The Will's Second Clause

She had mentioned they frequented the same salon, hadn't she?

The image of the branch manager's wife laughing together with Madame Pignatelli flickered through her mind. Delfina already knew the two women shared an especially close bond; the wife had come and gone from the mansion often enough.

Yet she had never imagined that connection would become a variable for her.

Under ordinary rules of inheritance, the line ran first through direct descendants, then collateral relatives. A second wife who was not the original consort ranked last of all.

To think the will contained what came next.

Everything changed once she learned that Count Pignatelli's will did not end where people assumed.

At present, the only people who knew the will's precise wording were the family lawyer and Branch Manager Gatwell.

The later clause remained undisclosed for the sake of the party who stood highest in the line of succession. Yet the will had already leaked before that moment arrived. The family lawyer was a man who had kept faith with the house for generations.

So who, knowing the full contents, stood to gain from that leak?

It had been only suspicion—until she faced the branch manager himself and the calculation that flickered, just for an instant, at the corners of his eyes. That fleeting look turned Delfina colder still.

"Only Gatwell and I know the sum," she said, "and I intend simply to keep it quiet. What trouble could possibly arise?"

The branch manager's eyes flew wide, startled. His expression asked whether she was speaking from some private knowledge.

"Of course. Trust is the very life of a bank."

"Hearing you say so puts me at ease. The contract even includes a confidentiality clause, so there is no chance of anyone breaking it…"

Delfina blinked and smiled as though she knew nothing at all. Only then did he grasp the pointed meaning—that any leak would be laid squarely at his door—and the mental abacus spinning behind his eyes finally stilled.

"Absolutely. Such a thing could never happen."

The emphasis in her voice would ensure the other bank clerks remembered it as well. Risking his position to leak information for Madame Pignatelli was more than he was willing to do. She felt him draw a clear line: their acquaintance was only a casual one, nothing more.

And yet he leaked the rest of the will.

She smiled bitterly inside, but her face gave nothing away. When she lifted the leather bag from the table, its solid weight pressed into her fingertips. The branch manager trailed after her, reluctant to let her go.

"If it wouldn't be any trouble, perhaps a cup of tea—"

"My coachman is waiting outside."

Delfina cut him off gently. She could not afford to lower her guard yet. After offering a polite excuse and slipping free, she scanned the street as though searching for something. This was the busiest thoroughfare; no one looked twice at a woman walking alone.

Around this hour, nearby… I'm certain of it.

She caught her lower lip between her teeth. There was a reason she had dragged her exhausted body out today.

Lucio stopped walking and let the early-summer breeze touch his face for a moment. The noon sun was hot, but the heat inside his skull burned hotter still.

"I told him we should come together. That friend of mine really is too much."

He grumbled under his breath, resenting Cesare, who had claimed private business and vanished.

I made a mistake. I have to make it right.

You made a mistake? What on earth did you do?

I'll explain later.

From first light that morning Cesare had refused Lucio's company and simply left. Lucio scratched his head and sighed. Carriage wheels rolled past, kicking up dust.

"Where in the world did he go?"

He never doubted Cesare's loyalty, yet the man never spoke of himself. That was why Lucio had always found him a little difficult. Cesare was nothing like the commoners Lucio had known. Restraint lived in his gaze, an almost ascetic bearing, and through it all an unconcealable air of breeding still seeped out.

The possibility that Cesare might actually be a nobleman merely pretending to be common never even crossed Lucio's mind.

"Young Baron Perez?"

A voice called from behind. He turned to see a young lady in a yellow dress stepping down from a carriage, her face still girlishly soft.

"Ah, my lady. Thank you for making time."

He folded away his idle thoughts and focused on the young woman before him.

"Shall we walk a little way to the teahouse?"

"I'd be grateful. I'm still a stranger to this quarter…"

"Then allow me to show you around."

While the young lady's eyes sparkled and she animatedly described the busy streets, Lucio only nodded.

After setting aside the funds essential to securing the Planned City, he was all but penniless. Yet he could not openly solicit investment for the project itself; that would only draw in swarms of speculators. As a national enterprise, it had to proceed without noise or scandal.

But even this has its limits.

He thought of the sunlit mansion, and of the young lady who had looked somehow forlorn beneath the shattering light of the sun. If he could not obtain the deed from her by ordinary means, he might have to resort to something less lawful. His father, Baron Perez—the very axis of this venture—had already declared that a few lives lost for the sake of a great cause were simply the cost of business.

Before it came to that, Cesare had to secure the Pignatelli Mansion. If they exhausted the family's fortune and still failed to win the national project… even imagining it made him dizzy.

That must never happen.

They had held on this long only thanks to Cesare. In these turbulent times Cesare had invested with uncanny foresight and had never once failed. Baron Perez, for all his rigid belief in rank, kept a commoner at his side solely because of that talent. Because of it, the fallen house of Perez had managed to keep up appearances and even enter the competition for the national project.

The investment opportunity Cesare had brought this time would certainly yield a fortune. The only difference from before was the size of the initial capital; their current holdings alone were not enough.

"You've been thinking of something else the entire time."

The young lady who had been introducing the shopping district stopped short. Lucio snapped back to himself and found her face had gone stiff.

"…Forgive me, my lady."

The pavement, baked by the sun, sent heat climbing through the soles of his shoes. Determined to recover, he fell back on a familiar tactic.

"I was simply so nervous in your presence that I…"

"Do you truly mean those words?"

Color bloomed across her cheeks like a fresh flower.

"How could I ever speak falsehood before you?"

"…I thought I was the only one who felt that way."

"You as well, my lady?"

Delighted to discover an unexpected common ground, she pressed both hands to her cheeks. Untouched and pure—and therefore all the easier.

"Everyone around me fretted that I shouldn't trust a man from outside so readily… but it seems their worry was wasted."

"Haha. People said that, did they?"

Since the remark was true, he answered only with a laugh instead of a denial. Taking the laugh for bitterness, the young lady waved her hands in hasty denial.

"I never thought so myself, not even for a moment!"

"So long as you alone do not misunderstand me, that is enough."

After that, everything went smoothly. The earlier lapse of attention was completely forgotten. When the tall clock tower in the central square struck three, their meeting came to an end. Having done little more than stroll and drink tea, she seemed full of lingering regret.

"Please visit my mansion next time."

From the carriage window she opened, she invited him with a shy smile.

"The moment you invite me, I shall come without fail."

Those were the words he had been waiting for all along. Within Toulouse, hers was the wealthiest house after the Pignatellis. The entire meeting had been arranged to win this invitation.

I may not manage it today, but next time I absolutely must bring Cesare along.

Lucio sat on the edge of the fountain and caught his breath. His body felt strangely heavy. He needed to return, yet lifting his feet was difficult. He pressed both palms against the cold marble and tipped his head back.

This sort of work will be over soon enough.

For a fallen noble like Lucio, selling a few smiles was far easier than trying to meet the head of a noble house by proper channels.

Perhaps because the sun stood at its highest, a strange dizziness washed over him. Voices of passersby sounded far away.

"……Ah."

He was just beginning to panic at how much worse the spinning had grown when a broad shadow fell across him from above. It was not a cloud covering the sun.

"You don't look well."

When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was a lace-trimmed parasol.