CBH 34

Chapter 34 …

At Helena’s words, Meriel smiled gently and drained her glass of champagne in one smooth motion.

The sight of such a perfectly demure and delicate woman emptying her glass so neatly with that composed expression left Helena momentarily speechless. She simply stared at her.

Accepting a second glass of champagne from a passing attendant, Meriel spoke.

“By the way, if the Count doesn’t appear soon, people will start talking again.”

No sooner had she said it than a voice rang out from not far away—it was the Countess Bryce.

“—But why hasn’t Count Ishpern shown himself?”

Her loyal follower, Viscountess Batch, raised her voice dramatically.

“Could it be that the newlyweds have had a quarrel? Oh ho ho ho!”

At the Viscountess’s exaggerated remark, a rather cruel smile curved the pretty lips of the Countess Bryce.

“Or perhaps they simply don’t get along. So poorly that they can’t even bear to meet at an event like this…!”

Hearing that, Helena’s expression stiffened.

A genius? How did she guess?

Admiring the Countess’s sharpness, she subtly glanced toward the entrance of the banquet hall.

Damn him. Why isn’t he here yet? He wouldn’t actually skip it, would he?

She had sent Aaron to tell Benjamin that he absolutely must attend today.

Aaron had confidently declared he would bring Benjamin without fail—but still.

Seeing the troubled look on Helena’s face, Meriel shook her head slightly as if in understanding.

“Men… They are never dependable.”

“That’s quite true.”

“They offer not the slightest help, yet their expectations are endless.”

“Insufferable, the lot of them.”

Perhaps she was a little tipsy.

Without realizing it, Meriel began chatting more animatedly.

“My husband, Linus, isn’t exactly the most reliable man either. Hehe. But he has his charming sides. We don’t have a bad relationship, all things considered. Though I’ve seen certain couples who truly get along terribly.”

Lowering her voice, she whispered,

“There’s a man with an extraordinarily beautiful wife, and yet he keeps two mistresses at his castle. He’s also quite cold-hearted toward other men.”

Helena responded in a tone that suggested she wasn’t the least bit surprised.

“Oh my, how utterly shocking.”

“Oh!”

Snapping back to her senses at Helena’s voice, Meriel blinked in surprise.

She looked as though she could scarcely believe she had been gossiping like that.

Blushing, she whispered,

“This isn’t the sort of thing to discuss here. Do come visit the Loire sometime. It can’t compare to the capital, of course, but there’s rather more to see than one might expect.”

“I look forward to it. I’ll be sure to visit.”

After her conversation with Meriel Russel, Helena felt her impatience rising.

Is that man truly not coming?

It wasn’t the grandest banquet by any means, but it was her first appearance in southern high society as the Countess of Ishpern.

For the Count of Ishpern to be absent from such an occasion was unthinkable.

With Countess Bryce and Viscountess Batch chattering so loudly, others were surely beginning to wonder why the Count had not yet appeared. At this point, Benjamin needed to show himself.

Just you try not coming. I’ll make you wish you were dead.

Determined to check the mansion’s entrance herself, Helena hurried out into the corridor.

Then—

Thud.

She collided with someone.

“I’m not going.”

Lying atop a pile of lumber, snapping off twigs one after another, Benjamin spoke flatly.

Aaron looked at his superior with an uneasy expression.

The Benjamin he knew might lack a certain knack for financial matters, but he was nonetheless a man worthy of admiration—heroic enough to more than make up for it.

Yet whenever Helena was involved, he developed a strange, unnecessary stubbornness.

Aaron grabbed Benjamin’s dangling leg.

Benjamin narrowed his eyes at him.

“What? Planning to drag me there by force?”

After pushing his leg aside, Aaron sat down in its place.

“With what strength could I possibly drag Your Excellency anywhere? I’m merely here to relay milady’s message.”

“Go on.”

“She said that if you don’t return today, you needn’t ever think of setting foot in her house again.”

