Chapter 66

“Do you think the duchess is some tavern keeper or innkeeper? If you wish to see the mistress, you send a letter first, receive permission, make an appointment, and then come! And even then there’s no guarantee she’ll see you! And here you are showing up out of nowhere and demanding a meeting!”

“I don’t have time for that!”

The butler’s face had gone red as he raised his voice. But the young man was immovable. He looked ready to bite off his own tongue and die right there if the butler kept refusing. In fact, the young man had made exactly that threat.

“……Fine, I’ll ask the mistress. But tell me your name first.”

In the end the butler clicked his tongue and relented, having decided that a young man biting off his tongue and dying on the ducal grounds would cause more trouble than going to the duchess and saying some madman had arrived demanding to see her. He needed a name at least so he could report ‘a madman by such-and-such a name wants to see the mistress, I’ll have him thrown out promptly.’ But the young man, who had been raging like an angry bull until a moment ago, suddenly clamped his mouth shut.

“My…… my name is…… Garrick Beverfield……”

When the butler pressed him, the young man said his name with the face of someone about to burst into tears. He sounded less like he was giving his name and more like a condemned man delivering his last words. Paul frowned at the name, which rang a faint bell. Garrick Beverfield! Just as Paul had suspected, the young man was not a noble. But he had definitely heard the name somewhere before.

“Garrick? Garrick Beverfield? ……Oh, of all the unhinged people!”

Paul realized who the name belonged to at almost the same moment the butler seemed to as well. The butler’s face had gone past red to a dark, strangled crimson. The thoroughly enraged butler finally exploded.

“Good lord! The nerve of this man! That someone like you would set foot in this noble household! You, you……”

Garrick Beverfield. If Paul and the butler’s memories were correct, this was unmistakably the young poet who had been relentlessly sending letters to Lea. The shameless young man who had been trying to make a name for himself through all those letters to the duchess. That such a man had now come to the ducal manor itself was something the butler could not believe. What on earth had the guards been thinking, letting someone like this through the gate? The butler soon found his answer to that question.

“I know! D*mn it! I know!”

Before the butler could call the guards and have this shameless poet thrown out, Garrick pulled a knife from inside his coat. The butler stumbled back in alarm. But Garrick had not drawn the knife to stab the butler. He held the blade to his own throat and said, “But this is the only way left to me! D*mn it all! Let me see the duchess! Please! Otherwise I’ll die right here. It would make quite a story, wouldn’t it, a man dying on the ducal grounds!”

“You, you……”

“Let me see the duchess. I’ll put the knife down the moment I see her. I promise.”

The butler had been about to call it a bluff, but he looked into Garrick’s eyes and faltered. Those eyes looked genuinely desperate, not like someone posturing.

“……Fine. I’ll speak to the mistress! But the moment she comes anywhere near you, that knife goes as far away as possible!”

“Of course.”

Garrick nodded. Paul thought he understood why the butler had decided to accept Garrick’s request. It would be a ghastly situation if the duke found out, but their master was currently out, without telling anyone where he had gone or why. And the mistress Lea was, unlike Owen, not a difficult person to deal with. In fact, she was almost too easy. That remarkably quiet and compliant duchess would surely hesitate but come out of her room and do as asked if the butler explained the situation and asked her to show her face just once to this dreadfully rude man.

And just as Paul expected, Lea, who had been resting in her room, was approached with the butler’s earnest request and made her way to the garden with a heavy step. She had, of course, reacted with a mixture of displeasure and fear the moment she heard the name Garrick Beverfield. The memory of being subjected to Owen’s drunken rage was something even the Lea who had let go of everything had no desire to repeat. But if she ignored a man who had drawn a knife and threatened to die if she did not see him, and he actually died, that seemed like it would leave an even more terrible memory.

When Lea came out to the garden, Garrick stared at her with wide eyes. He was still holding the knife to his throat. He moved urgently and Lea flinched. She was still troubled by Garrick’s resemblance to Ben. Seeing that face with a knife at its throat, however disappointed and displeased she was with Garrick Beverfield as a person, she could not feel easy.

“There! The mistress has come, now put that knife down!”

