Chapter 197. The Emblem Engraved on the Necklace
In the afternoon as the midday heat was cooling down.
An unexpected figure barged into the Marquessate of Constant.
Raymond von Cheister.
Everyone in the marquess’s mansion watched with bated breath as the Duke entered the entrance hall with an ominous aura.
At the very front stood Marquess Constant.
“Welcome.”
“…”
“If you had contacted me in advance, this person would have gone out to the main gate to greet you.”
If heard at a glance, it sounded like words of apology for not being able to do so, but in reality, it was a word slyly pointing out the opponent’s rudeness.
The Duke, who looked intently at the Marquess smiling brightly like an old fox, soon nodded his head once.
“Because there was something I urgently needed to confirm, I committed such rudeness.”
Therefore, it was a word asking for understanding.
However, at that single word, the Marquess’s mask-like expression collapsed in an instant.
‘Something to urgently… confirm?’
It was a word that sounded quite significant.
And naturally so, since what on earth was there for him to confirm with himself.
Even more so, a matter that was urgent enough that he had to barge in, even while clearly knowing it was rudeness like this.
At that moment when an unknown feeling crept up beneath his feet.
Pitter-patter.
At the sound of footsteps approaching urgently, his thoughts evaporated into the air in a single moment.
Where he turned his gaze, Olivia was standing, catching her rough breath.
Unusually, an oddly disheveled appearance to see how much she had rushed down.
The moment he realized where the severely emaciated Olivia’s gaze was consistently pointing, the Marquess’s expression distorted fiercely.
“I heard that… you came…”
Perhaps, she thought—that he had come to meet her.
That was why she must have run down in a single breath like that.
A man who declared the dissolution of the engagement as soon as he learned that another woman was pregnant with his child, to still like him…
Looking at that tender emotion rising over a face that was drying up like a withered flower day by day, a father’s heart could not be good.
At that moment when he was about to tell someone standing behind her to just take her away.
“It has been a long time. Because I have a few things to confirm with the Marquess.”
They were words that fell flat.
Words that the reason I am in this place right now is not to see you, but because I have business with your father.
The Marquess turned his head away, unable to bear watching the flutter and expectation that had filled up to the brim collapse down in a single moment.
“Enough, let us go inside.”
At the words that flowed out coldly, the Duke’s gaze moved toward the opposite side again.
Blue pupils shining eerily as if waiting for it.
Like that, the two people disappeared toward the inside.
Leaving behind Olivia who was standing with a blank face.
***
The place they arrived at after receiving the Marquess’s guidance was his office.
An archaic bookshelf lined up along one side of the wall, and the two people sat facing each other on the sofa inside it.
“Have some. Because it is tea imported from Bermond, the aroma is very good.”
Raymond looked at the face of the Marquess pointing to the teacup placed on the table with interest for a moment.
Even though he barged in without contact, an appearance where fluster could not be found in the slightest.
At an appearance that seemed as if he had expected it to some extent, a hollow laugh leaked out from between his teeth without his knowledge.
Before coming here.
Raymond came to learn one very astounding fact.
The secret that the maid who came to the study confided to him with a heavily nervous face.
That which, by the strict command of the Dowager Duchess handed down to the whole mansion, everyone banded together tightly and blocked his eyes and ears—
“You dropped by Elfengreen not long ago.”
At the words thrown out abruptly, the Marquess’s hand that was tilting the teacup paused for an instant.
“And at that, precisely at the point in time when I was away.”
“…”
Looking at the Marquess’s face that turned cold in an instant, one corner of Raymond’s lips curved up slightly.
As if he too noticed the reason why he left out that one sentence he wanted to ask the most, the Marquess’s firmly closed mouth soon began to open slowly.
“Do I not also have such a right.”
“A right…”
“When a precious daughter is on the verge of having her engagement dissolved because of one humble wench, can I stay still, is what I am saying.”
“…”
Raymond looked intently for a long time at the opponent who spoke without hesitation in front of him, calling her ‘a humble wench’.
“So.”
“…”
“So, what did you say.”
That was the reason why he deliberately came all the way here to confirm.
What on earth did he blabber, so that the woman left bare-handed like that, leaving behind a child who was like her life.
To know only that one thing, he ran all the way here in a single breath.
