Chapter 11

Meeting Ethan Estevan, now a war hero, was always uncomfortable, but beyond all doubt, this was the most awkward it had ever been.

She froze in shock at the utterly unexpected encounter, but only for a moment. The instant Elisa saw that the carriage door was standing wide open, she hurriedly shut it.

Thud, the sound of her pounding heart was louder than the sound of the door closing. Before she knew it, a lengthened shadow had fallen over the carriage like a wrapping cloth.

He didn’t see, did he? He couldn’t have seen. Please, let him not have seen…. 

Since what she desperately wished for was never granted, she was anxious, but strangely enough, this time it was.

Ethan merely looked at her and Derek Grenville with an indifferent face, paying no attention to the carriage.

That’s a relief. Elisa let out a deep sigh of relief inwardly and pressed a hand to her chest. Derek was looking at her with a curious expression, but all her attention was fixed on Ethan, so she failed to notice.

That was also because Derek welcomed Ethan with a bright smile, as though he had never worn such an expression at all.

“You’ve come early, Baron Estevan.”

Giving a slight nod, Ethan dismounted from his horse.

“The time we agreed to meet was four in the afternoon, yet you’ve arrived a whole hour early. It’s fortunate that my business ended early. Otherwise, I might have kept you waiting a long time.”

“That……”

“W, wait a moment!”

Just as Ethan was about to answer, Elisa suddenly cut in. The gazes of the two men, each holding different emotions, fixed on her.

“So then, meeting the B, Baron here wasn’t a coincidence? Sir Grenville, you called him here……”

“Rather than saying I called him, we arranged an appointment.”

Gently clasping her slightly trembling hand, Derek continued,

“I intend to try doing business together with Baron Ethan Estevan, the hero who led the allied nations to victory and brought the war to an end.”

Business. The moment that word emerged—something Elisa had never thought would have anything at all to do with Ethan—her eyes widened like lanterns.

And for good reason. Grace, Ethan’s mother and Elisa’s nursemaid, had shuddered at the very mention of business. Her husband, after failing in business, had fallen into despair and taken his own life.

For the same reason, as far as Elisa knew, Ethan also had no interest whatsoever in business, so hearing this was deeply shocking.

……You really are not the Ethan I knew.

That fact, realized anew, became a sharp dagger that gouged at her chest. It was a pain she knew well, so she had thought she had grown used to it by now, but that had been a mistake. It still hurt terribly.

Elisa stared blankly at Ethan, so out of it that she did not even notice Derek calling her from right beside her. Ethan, too, was looking at her.

As the two stared only at each other as though they were the only ones left in the world, the one who turned away first was Elisa. It was because she heard the carriage opening.

“No……!”

With a shrill cry, Elisa slammed the carriage door shut again. It was such a swift movement that it was hard to believe she was the same person who had stood like a stone statue just moments before.

From between the tightly closed door, the faint sound of a child’s crying leaked out. He must have been startled by the carriage door suddenly being shut.

At the sound of her son’s crying, the rims of Elisa’s eyes reddened. In her heart, she wanted to pull her son into her arms at once, apologize for startling him, and soothe him, but she could not.

Because Ethan was watching. Elisa endured it because she absolutely did not want him to discover Noah’s existence.

“My. It seems I’ve kept you standing outside too long, Baron.”

As if he had sensed Elisa’s feelings, Derek called over an employee from the merchant company. The employee approached Ethan and took the reins from him.

“If you go inside, our deputy head of the merchant company will guide you. I will see my fiancée off and follow shortly.”

When Ethan looked at Elisa at those words, Derek shifted slightly and blocked his line of sight. Because of that, the atmosphere between the two men, now forced to meet each other’s gaze instead, was as sharp as thin ice.

“I’ll escort you, Baron.”

The situation was settled for the moment when the deputy head personally led Ethan away. As soon as Ethan was out of sight, Elisa immediately opened the carriage door.

“Noah, are you alright?”

Noah, who had collapsed onto the floor after crying himself out, threw himself into her arms the moment he saw her. His small body still trembled with fear and hurt.

“I’m sorry, Noah. I’m so sorry. Mom……”

Elisa, who had nearly called herself his mother without thinking, bit the inside of her lip hard and held the child tightly. Patting the poor trembling little body, she repeated only that she was sorry.