Benjamin let out a scoffing laugh.

“Ha! Her house? Since when did the count’s castle become that woman’s?”

…

Then why are you sitting out here instead of going home…? Aaron thought to himself.

But he had enough sense not to voice it. One wrong word and he could bid farewell to his position as adjutant forever.

Clearing his throat, Aaron added,

“She also said that if you fail to appear at the banquet, she’ll use those ugly chunks of wood in the corner room on the first floor for a campfire.”

“Ugly chunks of wood? What nonsense is that—”

Benjamin, repeating the words absentmindedly, suddenly shot to his feet.

My carvings!

Wood carving was Benjamin’s sole hobby.

Since monsters were the only things that ever caught his eye, he had long taken to carving them, and among his finished pieces were a few he was rather proud of.

To use them as firewood—

“Damn it!”

Grumbling, Benjamin climbed down from the lumber pile.

He had spoken as though he had no attachment to the castle at all, yet it seemed even he possessed something he was unwilling to lose.

The fact that Helena had located that room within the vast castle, recognized at once that those carvings mattered to him, and turned them into leverage—her perceptiveness was almost admirable.

Looking like a man being dragged to the slaughterhouse, Benjamin trudged along reluctantly, Aaron hurrying to his side.

“Your Excellency, I know this may be presumptuous…”

“Then don’t say it.”

“…Could you not try to get along with milady?”

Benjamin snorted as if he had just heard the most ridiculous joke in the world.

“I doubt there exists a single person alive who could get along with that woman.”

“Well… The new young steward, the returned butler, the estate workers, and the people of Burwood all seem to follow her completely.”

Benjamin stopped walking and stared at him.

“So you’re saying everyone except me is getting along just fine with her?”

Aaron shrugged.

“Honestly, I was impressed myself. With those slender arms of hers, she’s been working tirelessly—not resting a single day—to restore the count’s household.”

Privately, Aaron added in his thoughts, And she approved all the expenses from the highlands without complaint.

But that didn’t need to be said aloud.

In the silence that followed, Aaron continued Helena’s defense.

“Of course, there may be aspects where the two of you don’t see eye to eye. But you swore before God and both your houses, did you not? Shouldn’t Your Excellency make a little more effort as well?”

After scrutinizing Aaron’s face from every angle, Benjamin shook his head.

“That noblewoman has bewitched even you.”

Aaron grinned.

“If you had seen milady skillfully sending those noblewomen on their way the other day, Your Excellency, you would have fallen for her yourself.”

Letting out a deep sigh, Benjamin mounted his horse at last.

On the road back to the count’s castle, Benjamin sensed that something had changed.

It wasn’t dramatic. The stone bridge that had once been covered in layers of old fallen leaves had been cleaned, and the towering weeds—hideous things no one had bothered cutting—had been trimmed back somewhat.

“Count!”

A farmer cutting those very weeds by the roadside removed his hat and bowed deeply.

Benjamin regarded him with a displeased look and asked from atop his horse,

“The harvest cannot yet be finished, and yet you’re doing this as well. Was this the Countess’s order?”

The farmer waved his hands hurriedly.

“Oh no, sir! My field is just up ahead, so after finishing my work I thought I’d tidy this up a bit.”

His sun-reddened face split into a broad smile.

“Seeing how hard milady works, I felt I ought to do a little more myself.”

Benjamin let out a quiet sigh.

She had not even been in Burwood a month, yet every mouth in every direction sang only, Helena, Helena.

With influence like that, she wouldn’t need a conquest to win a war.

“Very well. Continue your work.”

As he rode off, the farmer called after him,

“Your Excellency, milady is truly a remarkable person. We are all proud of our new lady.”

He had likely thought praising his wife would please him, but Benjamin felt no such satisfaction.

Climbing the hill from which the count’s castle came into view, Benjamin thought to himself—

Where does that woman find such strength in that small body of hers?