[CHAPTER 65]
“Matthias refused my request.”
Not only that, but he also said he would not be able to meet me for a while due to family matters.
I sent a reply asking if he was alright, but no letter came back from him.
In the middle of that uneasy feeling, Nele, whom I met at the salon, suddenly brought up something odd.
“I heard the Kreuz Viscount family came from the south. Since you crossed over from the complete opposite direction, what is the south like?”
“Oh my, were you from the south, Jena?”
Karin, who was sitting with us, looked at me with curious eyes.
This was the first time even I learned where I was from.
I set down my teacup and gave a small laugh.
“Actually, I had an accident a few months ago, so my memory is unclear.”
“Oh my! Are you alright?”
“Goodness, you must have had such a hard time.”
Nele gave me a pitying expression and clasped my hands.
“If you came from the south, you probably didn’t know anyone in the north. Weren’t you lonely?”
“It’s fine because I’ve met so many kind people like you and Karin.”
“I’m relieved. Let’s keep building happy memories together and fill the empty spaces of your past.”
I nodded, but something about the flow of the conversation felt unnatural.
The timing of Nele’s words was too perfect.
Am I just suspicious of everything now?
It felt strange, but pressing the matter felt unnecessary, so I let it go.
Feeling a bit stifled, I headed to the washroom to clear my head.
I washed my hands several times in the cold water instead of splashing my face.
When I stepped out, a young lady walking down the opposite hallway spotted me and her eyes widened.
“Oh—Kreuz Viscountess…!”
“Ah, yes. Hello.”
“Y-yes! I-I’m Sonya Brunner. It’s a pleasure to meet you…!”
The young lady looked at me with shy, sparkling eyes.
I was going to exchange a greeting and walk past her, but her cute reaction made me stop.
“It’s nice to meet you too, Lady Brunner.”
“Actually, I saw you once at the Wagner Marquis’ party, but I didn’t have the courage to approach you then.”
“Oh, really? Thank you for approaching me now.”
Her rare friendliness made me happy, and my own eyes brightened in response.
Am I… making a new friend?
Lady Brunner, cheeks slightly flushed, shyly offered a compliment.
“The dress you’re wearing, isn’t it from Lumière Boutique? It suits you beautifully.”
“Ah, no. This was made by a designer named Romi.”
She blinked in confusion at my cheerful correction.
“Uh… isn’t she the owner of Lumière Boutique? She’s famous as the designer sponsored by the Grand Madam of Callard.”
…That wasn’t right.
The Romi I knew had no boutique and only worked from a small studio, selling door-to-door.
The shock rendered me speechless for a moment.
How likely was it that the boutique owner sponsored by the Grand Madam of Callard just happened to share the same name?
I silently looked down at my dress.
Only now did the luxurious material and delicate embroidery stand out to me.
Then I remembered the noblewoman at the party who gasped when she saw my dress.
‘No way… is that why?’
Just as I wavered, Lady Brunner spoke again.
“Come to think of it, your ring is made of an Ethereal Diamond, right? The kind that’s mined only from the Callard Ducal mines.”
What?
“They say the Callard family is very strict when choosing buyers. That’s amazing.”
She smiled brightly, without a trace of malice.
But I could not smile back.
So—
My maid was from the Callard Knight Order, my dress came from a Callard-sponsored atelier, and my ring was from the Callard Duchy mines.
How does any of this make sense…?
* * *
Once Aizen learned that Jena was investigating the Kreuz family, he had felt anxious and uneasy every single day.
He blocked her from contacting Matthias and spread plausible stories through Nele, yet he still couldn’t relax.
Who was Jena?
Through their half-year of pretending to be a married couple, Aizen had learned that she was incredibly smart and fiercely persistent.
If she started doubting something, vague excuses would never stop her.
On top of that, he and his family, whose emotional walls had gradually crumbled, had exposed far too many vulnerabilities without realizing it.
He hurriedly put together a stack of documents on the Kreuz family and went to see Jena.
“My lady, do you have a moment to talk?”
“Yes, what is it?”
“I remembered you said you were curious about our family.”
With a gentle smile, he sat beside her like a husband wanting to look after his amnesiac wife.
Jena’s large, gentle blue eyes turned toward him.
Aizen laid out various documents and began explaining.
“Our family is a distant branch of the Schmitt Count family. We originally lived in the south, but after our finances collapsed, we moved north.”
