Morta Village Is Not for Sale
“Chloe!”
“What the hell is this!”
The simultaneous roars from Aileen and Viscount Patrasche made several servants standing near the sofa flinch.
But Chloe didn’t even blink. She slowly crossed her legs as if to make a deliberate show of it, gazing at the father and daughter with icy detachment. Their faces had flushed an angry crimson.
The old Chloe Grace—the fool who smiled vacantly and cried until her heart broke—was nowhere to be found.
“I will not sell Morta Village. And I fail to understand how that land could be worth a mere three thousand gold.”
Assuming the price was the issue, Viscount Patrasche let out a soft, dismissive chuckle.
No matter how hard she pretended to be an adult and acted composed, she was still dancing in the palm of his hand. This little tantrum was almost endearing. The fact that she knew how to haggle over the land price suggested she had grown somewhat. He even felt a flicker of reluctant approval.
But he would need to nip that growth in the bud before it became troublesome.
The viscount concealed the cold wariness rising within him behind an easy smile.
“Is it because money is tight? It seems you’ve developed quite the appetite lately. Haha, my dear! I’ll give you four thousand gold. Even that stretches my limits.”
Patrasche winked, as though he were indulging a favorite child.
He had expected her to snatch up the extra thousand gold with glee and sign immediately. Yet Chloe remained utterly unfazed. It was strange—she should have been desperate for every coin by now.
“Even if you offered a million gold instead of four thousand, I would not sell. So please see yourselves out. Oh, and Aileen—there is no longer a room for you in Grace Castle. Do not come looking for one again.”
“Chloe!”
Aileen looked as if she might explode. But she could only glare, swallowing down the crude words that threatened to spill from her lips. She could not afford to show her true colors in front of the servants.
Ignoring Aileen entirely, Chloe turned to the viscount, who stood frozen in disbelief, and continued.
“I cannot offer you refreshments. I have business outside and will be taking the chef with me. Butler!”
Chloe’s voice rang out sharp as a blade when she called for Handsome. The young man, who had been standing in a daze, snapped to attention and stepped forward at once.
He looked thoroughly disciplined now.
“Yes, My Lady!”
Aileen had naturally expected old Scrooge to answer, but the voice belonged to a tall, strikingly handsome young man.
“Our guests are leaving. Please escort them out.”
Having delivered her order, Chloe spun on her heel without sparing them another glance and strode briskly toward the open door of the study.
Then, as if remembering something, she turned back and tossed the object she had been holding in front of Aileen.
The item bounced off the corner of the table and clattered to the floor. It was the brooch Aileen had brought.
“Ah, yes. Take that with you. It’s too cheap to even give to the servants as a gift.”
With that, Chloe turned away once more. The pair could only stare after her retreating figure with stunned expressions for a long while.
Chloe remained motionless on the balcony until the viscount’s carriage had completely disappeared from view. The wind was bitterly sharp, yet she felt no cold. Delma, standing behind her, brought a thick blanket and draped it over her shoulders.
Only then did Chloe feel the chill. She pulled the blanket up to her neck.
“Thank you.”
“It feels refreshing on the inside, but… are you truly all right?”
Delma handed her a warm lemon tea, her expression clouded with worry.
A refreshing citrus scent rose with the white steam from the glass. Chloe accepted it, blew gently across the surface, and took a sip. The warm liquid sliding down her throat brought immediate comfort.
Inside the fireplace, logs crackled and popped, filling the room with cozy warmth.
“Why the concern now? Weren’t you the one more eager to devour those two than I was?”
Delma flinched visibly and subtly avoided Chloe’s gaze before continuing.
“That may be true, but our positions are different, My Lady. What if Viscount Patrasche tries to harm you?”
She had a point.
Chloe didn’t know him well, but he struck her as the sort of man who would use any means necessary to obtain what he wanted.
Now that she thought about it, the loan sharks who had once come demanding money had possessed the exact same greedy glint in their eyes.
Those eyes that sized a person up and down, searching for anything else they could wring out, had shone like polished, oil-slicked glass beads.
“Ugh.”
Just recalling it sent a shiver through her. Chloe wrapped her arms around herself and trembled.
“Are you that worried?”
Delma misinterpreted the gesture and asked in an even more subdued, anxious tone.
“No, it’s not that. Someone unpleasant just came to mind. