Chapter 60
“Thank you for welcoming me so warmly. Thanks to you, it feels as though I’ve returned to my hometown for the first time in ages.”
It wasn’t a mere pleasantry. Unlike yesterday, when he’d been exhausted, Dmitri’s face was now bright and refreshed.
Albris almost wondered if there were that many things at the Grand Duke’s townhouse to wear him down.
“I’m honored to hear you say so. Your Grace is our Eli’s benefactor, so House Béarn will welcome you whenever you wish to visit.”
However, the seasoned political operator Albris showed no particular reaction to Dmitri’s response. He simply faced him with his usual expression and spoke in his usual voice.
The two men exchanged their casual farewells.
Then Dmitri approached the platinum-haired young lady standing beside her older brother, her head bowed shyly.
Eleonore wore a sky-blue long skirt beneath a white blouse, and held her parasol low over her head, shading her face above her lace gloves.
Perhaps she was trying to hide her flushed face, but Dmitri could easily make out her bashful expression beneath the shadow.
Dmitri gently took Eleonore’s one remaining free hand and drew it up toward him.
“Ah.”
Beyond her wordless exclamation, Dmitri’s black eyes sparkled as they met Eleonore’s.
“Please stay well until we meet again, Eli.”
And then came those words.
That final pet name came as quite a shock to the people of House Béarn who had come to the entrance to see Grand Duke Dmitri off.
Eli? Did His Grace just call our young lady by a pet name?
Amid the spreading murmurs, Eleonore could only remain silent, her flushed face lowered toward the ground.
At the sight, Dmitri moved even closer to Eleonore. They were so close they could hear each other breathing, and even with her head bowed, she could feel his gaze.
“Eli, what’s your answer?”
At Dmitri’s low, teasing voice, Eleonore reluctantly lifted her head. Then she gave a brief reply.
“I-I understand. I’ll wait… Dmitri.”
The murmurs turned into gasps. Dmitri? Our young lady is so at ease with a man?
Amid those reactions, the two people beside Eleonore looked back and forth between her and Dmitri, more surprised than anyone else.
Eugenie, the ivory-haired maid standing a step behind Eleonore, looked quite surprised, but her pride was unmistakable.
And Albris, her older brother standing beside her, had dropped the act altogether. He glared at Dmitri with narrowed blue eyes as if he were looking at an enemy.
Dmitri remained composed despite the somewhat prickly gazes.
Why’s he suddenly acting like that? After what he said last night.
Then, as if to show Albris, Dmitri gently lifted their joined hands and pressed his lips to the back of her hand.
“Well then, I’ll be off.”
Smiling at the bewildered Eleonore, Dmitri slowly moved away from the Béarn siblings. He mounted the black horse waiting for him with an air of ease, despite the sharp gazes.
“I’ll be paying you a visit soon, Your Grace! We have quite a lot to talk about!”
From behind him came Albris’s voice, more emphatic than usual. Dmitri smiled brightly at him and urged his horse forward.
Dmitri, growing smaller in the distance.
Eleonore, fleeing into the mansion.
Albris looked back and forth between the two protagonists.
Then he tossed aside the mask he’d already half shed and, a completely shameless siscon now, called after Eleonore in a somewhat plaintive voice.
“E-Eli. Eli! Won’t you talk with your brother for a bit? Eli!”
“I don’t know, I don’t know. Don’t look for me!”
Even at her brother’s plaintive voice, Eleonore shrieked and ran up the central staircase beyond the entrance in one go.
#.
Leaving House Béarn’s townhouse behind as it receded into the distance, Dmitri beamed at the increasingly familiar scenery.
It was partly jealousy. He’d found it unbearably irritating how that silver-haired halfwit called Eleonore “Eli” so casually.
At first, it had only bothered him a little.
At some point. No, ever since he’d held Eli close and ridden with her in his arms, it had tormented him like a thorn stuck in his throat.
Every time Eleonore called him Your Grace with those moist pink lips, Dmitri was overcome by an inexplicable, troubling sense of defeat.
Now he had to admit it.
Eleonore, that beautiful platinum-haired woman, had taken up residence in his heart.