“Ah, really?”
“But that doesn’t mean we have any ties with the Schmitts. We don’t know each other at all. Everyone here in the north is a stranger to us. We only hired local staff.”
“Ah, really?”
“It was actually difficult to hire staff. Since our finances were unstable, we couldn’t assign a knight and maid to accompany you. That’s when Greta, who had injured her shoulder and quit knight duty, volunteered to join us.”
“Ah, really?”
Aizen nodded and asked whether she hadn’t noticed Greta’s right shoulder seemed weak.
Jena, whose eyes had been slightly unfocused, regained clarity for a moment.
She remembered the bounty-hunter days, when Greta had been attacked on the right shoulder and cornered by assailants.
But she soon lost interest again and spoke casually.
“You don’t have to explain anymore.”
“…Why? Weren’t you curious?”
“I was, but you just solved everything for me. I’m not curious anymore.”
“…Ah… that’s good then.”
“Yep.”
She turned her head sharply and gave him a radiant smile.
“Whatever the case is, as long as we’re truly the Kreuz Viscount couple, isn’t that all that matters?”
“…”
“Right, dear?”
Aizen forced a smile, though the back of his neck felt cold.
Even though Jena said her curiosity was resolved, he couldn’t believe it.
But judging from her dismissive attitude, some shift in her mindset had certainly occurred.
The problem was that he didn’t know what that shift was.
‘It’s possible she sensed the danger of digging further and decided to stop…’
Greta even reported that Jena had stopped investigating the Kreuz family.
But Aizen couldn’t shake the sense of looming dread.
And that dread proved correct.
* * *
My curiosity about our family had faded.
Instead, I had become curious about the Callard Duchy.
Thinking about it, there were quite a few points of contact between us.
I had met the Duke one-on-one, even though other nobles rarely saw him.
I had received bounty rewards and compensation from him.
I was also acquainted with Matthias.
Up until now, things had felt a bit odd, but never suspicious.
But why was that ducal family surrounding someone like me, a mere viscountess?
I felt that once I knew their motive, all the suspicious parts of the Kreuz family would make sense.
So I went to see Madam Müller and Madam Schweiger again.
I felt they were the only ones who always told me the truth plainly.
“Do you happen to know anything about the Callard family?”
When I asked the question over tea, both women exchanged troubled looks.
“Shh, Viscountess Kreuz. You can’t say the Callard name in front of others.”
Madam Müller pressed a finger to her lips.
“What? Why?”
“The Grand Madam of Callard once declared a ban on mentioning the ducal family in society. Anyone who gossips even a little will be strictly punished.”
What?
I stared at them, bewildered, and the two women shrugged.
“I guess they don’t like people talking about them behind their backs, whether good or bad.”
“They’ve always been secretive. A newspaper once printed the current Duke’s portrait and ended up shut down.”
“What? Isn’t that too much?”
“Well, to be fair, the newspaper didn’t just print his portrait. They also spread malicious rumors about the late first heir and his wife.”
Madam Schweiger looked around nervously before whispering.
“Both of them died of illness, but the paper claimed they were cursed.”
“Then I guess shutting it down makes sense.”
I changed my judgment with a frown.
As someone with a family member who had died of illness, that was deeply insulting.
So direct talk about the Callard family was impossible.
That meant I needed to approach through someone connected to them.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t meet Matthias right now.
“Viscountess, didn’t you say your son wants to become a knight? Do you know anyone in the White Wolf Knight Order?”
Since Greta had been a member of that order, maybe investigating them would reveal something.
But Madam Müller shook her head.
“No, I don’t.”
“Me neither. Only the best knights of the north can join the White Wolf Order.”
“Ah…”
I slumped in disappointment.
“But if not us, the Marchioness of Wagner probably knows some knights from there.”
Madam Müller offered an important hint.
I stared at her blankly.
“Nele does?”
“Yes. Her younger brother is in that order. Ralph Schmitt, the young heir of the Schmitt Count family. Didn’t you know?”
My eyes widened.
Schmitt…?
The shock hit me with the same force as when I discovered Greta’s background.
My maid, my dress, my ring, and now even my friend were all connected to Callard.
How is that even possible?
What truth was being hidden from me?
Or rather… was anything I knew even real?
I bit my lower lip and made up my mind.
‘I need to meet Ralph Schmitt.’
Not through Nele.
But directly.
