Chapter 45

Trisha popped a grape into her mouth and grinned as she changed the subject.

In front of customers she behaved seductively, but that did not apply before an employer who was not going to pay her more just because she tried to charm him.

“So what are you going to do now? You’re not just going to stay like some abandoned dog, are you? Every customer I meet keeps asking me about it.”

No matter that he bore the disgraceful title of wastrel, Ethan Inglebert was by no means an easy man to deal with. Who would dare openly ask the head of a prestigious house and the representative of Goldlight, the company fiercely chasing after Windfog’s towering Rein Kleint Company, whether he had been rejected.

With things like this, Trisha had practically been tormented for days by customers asking her the same question over and over.

“As if I would. Why would I stay still for anyone’s benefit.”

In front of Hugo alone he had acted as if he had lost motivation, but Ethan had never been someone who gave up on something easily to begin with.

There was a way right here to deal at once with both the blueprint of the new self-loading weapon and the two methods of getting back at Carlisle, so there was no way he would simply let it slip by.

If there was one thing to take as consolation, it was that this opportunity had made him realize one thing for certain.

“So after all that acting superior, Carlisle is still just a man.”

At this rate, wasn’t it the same as exposing his own weakness with his own hands.

“I’m thinking of changing the plan a little. They say fooling around with a married woman makes husbands angrier than fooling around with a divorcée, don’t they?”

“Do you really think the Duke of Polshared, who’s said to be cold as steel, would get that angry?”

It was a fair point, but Trisha, who had once tried approaching him and gotten badly burned for it, spoke in a worried voice.

“I’ll make him angry. There’s no man who can just sit still while his wife pays attention to another man.”

“So you’re not going to go to her?”

“You’re going to make her come to me. You.”

“What makes you so confident.”

Though she believed there was no woman who would not fall for that handsome face, part of Trisha still expected that this woman might be a little different. Ethan, who had been watching behind her, crooked his index finger.

“There it is.”

Soon, the letter delivered by one of his men fluttered between his fingers.

“I told you. It’s not that I was cast aside by Miss Yvonne.”

Recognizing the crest drawn on the outside of the envelope, Trisha stared with her mouth slightly open, then shook her head.

It seemed there truly was no woman in all of Aerondo who could resist that conceited man’s charm.

* * *

“Have you returned, Butler?”

“Yes.”

Harold, who had come back to the ducal residence in a temper, gave a dignified nod at the maid’s greeting. But once the maids had gone farther away, irritation spread across his face.

“After I went all the way to the company too.”

He had deliberately gone all the way to Rein Kleint Company on Crown Avenue early that morning in order to report the Duchess’s outrageous conduct.

Not only was she demanding to use the Rain annex for personal purposes, she was even asking for the keys to the room where valuable items had been kept for generations.

Thinking it an absurd and deranged request, and judging the matter urgent, he had gone straight to the Duke, but the man had replied briefly, without even seeming to think much over it.

‘Give her what she wants.’

That answer, given after Harold had gone all the way to the company to plead his case, completely shattered his expectations.

Naturally, he had hoped the Duke would at least say a word to the Duchess, and forgetting his place, he asked again.

‘Do you mean that, Sir. That annex was closed by your direct order, by none other than you yourself.’

It had been an order personally given twelve years ago, after the Duke, then fifteen, inherited the title, and it had never once been withdrawn.

‘It should be all right to open it now.’

Stunned by the astonishingly simple answer, Harold conveyed the rest of the Duchess’s demands as well. His hope that surely those would not be granted was mercilessly crushed.

‘Were those not already in Yvonne’s hands. Why have they still not been given to her?’

Instead, when the Duke asked why he had not yet handed them over, Harold was the one left even more startled.

‘Th-that is… when she first married into the house, she was far too young…’

‘Enough. Those are items traditionally passed down to the Duchess. Hand those over as well.’

‘That cannot be done, Sir. It would be like entrusting fish to a cat.”

‘Fish?’

At that moment, the Duke’s expression turned cold, but Harold, thinking as a loyal servant devoted to the family, urged him to reconsider.