At the butler’s shout, Garrick threw the knife far away. At the same moment the guards nearby rushed at Garrick and forced him to his knees. Even as he was being dragged away, Garrick called out to Lea.

“Ah! My lady! Please help me! I need your help!”

“What an insufferable man! Come on, get him out of here!”

“My lady! Please hear me out! It’s a matter of life and death! My, my family’s lives are at stake……!”

It was a desperate cry, but the guards dragging him away showed not a moment’s hesitation. Lea, however, felt sick watching Garrick being hauled away, wailing. In the end, just before he disappeared completely, she opened her mouth.

“Wait!”

Every guard turned at the sound of the mistress’s voice, which they had never heard before. Lea looked at Garrick with a pale face. Garrick, who had been going limp like an animal about to be slaughtered, slowly raised his head. Lea looked at his face and bit her lip. She thought herself foolish, but she could not bring herself to turn away from that face.

“I’d like to hear what the matter is.”

“But my lady, if the master were to find out……”

Lea stopped breathing at the butler’s words. He was right. Owen would not react well if he knew. But looking at Garrick, Lea could not simply send him away like this. It was not only because he resembled Ben. It was the despair she felt in him. Lea knew despair well. That was why she sensed instinctively that if she sent Garrick away now, he would die, and she could not look away from that. And besides, it might be connected to Owen somehow. Thinking of Owen saying he would bury Garrick next to Ben, Lea said to the butler, “……He’s not here right now. So I’d like to hear just a little of what he has to say.”

The butler rolled his eyes at that but nodded shortly. It was a strange thing. The mistress who never said anything had chosen to speak up at precisely the moment it seemed she would say nothing at all. But since the person involved wanted it, the butler had no grounds to object, and he withdrew. The other guards took their cue and, when Garrick jerked his arms free of their grip, quietly let him go. They moved some distance away and made themselves scarce.

It would be a serious matter if Garrick turned violent and harmed Lea, but they thought it would be worse to stand there listening to their conversation and face Owen’s interrogation afterward. It was better not to know about troublesome things at all. So the garden was empty of servants and guards, except for Paul crouching among the tall shrubs.

“Thank you, thank you, my lady……”

Garrick huddled at Lea’s feet and murmured his thanks. Lea looked around nervously and told him to stand up.

“Thank you so much, my lady…… to help me even after what I did, you truly are a good person.”

“No.”

But at those words Lea’s expression darkened.

“I’m not a good person…… I…… I can’t be a good person.”

“What? What do you mean by that……”

Both Garrick and Paul, listening from his hiding place, looked at Lea with puzzled expressions. Paul thought this quiet mistress had a kind heart simply for not turning away the young man who had used her so shamelessly. But Lea was at a loss when someone called her a good person.

“I…… I can become a bad person at any moment. ……I was born with that kind of blood.”

“Oh……”

That kind of blood. Garrick and the listening Paul blinked, then remembered what they knew about Lea, namely that she was said to be the daughter of a foreign businessman. That kind of blood. Perhaps her father was a truly wicked businessman. Merchants sometimes did terrible things. But what mattered to Garrick was whether Lea would help him. He said earnestly, “But you’ll help me, won’t you. Won’t you?”

“……”

Lea looked at Garrick’s tearful face for a long moment and sighed.

“……I’ll try. But whatever it is, I probably won’t be much help.”

“No! You can help me, my lady!”

Garrick denied her uncertain words at once.

“I know. I…… I’ve caused you nothing but trouble. I know perfectly well there’s no reason for you to help me. I know how shameless I’m being right now. I’m sorry, my lady…… but you are my only hope.”

“Mr. Beverfield. I……”

“I know I’ve been a nuisance to you…… but you never did anything about it. Any other noblewoman would have been furious and taken revenge on me long ago.”

Garrick began to sob. He wiped his tears and looked up at Lea slowly.

“You’re a good person. That’s why I came. For the last time……”

“……”

“You mentioned blood. I…… I hated my own blood, my lady. My father was always an honest and good man. A man who needed no law to keep him decent. My father made hats. I did not want to live the way he did, and I despaired at having inherited his blood. I wanted to be something greater and more extraordinary. Not a simple hat maker! So I came to this capital and I’ve done things I’m not proud of…… But recently I received a letter. No…… more precisely, a sentence.”