Chapter 9
Translated by: ME
-Horizontal.jpg)
*****
「Lord Goldsmith... I don't know how to begin to thank you. I am truly grateful that you saved my wife and child. I cannot express my debt to you. So... where exactly have they been this past week?」
Stammering out his words of gratitude, Siegfried took a step toward the Earl of Goldsmith and extended his hand. Logan Goldsmith reached out with his large hand and gripped it firmly.
「It is a pleasure to meet you, Lord Pendleton. I am Logan Goldsmith. My son, Josh, is a classmate of Alfred’s at the academy, and they are quite close.」
Hearing this, Siegfried felt the intimidating aura surrounding the Earl soften slightly, and he let out a small sigh of relief.
「I see. My son’s... I had no idea. But as I was saying, where have they been for the last week?」
He turned his gaze toward the two, but both Rose and Alfred remained stiff-faced and silent. Siegfried found his gaze pointedly avoided.
(What is this?)
Siegfried was stunned; he had never been treated with such coldness by them before. Despite his imposing physical stature, Logan began to speak in a calm, measured voice.
「Actually, the two of them met with a carriage accident near my villa. It seems an unlicensed rental driver couldn't handle the horses on the mountain path. The carriage overturned, and Lady Rose hit her head quite hard. The driver, terrified by what he’d done, apparently fled the scene. Alfred-kun, despite being alone, worked desperately to pull his mother—who was bleeding from her forehead and drifting in and out of consciousness—from the wreckage. One of my elderly servants happened to find them and took them in. However, it is a secluded countryside area, and it was pure coincidence that I visited the villa myself. It took this many days just to arrange for their return.」
Logan provided the explanation on behalf of the two tight-lipped family members.
「I see. But why on earth were they in a place like that?」
Siegfried had heard that the broken carriage was found in the countryside, but he had dismissed the possibility of it being theirs, thinking a woman and child would never go to such a place. He had assumed it was an accident involving some other traveler.
(When I heard the Kirkland brothers were stubbornly searching that area, I mocked them for being 'wildly off the mark'... but to think it actually was that carriage...)
「They had gone there to buy a hawk,」 Logan said. Siegfried tilted his head, looking more confused than ever.
Seeing that expression, Logan’s brow furrowed. (Does he truly not understand?)
But it didn't matter now. His son had returned. Furthermore, the Earl of Goldsmith had confirmed the carriage was an accident. This cleared the suspicion he had secretly harbored—that his mistress, Catherine, might have been behind the incident.
Recently, Catherine had been repeatedly asserting that 「I am more loved than the Mistress,」 and he had begun to fear she might have hired thugs to kill his wife and son. If such a thing happened, it would be a ruinous scandal for the Earldom. Relieved that his fears were groundless, he spread his arms to welcome the two back.
「Well, in any case, I'm just glad you're safe! Come here!」
He offered them a smile, but Rose remained frozen, while Alfred glared at him with a piercing, intense gaze.
「What’s the matter?」 Siegfried’s voice took on an irritated edge. He was not used to seeing the two of them ignore his commands.
As he took a step forward, they both instinctively stepped back two paces.
Logan let out a sigh of pure exasperation.
「So the rumors about this house were true after all, Lord Pendleton.」
The calm voice was laced with such contempt that Siegfried felt as though his nerves were being rubbed with a rasp. Angered in an instant, he glared at Logan. But Logan, seemingly unbothered, continued.
「I had heard the story from Lady Rose, but I find it hard to believe an Earl’s household could truly be in such a state.」
At that moment, Alfred, who had remained silent until now, cried out as if he could no longer contain himself.
「The day we went missing... where were you, Father?!」
Siegfried was momentarily stunned into silence. 「Well... I was at work, but—」
「Liar! I know the truth!」 Alfred cut him off, glaring with eyes that looked ready to kill. Even though he was just a child, the sharpness of his gaze was enough to make Siegfried flinch.
But there was no way he could know. 「No, I—」
「Did you have fun buying jewels for your mistress at the jewelry shop?!」
This time, it was the servants who gasped in shock. While they had guessed he was seeing his mistress, none of them knew he had gone to a jeweler. Only the Kirkland brothers remained unmoved by Alfred's shout; it was the same fact that had appeared in their lawyer's report.
