and arrive.

* * *

Inside a high-class restaurant where guests’ identities were checked at the entrance and no one who wasn’t a noble was let in.

In that gorgeous, elegant atmosphere, where a large music box played a shimmering melody, a battered man who didn’t belong there in the slightest was scowling and spitting out complaints.

“Ow! Ah, damn it… The meat’s too big! Can’t you see my lip’s split? I told you to cut it small!”

Cutting served food was never the staff’s job to begin with.

Not content with grabbing a random employee and making him cut the meat for him, he had even hit the man on the head, demanding to know why he’d cut it so big.

It was such a senseless thing to do that he’d have had no right to complain if he were thrown out on the spot, but status always counted for everything, anywhere.

Before the man could find some other fault, the employee hurriedly groveled flat.

“I’m very sorry, sir! It was absolutely not intentional. I’ll grill the meat small and thin and bring it back to you right away!”

“How can you work like this and still expect to get paid…?”

As he quietly backed away from Harry, who was gulping down cold water as though to swallow his rage, the employee recited every vile curse he knew in his head.

Harry, who had no way of knowing that, picked at the wound at the corner of his mouth, which was healing slowly despite the expensive ointment, and ground his teeth.

“Damn it. He said it would be healed in a day if I put this on…”

If anything, it felt like the wound had gotten worse. This was why you couldn’t trust some backwoods doctor from a place that wasn’t even on the map.

As Harry was debating whether to go back the way he’d come and kill that doctor or spare him, the knight he had sent on an errand returned.

“Huff, huff. Young master!”

“Well? What happened?”

The knight, who had given in to Harry’s nagging and covered a round trip of one hour in thirty minutes, gasped for breath.

Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he looked longingly at the water glass on the table, but instead of giving the exhausted knight any water, Harry lost his temper.

“I said, what happened?”

“Y-yes! The check wasn’t fake!”

Verifying the check had taken some time, but that was the standard procedure for every check.

The moment the check was confirmed to be genuine, the bank had opened an account in the name of Harry Miles.

Harry’s jaw dropped when he saw the thirty million Larc printed in the bankbook the knight handed over.

“The check is really genuine…?”

As Harry swallowed hard, the knights beside him opened their eyes wide in shock. One of them, who had been rubbing his eyes roughly, let out a “Wow” and clapped his hands.

“Congratulations, young master!”

“What?”

“You’re rich now! Thirty million Larc, that’s more than enough to buy a house in the capital!”

The knight wagged his tail once more, saying congratulations again, and his eyes brimmed with a greed he couldn’t quite hide. It was the greed of someone itching to pick up the crumbs beside him.

Seeing that look, the other knights, one and all, began to fawn as well.

“Congratulations, young master!”

“Congratulations. You’ve got to treat us!”

“You idiots… Have you forgotten what that bastard said?”

‘But keep this in mind. If the Count has repaid the debt and you spend that check anyway, Blair will report you for fraud.’

At the moment, he had just been warned by his father over a recent major blunder.

‘This is the last time I’ll let it slide. If you cause one more incident, I’ll truly strike you from the family register, so you’d better remember that!’

The Miles earldom would be inherited by his elder brother, but his maternal grandmother, who doted on him, had promised to leave him a viscountcy after her death.

But that, too, was only on the condition that he still bore the name Miles.

If he lost the Miles name, the viscountcy would be gone as well. So until his grandmother passed away, he had to keep his head down.

‘But…’

Thirty million Larc under the name Harry Miles.

Giving up money that had already landed in his hands was far too painful. Yet swallowing it and pretending nothing had happened was too big a risk.

Just as he was stuck, unable to cast off a greed that had already become part of him, a very tempting voice reached Harry’s ears.

“What? You tripled your money?”

“You, who lose all your money every time you go to the gambling den? How?”

“Oh, there’s a way.”

A voice he simply couldn’t pretend not to have heard and walk past.

“It’s a sure-win method. Ever heard of it?”

“What kind of crazy talk is that? There’s no sure-win method in gambling.”

“Sure there is. I’m living proof.”

The man sitting at the table across from him, swaggering and full of himself, was someone Harry knew well.

‘Rodrigo Yulpis.’

They weren’t acquaintances. If they had been, he would have greeted the man when he saw his face upon entering the restaurant.

They were merely on a nodding basis, knowing each other’s faces and names from crossing paths here and there. And where had they crossed paths? At the gambling den.

Harry wasn’t exactly lucky either. But Rodrigo had practically no luck at all.

When a man who brought a hundred thousand Larc to bet and walked out with three thousand was told he’d had a lucky day, what more needed to be said?

“So what the hell is it, this sure-win method?”

“Well, you see…”

Rodrigo, shrugging his shoulders and glancing around, suddenly locked eyes with Harry.

Realizing that Harry had heard everything he’d said, Rodrigo squinted one eye in displeasure.

After a short clearing of his throat, he turned to his friends and said something in a low voice.

His voice was so quiet that Harry couldn’t make out what he said. But he could hear clearly the startled cry of the friend who reacted to it.

“What? Really? You mean if you just do that, you can win money without fail?”

“Ah, keep it down. You’re disturbing the other diners.”

“…Ah, right. How silly of me, getting so excited.”

With Rodrigo at the center, his friends put their heads together and began whispering about something.

Now neither Rodrigo’s voice nor his friend’s could be heard.

But judging by their twitching mouth corners and cheeks flushed red, it was clear that the “sure-win method” Rodrigo had mentioned was no nonsense.

‘No, it’s not just that it isn’t nonsense…’

It had to be a story plausible enough to hook him after only a few words.

Harry stared hard at the amount in the account he held in his hand.

Thirty million Larc.

If Rodrigo had managed to triple his stake, then surely he could earn four or five times as much with ease.

In that case, the amount printed in this account would exceed a hundred million Larc…

‘A hundred million Larc.’

Just rolling those words around on his tongue sent a thrilling shiver down his spine.

Wiping his palms, now damp with sweat, on his trousers, Harry thought:

‘I have to take these thirty million Larc to Father.’

Flip that around, and it meant that everything left over after the thirty million was his to keep.

Shoving the bankbook into his coat, Harry gulped down the cold water.

Then he stood up and headed for the table where Rodrigo was sitting.