Even with the blueprints in her mind, these were tools and clockwork gears she was using for the first time. Lacking expertise, she finished reassembling the clock she had taken apart around lunchtime, and by then, it was dark outside.
“Wow, it’s done.”
Scarlett’s voice was happy for a change. From the outside, it just looked like she had opened it and closed it again. But after she reassembled the clock, the overly slow clock found its proper speed again. The noise that the clock had been making was also gone.
After hanging the clock back on the wall, Candice, who compared it to her own wristwatch, said.
“Oh, you really fixed it…”
As they were marveling at it, the door was flung open, and Scarlett’s father-in-law, Gregory Dumpert, walked in. Scarlett’s happy expression instantly darkened.
Gregory strode over and glared at her with the blue eyes he had passed down to his son, Viktor.
“I don’t understand how you can be smiling right now.”
Scarlett hurriedly got up.
Gregory, furious, pointed out the window.
“Do you know that the gaslight at the front door is out?”
At his words, one of the maids who had been watching the clock said in surprise.
“I-I’m sorry! I forgot…”
“Managing the maids is the mistress’s job. You feel no responsibility while my wife is lying ill with a broken heart, and you laugh after blocking my son’s path!”
The label of a man who had degraded a princess had followed Gregory throughout his youth. There were even daily newspaper gossips about how he had lured the elegant Princess Marina with all sorts of cunning tricks.
Scarlett, too, had guessed that Gregory was projecting his own inferiority complex onto her, which made his attitude toward her even more cruel. When he started scolding her, he would go on for hours, wearing down not only Scarlett but also everyone around them.
Around that time, Pallin, who had returned from the luncheon that had started in the late afternoon, arrived.
He was about to knock on the dressing room door, but he heard Gregory’s angry voice from inside.
“How can you, not a beast, turn around and forget what you just did and laugh? Is your mind so foolish that you don’t understand what you’ve done wrong?”
Because Scarlett felt she had done wrong, she kept her hands together and didn’t dare to lift her head once.
After scolding Scarlett for a long time, mixed with belittling remarks, Gregory revealed his true intentions.
“So please stop being stubborn and get a divorce.”
In the end, the conversation had come back to this.
Scarlett answered calmly.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why won’t you get a divorce? You’ve lived with him, you know that Viktor also considers you to be lacking. If you’re sorry for holding him back this time, isn’t it right to pave the way for Viktor to meet a daughter from a good family?”
“If you really want a divorce…”
Scarlett recalled Viktor’s order to not let her come to the party and continued calmly.
“Please give me a portion of the assets.”
Gregory asked as if he couldn’t believe it.
“What did you just say?”
“My brother always needs a caregiver, so his living expenses are high. So, at least a little bit of asset division…”
“How dare you talk about asset division when you came here with not even a penny of a dowry!”
“In that case, I cannot get a divorce either.”
Even Pallin frowned at Scarlett’s clear intentions, which were contrary to her bowed head.
Gregory raised his voice as if he could not forgive her and continued.
“Unless you’re possessed by a demon, you wouldn’t be like this. It’s as if you’ve made up your mind to ruin our family! This won’t do. Go to the convent at once. Go and be forgiven for your sins.”
Pallin, shocked by his contemptuous words, hurriedly opened the door.
“I’m sorry to interrupt. I’ve come to inform you that the luncheon is over.”
When Pallin, the legitimate son of the prestigious Redford family, appeared, Gregory, who had been humiliating Scarlett in front of the servants, stopped scolding her, albeit with displeasure.
Pallin bowed to Gregory and continued.
“You want to send the Captain’s wife to a convent?”
“She has tarnished my son’s honor, Lord Pallin. In the past, this matter would have been cause enough to banish her immediately.”
“But responding to an interrogation is not a crime, is it?”
Pallin tried to stop him, but it only served to reignite Gregory’s anger.
As the talk of a convent came up again, Scarlett’s clasped hands began to tremble. Gregory’s wife and Viktor’s mother, Marina Dumpert, had been in and out of a mental institution for almost ten years and was now confined to a convent. She became anxious that she, too, would end up living in a convent forever.
Pallin quickly said.
“The Captain wouldn’t want that either. I will go and tell him now.”
As Pallin said that and left, Gregory also left, clearly displeased.
Scarlett took a moment and breathed heavily, feeling extremely anxious, but when she saw the maids who were watching her, she forced a smile.
“Oh, if you have a broken clock, let me know. I want to practice. Since my skills are terrible, it should be one that doesn’t have to be fixed.”
At her words, everyone looked at each other, and then Polly, a kitchen maid, quietly raised her hand.
“I have a broken clock, ma’am.”
“Really?”
“The clock shop said they couldn’t fix it, so I just have it. It’s a Crimson clock, you see.”
