Second Place, Again

A woman who, barely any time after her husband's death, had been secretly sending gifts to another man.

It seemed reasonable, then, to assume the two were involved with each other.

But... she didn't strike me as someone quite that reckless.

And then, quite suddenly, CL found herself absurd for even entertaining the question.

"My lord, why are your eyes going all sharp again? Out of nowhere. It's frightening."

"..."

"Do stop making that face. It shows up in my dreams sometimes. I mean it — I wake up in a cold sweat."

"Shut it."

She had never once been so hasty in judging another person, and that unfamiliar sensation had quickly curdled into something downright unpleasant.

"...It's bothering me. Annoyingly so."

"Shall I send someone to look into it, then? If a scandal spreads, it could reach Ortega as well—"

It was for that very reason that CL answered Hope without a moment's deliberation.

"No, forget it."

"Pardon?"

"Too much bother."

Fancy that — mustering every ounce of imagination over a single gifted painting.

It wasn't even amusing.

"You seem to think I'm some true Duke, but I'm nothing more than a scarecrow. Watching people, blocking things — I never had that kind of authority to begin with."

"Still, my lord. There's no harm in being careful. If by some chance the Madam is scheming something—"

CL slammed a hand down on the desk at Hope, who was tilting his head, clearly still unsettled no matter how he turned it over.

"It's just a painting, Hope."

A voice brimming with certainty filled the room.

"What's a painting going to do? Kill someone?"

Historically, the roots of the Pistachio earldom had always lain in trade.

When it came to luxury goods in particular, there was no corner of the market their hands had not touched, and without ever bearing the stigma of vulgar money-grubbing, they had amassed vast fortunes while living lives anyone would envy.

...And yet the man himself, as it happened, was constitutionally incapable of appreciating the worth of what he possessed.

"...Second. Again?"

A voice thin and trembling with fury.

Guile crumpled the newspaper in his hand into a satisfying ball and hurled it to the floor.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Beneath his stomping heels, Count Cashew's printed face was ground to ribbons.

"Haaah... damn it all!"

Still heaving for breath, he dropped heavily into his chair. He was angry enough to flip the desk over on the spot, but now was the time to identify the cause, not vent it.

Pressing hard at his temples, Guile sank into a tangled web of calculations.

So what in the world is the problem?

Focus on luxury goods — the natural domain of the nobility — and accumulate wealth enough to safeguard the family's honor without tainting it.

That was the method Count Pistachio had always upheld.

But Guile's math had been different.

Wealth brings honor along with it — isn't that just how it works?

The result was that the merchant group had grown remarkably in size — and before long, its shoddy quality and clumsy management found themselves on the chopping block. They had bulked up far too fast.

Seen from one angle, it was only natural. But Guile found the savage reviews unbearable all the same.

Look how far I've come on my own...

The inferiority complex that had only just settled stirred and lifted its head once more.

If Father had possessed just a little more ability, I wouldn't have to thrash around like this in the first place.

His face contorted in anguish, and Guile — out of pure habit — found himself thinking of one particular person.

If only I'd been born into Ortega... I could have lazed through life without a care in the world, just like Camille.

But that thought jerked to a halt, as though it had slammed into a guardrail.

"...Ah."

Guile's lips twisted into a crooked sneer.

"Isn't it a bit rude, thinking that way about the dead?"

A laugh escaped him before he knew it.

Right! However much wealth and honor a man piled up, it all turned to useless dust the moment he died, didn't it?

Whatever Camille had been in life, one fact was now crystal clear: Guile stood far above him.

Yes... the merchant group just needs its little noises dealt with quietly, and that's that. I'm the one still breathing. Entirely possible.

Nothing had actually been resolved, and yet it felt as though everything had. He lifted his glass of whiskey, as if raising a toast to something.

But the utterly out-of-the-blue report from a servant, delivered a short while later, knotted Guile's brow at last.

"...A gift has arrived for me?"

"Yes, my lord."

A tranquil weekend morning.

For a man not even courting a single young lady, a gift of this sort was a thing of the very distant past.

"Who sent it?"

"Well, I don't rightly... Ah — but there was a letter enclosed with it."

"A letter?"

The servant only pressed his lips together and held the letter up in both hands.

Guile swept a suspicious gaze over the man, then reluctantly accepted the letter and tore open the envelope right there.

On the pristine white paper, with no sender's name anywhere, one name was unmistakably inscribed: his own.

"...What is this? A painting, you said?"

A faint floral scent drifted from the letter. It carried a strange sense of déjà vu, as though he'd smelled it somewhere before, but he couldn't place it.

A very small curiosity stirring, Guile tipped his chin toward the servant, gesturing at the gift.

"Open it."

"Yes, my lord."

The moment the white shroud was drawn from the canvas and the great oil painting hidden beneath came into view, an exclamation burst out of Guile before he could stop it.

"Oh, now this—!"

A sunflower field stretched endlessly, filling every inch of the canvas.

And yet, on closer inspection, something about it was off. Somewhere, it was crude.

Coarse. The brushwork isn't refined at all.

Guile studied the painting carefully, eyes narrowed to slits.

Some flowers blazed unusually bright; others verged on deep, dark gold. The brushstrokes were rough and unguarded, as though the grain of each petal had been left exactly as it lived. And the sky in the background smeared and bled, like white paint hastily laid over blue.

It could hardly be called the work of a master, plainly. And still, he could not take his eyes from it.

That was probably... because of the small box sitting alone in the very middle of that vast flower field.

Why on earth is that thing there?

It lay there, neither buried among the sunflowers nor fully exposed, simply abandoned.

Its dark, near-matte coloring matched none of the brightness around it. And that was precisely why it stood out all the more starkly.

Guile stared at the painting for a long, long while before his lips finally parted, several minutes later.

"So. Who sent it?"

"...Pardon?"

"Don't make me repeat myself, it's irritating. I'm asking who painted it. Even if there's no name on the letter, you're the one who took delivery — you must know something."

"Ah — aah!"

Only then catching his meaning, the servant's face drained white in an instant, and he bent his waist in a desperate bow.

"Th — that is... I'm deeply ashamed, but I can't quite recall..."

"What did you say?"

"The carriage bore no crest or markings of any kind, so I — I really couldn't say."

"Is that supposed to make sense? You simply didn't look properly, did you!"

"F — forgive me!"

Having snapped the words out in irritation, Guile pressed hard against his throbbing forehead.

"Haaah..."

Guile was excessively high-strung. Because of it, servants cycled through the manor in a constant churn, and holes like this one opened up, just as they had now.

But Guile interpreted the situation in an entirely different way.

I have to make more money. Only then can I hire men with actual talent, instead of this sort of rubbish.

It was then that the servant, head still bowed, spoke up carefully.

"You see... something about this is very strange."

"What is."

"When does an artist ever send a gift along separately like this? And there isn't so much as a name on the letter besides."

"Hmm..."

"It just — it sits wrong with me somehow. You'd be better off throwing it away, my lord."

Guile nodded absently at that.

True. I have nothing to do with the arts to begin with, and I never bought a single piece at this sponsorship exhibition...

Why, of all people, gift a painting to him? However he turned it over, it was a strange business.

And yet...

Then why is that exactly right coming out of his mouth?