Gentle Madness

Noah left the orangery with Bertram and walked along the dirt path. Nils was waiting at the carriage they had parked a short distance away.

Not a single word passed between them the entire walk. The contract held in Bertram's hand was like a record of everything that had just occurred, yet even that could not be reported as it stood. Its contents were improper. A separate report document would have to be drawn up — and that task, too, would fall to Bertram.

As Noah and Bertram approached, Nils hopped down from the driver's seat. Noah gave a brief nod to Nils's casual "There you are," opened the carriage door, and climbed inside. Nils and Bertram exchanged a glance and swapped places; Bertram handed the documents over to Nils before taking up the driver's seat, and Nils received them, lifted the carriage seat, and tucked the papers away in the storage compartment beneath it as though tossing them in.

And Noah's expression did not look particularly good.

"Things didn't go well?"

"It's the contract."

Signing an agreement didn't mean everything would proceed smoothly, did it? Nils, apparently judging that pressing further would be unwise, said only, "Well, that's just great, then."

Noah, as if there were nothing more to say on the matter, said, "Report."

Just then, the small window connecting the carriage interior to the driver's seat slid open behind where Nils sat. Bertram needed to hear the exchange going back and forth as well.

"No movement yet." Nils handed over a document as he spoke, and Noah took it. "We believe there's some activity on the Grimaldi side, but we haven't identified the individual. Still, the places Count Elperts could be are limited."

Count Elperts had always been rather unsociable. Cowed from childhood by the previous count, he had never once moved of his own will, and even after the old man died he had nothing to show for himself — he'd squandered what little inheritance remained, and what he'd chosen instead, of all things—

"If it isn't the Grimaldis, then—"

It was the Grimaldis of Dalkatir.

"There's no one but Lady Lamplis."

Assuming, at least, that she was alive.

"How did he even manage to keep those connections alive?"

Noah spoke in a tone of irritation. If Count Elperts had been the least bit sociable, if he'd had anywhere else to turn, he would never have called upon Lady Lamplis in the first place.

"Speaking of which, why did you let him get caught? Things would have been simpler if you'd just kept him quietly confined at Lambroise."

"It wasn't me who got caught — the Grimaldi side planted the information. If they hadn't, there's no way he'd have bolted that fast."

"Wasn't that a bit too harsh on him?"

"When have I ever? I coaxed him gently. I never imagined they'd come at him that way. I thought he was simply mad — turns out he's a calculating madman."

"That's... true. Which is why I said from the beginning you shouldn't have brought in the Grimaldis."

"And what were we supposed to do when the Crown had already granted permission? Anyway — what about the woman?"

"She hasn't left the Kingdom of Dalkatir. The Woodpecker Kingdom says they'll cooperate as well, but who knows. They're from the same family, after all."

"They could always make a move. The bad blood between them might be for appearances only. It's possible both branches of the Grimaldis have both royal houses in the palms of their hands."

"The Woodpecker Kingdom doesn't recognize that branch of the Grimaldis, though."

To Nils's remark that he couldn't fathom why, Bertram chimed in from outside that family feuds are always the bitterest kind. It must have been bad indeed, if listing out the assassins each side had sent into the other's household would be enough to encircle a castle wall. And for all their talk of who was the fake and who was real, they looked exactly alike. Anyone could see they were one family.

"By the way."

Just then, Bertram changed the subject from outside the carriage.

"Is that the sort of taste you have?"

What sort of taste is that supposed to be? Nils looked toward Bertram, but all he could see was the back of his head. Turning his gaze forward again, he found Noah, utterly unbothered, reading nothing but the documents Nils had handed him.

"She seemed like the type who suits a life of luxury."

The instant the words were out, Noah lifted his head. The eyes he had raised at Bertram's remark blinked once. There was, unmistakably, displeasure in them.

"The type who suits a life of luxury?"

And yet, unexpectedly calm.

Nils, seated before Noah, flinched. But Bertram, unable to see the situation, pressed on: "Those eyes of hers — I should think they'd captivate quite a few men." At that small but crystal-clear voice filtering in through the window, Nils's face drained bone-white. If Bertram had been facing Noah at that moment, he would most certainly not have said such a thing.

"I've had insomnia a long time. That's all."

Noah said it almost like an excuse.

