Gentle Madness

All she had to do was sit before the fireplace in a marten-fur coat and endure the cold. If it was too frigid to sleep alone, she could embrace a leather skin filled with hot water — and if that wouldn't do, she could always bring someone else into her bed. Of course, the only person she could ask to share it was a maid, but still.

"It seems this place matters to you?"

"It matters less than I simply need somewhere to stay."

At that, Noah furrowed his brow. His face plainly asked what the problem was, since he would be the one providing her a place to stay. He seemed genuinely unable to understand, but Kasika saw no need to explain her feelings. At her resolute expression, he spoke.

"You won't be staying in the capital, then?"

"There's nowhere for me to stay there. The Elperts estate has surely already changed hands."

Long since, no doubt — since the day her grandfather died.

"You could stay at the Lambroise estate. There's certainly room enough for you, madam."

Naturally — if she were to become his mistress, she would be living there anyway. Kasika looked at him stiffly. He couldn't possibly be mad enough to ask her to become his mistress without even offering her a place to live?

"You're welcome to the quarters Count Elperts used. It's not a mansion, technically — more of an immeuble — but still."

"...That doesn't appeal to me."

"I think you'd find it quite pleasant. Cesare the Second had decent taste, in his way. Just as the previous Count Elperts did, he adorned himself and arranged his spaces with only the finest things. A shame to let it all sit idle, isn't it?"

"It would be better to sell it all and pay down the debt."

"Fine things lose their value the moment they become secondhand."

Something in that rang false. If she had truly inherited the collection of the discerning Count Elperts, the value would rise rather than fall. Well — what did it matter whether Cesare Elperts the Second had lived there or a clown had? It was a place she could reside in for free. She need only consider what it would cost to lodge at a hotel in the capital — a single day there would swallow a commoner's monthly rent.

"May I decide once I've arrived in the capital?"

Kasika answered. "Yes. As you wish."

Only then did Noah seem relieved, his face easing a little.

"Then, since you've agreed, I ought to head up ahead of you. You'll need to prepare for the journey to the capital — when might you expect to arrive, travel time included? A month should be more than sufficient, I imagine."

"A fortnight will do."

"A fortnight?"

It takes her that little? Noah regarded her with puzzlement. That was plenty of time, really. She had to pack the essentials, withdraw her valuables from the bank and transfer them to the capital branch, and pay her staff several months' wages in advance. Lydia would accompany her to the capital, but the other two servants would go months without seeing her.

The social season began after the autumn festival and lasted all winter.

Around All Souls' Day, families kept a brief stretch of time to themselves, then returned to their revels until late spring arrived.

And when summer came, everyone fled to the resorts. It was late summer now. Once the autumn festival ended and the season began, people would flood back to the capital — and there they would remain until late spring.

Kasika, having agreed to this arrangement, would likewise spend the better part of half a year in the capital.

"There isn't much to sort out. I have few belongings."

"Still."

She won't be gone a month or two, after all. Noah thought so, but Kasika's face was utterly unconcerned.

"Preparing there will be better. If I march into society dressed in what I have here, I'll only earn laughter. I'll need to take the capital's fashions stock of, and if my uncle the Count Elperts bought up fine things with his good eye, I can simply use what's there."

"Your staff ought to come with you, surely."

"I'll take only one maid. The other maid and the butler must look after this house."

"I see," Noah replied.

One maid. Now that he thought of it, he had never once seen a servant in this house. Even now, in this very parlor, there had been no maid to serve the tea.

Three servants in all — and this, for a marchioness.

Noah had never imagined Kasika lived like this.

"Understood."

To think it was this far.

"Then I shall see you in the capital, a fortnight from now."

With those words, Noah rose. Kasika rose as well and saw him to the door.

Even so, she did not step beyond the parlor. Lydia, waiting outside, took over the escort.

Kasika watched the two of them standing side by side with an indifferent face.

Lydia, with her eyes lowered just so, was rather pretty.

Yes — Lydia needed someone of her own, too.

