Chapter 9

Her amber eyes rolled in confusion as they took in Sebastian’s appearance.

There was a trunk in each of Sebastian’s hands. Judging by their size, they looked as though he had stuffed in all the meager belongings from his room. If Lottie had carried them, it would have been hard to tell whether a person was carrying a bag or the bag was carrying the person, but in his tall hands, they made him look like some traveler with a story to tell… no, this was not the time to be admiring the way he looked.

‘Is he saying he’s coming with me now?’

Lottie only moved her lips, unable to recover from her stunned expression.

Though that clashed with the image of Baroness Volfman she had just presented, there was no one here who would dare look down on Lottie for it. Other than the servants of Heartfield Mansion, there was no one present who did not know that Lottie had spent the past five years in one-sided love with Sebastian, and everyone also knew perfectly well that Sebastian, who hoped to become a live-in son-in-law, could not possibly have accepted her.

No, was that not it?

Had he, alone, learned who she really was?

While that confusion caused a strange silence to hang over the surroundings.

“My Leige, do you know this person?”  

One of the knights, who had been reading the air between them, stepped forward as though half shielding Lottie. He was the leader of the escort knights who had been controlling the crowd.

“Sir Deon, that’s……”

“You said it yourself yesterday, Honey. That we should date now.”

Gasp……! A silent uproar swept across the crowd. What settled on every face alike was shock.

Was it saying that Sebastian, who had kindly ignored Lottie’s indirect confessions all these five years, had at last accepted her feelings?

Lottie was just as shocked.

Yes, she had said they should date.

She had said that…… but in the end she had been rejected, and in exchange for cleanly giving up on him, had she not obtained one night with him as well. She had already cast off the last of her lingering feelings for him in both body and heart, and that had been only a few hours ago.

Thud, Sebastian, looking down at her dazed face, set the trunks in his hands down to one side. Toward where the footmen were standing. As if telling them to take care of his luggage too.

Then, after giving a light smile to the escort knight blocking him, he leisurely stepped one pace to the side. So that he could face Lottie fully.

Under the unwavering watch of the escort knight, who had not relaxed his guard, he lowered his upper body with that familiar smile still on his lips. At eye level with Lottie, the man’s two brows curved in a graceful arc, as if painted by a brush.

“I was hurt.”

You were……?

“I thought we’d been dating since the entrance ceremony.”

What?

The stir that followed took on a rather violent tone.

That bastard who wants to marry into money!

There’s a limit to how much you can lie!

No wonder he’s the playboy who charmed everyone in the Ziran Society!

So he’s acting like that because he found out the entrance-exam girl is the heir to Heartfield Mansion……!

On people’s faces gathered the familiar contempt, cheap curiosity, and mocking expressions that said they had known it all along. The same was true of her roommates, who had come to see Lottie off while criticizing Sebastian’s lack of discernment.

But since no one could tell what Lottie herself wanted, nobody openly denounced him first.

“Excuse me?”

Sebastian stepped forward naturally, took Lottie’s hand, and escorted her. Standing right beside the wide-open carriage door, he was smiling with easy composure as though it were simply his rightful place to do so.

Ah, what was happening here. 

While she still could not recover from her daze, Lottie found herself already just before stepping into the carriage with his assistance.

“Oh, right.”

“…Hm?”

“I love you?”

Thump, at last Lottie’s heart dropped heavily.

That one phrase, not even spoken loudly, easily reached every corner of the crowd, and the shock of it spread in silent waves.

Against the background of that soundless disturbance.

Love? Seb? Me?

Seb, who had said her name so desperately yesterday? Seb, who had scoffed when she suggested doing it again next time? She had really never seen him smile that beautifully before.

Without even knowing what state of mind she was in, Lottie climbed into the carriage. She could not even stop Sebastian from climbing in after her. Until the footmen, reading the room, picked up Sebastian’s luggage, and shut the carriage door behind them, and under Deon’s command the procession of Heartfield Mansion passed out before the front gate… the bewilderment staining Lottie’s bright-red face did not fade.

