Chapter 8

‘Well, I’m not the one who should regret it.’

The one who should be regretting this was Sebastian. Lottie had nothing to regret.

If possible, it would have been nice for her children to inherit looks and a physique as exceptional as Sebastian’s, but in truth, as the master of Heartfield Mansion, she had no need for any outward qualities at all.

Just as her worth in the marriage market would not diminish no matter what sort of temperament Lottie had, what she looked like, or even if she had spent countless nights with many different people throughout her Academy years rather than only with Sebastian.

“Remember this, my child. So long as you are Volfman, no one can look down on you. The only thing you need concern yourself with is courtesy between one person and another. And then only what your own heart tells you.”

Yes. So there was not one thing to regret.

While she was once again recalling her grandfather’s teachings, Lottie had already passed the fountain that had long watched over her one-sided love. She had entered the central garden of the campus, in front of the main Academy building, where the path led toward the front gate.

Goodbye. Thank you for listening to all my worries. Later, I’ll donate to the Academy development fund and have a pretty little sparrow made of gold set on top of you.

Sending her farewell in her heart, Lottie rounded the fountain and stepped onto the straight walkway stretching all the way to the front gate.

“That way, she’s coming!”

“It really is the entrance-exam girl……”

“We went to school with Silver Wolf’s heir……!”

“How did she hide it so perfectly?”

“That cape is Monsieur Lambert’s! The limited fall season one……!”

A crowd had gathered so thickly between the rows of trees lining both sides of the walkway that they filled every gap, all of them gazing this way with excited intensity.

Word had moved faster than Lottie’s footsteps, so when people heard that the servants of Heartfield Mansion were escorting the heir in question out, all the Academy’s students and staff had poured out.

Along with the news, Lottie’s name had spread widely as well, but because it was so hard to believe, the fervor to confirm it in person was tremendous. And no wonder, because for the past five years, Lottie had lived such an unassuming Academy life that beyond being the model written-exam student who harbored a one-sided love for Sebastian Collins, she had left little other impression at all.

But in the end, admiration shone easily enough in the eyes of everyone who saw her.

Just as her grandfather had said, because Lottie was Volfman.

The only emotions the master of Heartfield Mansion received from the masses were envy and admiration.

Of course, among them were some who reacted a little differently.

“Hey, look over there. Aren’t those the girls who always looked down on Lottie because they thought they were close to Collins?”

“Look at how pale they are. Serves them right.”

Her roommates, who were following several steps behind, whispered to each other. They had already been planning to go out and see the carriage from Heartfield Mansion while seeing Lottie off, and now that Lottie herself turned out to be the master of that very carriage, they had no reason not to follow. Still, because Lottie felt somehow unlike the Lottie they had known, they only walked far behind her.

Following the sound of her roommates chattering, Lottie cast a sideways glance around her. Sure enough, there were several familiar faces staring her way in shock. Every single one of them was familiar. They were the ones who had sneered beside her every time she gave Sebastian a gift.

“Hey, look, it’s Robert Axen. The Axen family had a merchant company, right?”

“He must be wishing now that he’d tried to get on Lottie’s good side.”

“He was always spouting nonsense about how entrance-exam students were vicious.”

There were even some stamping their feet in regret. These were the ones who had looked down on her for being a commoner, and whose family ran a modest merchant company. Modest only in comparison to Silver Wolf, that was; in reality, its scale was not all that small.

‘If it’s Robert Axen……’

“Hey, entrance-exam girl. Do you still not know your place? Ahh, Collins is the pitiful one too. He was probably just acting the same way he always does and showing off a little charm. Good thing I wasn’t born looking all pretty like Collins, right? Just imagining getting stuck with something like that……. Ugh, creepy.”

“Hey! What do you know? Don’t talk recklessly! Sebastian isn’t just handsome, you know?”

There had even once been a time she exploded because they mocked her so much. She had been so angry that she no longer remembered exactly what she had said, but after that, they had only glared at her as though looking at a bug and had stopped picking fights, so she had thought perhaps she had thoroughly rattled them.

Mm, this was a little satisfying.

The fact that she was Volfman was this overwhelmingly powerful. The disregard from her fellow students, repeated so often over five years that it might as well have been branded into her, vanished as though it had never existed in the first place.

‘How lucky that by hiding being Volfman, I got to see what people like that are really like beforehand.’

If she had met them for the first time out in society, would she not have been dazzled without knowing any better by their polished manners and plausible way of speaking. Lottie would have had no chance at all to know how steeped they were in superiority, how hypocritical and narrow-minded they really were.

