Chapter 9

* * *

Ethan, seeing Ben sorting the mail, narrowed his eyes and approached him.

Having spent a long time in the capital, Ethan was familiar with the imperial crest.

“Count, you’re out?”

“What are you doing right now?”

“Today is the day correspondence arrives, so I was sorting it.”

“I’ll do it, so you see to other matters.”

For House Devryan, befitting the masters of the estate, letters coming from all over the manor piled up like a mountain. Selecting from them the letters that the master absolutely had to see was Ben’s long-standing primary duty. At the master’s unprecedented order, Ben tilted his head, but soon nodded.

“Understood.”

Once Ben vacated the spot, Ethan picked out the imperial correspondence from the middle of the bundle. If it had been sent officially from the imperial palace, the imperial letter would not have been mixed in among the correspondence like this.

Adel often sent letters to her sister. But never once had a reply arrived from her sister, the Crown Princess.

If this was simply a letter writing private greetings to a younger sister, it was not strange that it had not come with an imperial knight.

Or perhaps the Crown Princess had wanted to write it herself.

Ethan’s hand itched to see the letter that had come into his possession. The normal him would never have harbored such a thought. Not knowing what was making him so anxious, he glared at the letter. Ethan hesitated for a moment, but before he knew it, he had clenched the hand holding the letter.

The carelessly torn-open letter began without even the usual greetings.

If there is a husband who takes what is yours from your house and gives what he took to another woman, that cannot be called a home. Do not linger any longer—come up to the capital at once.

The letter crumpled violently in Ethan’s hand. It was not the sort of thing one could do to a letter from the Crown Princess, of all people, but Ethan’s reason did not extend that far.

“Ben! Ben!”

Ben, who had been examining the stairs leading to the second floor, was startled by his master’s sudden call and rushed to him.

“What is the matter?”

“Adel—where is Adel right now?”

“The madam has gone to inspect the central library.”

“The library?”

“Yes. She plans to build a new library for children on the outskirts, so she went to seek advice….”

“Who did she go with? Did she use the family carriage?”

“As always, she went out accompanied only by Sir Cedric.”

“The carriage?”

“Probably… she went on horseback.”

Since the madam always traveled on horseback, Ben had not separately confirmed that part. Just then, Annaston and her son were seen entering the main house.

“Huh? Ethan?”

She greeted him brightly, but the Count did not hear her call.

Ethan paced around, rubbing his chin. If it was just a horse and not a carriage, she could not have loaded luggage, so Adel could not have left. No—it made no sense for Adel to leave this house right now. And yet Ethan could not stand still for even a moment.

“Is something wrong? I came to have breakfast with Lewein.”

“Ah, sorry, Anna, but I’m busy right now. Ben! Prepare a horse at once.”

Anna bit her lip as she watched Ethan vanish from sight without even meeting her eyes. Not long ago, when he had sent word that he could now give her noble status and take her as his mistress, Anna had thought everything was working out well.

But seeing Ethan’s expression, she grew increasingly anxious.

* * *

Meanwhile, Adel heard that water had suddenly stopped flowing at a facility in the southern part of the estate and headed straight there. Not wanting to show Ethan that she still had lingering attachments to this work, she had made the excuse that she was going to the library.

After giving her credit to Anna, Adel had tried to wash her hands of the work, but it was not easy to let go of her feelings.

It was work she had begun solely for the convenience of the estate’s people. If the water did not flow when the imperial envoy came, it would be a great embarrassment.

“Cedric, if you go over that hill, there should be a pipe joint. Take the workers and check whether water is leaking there.”

“Will you be all right alone?”

“I have my horse. And aren’t I your prize student?”

Herbron was a place with better security than any other estate. In recent months, not a single violent crime had occurred. Moreover, Adel had trained hard enough to handle one or two ordinary able-bodied men alone, even without a weapon.

Cedric disappeared over the hill with the others, and Adel gazed at the wide plain spread out like a painting. A cool breeze blew, and her golden hair swayed in the wind. Adel gently closed her eyes. This was the time she loved most.