‘Surely you know. If they are handed to the Duchess, within a month she may dispose of everything, turn it into cash, and pass it on to the Sellus Earldom. Who knows. She may even hand them over to others as she pleases…’

‘Harold….’

At the suddenly lowered voice, Harold realized at once that he had become too agitated and quickly shut his mouth. Remembering his master’s nature, how exceptionally much he disliked others commenting on his decisions, Harold realized too late what he had done, and indeed the Duke’s air had already grown even sharper.

‘Even if Yvonne were to do that, it is not something you as the butler needs to worry about.’

‘…My apologies. I have overstepped.’

The report he had hurried to deliver out of loyal concern thus ended with nothing gained at all. No, rather, it had only ended up becoming a formal permission.

“Well now. Perhaps I should have taken a harder line.”

What now seemed regrettable was that he had not dared say that it must absolutely not be allowed, because the Duchess might even scatter money recklessly among the men she meant to meet.

He respected his master deeply, but at times when the Duke showed utterly unexpected behavior, Harold found himself flustered.

It had been like that too when, just before being promoted to commander-in-chief, he had abruptly decided to leave the military. And again when he suddenly leaped into the munitions business out of nowhere.

Then it had all reached its peak with his marriage to Yvonne, and at first Harold had assumed the Duke was, after all, a man and had simply fallen for her at first sight.

But after watching the couple for the last three years, Harold had concluded that it was nothing more than an ordinary arranged marriage.

Even so, he had thought things had turned out well at least until the Duchess, who ought to know her place, spoke of divorce and left. Yet his master had brought back the Duchess whom Harold had thought he would never see again.

“What in the world did she do? There’s no way to know.”

Who in their right mind would believe that crazy story about divorce papers being lost at the court.

This was simply the Duchess thinking one step further than the tricks she had used all along.

It had been suspicious from the start that she loudly spread word of a divorce when she probably had never intended to go through with it in the first place. To think she had shamelessly lied and even pinned a false accusation on his master.

She must somehow have secretly retrieved the filed papers.

Even knowing that it was impossible to take back divorce papers once submitted, Harold had made his own judgment all the same, and it was just as he was stepping inside the entrance hall.

Bang…bang….

From far away came the loud crashing sound of something being broken. The noisy racket was coming from the east side of the main residence, from the woods encircling the small lakeside. Frowning, he stopped a passing maid.

“What is all that noise?”

“Madam has called in workmen and is remodeling the Rain annex.”

“Remodeling what? Workmen? Who dared give permission for that…!”

When Harold barked sharply, the startled maid stammered,

“Well… as soon as you left, Butler, whether Madam contacted them separately or not, the workers rushed in and started tearing down the annex without warning.”

“Good heavens…”

At the absurd business that had taken place in the brief time he had been away from the mansion, Harold’s face hardened coldly.

“Where is Madam! Where is Madam now!”

At the butler’s grim manner, unusual for a man who was not given to anger, the maid said nothing and only pointed toward the Rain annex.

“Good heavens…”

Grinding his teeth, Harold turned his steps from the main residence, where he had been striding toward with force, and headed toward the annex instead. The fist he had clenched tightened with strength as he vowed to teach her a proper lesson.

* * *

In the gentle breeze, the trees swayed and a fragrant herbal scent spread through the air.

Yvonne drew in a breath and steadied her now easier breathing. The surface of the lake spread before her, glittering like jewels beneath the spring sunlight.

The white annex built on the flat ground facing the lakeside had a structure similar to Lisian House on Cadney Road. In the front garden, roses of many colors bloomed in neatly arranged flowerbeds, and beyond the beautiful lakeside view stretched an open field that offered a refreshing panorama.

What she liked most was that the thick trees encircling the lake were all eucalyptus. The ducal house had probably not planted them on purpose, but perhaps because they were known to be effective in treating respiratory illnesses, they made her feel strangely at ease.

“M-Madam!”

At the call, Yvonne turned around and stepped along the white stone path toward the building.

Among the workers carrying old furniture outside, one large-built man spoke with a troubled look on his face.

“Madam, the inner wall is so old that if we handle it carelessly, there’s a chance the pillar on the other side could collapse.”

“Then let’s leave that side alone and just open up one room.”