Logan shook his head in pity.
「Lord Pendleton, my son saw you at the jeweler’s. He saw you acting quite affectionately with that daughter of a Baron. Children are honest; they cannot lie. And I cannot ask Josh to deceive Alfred-kun.」
Waving a hand in disappointment, Logan continued. 「You seemed unaware, but Alfred-kun has been mocked by the parents of his classmates ever since they witnessed your infidelity.」
The words of the Headmaster suddenly flashed through Siegfried’s mind.
(They used the day you entered an inn with another woman as ammunition to tease Alfred-kun... 'A child who isn't loved is a pitiful thing, no matter his grades,' they told him.)
It felt like a physical blow to the head. His own flesh and blood was staring at him as if he were a piece of filth.
「That jewelry shop is owned by the parents of one of his classmates. Do you truly not know? After the competition, I was at that shop with my son buying a commemorative gift. Right as you were shopping and making a scene with that young lady. My son recognized the Earl of Pendleton immediately, and the owner naturally recognized you as well.」
Siegfried’s face went pale. His eyes darted around desperately as he tried to formulate an excuse. Watching him, Logan let out a deep sigh.
「And furthermore, this entire incident... Doril, you’re the butler. You’re the one who started all of this, aren't you?」
Startled by the sudden shift in focus, Doril’s eyes went wide.
「I find it impossible to believe that a Countess like Lady Rose would go to the academy in a rental carriage without a single maid. She had requested a carriage days in advance, hadn't she? Yet you spitefully arranged things so the family carriage wouldn't be provided. I cannot believe you are a servant in the employ of an Earl.」
Doril’s face turned beet-red with the urge to argue. He wanted to scream that it wasn't true—but the fact was that the master, Siegfried, had never actually ordered the carriage for that day. He glared at the man, wondering why he had to be lectured by a stranger, but the towering Earl glared right back.
「And as for the Head Maid... I had heard rumors of her negligence, but I didn't think it went this far.」
Now it was the Head Maid's turn to be singled out as she tried to watch the exchange like it was someone else's problem.
「Instead of preparing the Mistress’s clothes, you supposedly threw the dress she intended to wear into a laundry tub so she couldn't use it, didn't you?」
The maids, including the kitchen girls, stared in shock. They remembered that day. They remembered Rose ironing her few formal dresses herself the evening before. They remembered the Head Maid pulling one off the hanger that night.
『What a stuck-up Mistress. If she has complaints about our work, she should just say so. Since we can't seem to meet her expectations, I suppose we'll have to start her laundry all over again.』
She had said that as she plunged the dress into a tub with the other dirty linens. Someone had clapped and laughed, saying, 「Rose-sama is going to be in such a panic tomorrow!」
But to think that their plan to make a laughingstock of the Mistress had been exposed...
Rose had rushed out the next morning wearing a dress they had never seen before, so they hadn't seen the final outcome, but they never dreamed she knew exactly what the Head Maid had done. The low-level workers who had laughed along that night turned pale.
The Kirkland brothers, hearing this, arched their brows in fury and glared at the servants with terrifying expressions. The servants trembled as they finally remembered: they had mocked these men as mere Viscounts and merchants°, but they were nobles nonetheless.
The Head Maid's mouth moved wordlessly, her face as white as paper.
「It all makes sense if the Master governing you is in this state,」 Logan said. 「Lord Pendleton, why did you tilt your head when I mentioned 'buying a hawk'? An academy competition is a point of pride for any noble father. Merely participating is wonderful, but Alfred-kun served as a squad leader. It is only natural for a parent to give a gift in celebration.」
「B-but...」
「Even a commoner parent would have provided a celebratory meal that day. My elderly servant is a first-class falconer. It is only natural for a noble parent like Lady Rose to seek out a top-tier hawk that Alfred-kun has wanted for a long time. Yes... things that are common sense for a noble seem to be entirely lost on you. And yet, on such a day of celebration, the servants not only tried to humiliate the Mistress but ultimately triggered this incident.」
「The accident wasn't our fault!」 Doril blurted out.
Douglas Kirkland shouted over him with a voice that shook the walls. 「If even one of you had properly accompanied the Mistress to the academy, this incident would never have happened in the first place!」
The servants jumped at the roar.
