Raymond’s pupils dilated. How did he know? Why, naturally, the two of us—

Wait. Could it be…

…She doesn’t recognize me?

Right. It was a reunion after nearly twenty years, so it was no wonder she couldn’t place him at once. On top of that, he was here as Raymond Bayen now, so it would be stranger if she did recognize him.

If I just explain my situation honestly…

If I tell her I’m Duke Raymond Earlister, will gladness settle into those uneasily wavering blue eyes?

Charlotte, for her part, even as she asked, privately wondered whether he’d come to know her surname through Elena. She knew Elena wasn’t one to go about talking of her, but short of through her, there was no way he could have known.

It was then.

“Let me speak honestly. I am Earlister—”

When an unexpected name came out of his mouth, Charlotte’s face flooded with shock. At that face, looking as though she’d seen a ghost, Raymond once again failed to complete his sentence.

“Are you acquainted with Duke Earlister?”

“…And if I am?”

Raymond asked back, knitting his brow. Charlotte’s eyes wavered this way and that, like a sailboat caught in a tempest. No—how would a foreign businessman know Duke Earlister? And why would the Duke have spoken to this person about me?

“Why are you so startled? Is there some reason the Duke shouldn’t speak of you, by any chance?”

Raymond, who had nearly slipped and referred to himself as “the Duke” in the deferential third person, shook his head and asked.

“It’s not that, but I never even imagined the Duke would have spoken of me to anyone.”

“And why is that something you couldn’t even imagine?”

“Well, because the Duke and I aren’t on terms close enough for that…”

“What did you say?”

Raymond’s face screwed up like a man who’d bitten down on a bitter medicine. Charlotte was startled.

D-did I say something wrong?

But it was the truth. For the daughter of a barely-surviving viscount’s house in some country town to claim acquaintance with so eminent a personage would have been a shameless thing to do.

“As far as I know, Lady Prairie has even visited House Earlister. The ducal house isn’t a place just anyone can enter.”

“Of course the ducal house isn’t somewhere just anyone can visit. But for me, it would be no more than having visited a few times as a child, tagging along with my father, who worked at House Earlister. At least, that’s how I understand it.”

Raymond nearly let out a dry, incredulous laugh in spite of himself. A few times, my foot! There was a time she came and went as if it were her own home. And what was this “how I understand it”?

“Hearing you put it that way, it sounds as though you don’t remember those days.”

“The truth is… it was such an early age that I have no memory of that time.”

Charlotte answered with an awkward look. In truth, the reason she’d lost the memories of that time was an accident she’d suffered as a child, but explaining circumstances like that to someone she’d met for the first time today felt like too much of a burden. And it wasn’t as though there were anything strange about not remembering things from early childhood.

But Raymond’s reaction was odd. With his eyes screwed up as though he couldn’t believe it and his mouth slightly open, he looked as if he’d received a great shock.

And exactly as Charlotte saw it, Raymond truly had received a great shock.

She doesn’t remember her time at the ducal house?

When he’d read the letter Charlotte sent recently, he had found the businesslike tone strange. But he’d soon concluded that since it had been so long since they’d had any contact, she felt awkward and was being formal. He’d also thought she might want to show off that she’d grown up. But it wasn’t merely a matter of awkwardness—it was because she had no memory of those days? How was this possible?

No, wait. Charlotte had been quite young back then. She was four whole years younger than Raymond, so what he remembered clearly, Charlotte might remember only hazily.

“You can’t remember none of it at all, surely.”

“…”

Charlotte gave an embarrassed smile. Raymond’s face contorted.

So she really had—

Completely forgotten me?

Ha! The corner of his lips twisted upward. There was no being more aggrieved than this.

Raymond had chewed over those days at the slightest provocation. At the slightest thing, he’d recall the cute little kid who used to grin and giggle, baring those gap-toothed gaps here and there. And it wasn’t as though he recalled it because he wanted to.

After you were the one who made me remember you.

[You’re not allowed to forget me…]

After she’d cried like that, sticking out her tiny little pinky finger to make sure he could never forget—

She herself had forgotten me?

Back when Charlotte and Viscount Prairie had just relocated their residence to Sandem, letters had come now and then; when they stopped coming altogether, Raymond had assumed Charlotte had grown close with the new friend she’d mentioned in her letters. He’d thought of pouring out his hurt—how could she not send even a single letter, no matter how much she liked this friend?—but held it back, afraid of throwing a child who’d only just settled into a new place into confusion.

Right. One can’t live forever buried in nothing but the past. Still, I’ll be there in your memories, so it’s all right. The mere eleven-year-old boy had swallowed his hurt thinking just that.