If she had been the Lottie she was before entering the Academy, she would never have dared to suspect noble lords.

Of course, not all nobles were as duplicitous as those people. If there was one person who had respected her as an equal fellow student…….

‘Would Seb have heard the news by now too?’

Poor Seb. He had held her with all his strength until dawn, so he was probably still fast asleep.

As it was, amidst the murmurs pouring in from both sides, she kept catching fragments like ‘Did Collins not know about this either?’ and ‘Sebastian, that fool with no eye for value,’ and the like. Even from her roommates, who had no idea what sort of incident Lottie had caused yesterday, voices condemning Sebastian broke out from time to time.

Seb did not know either. Yes, even I think he had no eye for value. 

While answering in her heart a question that had not been directed at her, Lottie had already reached the front gate. Under the control of the escort knights waiting nearby, the crowd that had gathered all the way to the road split in half and opened a path for Lottie.

What appeared there was Volfman’s six-horse carriage, parked boldly right before the front gate.

The heavy carriage, painted black over its body, overwhelmed the viewer by its very presence. On the door, Volfman’s crest and Silver Wolf’s logo were adorned in silver and gemstones, and before the carriage were harnessed six black thoroughbred horses worth thousands each, their coats and manes gleaming with luxurious shine. Neither the tack binding the horses nor a single decoration attached to it lacked great value, and the carriage alone was more than enough to serve as a spectacle.

And before it appeared the heir to the greatest inheritance in the Kingdom, veiled in secrecy for years.

“Congratulations on your graduation, Head of House.”

“You have worked hard these past five years.”

“It is an honor to escort you home. We will see you safely there.”

At Lottie’s appearance, the servants of Heartfield Mansion waiting there, including the coachman and the escort knights, all bowed respectfully. At their deferential attitude, and at Lottie’s calm and dignified manner in receiving all of it as though accustomed to it, sighs escaped among the spectators.

She really is Baroness Volfman.

“Well, then. Thank you for seeing me off.”

In the place where everyone’s eyes were fixed on her, Lottie turned to her roommates and spoke. In truth, the words were also for the crowd gathered there not to see her off, but to see her.

A farewell to the final days she had spent not as Charlotte Volfman, but as Lottie.

“You all have a safe trip home too. Let’s keep in touch, alright?”

“Yes, thank you for everything!”

“Now that I know where your home is, I’ll write to you.”

“Live well! If we run into each other later outside, you have to acknowledge me, alright?”

At the more-than-necessary enthusiasm of their response, Lottie smiled, her lips curving.

They were greeting her more warmly because they now knew she was Volfman, but that degree of difference was so harmlessly cute that calling it materialistic would have felt almost embarrassing.

Part of why her Academy years had been good was likely because she had met roommates raised in circumstances similar to her own and had been able to forget all about Silver Wolf and inherited wealth and just live as an ordinary commoner girl.

Perhaps Grandfather arranged things so I could fully enjoy the end of my ordinary days as Lottie.

Thinking that, Lottie exchanged one last hug with each of her roommates and finally tilted her chin toward the carriage door. As if he had been waiting, the man who appeared to be the head of the footmen flung the carriage door wide open.

Just as the onlookers stretched their necks, struggling to peer inside the carriage as though it were displaying its luxurious interior.

Huh?

What is that.

He must be crazy!

A stir rose from inside the front gate.

What? 

Lottie glanced back without thinking.

Until that moment, it had been no more than a reflexive reaction.

“Honey.”

At that single word ringing out beyond the crowd, Lottie’s eyes went wide.

That bewildering voice had definitely been aimed this way. In other words, as though it had been meant for Lottie.

More than anything… the voice itself was unmistakably familiar.

““Are you already going home?”

What suddenly appeared, parting the line of heads, was a face Lottie knew very well.

Sebastian’s radiant face, the same one she had looked at all through last night and even this morning before leaving.

Yes, it was Sebastian. The last thing she had seen was him deeply asleep, and yet here he was, already thoroughly washed and fully dressed for going out.

As though he had rushed over, a bit of dampness still lingered in the man’s blond hair, and it shone brilliantly beneath the noon sunlight.

No, what did he just call me……. Ho, what?

The moment a crack appeared in the calm expression Lottie had carefully maintained ever since leaving the dormitory as Charlotte Volfman.

“You should take me with you, Honey.”

“…Huh?”

What was she supposed to do with that?

At Sebastian’s smooth, easygoing voice that followed, the face of Baroness Volfman finally fell apart.