***

“…Just what is going on?”

It was only after barely regaining her senses that Lottie finally threw that belated question at Sebastian, when the carriage that had set out from the Royal Academy located in the north of Reum had just passed beyond the checkpoint on the western side of the royal capital.

Until then, Lottie had been too stunned trying to make sense of the magical things that had happened to her one after another.

He had called her Honey….

And then, he had said i love you….

The aftertaste of those sweet words, poured out with intent by the man she had loved one-sidedly for five years, was that strong.

But this was not something she could just let pass.

“You definitely… rejected me yesterday.”

And so she had asked Anna, her maid and secretary riding with them, for leave, and remained alone in the carriage with Sebastian to ask the question she absolutely had to ask.

“Even last night, when I tested the waters with you one more time just in case, you clearly said we were ending things with yesterday……”

“That was because you said one night with me would be enough for you to forget me.”

“That’s right.”

I’ve already forgotten you.

“But it turns out I couldn’t forget you.”

“…What?”

At Sebastian’s words, Lottie’s heart leapt. Her question came out sharper from the force of it.

“Yes, it’s true that yesterday you graciously told me how you felt, and it’s true that I rejected it.”

At the man’s calm admission, a grief Lottie had thought she had already mastered surged hot against her throat.

“I can’t explain it right away, but I only turned you down for personal reasons. The truth is, I have liked you too.”

“…That’s a lie.”

“Why do you think it’s a lie?”

“Because……”

Because yesterday you rejected me in the end. 

Unable to spit out those pride-wounding words once more, Lottie twisted her eyes and stared at him sitting opposite her in displeasure.

“Think about it, Lottie.”

“……”

“You said you liked me, so you wanted to have me. Enough that you’d say it didn’t matter no matter how promiscuous I was.”

“Ugh, that was……”

“I’m the same. I only accepted what you wanted because I like you. Do I look like trash who would sleep with someone I don’t even like?”

Yes.

You do.

No……?

Since Lottie had made her plan to ask him for one night precisely because she thought Sebastian was an experienced rake with women, there was really no room for reconsideration on that point.

Was he not the very man linked in countless rumors with daughters of many high-ranking families. There were even frequent eyewitness stories of him emerging from enclosed spaces with some of them. None of the people involved in the rumors had particularly denied them either. Even with Lady Magnusson, the stories were complicated enough that he was called her ‘lackey.’ They said Earl Collins and Duke Magnusson had been classmates back at the Academy, so the two families had been entangled since childhood, and that the unmarried Lady Ocamp had him as a secret lover…….

A man like that had rejected her confession and yet still kissed her and slept with her, so there was no way her prejudice would not deepen.

“I wanted things between us to become something more too. But because of my personal circumstances, I couldn’t do that, so yesterday I said those hurtful things to you……. But after spending the night with you, I realized I can’t lose you like this. Still, given my situation, I can’t hold on to you right away……”

“……”

“And while I was hesitating like that, I heard you were leaving, and after that I couldn’t see anything else. I couldn’t think of anything except following you at once, and by the time I came to myself, I was already at the front gate.”

The tone in which Sebastian continued speaking so gently made it sound exactly as though he truly had no choice but to chase after Lottie because he could not bear to lose her.

If this had been before it became known that Lottie was the heir to Heartfield Mansion, she would have believed him gladly.

So in the end, was he not saying that his feelings changed once he learned about the fortune she possessed.

If so, then surely her insides ought to have been boiling with anger.

‘And yet… I’m relieved?’

What spread through her chest was such complete freshness that Lottie almost wanted to laugh at herself for being so foolish and easy.

At that moment.

“Lottie, never forget love at any moment. Live by following where your heart races. And listen carefully to what this mother says……”

The dying words of her mother, which had occasionally surfaced in her mind during the past seven years of living as the hidden heir to Volfman, suddenly crossed her thoughts. Of them all, one in particular.

“For men, the face is what matters most……”

Just look at your father……

That final part, which she had forgotten ever since seeing Sebastian five years ago, because from then on her father no longer seemed handsome to her.