Chapter 10

By the time Aaron had straightened his clothes and returned belatedly to the Brandon Marquisate, the banquet was in full swing. The moment he stepped inside, he was met with a string of familiar, tedious greetings.

“What were you doing that made you come this late? Pretending to be busy and all.”

“I really was busy. His Majesty?”

“He showed his face and returned to the palace soon after.”

“For what reason?”

He had grumbled that he absolutely had to come for Marquis Brandon’s sake. Thanks to that, Aaron had also been forced to postpone an important appointment and come as well. Though in the end, he had arrived at such an hour that calling it ‘attendance’ was almost laughable.

“Could it be because you weren’t here and he was disappointed, Duke Hendricks?”

“That’s complete nonsense.”

They had been friends since childhood, but not the kind who would be disappointed simply because they had not seen each other’s faces. Just as Aaron drew his neat brows together, if the King had heard such nonsense, he surely would have frowned at once as well.

“The one who must have been disappointed was Her Highness the Princess.”

“That is also complete nonsense.”

Answering indifferently, Aaron accepted a glass of champagne. She must have attended to see her older sister, who had become the Marchioness Brandon three years ago. Still, Aaron knew perfectly well what his friend meant. The Princess, who had come of age this year, had entered marriageable age and lately had been treating him much more like a man.

As marriage partners went, a Princess was not bad. Becoming entangled with the royal family would be bothersome, but going back into the past, there had been no few Dukes of Hendricks who had formed ties with Princesses. Still, the Hendricks Duchy lacked neither power nor wealth to the point of needing the royal family’s help or support, and so there was no need to go to the trouble and effort of arranging a marriage alliance with the royal house.

As for the Princess herself, well, she was decent enough. She was beautiful and knew how to conduct herself appropriately according to circumstances, so she possessed the necessary abilities and qualifications for a mistress of a house.

But the problem was that she was his friend’s younger sister. Though it was no use regretting it after they had grown up, since he and the King had shared every sort of embarrassing thing from childhood onward, Aaron would rather avoid becoming family with him. The King probably felt the same.

In any case, the point was that the Princess was simply not desirable enough to outweigh those blemishes from the past.

“Let’s move somewhere else. Unless you plan to stand here all night.”

“Yes. I already asked Marquis Brandon. He said we could use the reception room in the west wing.”

For men, banquets were all like this. If one had marriage in mind, he might wander about looking for a suitable bride and ask young ladies for dances, but regrettably, that was not the case for Aaron and a few others. At least not now.

So after showing one’s face appropriately, the way to finish a banquet was to slip away and share drinks among the men.

A little idle teasing passed between them, things like, ‘Aren’t you getting married’, or, ‘Why don’t you at least go dance’, and they ignored each other and traded light barbs in return before finally leaving their spot. As always, brushing off the absurd taunts aimed at one another, Aaron happened to meet the gaze of someone inside the ballroom whom his eyes had idly landed on.

‘Earl Malbert.’

His eyes were sharp, befitting a seasoned man who had successfully led various businesses since his youth. But the Earl looked away as though it had been a mere accidental meeting of eyes while turning his head, and Aaron too left the ballroom without another thought.

“So, Aaron. What were you doing that made you late?”

“Hmm? Nothing much. I’ve found a rather interesting rough stone recently.”

“What? You’ve gotten involved in mining too? Where? What is it? Let me profit off it too.”

“Unfortunately. It’s not something I can share.”

“What is it, then? You’re not planning to make some huge gain all by yourself again, are you?”

“Gain?”

Aaron let out a short laugh. Gain, he says. He was looking like he might end up playing the fool here, so what gain was there in that.

“The opposite. It’s a loss, if anything.”

“Well now, maybe the sun will rise in the west tomorrow. Duke Hendricks, you’re saying you’ll do something that loses you money?”

“I’m still judging whether it’s worth that much.”

Seated on the sofa in the reception room they had taken with Marquis Brandon’s permission, Aaron tilted his whiskey glass at an angle.

Yes, she was still only an apprentice for now. From here on, he would take his time finding out whether she was worth treating as a mistress and sincerely playing the fool for.

A faint smile touched the line of his cool mouth.

Since he had no intention of ending the Hendricks line, Aaron too was reaching an age where he needed to seriously consider marriage. Before that, a brief little deviation would not be so bad.

Ah, this is going to become interesting.

***

“What is this?”

When Chloe returned to her room after dinner, there was a flower basket waiting there.

With a puzzled face, Chloe pulled out the note tucked into one side of it.

『Saturday, 5 p.m., H Polo Club.』

The neat handwriting was unmistakably a man’s. And somehow, it looked familiar.

Tilting her head, Chloe hurriedly searched through her desk drawer. From deep inside, she took out a note she had carefully kept and compared the two handwritings. It was the condolence note Aaron had sent at the funeral.

Just as she had expected, it was Aaron’s handwriting.

“But how?”

How had he managed to send a flower basket in secret? Ever since she had disappeared midway through the banquet at the Brandon marquisate, her uncle and aunt’s surveillance and pressure had grown worse. So she had not even been able to go out without permission, leaving Chloe with no way to reach Aaron and only making her fret helplessly.

Since he knew her situation inside the Everdeen estate, she believed he would understand, and yet she had still worried that things might simply end this way. So if she could contact him like this, that was a relief, but……

“But really, how?”

No matter how much she thought about it, Chloe simply could not figure out how he had managed to slip a flower basket into her bedroom without anyone noticing. In any case, if there was a way for them to communicate, that was enough, so Chloe decided not to think too deeply about it.

The problem now was how to make excuses to her uncle and aunt and go out on Saturday.