Side Story 10

One day in the heart of spring.

“This is unbelievable!”

Staring at Diane and Talfrin, who were smiling awkwardly in front of him, Joyce felt as if the sky had flipped upside down.

He wasn’t the only one who looked ready to faint. Duke MacKinnon’s mouth hung open, and his hand looked ready to fling the water in his cup at Talfrin at any moment.

In stark contrast to the father and son, however, Duchess MacKinnon beamed brightly.

“Congratulations to you both. When would be a good time to hold the ceremony?”

“We’d like to hold it before it gets too hot. Preparations have been somewhat underway throughout the winter.”

Talfrin calmly adjusted his glasses, which glinted. He didn’t look like the same person who had just announced his intention to marry the family’s golden, jade-like, angelic, genius, beautiful, cute, kind… in short, the daughter for whom no amount of fine adjectives invented by humanity would be wasted.

Joyce felt his insides churn. Too furious to speak, he let the Duke—who was stammering—ask instead.

“Wh-wh-when, when… since when… have you two… th-th-that…?”

“Oh my, you really didn’t know? I thought you were just pretending not to.”

Only the Duchess and Diane seemed to be enjoying the pleasant atmosphere of the sunlit drawing room. Though much calmer than the Duke and his son, Talfrin did show some signs of nervousness.

Ignoring her husband—who hadn’t recognized a courtship known to all of high society until the very end—the Duchess savored the aroma of her tea. Then she said kindly to her daughter,

“This is brewed particularly well today.”

“Yes.”

Diane agreed. An emerald ring glittered on her left hand as she elegantly lifted her teacup.

That sparkle forced even Joyce to admit it: the words he’d just heard weren’t an auditory hallucination, and this wasn’t some absurd nightmare.

Diane had truly brought home a prospective husband.

Tears welled up in Joyce’s eyes. He wanted to say something definitive—like, I won’t accept this! Or, Do you think you’re good enough for my sister?! But what if saying such things here made Diane resent him?

Duke MacKinnon was gradually regaining his composure, but Joyce’s expression showed no sign of recovering even after a long while. Glancing at him, the Duchess let out a deep sigh.

She, too, loved Diane more than anyone in the world. If Diane married Count Wirtham Talfrin, she would go live in Maindulante. What was she supposed to do then, when she missed her so terribly?

But she couldn’t keep her daughter unmarried and clinging to her for life, could she?

Fortunately, Count Wirtham seemed promising. The Duchess herself had personally witnessed the two together on several occasions, and the expression on Diane’s face as she announced the engagement today was happy.

‘If it doesn’t work out, they can just separate.’

She had the money and power to marry off a once-divorced daughter again without anyone daring to look down on her. Of course, she also had the money and power to let her live happily for life without needing to marry at all.

Talfrin keenly felt the Duchess’s gaze—warmly congratulatory, yet coolly assessing him over the rim of her teacup. Suppressing his usual arrogance perfectly, he spoke with respect.

“In Maindulante, there is no dowry culture, so you need not concern yourself with that aspect. Upon marriage, naturally, all my assets will be jointly owned with your daughter.”

“Hmm? With that structure, what does the bride’s side contribute? I’ve never heard of a marriage custom where one party goes empty-handed.”

“In Maindulante, children born to daughters can also claim rights to inherit titles, and daughters are granted land upon reaching adulthood. It is not a system like in the South, where cash is paid to the groom’s side. But since the South doesn’t practice equal inheritance, we can’t do the same, hence my mention.”

“So if you had married a Maindulante woman, the jointly held territory of Count and Countess Wirtham would have increased considerably.”

“I have no intention of marrying any woman other than your daughter, so I’ve never considered it that way.”

He speaks well. The Duchess felt a bit more satisfied with her prospective son-in-law. A confidant of the Emperor and Empress, and a descendant of an old northern family. Judging by his demeanor, his personal wealth also seemed substantial.

Her daughter had no intention of leaving Her Majesty the Empress’s side anyway. Given that, Talfrin’s conditions were quite good. There would be a lord’s castle in Wirtham County, but their actual residence would likely be Penmewick Castle from now on.

After a very brief silence, the Duchess spoke briskly.

“It is not our wish, in sending our daughter to marry, for the groom to suffer a loss by following his own land’s ways. You are aware there is still much lordless land in the South, yes?”

“Yes.”

“We will purchase an area we deem suitable from among them and establish Di as its lord. I imagine young people wish to marry quickly, but you will have to wait until that matter is settled. Don’t be too disappointed. We will ensure it is resolved before this winter.”

“Mother!”

Joyce sprang to his feet. Swaying like a newborn fawn, he asked,

“Th-that means… their w-w-w-w-w…”

“It means I permit their marriage, yes. The two have agreed, and there are no particular disqualifying reasons. Why would I stop it?”

“W-w-w-w, w-w-w-w-w…”

“Why can’t you say ‘wedding’? Is it because you’re still not married yourself?”

Handsome, high status, wealthy, diligent… Joyce had many merits. Yet he was still unmarried.

He himself didn’t think much of it. His stance was to focus on work first, and if fate allowed, marry the woman most helpful to his work. But the Duchess harbored the sad suspicion that perhaps this wretched son of hers might not find a partner even if he wanted to marry.

A man who called his over-twenty-year-old sister ‘baby’ every day and was utterly devoted to her—even from a mother’s perspective, it wasn’t exactly prime husband material.

By then, the Duke had regained more of his usual composure. He agreed with his wife, though with a sorrowful expression.

“It should definitely be settled before winter. We also have many things we’d like to do for our daughter when she marries, but preparations aren’t ready yet, so please wait a bit. We want to have the world’s most beautiful wedding dress made for our Di…”

“Listening to your words, it seems our plans were too hasty. Then let us aim to hold the ceremony before the first snow falls and prepare accordingly. And knowing how much the people here love your daughter, we would like to hold the ceremony here, if that is acceptable?”

“That would be fine with us.”

It seemed the time had come to send off their truly adorable daughter. The Duke agreed, dabbing at his tears. The Duchess smiled and briefly shielded her husband’s face with her fan.

Now Talfrin was being treated almost like a member of the family. Joyce, watching everyone except himself chat warmly, eventually left the room.

“Oh my, that boy.”

Frowning at the rudeness, the Duchess apologized.

“I’m sorry, Count. He’s not usually such an unreasonable child.”

“Not at all. It’s only natural to feel sad when a pretty, cute, kind, lovely, and charming younger sister is leaving. I had a younger sister once. If she had been alive and said she was getting married, I think I would have felt sad too.”

“Oh, oh my. You know we call Di that? Have we been saying it that often in front of others?”

The Duchess laughed, using the fan that had been shielding her tearful husband to cover her own flushed face. It was embarrassing, but she liked Talfrin even more. And hearing a snippet of his family history made her feel pity for him.

Maintaining the reliable demeanor he had cultivated all winter, Talfrin conversed pleasantly with the Duchess. Diane excused herself a short while later and left the drawing room.

“Young Lady.”

Having apparently heard the news, Betty approached Diane, sniffling. Since around the time before the war—when the Empress of the Bistor Imperial Family summoned Diane as a Crown Princess Consort candidate—Betty had been separated from her. For Betty, who had practically raised Diane since she was very little, those had been gloomy days.

Diane laughed and hugged Betty.

“Why are you crying?”

“If the Young Lady goes far away, sob, what will I do, missing you? I’m the one who should be taking care of our Young Lady.”

“You can take care of me by coming along. I was actually going to ask if you’d come with me. It’ll be too far from here to meet your siblings easily, but if that’s still okay…”

“I’ll go!”

Whether before or during the war was one thing, but even after the war—when Diane hadn’t called for her—Betty had thought she was now being discarded by the Young Lady. Well, not discarded exactly, but that the time had come for the grown-up Young Lady to leave her.

With this unexpected offer, Betty let out a cry of joy. Watching the delighted Betty, Diane giggled, then asked,

“Where did my brother go?”

“If you mean Young Master Joyce, I think he went out toward the lakeside earlier.”

“Alright. I need to talk with him, so I’ll go. Betty, if there are people you’d like to bring along, ask around. Make sure to properly tell them it’s a very cold place we’re going to.”

“Yes, Young Lady.”

❖ ❖ ❖

Gazing at the sunlight shattering on the water’s surface, Joyce blankly recalled.

‘Di.’

Because of the age difference, he clearly remembered what he’d felt when he first saw Diane. Wonder, cuteness, adoration…

Even those tiny hands had fingernails. For something walnut-sized, she ate, cried, and slept. She didn’t feel like a person, and yet she was one.

Afraid he might hurt the baby if he touched her, he only watched from the side at first. But gradually, the baby and Joyce grew closer, and one day, when the baby leaned into his arms, he fell into an inescapable love.

But that love was always inescapable from the position of a caregiver.

Diane—whose parents and brother had been her entire world when she was young—was now going to create another world. Knowing it was right, Joyce couldn’t help but feel sorrowful. It felt like hearing a declaration that his heart, split in two, had one half cleanly breaking off to become independent.

‘Sniff.’

Like a fool, tears came. Feeling empty, sad, and—seen from the outside—pitiful, Joyce crouched down. A gentle breeze scattered his hair.

“Brother!”

Just then, Diane approached from the mansion. Joyce tried to stand, but Diane gestured for him to stay.

“Stay seated. I want to sit next to you, too.”

And true to her word, Diane sat by the lakeside with Joyce, leaning against his shoulder.

“What did you come out for?”

“Because I felt sad that you came out alone.”

He had run away because he lacked the confidence to control himself if he stayed, but hearing his precious younger sister say that made his heart ache. Joyce apologized dully.

“Sorry. I should have observed proper etiquette.”

“It’s okay! Talfrin will understand. He knows very well how much you love me.”

“Huh? How does he know? I don’t think we’ve met that often?”

Well, they had met more often with different faces. Diane laughed it off vaguely.

“I talked about you a lot.”

“Really?”

Hearing that his sister often talked about him made Joyce’s mood lift, just a little. Diane studied her brother’s face—so transparent it revealed his thoughts—for a moment.

Come to think of it, she hadn’t looked at her brother’s face this carefully since she was little. When she was a baby, being with family was probably best, but after growing up, there were too many interesting things in the world.

But that didn’t mean her brother wasn’t precious.

“Brother.”

Diane pulled Joyce into a hug. Joyce quickly turned to make it comfortable for her, then hugged her back.

“Yeah, my pretty one.”

“You’ll still love me even after I’m married. Right?”

“…Right.”

Joyce started sniffling again. The strength in his arms tightened around Diane.

Diane stayed right there, letting her brother—who loved her like a fool—cry his fill.

❖ ❖ ❖

Duke MacKinnon kept his promise to have the world’s most beautiful wedding dress made for his daughter. Of course, the criteria for judging what is most beautiful differs from person to person.

Wearing an elegant yet vibrant dress—white embroidered with green thread—Diane smiled happily. After the wedding ceremony, as they exited the temple together, Talfrin shyly linked arms with her.

Watching from the VIP seats, Nerys whispered to Cledwyn,

“He really did his job properly.”

“Right?”

Cledwyn—and Aidan, seated behind him—each wore proud expressions in their own way. Nerys felt her own happiness rise at Diane’s smile.

“You’re clever.”

Who would have thought, when she first met Diane in this life, that she would see her like this now.

Nerys smiled, thinking once again—a thought repeated countless times now—how fortunate she was to have regressed.