"Chronic insomnia leaves my eyes looking slack, that's all. It isn't as though I'm trying to seduce anyone."

Perhaps a wish of his own, at that.

A life of luxury, was it. Had she truly changed that much? Nearly a decade might well have remade her — and yet, at the same time, people were not creatures who changed so easily.

Noah rested his chin on his hand and recalled a certain moment. Those memories that blurred when he reached for them, only to sharpen again without warning. And within them was Kasika Elperts.

"There was a time—"

Before she bore the name Lamplis—

"—when she was so unsociable she'd avoid even shaking hands, let alone letting one kiss her hand."

Just as Cesare Elperts II did now.

"She doesn't seem to mind at all these days, though."

In the meantime, what on earth had happened? Just as Noah was aware of his own growth and transformation, Kasika, too, must have gone through something similar.

"I despise Marquis Lamplis."

He should never have let her go that day. He should have found some way — any way — to keep hold of her. Then things would never have unraveled like this. Though perhaps it had been the best he could manage at the time. Had it not been Marquis Lamplis, Kasika might have been discarded somewhere else, in some other fashion — without a dowry, sold off to whichever noble would take her.

"......"

Noah's eyes narrowed all at once. As he released his hand from his chin and clenched and unclenched his fist again and again, Nils, seated before him, said, "Pardon me, my lord." Noah turned his gaze.

"You're aware that using the marchioness is our plan, aren't you?"

"Of course I am."

That was not a face that knew anything of the sort, Nils thought, choosing his words with care. "Count Elperts has no one to lean on now but the marchioness. So you're keeping her close against unforeseen circumstances — it will not do to actually lose your heart to her."

"I haven't any particular feelings."

Says the man wearing that face — as if anyone would believe him.Please don't ruin this before the job is even done properly.

They had finally found the tail. Before it could be severed and slither away, they needed to uncover the body it belonged to.

"I intend to use her, nothing more."

"No one's asking you to kill your feelings."

Nils said this thinking that actually, better to snuff them out entirely — but then again, showing something of his present self might go some way toward demonstrating his sincerity. Whether the marchioness would be moved by it was another matter. Just then, Bertram spoke up from outside: "Still, that contract was rather strange."

Don't remind me how strange it was...

Nils debated whether he really had to review a contract he hadn't even seen. Not that he'd be spared it once they returned, anyway.

"Pulling her into high society is bound to stir up this and that, isn't it?"

The words that followed carried more suspicion. Was he suggesting the contract had been drafted precisely so that no such "this and that" could occur? At Nils's puzzled look, Noah clicked his tongue and set down the papers.

"I know, all right."

That was simply the world of the aristocracy — a place steeped in vulgarity and snobbery, of performative curiosity rather than truth, of bravado and quiet pleasure mingled together. The lady's life there would be little different.

"Do you think I'll be the one swayed?"

Noah asked. Neither Bertram nor Nils answered that.

"When the time comes."

The Noah Lambroise they knew was, admittedly, the type to do the wielding rather than be wielded—

"I'll make use of her, and then—"

Discard her? He'll discard her, surely. As he always has. She's only a piece to be played briefly and thrown away — not a queen, of course, nor even a knight or a bishop. Just a pawn, nothing more. Nils naturally assumed Noah would cast off the Marchioness of Lamplis. That man had always discarded people without mercy, all behind that smooth, harmless smile.

"I'll send her off graciously."

"......"

—He was supposed to discard her, so why does the look of him heading back there suggest, from the very start, that nothing about this is ordinary.

"You really mean that, don't you?"

"Have I lost that much of your trust?"

"Yes."

Bertram answered. Nils, without quite meaning to, nodded along.

"No need to worry."

That was precisely the part that worried them.

"You'll deny it even if you're despised, my lord."

"Exactly."

Noah said it as though that had been the whole point.

"If I can be nothing to her anyway—"

He did not finish with some pretty sentiment like better to remain as hatred than to be nothing. But Nils understood what he meant. He found himself wondering whether even this was part of the plan. There was no telling. Nor did he need to know much. All Nils required was that this affair conclude safely, and that the weeds of court intrigue buried deep within the palace — along with Cesare Elperts II — be uprooted.

And that when the time came to propose to his beloved with some medal or suitably grand title in hand, he would have something more to bring with him. That, and that alone, was his goal.