Chapter 39

“Madam, are you awake?”

The long-buried memory stopped at the polite sound of knocking on the door. Jane came in at her permission carrying water for washing. As Yvonne looked at Jane, who had naturally had to come along when she returned to this house, her feelings were complicated.

As always, Jane said nothing at all about the decision she had made. Just like the first time Yvonne entered this house after marriage, Jane neither tried to pry into Yvonne’s feelings first nor hastily asked questions.

That made Yvonne both grateful and sorry, so she was the one to speak first.

“It will only be for a while, so don’t worry too much.”

“I know very well that you do not intend to stay here long, Madam. Right now, it cannot be helped.”

“Even so, I feel I have no face to show you. Coming back into this house cannot be very welcome for you either.”

“Please don’t worry about me. More than me, you’re the one who must hate returning here even more, Madam.”

At the gaze full of concern, Yvonne hid her bitterness and gave a faint smile.

Apart from Carlisle, it was true that this was a place she never wanted to return to, but right now she had no time to sink into such bleak memories.

“Don’t worry. Rather, now that it has come to this, I need to hurry with the construction even if I have to use his name.”

Carlisle had brought her back through sheer coercion, but if there was one fortunate thing, it was that he was not a man who spoke carelessly. Since he had said he would help with the rebuilding of a structure where all the people of Euphoria could stay together, she had no choice but to trust his power at least in that much.

Looking at Jane smiling back at her, her heavy heart eased a little.

“Has he gone to work?”

“Yes. He left early. Please have your meal first.”

“All right.”

After washing and changing into an indoor dress, Yvonne headed to the dining room as usual.

The maids who noticed Yvonne coming down the central staircase flinched, exchanged glances, and gave only brief bows. That was all. The servants of this house thought of Yvonne as little more than a doll that walked. It was not as though they had ever openly slandered her to her face or shown blatant insolence, but there was none of the respect that should naturally have been shown to the mistress of the house.

That was equally true of Harold, the butler of this house.

Yvonne had just reached about midway down the stairs. Then suddenly, the sharp clicking of thin heels rang out from the direction of the entrance hall.

The maids who had been standing blankly rushed over and opened the door, and the moment they did, a woman strode in confidently.

“Miss Vivian, welcome.”

“Have you all been well?”

The corners of Yvonne’s eyes shifted faintly when she spotted the woman entering with a bright smile.

Vivian Alois.

The woman who was in an affair with her husband.

* * *

“It is said that Queen Louise has canceled her appointment to meet Chief Justice Christoph.”

“She makes decisions rather quickly.”

At Henry’s report, Carlisle gave a derisive snort and drew in on the cigar between his teeth before exhaling long. The hazy smoke drifted out through the slightly open balcony door.

From early morning he had come not to Rein Kleint Company but to Sector A of Bermingwell. Perhaps they had taken the warning he had appropriately sent, because recently the spying by those rats had lessened considerably.

His eyes, fixed on the wide plain visible beyond the third-floor office, were dark.

Why the Queen had tried to meet even the Chief Justice was easy enough to guess.

She had likely intended to bring that incident to formal trial.

“A normal trial may be out of reach now, but it’s too early to let down our guard. She may turn her eyes toward a military tribunal. She is that cunning a woman.”

“Since you have reconciled, I believe you will be able to avoid the Queen’s suspicion for some time.”

The Queen had approached Yvonne surely because she meant to claim Earl Sellus’s testimony was perjury and bring it to formal trial. Otherwise, there was no way she would have suddenly risen from her sickbed and begun making public appearances the moment she heard news that Yvonne had demanded a divorce.

“And an invitation from the Queen also went to Yvonne, I heard?”

“Yes. We confirmed it arrived at Lisian House. Since Madam returned to the mansion the day before, she likely did not see it.”

“And who else received invitations.”

“Here is the list.”

Carlisle’s eyes narrowed sharply as he scanned the contents of the list Henry handed over.

Indeed, the very first name on the list was Yvonne. The people that followed were all either business families competing against Carlisle, or families that had long held hostile positions against his line since the previous generation, difficult to reconcile with. They were all former pro-Benoit Kingdom families aligned with the Queen’s side.

“This first list is mainly clients, and it is said a second wave of invitations was also sent out, mostly to young ladies and noblewomen who wish to be invited to the Queen’s salon.”

Even from the first list, its meaning was obvious enough, so that must have been to avoid suspicion. When he turned the page and looked at the last sheet, his gaze sank slightly.