Then she recalled the behavior of the waterway expert she had met not long ago.

‘He put his mouth to this hose and sucked hard, and water came out….’

Once her thoughts reached that point, Adel did not hesitate. As the mistress of the estate, putting her mouth to a hose and sucking was a rather undignified act, but noble dignity was not a very important matter to her.

Just as the expert who knew about pressure had done, she aligned the hose parallel with the hole, bent down, and put her mouth to it. She sucked hard two or three times, but no water came out.

‘So it really doesn’t work?’

Thinking it did not matter if it did not come out, Adel let out a full breath and then pulled and sucked with all her might again.

“Lady?”

At that moment, a voice called from behind her, and startled, Adel turned around while lifting the hose. But just then, water burst from the hose and struck the man squarely in the face with force. The water pressure was so strong that she could not stop the wildly moving stream.

“Ah, ah! Aaagh!”

The more the startled woman tried to fix the situation, the more the stream shot not only at his face but all over his body. The man, attacked unexpectedly, sputtered while stretching out his long arm and barely managed to block the mouth of the hose with his hand. Soon the fiercely shooting water quieted.

“Oh, dear. I am so, so sorry.”

The man, meeting her eyes, swept back his wet hair once and then smiled brightly, his red eyes shining like a sun soaked in blood.

Seeing the lips of that maddeningly perfect man curl so beautifully, Adel fell into a dizzying sensation for a moment.

“You are… not like your sister.”

‘Sister?’

Only then could Adel properly see the man’s face. Jet-black hair, a neat and straight forehead beneath hair swept back coolly, and below that a perfectly formed nose bridge—Adel realized she had been staring at the man’s face for a long time without knowing it.

“Are you finished with your appraisal?”

“Ah, yes. Yes? I’m sorry. You seem to have gotten very wet because of me, so please stop.”

At that moment, the surroundings grew noisy, and four men in the uniforms of the imperial knight order were seen approaching them. But he raised a hand to stop their approach.

“Your Grace the Duke, are you all right?”

Adel tried to think of who the man called Duke might be. There were only two dukes in the Empire. Among them, the one with red eyes—the proof of the imperial house—must be him.

Zakahari Ivan Sonnier, the ill-fated former crown prince sent as a hostage to an enemy nation at a young age.

“Now you’ve noticed everything about me.”

At the man’s low voice again, Adel felt her mind go blank for a moment.

But now that she knew who he was, Adel quickly tried to pull herself together. She soon bowed her head in greeting and took a step back. At that moment, she stepped on the pooled water and slipped, and in trying to catch the falling Adel, Jacques dropped the hose he was holding, and the hose began to thrash and spout water again.

Water shot up into the peaceful plains of the estate and soon made a small, delicate rainbow. Because of that, now not only Jacques but Adel as well were completely soaked.

Adel let out a breath like a sigh at the cold water. The two met eyes without anyone saying anything, and as if by agreement, burst into loud laughter.

The cool breeze and the cold water that seemed to freeze her to the chest seemed to cool a little of the hot things that had deeply piled up in Adel’s heart.

“Countess!”

Soon Cedric appeared like the wind and took off the cloak he was wearing to wrap it around Adel’s body.

“Cedric, greet him. This is His Grace Duke Sonnier.”

Cedric swept his eyes over the imperial knights standing nearby and then paid his respects to the Duke.

“Greetings, Your Grace the Duke. I am Cedric Dantes, a knight of House Devryan.”

Even as Jacques received Cedric’s greeting, his gaze remained fixed on Adel. It was because he had been so curious about the woman inspecting the facility alone that he had left the others behind and approached her by himself.

He did not want to interrupt someone concentrating on their work, and it seemed like something quite embarrassing for a noble lady to be doing, so he had approached the woman alone without a word.

Drenched in water, the moment he saw the bright golden hair and the blue eyes resembling the Crown Princess’s, he recognized at once that this woman was Adelaide Devryan.

The younger sister the Crown Princess had called by her maiden name was a woman far younger and more radiant than Jacques had imagined.