Lady Reiling (4)

The twisted smile that rose on the face that had behaved like a gentle lady ever since coming to Tessen carried a roguish vitality.

“Her Highness probably has confidence, but is not making a complete conclusion yet, Lady Rose. So, until evidence comes out, please continue to remain Lady Dalia.”

“Why? Would that benefit Sir Jamie?”

“I thought so when you told me about the Swan family’s crest as well. You seem to have a strong intellectual curiosity, my lady.”

“You mean I’m smart, right? I’ll take it as praise. Since it could be rude praise, refrain from saying it directly to others. There are people who say I’m showing off when I speak out what I guessed, but Sir Jamie is rather peculiar.”

At Rose’s candid words, Jamie sat leaning against the garden boundary stone.

“Were you flustered? You’ve become talkative. Still, there’s something I’m curious about.”

“What is it this time?”

“I don’t mean to discriminate, but it couldn’t have been easy for a woman alone to ride in a carriage all the way to Tessen. How did you get here? For reference, if you told me to go from Tessen to the imperial capital alone, it wouldn’t be easy.”

At Jamie’s joking remark asking whether she had been flustered, Rose realized that she really had been flustered. She sat down beside Jamie and let out a long sigh.

“I mostly stayed on the estate. I rode in carriages alone, rode horses too, and even fed them well. Running around on the farm. I hated staying cooped up inside in a rural estate.”

“I heard the Combat ladies usually stay on the estate unless it’s for their social debut.”

“That was the order of my father, the head of the house. He said there had to be some mystique for us to do well on the marriage market.”

Rose spoke with a contemptuous expression.

“It seems Lady Rose does not like it, but we are related by marriage. Your elder sister, Lady Lily, was engaged to the heir of Relling.”

“……”

At Lily’s name, Rose’s face darkened.

“The generation has changed, so I suppose you wouldn’t know. My mother, the Baroness of Rens, was formerly the Lady of Relling. How could you leave a sister with a fiancé in a state of disappearance, Lady Rose.”

At Jamie’s words, Rose’s face quivered as though she were about to burst into tears.

“You found out that too?”

Rose’s voice trembled as though crying.

“That too?”

Jamie turned, flustered by Rose’s unexpectedly fierce reaction. He had been about to add a complaint that a lady invited to the Grand Duchess of Tessen’s banquet had disappeared and nearly put the Grand Duchess in an awkward position.

The hand that had been about to soothe and comfort Rose suddenly halted. A cold expression appeared on Jamie’s face, then faded.

“Did something happen to Lady Lily, Lady Rose? This time, I hope you’ll stop hiding it and speak honestly and directly. Lady Lily must be in a situation where even if Lady Rose is made into a missing person, the Combat family cannot raise an issue, correct? Why did you come to Tessen, Lady Rose?”

At Jamie’s question, Rose burst into tears.

“Lily, Lily is dead…….”

Reichardt lightly pushed away the small head pressed tightly against his side. Alicia was sitting with not only her head but her whole body pressed close against Reichardt.

Tap tap.

A slender hand tapped the man’s forearm. At the urging touch, Reichardt sent a cold gaze toward the one clinging to him. He was about to speak more coolly than ever, when his eyes met the sparkling violet eyes looking up at him.

“What is he saying? Lily is, and after that? Rei.”

“Jamie will tell you when he comes. If it’s Jamie Rens, he’ll probably write up a report and bring it too.”

From the moment Connie went to meet Rose Combat, who had introduced herself as Lady Dalia. Alicia had been stuck to Reichardt’s side, eavesdropping on what Rose Combat was saying.

Since Alicia herself did not have especially sensitive hearing, she urged Reichardt and had him relay the situation to her.

“Rei, please.”

Reichardt thought overhearing other people’s conversations unintentionally was unavoidable, but he still tried not to listen if possible. Alicia was the only one who would openly ask him to secretly listen in on others’ conversations and tell her about them.

“He says Lady Lily is dead.”

“And then?”

Reichardt considered this morally improper behavior, so when he was young he had suffered considerable guilt over it. He, too, used his hearing ability when necessary, but for some reason he felt particularly reluctant to secretly listen to Jamie and Rose Combat’s conversation.

“Did Jamie comfort Lady Rose?”

From the moment Rose Combat realized that Jamie had discovered her identity, her heart had been pounding as though it would burst. After meeting Jamie, the woman’s heart was racing so erratically it was frightening to hear.

Rose’s heart, after confessing that Lily was dead, had pounded violently, then calmed for a moment, then for some reason started racing violently again in the silence.

“Why are you asking that?”

Embarrassed, Reichardt listened more closely to Jamie and Rose Combat’s conversation.

“If he comforts her well, Lady Rose will be able to say more easily everything she knows.”

The Grand Duchess of Tessen spoke coldly, obsessed with solving the case. At the same time, she pressed her small head snugly against Reichardt’s side.

Watching Alicia, who looked as though she might press even her ear to his body if given the chance, Reichardt opened his mouth.

“It seems Lady Lily thought the position of Grand Duchess of Tessen belonged to her. At the time, the imperial family was apparently sounding out several influential houses about marriage, and Combat seems to have been one of them.”

Alicia nodded at Reichardt’s words with a strange expression.

