Chapter 38

38

“Miss Elizabeth, I’m back.”

“Oh, you’re here?”

When her personal maid, Anne, returned to the room, Elizabeth was sitting by the window, her chin propped on the sill.

Anne smiled and approached Elizabeth, who didn’t so much as glance her way and just kept gazing out the window.

“Is that mercenary gentleman carving again today?”

“Yes, today he’s making some enormous animal. Look over there. Its shape is so strange.”

Following Elizabeth’s gesture, Anne stood beside her and looked out the window.

In the annex garden, Heath had set a chair in the shade of a great tree and was carving a block of wood as huge as himself into the shape of a four-legged animal.

Since he wore nothing but a vest, with no shirt, the muscles bunching and shifting in his arms every time he put his strength into them were plainly visible.

His body was rough and burly to begin with, and his face had a fierce look as well, so if she had seen him up close, she might have been terrified.

But Heath, seen from a second-floor window far off, didn’t look all that frightening. So whenever Heath came out to the garden to carve, Elizabeth would secretly sit by the window and watch him.

Anne, her personal maid who always stayed at her side, had joined in watching Heath each time as well.

“Hmm… It looks just like a horse, but it has two big humps on its back.”

“Could it be a camel, the one people ride in the desert instead of horses? Or one of the ancient beasts said to fill the Great Weinberg Forest? Which do you think it is?”

Elizabeth’s cheeks were flushed as she chattered away.

Seeing her like that, Anne smiled contentedly and chimed in as appropriate.

“I couldn’t say. If you’re really curious, why not go down and ask him yourself?”

“What? Um, t-talking to him directly is a bit, well…”

Elizabeth trailed off into a mumble, then her eyes went round when she noticed what Anne was holding.

“But what are those flowers?”

If she had brought them in a vase, Elizabeth would have assumed they were meant to decorate the room. But the bright yellow freesias in Anne’s hand were a bouquet, prettily wrapped and mixed with small white flowers.

“Aren’t they lovely? They’re a gift for you from the young lady in the annex.”

“The young lady from the annex?”

It was a reference to Jenis, who had been staying here for the past few days.

Jenis Elpiers.

The young lady who would become Irenea’s in-law once she held her wedding.

Elizabeth had come face to face with her only once, at the banquet a few days ago, the first time and the last.

Yet Elizabeth knew everything about how not only Jenis but all the guests staying in the annex spent their time in the mansion. After all, she was the little mistress of this enormous house.

The moment her personal maid Anne set out, it was only a matter of time before she gathered stories from the servants scattered here and there.

“Didn’t you say she’d been shut up in her room the whole time?”

Jenis had left the annex only to be fitted for dresses, and even then her destination had been the main house.

She had said it was her first time in the capital in a long while, so Elizabeth had been sure she would go out and play here and there.

But Jenis had never once left this mansion.

“She went out for a little while this afternoon, they say. She stopped by a flower shop and apparently bought flowers to give to the Marchioness and the youngest lady.”

“I see…”

She had made her first outing to buy gifts for us!

Elizabeth’s cheeks flushed a rosy pink.

“If she went out herself and even bought gifts, then Miss Jenis can’t dislike me, can she?”

“Oh, how can you even ask that? Why on earth would the young lady from the annex dislike you?”

“But I told her she could call me Elly, and Miss Jenis didn’t accept the nickname… She didn’t call me Elly at all.”

The face that had been so full of excitement drooped sulkily once more.

As her personal maid, Anne ought to have been indignant, but disrespectfully enough, she only found Elizabeth adorable.

“It seems you’ve taken quite a liking to the young lady from the annex.”

“Huh? Um… It’s less that I like her… She’s going to be family, and she’s about my age, and also…”

Elizabeth twirled her long hair around her finger.

“Her hair color is similar to mine.”

Unlike her sisters, who both had silver hair, Elizabeth alone was blonde, and she had always been unhappy about it.

And now the young lady who was about to become family had the very same golden hair and blue eyes as hers.

Elizabeth thought it was truly a remarkable connection.

“And we’re the same age, so… if things go well, couldn’t we become friends?”

“Not ‘if things go well,’ you’ll certainly manage it. She gave you such pretty flowers, after all.”

“Right? Miss Jenis does want to be friends with me, doesn’t she?”

At Elizabeth’s sparkling eyes, Anne nodded vigorously.

“Of course! Since it’s come to this, why not invite the young lady from the annex to tea tomorrow or the day after? To thank her for the flowers, too.”

