Chapter 9
Keris’s face betrayed nothing, but inside he was unsettled.
He had long kept a careful ear to palace gossip, how could a rumor he didn’t know about be circulating? It seemed impossible. And yet, seeing Schmidt press the point with such surety, Keris had to admit that the whispers were probably true.
Indeed, things had been chaotic lately. Part of him also wondered at Schmidt’s manner: the emperor spoke in circles as if probing, as if he already knew something and was trying to draw him out. Schmidt never acted without intent; if he’d called Keris like this, he must be angling for something.
“I don’t know what you mean, Stop the games and get to the point.”
Schmidt’s eyes brightened at that, Keris genuinely didn’t know. For a moment the emperor’s smile tilted half a degree, and Keris’s expression tightened in response.
“Forgive me. I only found it strange that you—who usually know every rumor in the palace—would be unaware. In any case, I called you to verify those rumors and to ask about the ledger you returned to me yesterday.”
“What rumors?”
“You arrived late at the palace yesterday and left early. People noticed a deviation from your usual routine, and there’s much talk. Some say you were seen buying clothes for a woman.”
Keris let out an inward sigh. Of course, the palace would make a scandal of him being seen with a woman. He had long been known for the opposite: indifference to any lady. The fallout from this would be enormous.
Schmidt paused, letting the question hang.
“Is that rumor true?”
Keris’s mouth tightened. He answered with a deliberately calm bite.
“If you mean the matter of the dress shop, yes, there’s truth to that.”
“No. I don’t mean that. I mean, do you have a woman now?”
Keris’s reply was sharp.
“I don’t know why you care to ask. Whether I have a woman or not, why must I explain it to Your Majesty?”
At Keris’s tone, Schmidt’s aide drew a breath he did not expect to take. Schmidt rarely lost his temper, but to be spoken to that way—well, anyone might have flinched. Yet Schmidt did not flare. He could not. In practice, Keris was the power at the palace; he could not be flippantly confronted.
Instead Schmidt gave a thin, salt-tinged smile.
“It’s a shame you speak like that. I only asked as an old friend, out of concern.”
“……”
The word ‘friend’ made Keris’s expression falter for the briefest instant, so brief Schmidt caught it. Seeing that small ripple left a sour taste in Schmidt’s mouth.
‘Nostalgia now, of all times.’
While Schmidt toyed with that memory, Keris sat with a storm inside. He knew all too well that Schmidt watched him warily. That watching dated back to the incident years ago—the event that started an old, festering feeling. Since the disaster in the Layton lands, Keris had poured himself into reviving his house with an almost obsessive devotion. When he became lord, the Laytons’ standing swelled beyond what they had once held; power shifted.
Keris had become a man who worked through nights and commanded things done, so it stung that someone might think a mere woman could pull him astray. He had built himself into the very force that now overshadowed the emperor, and any crack was a prize Schmidt might seek to exploit.
Others among the nobility had a different problem: they felt threatened by the Layton house. They schemed and schemed to bring the family down by any means. And the most useful tool for their purpose was obvious, the emperor, Schmidt.
They began to whisper poison: ‘The lord of Layton has betrayed His Majesty.’ Keris, preoccupied with raising his family’s standing, hadn’t paid much heed to such slanders. Meanwhile, his relationship with Schmidt deteriorated bitterly.
Lost in those thoughts for a moment, Keris answered in a low voice.
“She’s simply an acquaintance I’ve taken in for certain reasons. Nothing more.”
“An acquaintance, is it? What sort of acquaintance? If I pressed you, you’d tell me it’s none of my concern, wouldn’t you?”
“……”
“Very well. I am not as loose-lipped as some courtiers, do not worry that I will spread gossip. Oh, and the ledger you returned through my aide yesterday: see it resolved today. Time is tight.”
“Understood. I will handle it.”
For the moment, matters seemed to settle. The aide, who had watched the exchange, could not hide his astonishment. Even if their conversation had been as cold as an ice field, the fact remained: a woman was now living at the Layton estate. If that filter reached the palace grapevine, the courtiers would spin whatever tale suited them, truth hardly mattered.
‘His Majesty says he won’t betray it, but he must know what will happen next. A woman staying at the estate will make rumors spread without him opening his mouth.’
Having completed his business, Keris turned and left the audience chamber with an air of composed indifference. Schmidt watched him go and thought something else entirely.
‘A woman, huh?’
Keris had said they were nothing, but if he didn’t seem to mind palace rumors spreading, then whether or not they were lovers, there was clearly something between them. Schmidt smiled with a meaning that did not reach his eyes.
“It has been a while since I visited the Layton lands. I should stop by soon. That would be the duty of an old friend.”
He told himself, letting the thought sit like a small, sharp stone in his palm.
***
I sat staring at Keris’s note long after I’d read it. Eventually I forced myself up. I should wash, I decided, and flung the door open, only to feel my heart drop. A maid stood right there, as if she’d been waiting the whole time. She held a large bundle in her arms.
“You’re awake? We’ve received the clothes you ordered. May I come in and sort them for you?”
“Uh—yes. Of course.”
I answered, startled and embarrassed.
She murmured a polite ‘Very well,’ stepped inside, and began unpacking. I had only brushed a hand through my hair and had yet to properly wash; the thought of being seen half-ready made me flush. As I rubbed my cheeks, I felt eyes on me. When I glanced toward them, the maids abruptly looked away.
Why are they acting like that?
My question evaporated when their whispering reached me in soft, sharp snippets as they tried to speak beneath their breath.
“That’s the woman the lord brought back.”
“Oh my—she’s so beautiful.”
“But she’s the one brought in by that ‘dark lord.’ She must be from some dirty background, right?”
They thought they had lowered their voices enough, but my hearing, oddly sensitive, caught every word. I sighed. Of course: Keris had not merely taken me in, he’d given me a room and bought me clothes. The rumor mill would spread. Technically, I wasn’t a stranger he’d brought in; I had been the doll that happened to become human, but who would parse that distinction?
As I felt the weight of their stares, the maids approached.
“May we help you change your clothes?”
“Excuse me? Help me change?”
“Yes. The lord ordered it.”
So Keris truly had given orders even for the smallest things before leaving for the palace. The idea that maids would dress me made the world of romance novels feel real in a breath-taking, disquieting way. But I did not want to be dressed under that many eyes.
‘I tried on the dresses yesterday and watched how they go on, I can manage by myself.’
“Thank you, but I’ll change on my own.”
That, I would soon discover, was my very great mistake.