Dmitri Verbritz was in love with Eleonore Béarn.
And so Dmitri had to steel himself.
The Northern lands were so cold, harsh, and impoverished that even his mother—indeed, even the Grand Duchess of the Galatea Empire—had abandoned her honor and her own child to flee.
They were utterly unsuited to Eleonore, a beautiful flower raised in comfort in the West.
If she remained as she was now, Eleonore would surely wither away in the cold on that desolate, frozen land.
That was what had been dragging Dmitri’s heart back and keeping him from moving forward all this time.
Outsiders might not know it, but the North was a complete mess—and there were no resources to fix it, either.
But now, he had a card in his hand that could bring about change.
Of course, that card had come from Eleonore and her family.
The Béarn family—Albris, that slippery snake—must have handed us the magicite mine as part of that plan.
But why had that bastard Albris made such a fuss? Last night, he’d talked as if he were selling his sister off.
#.
“So Grand Duke Dmitri spent the night at House Béarn?”
Ernst, a gaunt man with hazel hair, looked at the man before him and spoke in his characteristically emotionless voice.
An ordinary person might have kept his distance from Ernst’s cold, emotionless gaze.
But the man, his eyes fixed on the gold coin in Ernst’s hand, merely nodded with a greedy smile.
“Yes. And his relationship with the young lady seems to have progressed quite a bit. They even call each other by pet names without any formality.”
The man, whose back was bent halfway over, was one of House Béarn’s people. As his appearance suggested, he was a longtime servant of the house, but because of his usual slovenly conduct, he’d been assigned the most arduous stable chores in the estate.
“Any other information?”
“Hmm… Well, my memory’s a little hazy, what with my age and all.”
At his words, Ernst took a gold coin from the pouch he was carrying and placed it in the man’s hand, without changing his expression.
“Ah! Come to think of it, when the young lady set out, a noblewoman was among the party.”
“A noblewoman?”
“Yes. I’m too lowly to know who she was, but even from a distance, both the young master and the young lady seemed a little intimidated by her.”
“What did she look like? Her hair color, or anything distinctive?”
At Ernst’s question, the man frowned. He thought hard, then shook his head from side to side.
“I’m sorry. I don’t remember.”
Ernst’s guard, who had been standing a step behind him, approached the man. Placing a hand on the sword at his waist, he flooded the man with killing intent.
“Eek! I-I’m telling the truth. I really don’t remember.”
“That’s enough, Nasir. She was probably wearing an artifact that obscured people’s ability to recognize her.”
At Ernst’s words, his guard Nasir let his hostility subside somewhat.
Then Ernst handed the gold coin to the man and spoke to him in the same chilling voice, devoid of emotion.
“If you hear anything else, come find me again.”
“Th-Thank you, sir.”
As the man walked away, chuckling as he looked at the gold coin in his hand, Nasir, standing behind Ernst, spoke in a voice full of displeasure.
“He doesn’t seem particularly trustworthy.”
“As you say.”
“Then why send him off with a gold coin?”
Ernst cinched the mouth of his still-full coin pouch and handed it to Nasir.
“He didn’t lie, at least. His story matches the other informants’, so he may prove useful someday.”
Nasir hung the coin pouch he’d been given from his waist. Looking at his guard, who still seemed displeased, Ernst continued with the same impassive expression.
“More important than that is the Grand Duke. Things are taking a stranger turn than I expected.”
“Is this because of the young lady?”
“I hadn’t paid much attention since it was a matter concerning a woman, but I never expected things to get this tangled.”
Ernst’s voice lowered considerably. Keeping an eye on their surroundings, he spoke to his guard Nasir in a hushed voice.
“You’ve been keeping a close watch on Louis Edmund, right?”
“Yes. I’ve placed people around him, just as you ordered. And we’re giving him a generous handful of gold coins every week. Apparently, these days he spends all his time drowning in drink and lamenting his lot.”
“We should make use of him. Arrange a meeting.”
At Ernst’s words, Nasir asked cautiously as well.
“Should we tell our lord?”
“His Grace must know nothing of anything you and I do. Our lord must remain noble and elegant, no matter what.” separately?