Chapter 48

Chapter 48

“A family portrait for House Angel? If you were to entrust such a momentous task to me… I would have no regrets if I died that very instant.”

Only Adrian, who knew nothing of the two’s complicated circumstances, was purely delighted by Cedric’s words.

“Of course. Since Miss Ines is the one who discovered you, there is no painter more fitting than you, Adrian, to take on our family portrait. So keep up your good work from here on.”

Cedric continued in a gentle tone.

“There seem to be many people waiting for you. I think we can end the greetings here.”

“Ah.”

When Adrian turned around at Cedric’s words, a group of nobles was waiting for him there.

He could not keep his future patrons waiting. Adrian nodded, his face full of joy.

“Yes. Then I shall take my leave. I wish you both a good night. Duke Angel, Lady Greenwood.”

“A good night to you as well, Adrian.”

“Goodbye… Adrian.”

When Adrian had gone far enough, Ines tried to pull her hand free of Cedric’s grasp. But no matter how much strength she put into it, Cedric would not let go of her hand.

“Your Grace!”

“Miss Ines, let us be on our way as well. I have had the carriage prepared.”

“I can go home with Father. You needn’t trouble yourself…”

“I have already spoken with Count Greenwood. He said he had much to discuss with the other nobles, and entrusted you to me.”

“But that…”

“Is there something about it that troubles you? Going home with one’s betrothed is perfectly natural and proper, is it not?”

There was no room to argue with Cedric’s words. A moment later, an attendant came looking for them to announce that the carriage was ready.

“Shall we, Miss Ines?”

His hand, clasped tightly as if he would never let her slip away, would not loosen. In the end, Ines had no choice but to leave the ballroom with Cedric. Seeing the two of them with their hands joined, many people cast envious glances.

But to Ines, it felt like being dragged off to hell.

* * *

They boarded the carriage. With the heavy snowfall freezing the roads, and the carriages of so many nobles heading home tangled together, it took quite a long time to reach the Count’s residence.

Inside the carriage, the two were silent. Each was lost in their own thoughts.

But once again, the one to speak first was none other than Cedric.

“About what we discussed at the ball just now.”

They had discussed many things at the ball. Realizing that his explanation had been a little lacking, Cedric added a qualifier.

“I mean what I said to Adrian.”

“Ah.”

The family portrait. So that was what he meant, Ines thought, and nodded.

It had nothing to do with her anyway. Because having a child… and marrying him, neither would happen in this life.

As if he had read those thoughts of Ines’s, Cedric caught her off guard.

“We will have a pretty daughter.”

For a moment, Ines forgot even to breathe. Startled, she lifted her head and looked at Cedric.

“What do you mean…”

“We will have a pretty daughter. A child as gentle and kind as you, with House Angel’s golden hair and blue eyes, like an angel.”

“Duke Angel!”

With a face gone pale, Ines cried out before she knew it.

“Please don’t speak of such things. A child, of all things.”

A child, of all things.

It was a fortune she had already held once and lost. It was shameless even to dare hope for it.

“Daughter or son, it makes no difference to me, but still, I’d like our first to be a daughter.”

But Cedric paid no heed. As he pressed Ines, he only watched her reaction. How she responded, what changes crossed her expression. All to find out what she was hiding.

“That day, in the dream, that is.”

A dream.

Once again, a word Ines could not dare to refuse had come up.

Watching Ines, who could say nothing, her face drained white, Cedric slowly opened his mouth.

“I believe I said something similar. That I hoped our first child would be a daughter. I think I even spoke a name for the child.”

Rachel.

The name of the child who had died without ever being born was Rachel.

A baby angel who had not yet been known to be a son or a daughter, who had ascended to heaven together with her father.

Locked in solitary confinement in the North Tower, she had watched her family die, one after another. Each time, the desire to die surged within her, and yet she had barely clung to life by the love for a child whose face she had never even seen.

“…They say the first child takes after the father a great deal. Your first child, Your Grace, will surely be a lovely child with blue eyes, like their father.”

Ines murmured without realizing it. Hearing that faint soliloquy, Cedric corrected her words.

“Our child, you mean. She will probably grow into the most beautiful young lady in Laitenia.”

It was not a conversation to be had between a young man and woman who were not yet married, or rather, whose engagement date had only just been announced.