“Well, it was no big word. It was just to the extent of asking what are you going to do about it, since the marriage of two families is on the verge of being broken because of you alone.”
“…”
“Don’t tell me, did I sit that wench down and perform some kind of intimidation—is that why you chased all the way here?”
At the laughter that flowed out low as if mocking, Raymond’s chin twitched for a moment, causing a spasm.
There was no way.
There was no way she would leave as if fleeing at a mere single word of that degree.
Leaving behind a newborn baby.
Because what on earth was so urgent, to the extent that she left without even waiting for the brief moment he was coming.
If the terrible words he poured out made the woman deliberate, a hunch—no, a conviction arose that the opponent in front of his eyes definitely played a big role in the background of her leaving so hurriedly like that.
However—.
Neither was it a situation where he could continuously push the opponent who said no to speak the truth.
Furthermore, the opponent was a Marquess.
Even at that, a cunning and black-hearted man inside whom ninety-nine snakes were contained.
Therefore, Raymond also knew well that he had to back off around here.
Because he could not waste any more meaningless time here.
Flashing a dark blue glint in his eyes, Raymond looked directly at the Marquess intently.
“I plan to definitely, surely, find that woman again.”
At the tone of uttering as if chewing on every single word, the laugh that rose around the Marquess’s mouth disappeared in an instant.
What replaced that spot was a hard, stiffened face.
With a chuckle, Raymond continued to carry on with those following words.
“Finding her somehow, I will definitely return a mother to my child. Without fail.”
A pledge to himself and simultaneously a warning toward the opponent.
Fortunately, whether he understood the meaning of those words, a fine crack began to occur on the Marquess’s face that was firm like a mask.
He thought this much was enough.
Since he conveyed his intention so that the opponent who did a presumptuous act could understand, let us return around here and trace the woman’s tracks again.
It was just when Raymond, who thought like that, was about to stand up from his seat.
Suddenly, at something visible beyond his field of vision, Raymond’s movement stopped abruptly on the spot.
“…”
What caught Raymond’s gaze was the tapestry hung on the wall behind where the Marquess was sitting.
That which was hung on the wall of a space for receiving guests, the front of a hallway where people come and go, a reception room, or an office.
The reason his gaze was bound to the scenery that could be commonly seen in any noble family was because of the emblem engraved on the square tapestry in the exact center.
It was definitely an emblem he had seen somewhere.
At that time when he was retracing his thoughts thoroughly as to where that was.
Something flashed through his head.
—Ah, this… is mother’s necklace.
—Because it was something mother was always wearing… nothing else remains, but only this one…
That necklace.
That necklace that the woman was always wearing around her neck, saying it was a keepsake of her mother.
Precisely, the pendant emblem attached to the necklace was the exact same thing as that over there.
Of course, that necklace was not in front of his eyes right now, but the reason he was confident it was the same emblem was because at that time too, feeling like he had seen it somewhere, he had asked the woman to show it to him.
Above all, he could not mistake that unique emblem, which depicted a tree extending upward from the lower side of a shield.
In an instant, an unknown hunch crept up bit by bit from under his feet.
“…Why are you doing that.”
Whether that was the same for the opponent as well, the Marquess narrowed his brows, looking alternately at Raymond and the wall where his gaze had stopped.
“That over there.”
Raymond opened his mouth without taking his gaze off the wall.
“That, which is in the middle of that.”
What on earth was he looking at to do that… With a heavily crumpled face, the Marquess looked back at the wall again.
The Marquess’s gaze, which was slowly examining the wall, stopped accurately in the exact center.
“By any chance… are you talking about that emblem in the middle.”
At the words asking if that was right, Raymond nodded his head once.
“It is a remarkably unique emblem, but I wonder if there is some meaning contained in it.”
It was definitely not the emblem representing the Marquessate of Constant.
If it were, there was no way he would not have known until now.
Therefore, it was strange.
Why on earth was the emblem engraved on the keepsake left by Deborah’s birth mother hung on the wall of Marquess Constant’s office.
“Ah, ah, that is…”
At that time when his mind was complicatedly entangled in a complete mess, that answer finally flowed out from the Marquess’s mouth.
“It is the emblem representing my mother’s side of the family.”
At those words that flowed out nonchalantly, his heart thumped for a moment, making a heavy sound and falling down beneath his feet.