Naturally, someone of a similar station would suit her better than becoming some noble house's mistress, but if she came along to Lambroise, it wouldn't be a bad arrangement by any measure.

The parlor door closed, and Kasika stood alone in the room for a moment before sinking onto the sofa. Once a person departed, silence descended. For all that a guest had come, Noah had stayed so briefly it was almost a waste of the costly flowers she'd bought to adorn the room. Kasika's gaze drifted to them, then away. Through the open window came the clop of hooves — he had evidently been spotted emerging. Then came the creak of wheels.

She never heard sounds from outside except on delivery days for provisions, and hearing them on a day that wasn't one only made the moment feel strange.

"The capital."

It had been a long while since her last visit.

"A fortnight from now."

She wondered how it had changed — whether it was still the capital of her memory.

Kasika closed her eyes. The mansion with its high ceilings rose before her as vividly as if she'd seen it yesterday. The house she'd been sick to death of yet couldn't bear to leave. Her grandfather, who had never regarded her as family. The husband she'd kissed once, barely glimpsing his face, before he went into his coffin. Her uncle, dead before she ever knew what he'd been like as he grew up.

Anticipation of the capital mingled with resentment and a slow, simmering fury.

Like a drop of black ink falling into water, it spread gradually, then stained her whole mind a deep, utter black.

Kasika opened her eyes again.

"The capital, then."

Noah Lambroise was staring at the letters that had arrived bearing his name.

Without bothering to read their contents, he had checked only the senders on the outer envelopes, glanced once at the backs of each, and tossed them straight into the fireplace.

What people wrote to him was always the same.

Marriage contracts, arranged unions, the Lambroise bloodline — or else their own backing and connections.

Perhaps, these days, the offices Noah Lambroise himself held.

"Are you certain you should be burning those?"

"Is there a problem?"

Noah asked back, his expression perfectly unbothered. At that face — deliberately, faintly glacial — the man shut his mouth. Then he loosened his tightly pressed lips and said, with a look of pained difficulty, "Among them was a letter from the ducal house."

"Was it anything out of the ordinary?"

"The usual. A request that you pay a visit and meet their daughter."

"Then they know as well that I never answer."

"I'll send the reply in your stead. That, regrettably, you were unable to attend this time."

It was true that Noah Lambroise was busy. Legislative officials rarely enjoyed days of rest, as a rule — and he had spent the single leave he'd managed to secure entirely on coming to this small city at the kingdom's northern edge. All because the Marchioness Lamplis was here.

Noah's face showed no interest in what the man was saying. He had never considered anything else from the start. And the man knew it very well indeed — for since their academy days, he had watched Noah keep his eyes fixed on one person, and one person only. No one had ever known who that person was.

"Nils."

The man himself had only learned the answer recently.

"Yes, my lord."

"Is there nothing further on Cesare the Second?"

"Not yet. We're still searching."

"Find him quickly. Look into the lists of those who've left the country as well. And..."

Mid-sentence, Noah's brow creased. His frown held for a moment, as if he were weighing something, then smoothed out, and he spoke. "Spread a rumor through the capital."

"What sort of rumor, my lord?"

Nils asked, and Noah turned away. With the firelight of the darkened room behind him, only half his face was visible — but the curve forming on his lips was plainly, unmistakably visible.

"That I am the Marchioness Lamplis's lover," Noah said.

"...My lord?"

"The lady has finally given her consent."

"My lord, what you're saying—"

"Yes. She finally said yes."

So the threats finally worked, did they, Nils thought. Even so — with nothing yet made public, what was he supposed to do with a rumor loose in the world first? Nils resolved to manage the matter at the proper moment, and noted it down in his ledger.

"So the lady returns to the capital."

With that, Noah drew a single sheet of paper from inside his coat and cast it after the letters into the fireplace.

"I'd best go and make preparations."

Noah watched the paper burn with a face full of pleasure.

It was the document bearing the name of Kasika Lamplis, Marchioness Lamplis, as joint guarantor of a debt of 2,800,000 gold.