‘If she had come here, she would have died.’

Reichardt vaguely realized what meaning was contained in the expression floating over that lovely face.

“……”

Alicia was surprised that Lily Combat had died, but when she considered the whole situation now unfolding, it felt like a natural course of events.

Rose Combat, an unmarried lady, had run away from home. She had come to Tessen under a false identity, and the fact that her family had made her a missing person suggested that something major had happened.

“It seems Lady Lily suffered from severe delusions of persecution regarding Alicia, the Grand Duchess of Tessen. She openly went around saying Alicia had stolen her place, and complained bitterly to her younger sister, Lady Rose, that what Tessen had gained should have been hers.”

As Reichardt relayed the words to Alicia, his face was deeply displeased. To him, who believed rights came with grave responsibility, Lady Lily’s behavior seemed like that of a madwoman.

Meanwhile, Alicia thought about the Combat family. The Combat family was the house that had actively sent assassins after seeing the many gifts Alicia received when she married the Grand Duke of Tessen. Since that was the case, it was possible they had also prepared Lily for marriage to the Grand Duke of Tessen.

That was why Lily Combat must have felt even more resentment at not becoming the Grand Duchess of Tessen. The fact that she had caused a scene so publicly might also have been because she had been convinced she would become the Grand Duchess.

“But Lady Lily was engaged to the second son of the Marquis of Relling.”

“It was the family’s order, apparently. They were said to fear a situation in which the marchioness would have to bow her head to the Grand Duchess. Lady Lily did something absurd. Forgetting her duties as the fiancée of the Marquis of Relling’s son, she approached Marquis Istevna in an attempt to connect herself to the imperial family.”

Reichardt’s sharp brows twisted with displeasure.

“What?”

Alicia blinked in astonishment.

“Marquis Istevna is cheerful and fairly active in public. In matters of light socializing, she seems to have judged him a comparatively easy target among the imperial family.”

“But still.”

“Well, yes. Kain is a creepy man who spent ten years pining after Pauline and succeeded in marrying her. He might accept light social interaction, but when approached with impure intentions, he would have coldly cut her off.”

Alicia was bewildered that, instead of coming to Tessen to seize the position of Grand Duchess of Tessen, Lily had approached an entirely different royal.

In practical terms, the Combat family eliminating Alicia so Lily could become the Grand Duke of Tessen’s second wife had been far more likely to let Lily seize what she wanted.

“The heir to the Marquis of Relling noticed the immoral behavior of his fiancée, Lady Lily, and invited Lady Lily to Relling. After that, Lady Lily died.”

“…What?”

This time Alicia truly was flustered and shocked. If Lady Lily had gone to Relling and died there, suspicion could only fall on Relling.

“It seems Alicia doesn’t know the Marquess of Relling’s house very well. To put it simply, the Marquess of Relling’s house is the Rain family of the Coral Mountains.”

“Your Highness.”

Alicia called Reichardt in warning.

“The current Marquess of Relling is about the same age as the late Emperor. A grandfather among grandfathers, really. The Marquess of Relling has two children: the first is Connie Rens, and the second is the heir, Nicolas Relling. The age gap between Connie and the heir of Relling is like that of parent and child.”

“I suppose so.”

“It was said that the Marchioness of Relling, the Marquess of Relling’s first wife and Connie’s mother, passed away from illness when Connie was young. The Marquess of Relling did not remarry for some time, then around when Connie reached the age to debut in society, he took a second wife in a similar situation. It seems he thought that, no matter how dearly a father loved her, a mother’s role was needed for a social debut.”

Alicia had begun by knowing Connie as the Baroness of Rens, Jamie’s mother, and Henrik’s wife. The time when she would have made her social debut remained something beyond Alicia’s imagination.

“I’ve never once seen the Marchioness of Relling come looking for Connie in Tessen or the imperial capital.”

Alicia pointed it out as though asking whether that was not strange.

“The Marchioness of Relling died several years ago. That isn’t important right now, and in any case, after remarrying, the Marquess of Relling had a son. Nicolas Relling has several half-brothers his mother brought with her from her previous marriage. Those half-brothers are around Connie’s age. Surrounded by brothers nearly old enough to be his parents, Nicolas Relling is utter trash.”

“So Connie must have had no choice but to cut ties with Relling.”

At Alicia’s words, Reichardt nodded.

“Nicolas Relling could not possibly have politely broken off the engagement with Lady Lily, who had offended him, and simply left it at that.”

“And the Combat family is doing nothing? Combat is an influential family in the imperial capital.”

“It is said that the Marquess of Relling’s house promised to give Lily, once she became the Marchioness of Relling, two wineries in the Coral Mountains. The Coral Mountains are rough, so shortly after the marriage Lady Lily died, and the Combat family is said to have decided to betroth their third daughter, Rose Combat, to the Marquess of Relling’s second son.”

The Marquess of Relling’s house covered up Lily’s fatal accident with two wineries in the Coral Mountains. And for Relling’s safety, they demanded Rose Combat as a hostage.

It made her sick that the Combat family, for the sake of the family’s profit, was abandoning one dead daughter and trying to sacrifice another daughter as well.

“So Rose Combat ran away to Tessen.”