Then she felt a strange gaze and turned around. It was Derek. Seeing his smiling face, she remembered what the information guild woman had said—that he had asked for Ethan to be investigated.

……What if he starts to suspect the relationship between me and Ethan?

At that sudden worry, her heart pounded hard. If she avoided his eyes, he would only become more suspicious, so she held her ground and forced strength into her gaze.

“Noah must have been very startled.”

Perhaps that method worked, because Derek asked nothing at all about Ethan. He only gently dried the child’s damp face with a handkerchief, and brushed back Elisa’s disheveled hair as well.

“Thank you for bringing me here, Elisa. I’ll contact you.”

With that short farewell, the carriage door closed. Clatter, clatter, the sound of hoofbeats rang out steadily.

There was no way someone as perceptive as Derek Grenville had failed to notice anything. He must have understood that she was in a difficult position and chosen to let it pass.

Elisa was grateful for Derek’s consideration, but at the same time, it made her uncomfortable. Because she could not understand why he treated her so well.

Once, long ago, she had asked him why he was so good to her. At that time, Derek, with an unexpectedly shy smile, had answered, ‘Why, Elisa, because I love you.’

But Elisa had not believed those words. Judging only by his expression and actions, it did seem as though he truly loved her, but not by his eyes.

Because she herself had once loved one person so passionately that she would have been willing to give up everything she had, she could say it with certainty.

If he could not tell her the real reason and instead wrapped it up in the appealing word love, then there had to be a reason for that too.

Elisa was curious, but she did not question him further. It did not seem likely that he would tell her the truth, and above all, judging by his usual behavior, he did not seem to have bad intentions.

Even so, she could not help having doubts from time to time. And this time, Ethan was involved in it.

Elisa did not think Derek had approached Ethan purely for business purposes. There was surely some other reason.

And perhaps that reason……

Lost in her own thoughts, Elisa suddenly turned toward Noah sitting beside her.

The child, who had been playing with a doll, seemed to sense his mother’s gaze and turned his head. The moment she saw his still-damp ash-gray eyes, the anxious feelings inside her eased a little. Elisa smiled faintly and hugged Noah tightly.

“Our Noah, you know that Mommy loves you very much, right?”

Mommy. It was a form of address permitted only when the two of them were alone.

The child moved his lips as though he wanted to say that word, but then simply smiled sweetly and burrowed into his mother’s arms.

* * *

“……then it is expected to produce good synergy. Therefore, Baron, you……”

Throughout the explanation of the business proposal, the deputy head of the merchant company kept watching Ethan carefully. It was because Ethan’s response had been lukewarm. The way he occasionally furrowed his brow was also troubling.

“Perhaps……”

He was about to ask whether there was some part Ethan did not understand or did not like, but Derek raised a hand to stop him. Then he gestured with his eyes for him to leave now, and the deputy head quietly stepped outside.

At the click of the door shutting, Ethan seemed to come back to himself. Slowly blinking, he looked at Derek, who was drinking coffee.

“It seems the business explanation bored you quite a lot.”

Setting down his teacup, Derek smiled.

“You seemed rather full of life when you were looking at my fiancée…… It makes me wonder slightly whether you are truly the same person.”

Even at the words thick with barbs, Ethan showed no particular reaction. He merely pushed the business proposal, which he had not turned a single page of, back toward Derek and said,

“I’ll have to decline the offer. I have no interest in business.”

His voice was as dry as his expression. Though one might well have felt offended at having his efforts dismissed, Derek instead smiled as though he found it interesting.

“My fiancée is beautiful, isn’t she?”

At the somewhat abrupt remark, Ethan’s brow lifted slightly. By just that much, Derek’s smile deepened further.

“When I first saw Elisa, I thought an angel had descended. The impression was all the stronger because she was dressed in pure white.”

Derek’s eyes curved pleasantly, as though recalling the moment he had first met her.

“Elisa is so attractive that I understand why your eyes are drawn to her, but I would appreciate it if things stopped at that.”

The face from which all trace of laughter vanished in an instant was cold. Leaning his upper body toward Ethan, Derek continued slowly,

“Because I do not wish rumors to spread that the hero who led the allied nations to victory is an immoral man who makes advances toward another man’s fiancée.”