「Listen well! A Countess does not walk out alone; her dresses and her morning preparations are all handled by servants! And yet, what are you?! You are inferior even to the servants of a Knight’s house! And not one of you has even asked if the two of them are alright. To think there isn't a single person here worried about Rose and the boy... you truly are the lowest of the low!!」
Paley took over from there. 「If they had used the family carriage, someone would have remembered seeing them. You intentionally allowed the Mistress to vanish through your malice. Do you understand? This all started because you decided on your own that you could despise Rose. You couldn't find a single lead during your search, could you? We know you were turned away at every shop in town because you haven't done a lick of real work in two years. It’s common sense for a proper servant to be recognized by shopkeepers alongside their mistress! Don't think for a second that there's another house that will hire you after you're kicked out of this one!」
The Kirkland brothers' rage was staggering, their faces like those of demons. Siegfried was stunned by the stories of the carriage and the dress—things he was hearing for the first time. He stood frozen, eyes wide with shock.
Rose, who had been standing quietly, spoke with a look of profound sadness.
「You simply had no interest, did you?」
It wasn't her usual look of distress, but a face of resigned sorrow.
「Because you had so little freedom when you were young due to family circumstances, once you saw the world outside, you became completely swept away. Your friends, your mistress... I suppose you couldn't find your way back from the fun you had never tasted before. I kept hoping that one day we would understand each other... dreaming that we could get a little closer. But this incident has finally woken me up.」
She turned her gaze toward the servants.
「I always wanted to get along with all of you. I wonder where the gears went wrong? But... I remember that your attitudes changed once Lord Siegfried began to berate me. There was never any hope of us getting along.」
Doril swallowed hard. He wondered how... how she could remember that day.
The day Siegfried had first screamed at Rose during a celebratory dinner after landing a major client. Doril had felt a surge of unprovoked anger that night. It had turned out exactly as the Dowager Countess said it would.
『A bride with a large dowry becomes conceited. She'll look down on her husband and say things she shouldn't. That’s why you, Doril, who knows how to manage a household, must occasionally teach her the Pendleton way.』
From then on, every word Rose spoke sounded like she was mocking them. When she said she wanted to invite her academy friends for a tea party, the Head Maid and Doril had protested loudly together. 『Are you intending to do the thing the Master hates most?』 they had said.
「A wife who cannot host a single evening party or tea party is an outcast in society. And the heir, Alfred, is mocked right along with her. But not a single person would listen to me. I can handle it for myself. But I have reached the limit of my patience regarding Alfred being treated this way. We are leaving this house.」
「Don't be absurd!!!」
A cry—it was unclear which servant it came from—echoed through the entrance hall. Seeing this, Logan spoke with disbelief once more.
「Lord Pendleton. Why did you not leave the household management to Lady Rose? Socializing between wives is a noble's duty. Did you want to keep the money for yourselves so badly that you restricted her? Did you intend to let the servants grow arrogant and drag Lady Rose’s authority into the dirt just so you could bring your mistress into the home?」
「N-no. I didn't intend for—」
「Before you go squandering dresses and jewels on a mistress, shouldn't you be investing in your son? While you were looking the other way, Alfred—your heir—was being looked down upon by his peers. And he is such a brilliant boy, excelling in both academics and martial arts.」
As Logan spoke, Rose began to sob. Siegfried hurried forward to go to her, but Alfred shoved him away. Though he only came up to his father's chest, the boy's strength was greater than expected, and Siegfried stumbled back.
「You are no father.」
The voice was low—so low it didn't sound like it belonged to a child.
「While I was looking after the injured Lady Rose, it seems he had time to think as well,」 Logan said, gently catching Rose and holding her close.
「That’s enough!! We’re going!!」
At Douglas’s command, the four of them turned and walked toward the entrance. There was no hesitation in their stride; not a single one of them looked back.
Leaving...
The people left behind remained frozen, unable to grasp the weight of those words. The Pendleton servants could do nothing but stare blankly at their retreating backs, unable to utter a single word.
*****
Thank you for reading. If you want to help my hobby please download and install LDP9 with my link down below. Just Click the small yellow LDPlayer Banner.
OR
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel
-Horizontal.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment