Try Begging Novel - Chapter 6

Yet, with the Grand Duchess’s speech seemingly endless, he could not keep thinking of the maid.

“You won’t smell any liquor today, Your Grace. Rest assured.”

The woman stared at him intently. Was there more she wished to say? Her hand, clutching a small evening bag studded with crystals and tassels, fidgeted nervously. Only when Leon tilted his head, urging her on, did she finally manage to speak.

“…Please call me Rosalyn.”

Leon was momentarily speechless at this utterly unexpected request. Just moments ago, she had behaved like a yapping chihuahua, trying to hide her fear, and now she was abruptly attempting to close the distance between them.

However, they were, after all, destined to live as husband and wife. A distance that would have to be bridged eventually. It would be a great discourtesy not to accept the hand she had extended first.

“……”

Yet, even as Leon parted his lips to utter her name, those three simple syllables refused to escape.

Rosalyn Aldrich. Rosalyn. Rosalyn. The name felt awkward on his tongue.

A woman as old-fashioned as her old-fashioned name.

Her didactic tone and monastic aura transformed her luxurious evening gown into a nun’s habit.

Come to think of it, there was someone in the Winston household who exuded the same tone and atmosphere, turning a fine suit into a monk’s robe.

Wouldn’t she be a better match for Jerome than for me?

But Jerome was not the one who might someday receive a title. Thus, in the Grand Ducal family’s marriage proposal, his younger brother had never been a consideration from the start.

“If you’d be willing to call me Leon instead of Captain Winston, I’d be glad to.”

Leon offered a sly smile, as if attempting some vulgar trick on the woman. Of course, it was nothing of the sort.

She was a woman with a timid streak. He knew she wouldn’t call him by his name first, so he played this card. Being so straitlaced, she wouldn’t appreciate a man’s frivolous advances either.

As expected.

The Grand Duchess hesitated for a moment, then offered only an awkward smile. Her gaze returned to the window, and silence once again filled the car.

Leon had succeeded in making the woman withdraw the hand she had extended, all without committing any rudeness himself.

The car stopped at the pier, bathed in the red glow of the setting sun. The river shimmered with golden light, and the luxurious cruise ship glowed brilliantly with orange lamps.

Leon crossed to the other side of the car and opened the door for her. As he led the Grand Duchess to the cruise ship, he pulled out the ticket Pierce had given him.

The disembarkation time for the cruise was four hours later. It was as if his mother’s message, “Don’t leave your seat early,” was written on the ticket itself.

It’s going to be a boring night.

He stepped into the elevator, following a uniformed attendant dressed in black, heading for the uppermost deck of the cruise ship. The driver pulled the lever down, and the elevator, which had been sliding smoothly upwards, jolted to a rough stop and rattled as the lever was pulled back up.

“Ah…”

The hand that had rested ghost-like on Leon’s arm now clutched him. The Grand Duchess looked quite flustered, then immediately released her grip.

The driver, standing behind her, winked at Leon and smiled. It seemed to be a surprise show deliberately staged for a couple on a date.

What a useless thing to do…

He seemed to be hinting at a tip, but Leon coldly turned his gaze away.

The elevator’s lattice door opened, and he walked down a soft carpeted corridor, following the attendant. The moment the massive doors at the end of the corridor swung open, music spilled out, and Leon wore a faint sneer.

In a corner of the restaurant hall, a man in a tuxedo glided his fingers across the keys of a grand piano. It was classical music, not the jazz his mother detested as vulgar.

Chairs of dark mahogany upholstered with floral fabric. Pillars adorned with shell and feather-patterned stucco, and a frescoed ceiling. The classical interior was perfectly to his mother’s taste.

She was a conservative woman who, even as corsets became relics of a bygone era, still insisted on whalebone corsets. It seemed even his fiancée-to-be was chosen according to his straitlaced mother’s preferences.

Seated opposite each other at a window table, the two accepted the menus brought by the waiter. The wine menu was immediately sent back, and they chose their dishes.

“What do you prefer?”

“I’ll have whatever you recommend.”

Had she been raised with old-fashioned teachings to be docile and not express her own opinions? The Grand Duchess was of little help in choosing the dinner menu.

It was completely different from when she had boldly declared her dislike for alcohol earlier. She was an inscrutable woman. Not that he wished to understand her.

He vaguely ordered the most expensive dishes and began a trivial conversation. The weather today, the scenery outside the window, the Grand Duke’s health… The conversation was disjointed and often went nowhere.

He was already bored.

“How is your work these days?”

The Grand Duchess’s question was unexpected. She couldn’t possibly be unaware of his nickname and his work, yet she asked.

Does this woman truly want to know?

How much trouble the Western Command had faced because of Blanchard’s rebel rat, caught only after three years of infiltrating as the Western Commander’s driver.

How many days and nights he had spent tirelessly trying to ascertain what information had leaked during that time.

And how he had made that cunning wretch tremble in fear.

How amusing it was to see him foam at the mouth when his pinky fingernail was pulled out.

If I tell her, she’ll turn pale.

Oh, and one more thing. How ridiculous it was that the commander’s bloated face had recently shriveled like a mummy’s.

If he told her, would she laugh or be displeased?

It turned out that one of the commander’s many mistresses was also a rebel spy, and he was now on the verge of being summoned to the royal capital.

What about that mistress, then?

A female spy. And prostituting herself under the name of a revolutionary. It disgusted him, so he handed her over to his superiors to deal with as they saw fit.

Despicable people who used women for dangerous and dirty work.

But could he himself be called anything but despicable? He thought it was none of his business how his superiors handled the woman. As long as his own hands remained clean, that was all that mattered.

This kind of dirty business, a young lady who recites poetry and does embroidery in her room need not know.

“It would be a boring story.”

The Grand Duchess misunderstood his polite refusal and blushed.

“Oh, dear… It seems I’ve inadvertently asked about military secrets.”

“That the Western Commander resembles a frog is no secret.”

The Grand Duchess offered a half-hearted laugh at his trivial joke. It was utterly tedious.

May the matter of bringing another ‘Mrs. Winston’ into the family be concluded swiftly.

Bring in. A phrase one might use when buying a watchdog.

After marriage, his duty as the family’s eldest son would be concluded. It meant he wouldn’t have to waste time on such a trivial ‘date.’

Given how slow it’s going, a fierce battle of wills must be underway.

Leon didn’t know how far the engagement discussions had progressed. The terms of the engagement were being debated solely by the family elders, excluding the parties involved. In truth, he had never even bothered to ask, having no interest.

“Leon, you do your work. This is my work.”

Even though he had no intention of interfering, his mother would often say such things with a serious expression, as if a movie protagonist were rolling up their sleeves. She regarded Leon’s marriage as her masterpiece.

And rightly so.

Elizabeth Winston. A woman who, before becoming Mrs. Winston, was known as the daughter of a certain count.

She had firmly believed she would soon receive a title and married his father, but even after her son grew up, she remained merely ‘Mrs. Winston.’ She was the kind of person who would declare, spitting blood like a late-stage tuberculosis patient, that having been born a countess’s daughter, she must die a countess.

Unlucky.

All the previous ladies of the Winston family had died countesses.

For generations, the Winston family had been the Counts of Winston. However, that lineage was broken when the royal family fled overseas, driven out by a rebellion masquerading as ‘revolution.’

His grandfather, then the Count, had immediately abandoned the royal family and sided with the rebels. His father would often scoff, recalling how his grandfather had acted like a prophet, proclaiming the dawn of a new world.

The new world he spoke of was one where capital, not status, was power. His grandfather amassed a fortune through businesses he ran as a dog of the first ‘revolutionary government.’

His father, then a hot-blooded cadet, despised his grandfather and followed the royal family overseas, despite being called a short-sighted, narrow-minded imbecile.

But it was his grandfather who was the short-sighted imbecile.

The ‘revolutionary government’ collapsed in less than ten years. Ideals are flimsy things, easily infiltrated by personal interests.

Even the rats who still clung to the rebel ideology would abandon it after spending three or four days in the interrogation room. Ideology wouldn’t take the whip for them or have their fingernails pulled out.

The royal family and the royalists naturally seized this chaotic opportunity. The monarchy was swiftly restored, and the ‘Ripon Republic’ became the ‘Ripon Kingdom once more.

It was a natural progression for the royal family to punish the traitors immediately upon their return.

Fortunately, his father had made significant contributions to the restoration of the monarchy. The Winston family only lost their count title. They managed to retain their status as great landowners in the Camden region and their wealth.

At that time, the young father was promised by the royal family that if he rendered great service in suppressing the remaining rebel forces, the title would be returned. His father, who had always been the royal family’s dog, reportedly became an even more loyal mad dog of the royal family thereafter.

And around this time, a count’s family, who had a title but no money, made their daughter Mrs. Winston, calling it a far-sighted investment.

They’re all utterly foolish.

Because that promise had yet to be kept.