A person who was unexpected even though he had half anticipated it. The name Ethan Inglebert was on the list.

“Ethan Inglebert. What is he doing?”

“He has shut himself up in his club. He must already have heard the news, so perhaps he is lying low out of concern for public opinion.”

Ever since the article broke that Carlisle and Yvonne’s divorce had fallen through, today’s newspaper had been filled with reports saying that the Duke and Duchess, unable to forget the affection they still held for each other during their time apart, were now working toward a new beginning.

The article that had appeared at such convenient timing had naturally been done on Carlisle’s orders, in order to block suspicions from arising toward the court’s absurd mistake.

Thanks to that, Ethan in comparison was now being painted as a man who had chased false hope. It was not Carlisle who had planted the article saying that the man who had always coldly cast off the women he dated was now heartbroken over his first rejection, but after all he had done, it was no more than his due.

“His twisted face must be worth seeing.”

Though Ethan was a man who interfered in Carlisle’s affairs at every turn, until now Carlisle had not reacted particularly to him. He knew where the man’s resentment came from, but had not considered him worth answering.

That hostile relationship had gradually deepened after Ethan expanded his business into military supply work a year ago. The way he openly obstructed what Carlisle had built had begun to grate too much to continue ignoring.

And now he had even reached his hand toward Yvonne.

When the fingers holding the cigar struck its body sharply, the ember at the tip scattered and a long line of ash dropped off.

“What shall we do about the photographs of Chief Justice Brussels. He says he did as instructed, so according to the agreement, he wants the photographs returned.”

It referred to the photographs they had secured as leverage during the process of bribing the Chief Justice who had been assigned as the judge for their divorce.

Though he was respected in society, in truth he was a filthy pedophile. A piece of trash who, despite having grown children of his own, secretly indulged greedily in boys and girls traded in secret.

Basically, Carlisle was not the sort to concern himself with the quality of a person’s character in a business transaction. Since trust was the foundation of business, if the agreement had been kept, then returning it was the proper course. But he found it hard to tolerate the ugliness of someone who reached for children.

At the sudden trace of a young girl rising in his mind, he slowly closed his eyes. Merely thinking of her made something somewhere deep inside his chest ache dully.

After sitting in thought for a moment, Carlisle asked,

“How long remains in his term?”

“One year. Chief Justice Brussels also asked whether Rein Kleint Company might have need of an advisory position.”

Ha, a hollow breath escaped Carlisle, and loose smoke drifted between his lips.

“He dreams big. Return only the copy, keep the original, and release it three months before his retirement. Such a man deserves a splendidly disgraceful retirement ceremony.”

“Yes, Sir.”

After his aide withdrew, Carlisle looked at the design drawing for the new product, the Self-loading weapon LK SCAR 21.

It was the drawing Yvonne might have tried to hand over to Ethan, but for now it was still unclear whether it had actually reached him.

It was only a single drawing, so she likely had not taken it away, and if she had brought a camera, she would not even have been able to enter after being caught by the detector meant to identify metal. Considering the amount of time she had stayed, there had not been enough time to make a copy by hand.

“There’s no chance she saw this once and memorized it.”

Even if Yvonne had seen this, it was unlikely at present that she had passed it to Ethan. Even if she had a good memory, it would have been impossible for her to memorize this in such a short time.

If she had knowledge of firearms, there might have been some possibility of reconstructing it somehow, but there was no chance Yvonne possessed such knowledge.

The weight of probability leaned toward Ethan having simply gotten carried away over nothing.

An indifferent hand set the drawing back down.

Now that he had drawn back to his side the wife whose thoughts were impossible to read, it was enough to confirm matters as time went on. Having reached that conclusion, he pressed the shortened cigar into the ashtray and extinguished it.

* * *

The moment Vivian Alois entered, the quiet mansion quickly seemed to come alive. The maids who acted like stones in front of Yvonne brightened and flocked around Vivian.

“Miss Vivian, why has it been so long since you came. Shall I take your coat?”

“Major Alois, have you eaten?”

The maids looking at Vivian had sparkling eyes full of admiration.

“Thank you for the thought, but I’ve already eaten.”

As though she were used to the sight of the maids eager to do anything for her, Vivian wore a satisfied smile. Because her somewhat plain military uniform had been tailored to suit her figure, it revealed the elegant lines of her body as they were, and there was confidence in her appearance.

Yvonne’s eyes quietly sank as she watched Vivian, surrounded by maids who, despite having a lady of the house in plain sight, were trying to attend to a guest first.