“Can I take a look?”
“Of course!”
Polly’s face lit up when Scarlett showed interest.
After all the servants had left, Scarlett couldn’t move for a while, as the shame had not yet subsided. Then, at the sound of a clock, she slowly turned her head toward the wall clock.
“At least I didn’t waste today.”
She muttered that to herself and stood there looking at the clock for a long time. She had been so frustrated and upset, but seeing the clock she had fixed with her own hands, she felt a little relieved. It was as if her parents were comforting her in her sorrow.
The title of Duke Dumpert was given to Princess Marina Iren when she was cast out of the royal family, and it was also the name of the abandoned wasteland at the end of the capital that belonged to the royal family.
The Dumpert family, located on a barren hill, leveled the land and repaired the mansion with the vast wealth that Marina Dumpert had brought. On top of that, a huge amount of wealth accumulated by Viktor was added through the law that anything confiscated from pirates, excluding taxes, became the property of the captain.
On the hill overlooking the sea, the navy was in the middle of training in the Dumpert family’s forest. While others practiced with rifles, Viktor focused on getting used to the silver and diamond pistol that the royal family had given him along with a medal.
Viktor wiped his dry face with his left hand and muttered.
“It’s just for decoration.”
Viktor had a natural talent, and with hard work, he had always achieved overwhelming results in all subjects and training.
Evan, the first mate, laughed happily at his captain, who was rarely seen looking so troubled.
“For decoration? It’s a sacred object with history and tradition, you know.”
It was an object that was both a sacred object and for decoration.
Viktor tried to lift the pistol to concentrate again but saw Pallin approaching from a distance.
Viktor picked up the pistol with his right hand and looked at the target. Despite his disparaging remark that it was an ornament, his bullets were constantly piercing the center of the target.
Pallin, who had arrived, said.
“Captain, Lord Gregory is sending your wife to the convent!”
Gregory was the second son, so he hadn’t inherited a title, nor had he received one for a marriage that was not approved. The usage was incorrect, but people used the honorific of ‘Lord’ when addressing him, which was used for military officers or police officials.
Viktor, who heard the somewhat agitated story from Pallin, calmly loaded a bullet into the pistol and said.
“A convent isn’t a prison, is it?”
“Even so, isn’t that too much?”
“Why? Are you afraid I’ll lock her up for the rest of her life like my mother?”
“…I didn’t say that.”
“You sounded like you did, inside.”
While he was talking, Viktor’s pistol, which was hitting the target easily, turned behind the target.
After he fired two shots in a row, a deer fell there. Pallin, who was used to seeing people die but not animals, turned his head away in agony.
Viktor continued.
“That’s not going to happen. My wife betrayed me, she’s not crazy.”
After Viktor fired the last shot at the target, the groundskeeper hoisted the deer onto his back.
Seeing the gushing blood, Pallin closed his eyes tightly. When he opened his eyes again, Viktor was gone, and he heard Evan’s scolding as he pulled on his neck.
“You don’t interfere in family matters. It’s useless meddling.”
“I know that, but it’s a fact that the Captain hasn’t gotten Duchess Marina out of the convent.”
“Well, there must be a reason for that.”
“But she’s still his mother.”
Pallin sighed deeply and messed up his red hair. He thought it was pointless meddling, but it still bothered him.
At dinner that evening, Scarlett stared at Viktor, who was sitting across from her, for a while. He was eating in a suit, just as he had been on their first wedding day.
In the beginning of their marriage, she would just stare at him absentmindedly as he ate with such elegance.
He maintained the same appearance for two years. He continued to eat impassively on the days Scarlett laughed with joy and on the days she sat across from him and shed tears of sorrow. Now, Scarlett, who had also come to maintain a stern face during meals, opened her mouth.
“Viktor, you heard about the convent from Lord Pallin, right?”
“Go.”
At his indifferent words, Scarlett accidentally dropped her spoon onto her plate.
She left the spoon and asked Viktor.
“…How long will I be gone?”
“I don’t know.”
“It shouldn’t be too long. I might run away because I miss you.”
Scarlett said and laughed out loud.
Viktor didn’t react, but she still continued with her eyes crinkled.
“Is one month too short?”
“Do as you please.”
“I can’t be gone longer than that. Come and get me, in one month.”
“Fine.”
“Viktor.”
Scarlett called his name and waited for him to look at her.
When Viktor shifted his gaze to her, she said tenderly.
“I love you.”
“Me too.”
Except for when Viktor needed something, Scarlett was usually the one to say “I love you” first, and Viktor would sometimes add that he loved her too, and even when he didn’t, he would always give an affirmative answer.
After receiving such confirmation, Scarlett always felt a mix of joy and a bit of loneliness.