But to Ines, Cedric’s words were a great comfort.

“Would she have? The most beautiful… young lady in Laitenia, she would have been.”

It felt as though she had returned in an instant to those days.

To the days after she learned of the pregnancy, when she and Cedric would talk of this and that.

“I heard there’s a flower whose meaning is love at first sight.”

She couldn’t say how much she had laughed at what Cedric said, so uncharacteristically bashful, so delighted was she that this great big man had taken a flower dictionary and found the flower most fitting for the child’s birthday.

“There’s no need to laugh that much.”

Even so, he too finally burst out laughing.

“You and our child are both my first love. I couldn’t find a flower that suited better than this one.”

“Do you mean you read through the whole flower dictionary?”

“Three times. Thanks to that, I can’t even remember what today’s Noble Council meeting was about.”

Once the child’s first tooth fell out, they had agreed, they would all go to the stable together, hand in hand.

They would throw the tooth onto the stable roof, and pray together for the tooth fairy to come.

If she found out what gift the child wanted, he said, he would be the one to sneak in and leave it.

She also remembered how aghast she had been, and how she had stopped Cedric, when he said that since they’d be at the stable anyway, he would put the child on Sorrel and take a lap around.

There had been so many things planned in advance for a child not yet born.

Unlike his usual cool and rational self, Cedric, in a mood so giddy it verged on foolish, had waited day after day for the time when he could hold the child.

The child’s first birthday.

The day of her first lost tooth.

The Academy entrance ceremony.

And the graduation.

The debut.

The holidays they would spend together every year.

And the peaceful, happy days, every single one, that would be no occasion at all.

Until Father staged his rebellion, the couple’s bedchamber had been a nursery of sorts, where they had cherished together the dreams and the future of the child to be born in a few months.

“Miss Ines?”

Before she knew it, a single tear had rolled down her cheek.

Cedric moved to sit beside her and placed a handkerchief in her hand. Having now seen this sight twice in one day, Cedric’s expression was dark.

Could the reason she shrank from the engagement be, of all things, the child? But why on earth?

To say she disliked children, Ines’s weeping form carried too tender a light; to say it was the burden of producing an heir, she seemed like someone who desperately wanted to have a child.

So this alone was not enough. To resolve this situation for certain, he would have to press her further. If he pressed just a little more, what she was hiding would surely show itself more clearly.

But…

‘…Let’s stop.’

The moment a single tear fell from Ines’s eyes, Cedric’s heart, too, dropped to the floor with a thud. The matter had already ended right there.

He did not want to know that badly, not at the cost of watching her grieve.

It did not matter what secret she held.

As he had just said, Ines would become Duchess Angel, and the two of them would have a pretty, lovely child.

* * *

The day after the New Year’s ball.

A golden carriage had arrived at the Greenwood residence.

The only one who would send to House Greenwood a carriage with banners embroidered with the imperial crest, raised in dazzling splendor, was one person.

“Miss, please get up quickly. The imperial family has sent a carriage. The attendant is waiting.”

Marie flung open the curtains in Ines’s room in a flurry. Then she rushed to Ines and took off the eye mask covering her eyes.

“Ah! How wonderful. The swelling has gone down so much.”

Last night, she had soothed her young mistress, who cried until her eyes were sore, and applied ointment to her eyes. Marie couldn’t say how worried she had been that the Count might be angered if he found out.

Fortunately, the ointment worked so well that the swelling had vanished completely.

Her whole body felt heavy, like water-soaked cotton. Ines barely opened her eyes and asked.

“The imperial family? What do you mean?”

“The imperial consort has sent a carriage. She says you are to come to the palace at once.”

It was a sudden summons, but one could not refuse the imperial consort’s call.

“She has probably called for you because you couldn’t attend the New Year’s ball. She is so fond of you, Miss.”

The imperial consort. Once called Lea Greenwood, she was rather famous for her love of her niece. Having missed the occasion of her niece’s engagement date being announced, the imperial consort could hardly help feeling regret.

“So please get up now. All right?”

Sure enough, the attendant, unable to wait any longer, came up to her room and began to hurry her. In the end, Ines was harried by many people from early morning and had to get ready to enter the imperial palace.

The moment Ines was seated, the carriage ran and ran. To grant the imperial consort’s wish to have brunch with her niece, they needed to hurry all the more.