“What on earth would it take to get a ‘yes’ from you?”

Angela answered with unhurried composure.

“If you were to say you would like to return to your room and rest, you would receive a ‘yes.'”

Her tone was not sharp, but the steady pace and clear enunciation of her words commanded attention.

“Good grief.”

When his eyes met Angela’s, the irritation drained from Isaac’s expression. Beneath the flush of his cheeks, his mouth curved into a helpless, crooked grin.

“You really are a fascinating woman.”

A flicker of cool contempt was just beginning to pass through Angela’s eyes when Isaac added with a roguish smile.

“Is what I would like to say. Countess Maister.”

“Honestly, outright rudeness would be preferable to this performance of politeness.”

Angela let the thought slip out plainly.

“At least that would be honest.”

Then, with a faint smile at the corner of her lips, she added.

“Or so I find myself thinking.”

Isaac broke into a wide, childlike grin at her words.

“Then I shall follow the countess’s advice and rest well tonight. Until tomorrow. My Angela.”

Before she could even point out that he had called her by name without permission, Isaac made a swift exit.

It was plainly a move to escape a scolding. Angela decided there was no point in calling him back just to correct him.

‘Knowing that personality, he might actually enjoy the attention.’

Impulsive, with emotions that surfaced immediately.

If he was led by impulse, he might have committed murder on impulse as well. A man of his means could have hired someone without ever appearing in person.

‘It’s still not certain whether Joel went to the garden because someone called him there or simply because he was taking a walk. If someone was hired, does that mean there’s an accomplice inside this residence. Or was it an intruder from outside.’

Her thoughts were tangled.

‘If Isaac is the killer and he seems so taken with me, then am I the motive.’

If she was the reason Joel had died, what could be more horrifying than that.

Somewhere deep inside, she wanted to believe it had been nothing more than a random robbery. Something with no connection to the people gathered here.

A beautiful face was something every woman envied.

But Angela knew better than anyone what terrible things that beauty alone could bring upon a person.

“Engaging with him will have no end, Countess.”

A courteous and gentle voice. Ashley.

“Even so, I cannot simply ignore him.”

He stood in the background, his neat suit without a single wrinkle, as composed as ever.

Exactly as befitted his reputation as a kind, considerate, and disciplined gentleman.

A proper distance between them, a line neither had crossed.

“The young gentlemen are very distinguished guests in this residence. It is only natural, as the mistress of the house.”

Ashley stepped one pace closer to her.

“I hope my coming here has not disturbed your rest. And yet I could not decline the invitation.”

Calm and earnest, though his eyes betrayed a longing he could not quite conceal.

Still courteous, but showing her something different from what he showed everyone else.

“The invitation was Lord Phillip’s, but what man who has come to court someone would not be waiting for Countess Maister’s answer?”

And yet.

Even a man like this was not guaranteed to be innocent.

“Since Joel died……”

Where was the proof that those calm, methodical hands had not been the ones to cut off Joel’s breath?

“I have not had a single night of peaceful rest.”

Ashley’s expression darkened. He looked as though he had touched a wound he should not have.

Angela smiled bitterly.

“I heard that the diplomatic mission Joel undertook was originally meant for Lord Wilton.”

“That is true, but in the end, the most suitable person for the role was the one who went, was it not?”

Composed as the words were, Ashley was a man for whom honor and recognition mattered. Not reckless ambition, but a clear and genuine need for achievement and acknowledgment.

On a mission that had gone in Ashley’s place, Joel had earned the Emperor’s praise.

Was that not enough to stir jealousy in any man?

Perhaps that was why he wanted her, Countess Maister, like a trophy. Burning with a competitive spirit he kept carefully hidden from the world.

He had a reputation for valuing rules and order, but she had heard more than enough about the double lives of killers.

“In the end, Joel earned the distinction but never lived to enjoy the glory. Lord Wilton was more than capable of achieving the same. Had anyone known it would come to this, it would have been better for you to have gone.”

“There is no need to speak so self-deprecatingly, my lady. I was disappointed not to go as the diplomatic envoy, but stepping aside was my own choice.”

“You stepped aside?”

“Yes.”

Ashley did not elaborate. Angela did not press.

People could take the same situation and frame it in any number of ways to suit themselves.

It would be better to look into it directly later.

Ashley shifted the subject with a note of concern.

“They say a killer always returns to the scene of the crime.”

A killer always returns once more.

Hearing that, Angela found her gaze drifting away from Ashley of its own accord, settling on Cyril, who stood at a distance.

He must know that this gathering was nominally an invitation but was in fact an evaluation of the suitors. Yet unlike the other two, Cyril made no apparent effort to present himself.

The moment Angela looked his way, Cyril turned his head directly toward her. He had the face of a forest spirit who lived on morning dew, but his reflexes were as sharp as those of a predator.

For all the swiftness of the movement, his eyes were utterly still.

As though he intended, quietly, not to miss a single thing she did.

When those silver eyes turned toward her, the air left her lungs.

She was curious about him, and yet when those eyes fixed on her, she felt like a mute animal locked in an iron cage with shackles on its ankles, and the feeling was unbearable.

Angela was not the sort of person who trusted instinct, but in this moment she could not say the same.

What if that cold unease was pointing her toward the killer?

What if that was why she both shrank from him and could not look away?

Angela fixed her gaze back on Ashley.

“The killer may have already come and gone. A full month has passed. The area is secluded, but it is not somewhere no one can go.”

The truth was that Angela herself had not been able to go there.

The place where Joel had died was a secluded corner of her own residence’s garden. It had an artificial waterfall and beautiful landscaping, and it was quiet. She and Joel had often talked there.

But after the investigators’ initial visit to the scene, Angela had not been able to return.

Thinking that even Joel’s final cry might have been swallowed by the sound of the artificial waterfall, she felt a chill at the very thought of that rushing water.

The investigators had checked the alibis of everyone in the residence at the time, but no one had come under suspicion.

The servants had all been gathered for a party to celebrate their master’s return. Some had drunk only a little, others had overindulged, and all of them had been together in a group. Not a single person who had abstained or been working had been alone.

On top of that, the Maister comital house treated its servants considerably better than most, in both conditions and wages.

The killer had therefore been concluded to be an outsider with an unknown motive.

The case remained entirely in the dark.

Which was why she wanted to hold on to even as thin a clue as the perfume.

Ashley smiled faintly.

“I did not mean to pour salt on your wound, my lady. Please forgive the intrusion.”

“This case is already widely known among the nobility. The tabloids read by commoners covered it extensively as well. A conversation like this does not trouble me.”

That was not true. The image of Joel, found dead, was still vivid in her mind.

All the more reason she had to find the killer. For her husband, murdered without justice.

She had to appear composed.

Angela concealed her own trauma and maintained a facade of calm.

One thing she had learned from living: her weaknesses had to be kept entirely hidden.

The more readily someone showed sympathy for a weakness, the less they could be trusted. Because she never knew when they might wield that weakness like a blade, trying to bring her to her knees.

“You are truly strong, my lady.”

“Upholding one’s dignity as a noble is a fine virtue. It is simply what one must do.”