But it seemed this little kid hadn’t so much as called Raymond to mind from the moment the letters stopped. Otherwise there was no way she’d have wiped the memories away this cleanly, like a knife.

What is this feeling?

In all his life up to now, there had been the occasional time when anger set his insides boiling and seething—but never like now, his chest chilled and cold as if plunged into ice water, and his head as though someone had set a heap of charcoal on it, so hot. Ah—was this feeling what they called betrayal?

“Um, Mr. Bayen…”

Charlotte called to him. Bayen. That name, still unfamiliar to him. Going forward, it seemed it would be enough for him to be Bayen to her, not Earlister. She didn’t even remember what had happened before anyway, so why bother explaining?

“Let’s quit talking about people who aren’t present and talk about the pottery.”

Crossing his legs with a flick, he wore a scornful smile.

Charlotte couldn’t hide her bewilderment at the abruptly changed subject.

There’s something I want to ask…

But the reason she’d come here was also the pottery, so for now it was right to settle this matter first.

“That pottery was something I’d been trying to obtain for a long while.”

Raymond lied. The truth was, he hadn’t even known such a thing had been bought.

“To think the pottery I’d been waiting for with my neck craned shattered to pieces before it even made it into the manor. I cannot contain my disappointment.”

He let out an exasperated laugh, his nose wrinkling.

“How do you intend to make this up to me?”

Charlotte, lowering her gaze, said,

“I’ll speak with the proprietor who was to deliver the pottery and see that the full cost of it is compensated.”

“Only the cost of the pottery? Do you not intend to account for the time I spent waiting for that pottery, and for the expectations so emptily dashed?”

“…”

Charlotte could give no reply at all. She understood how he felt, but in her current circumstances, even paying for the pottery alone was a daunting prospect.

They said the most expensive of the exotic pottery pieces decorating the Spencer Hotel lobby was worth twenty gold.

Twenty gold was about a year’s living expenses for an ordinary household of four. Even if she negotiated well with the proprietor who’d supplied the pottery and ended up owing only about two-thirds, it would be a crushing burden for Elena.

“Ah, never mind. Accounting for all that would get complicated. Just pay half the cost of the pottery. I’ll settle the other half by speaking with the president of Days Trading, so don’t trouble yourself over it.”

Charlotte’s eyes brightened. About half was better than she’d braced herself for.

“Thank you for your consideration. About how much would half be?”

“Fifty gold.”

Raymond folded his arms and lifted his chin. Charlotte’s eyes went wide as if they’d pop out.

“What?”

“Fifty gold. Was my pronunciation poor? Even if it was, I don’t think it was at a level that’s hard to make out.”

One corner of Raymond’s mouth slanted upward. Charlotte asked in a trembling voice,

“So, half of fifty gold…”

“No. The pottery costs one hundred gold. Fifty gold is half. If you really can’t believe it, I’ll bring you the receipt. Ah, that’ll be difficult right this moment. I’ve bought so much that even finding the receipt is a chore.”

Charlotte could only part her lips—no words would come. Fifty gold. It was a far, far larger sum than she’d imagined.

It was just as Charlotte’s vision spun.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.”

Elena hurried back into the parlor. Charlotte stared blankly at Elena’s face, dazed.

“Wh-what’s the matter?”

Elena. We’re in serious trouble.

Fifty gold was absolutely not a sum she could come up with in secret. She had no choice but to confess to Madam Spencer.

How furious will she be.

It was obvious she’d be upset that Spencer family money was going to that man. But that wasn’t the only problem. Even Madam Spencer would find it difficult to scrape together fifty gold all at once.

We’ve had hardly any lodgers lately.

It was the off-season, but even compared to this time last year, guests were few. Madam Spencer had thrown a fit about it, too, insisting people were putting off their holidays while they waited for Raymond’s hotel to be completed—that it was all Raymond’s fault.

“Your companion has arrived, so let’s leave it here for today. It would be best to take up the rest of the discussion after I’ve found the receipt. Ah, once I find the receipt…”

Raymond said, rising from his seat.

“Shall I pay a visit, or shall I invite you here?”

Raymond asked, wearing a scornful smile aimed at Charlotte.

“…If it’s all right with you, I’d be grateful if you’d invite me.”

“Then let’s do that.”

Raymond left the parlor. Elena, who’d come in partway through and couldn’t grasp what on earth the situation was, asked Charlotte quietly,

“What happened?”

Charlotte couldn’t tell Elena the whole truth—at least not now. She couldn’t very well go home bawling her eyes out in someone else’s house.