“Shall I? What should I give her in return?”

“Flowers are best returned with flowers. And the blue hydrangeas in the garden have bloomed so beautifully.”

“Oh, right, that would be perfect. And they happen to be blue.”

Since she sent me flowers the color of her hair, I’ll give her flowers the color of my eyes in return.

Anne watched Elizabeth murmur this with a fond expression. A new friend for her was most welcome indeed.

“Besides, the future consort has returned home, so I hear a banquet is planned for this evening. Why not invite the young lady from the annex yourself at the banquet later?”

“Should I? …But what if she refuses?”

“Oh, surely not. The young lady from the annex would never turn down your invitation.”

Saying they should first get ready for the banquet, Anne sent Elizabeth into the bathroom. As she delicately washed Elizabeth’s long, luxuriant hair, she kept up a stream of talk like a chirping lark.

“Come to think of it, you haven’t heard yet, have you?”

“Heard what?”

“Why, the future consort apparently called our Marchioness angelic!”

“An angel?”

Elizabeth stuck out her tongue slightly, as if to ask whether men still said such corny things these days.

Anne poured warm water over Elizabeth’s hair, white with lather, and answered in a voice tinged with laughter.

“That’s what I thought. And besides that, I hear he rattled off one compliment after another, pretty this and lovable that.”

“Well, my sister is a little pretty.”

After nodding from an objective standpoint, Elizabeth put on a very serious expression.

“Don’t tell me it isn’t the money… Did he fall for my sister at first sight, just from her face?”

“Hmm, what man could see our Marchioness and not fall for her?”

“Of course none could! But I wanted my future brother-in-law to be someone who likes my sister for what’s inside, not her money or her looks.”

Elizabeth pouted and made a vow.

“If my future brother-in-law turns out to be some run-of-the-mill snob…”

“If he does?”

Elizabeth struck the surface of the bathwater hard with her fist and cried out.

“I’ll throw him out of this house by any means necessary!”

But two hours later.

Elizabeth, who had arrived early and was seated at the wide dining table, opened her eyes wide at the sight of Leonard entering the dining room escorting Irenea.

A handsome face of sharper, more distinct lines than any man she had ever seen, and Irenea’s tender eyes gazing up at him.

“It’s the first time you’re seeing him like this, isn’t it? This is my first sister, Elizabeth, and this is my second, Charlotte.”

Then Irenea turned to look at Elizabeth and Charlotte, and her gaze dripped with happiness like honey overflowing from a honey pot.

Her mouth couldn’t possibly be any less honest than those eyes. Thanks to that, Elizabeth couldn’t have failed to notice even if she’d tried.

“Girls, this man is going to be your brother-in-law.”

That the one who had fallen at first sight was not Leonard but her sister.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, my lady. I am Leonard Elpiers.”

So Elizabeth had no choice but to answer Leonard, who kissed the back of her hand, like this.

“Oh… yes. I’m Elizabeth. Elizabeth Blair. I’m nineteen this year. I’ll come of age next year.”

“I see. It’s still early, but congratulations in advance.”

“Well…”

His smiling face was striking indeed. A halo seemed to blaze behind him. He was certainly worth bringing home for five hundred million Larc.

Moreover, Leonard’s body was so well built that even Elizabeth, who knew nothing of swordsmanship, could tell he was no ordinary fighter.

The gesture with which he pulled out Irenea’s chair himself in place of a servant was also restrained and without a wasted motion. His manner was so formal that no one who didn’t know would ever guess he was a bastard and a former mercenary.

After observing him thoroughly, Elizabeth could stamp a seal of certainty on her conclusion.

‘He’s far better than those husks who strut around just because they’re nobles.’

Still, to think the shallow one who fell for a face was my own sister.

‘…Well, it happens.’

My sister is a capable woman. She’s allowed to go by a man’s looks alone.

It would be fine if it wasn’t this man who had set out to bewitch my sister, but my sister who had set out to snatch up this man.

And besides, this man apparently thinks of my sister as an angel too.

“I look forward to getting along with you, future brother-in-law.”

“Yes. I look forward to it as well.”

Then the only task left for me is making a friend!

‘When would be a good time to bring it up?’

Today again, Elizabeth stared intently at Jenis, seated across from her, waiting only for a chance to speak.

‘Wh-why is she glaring at me with such an intense look?’

Could it be that the flowers she sent as a gift were too shabby and she didn’t like them?

Little did she dream that such a misunderstanding was deepening.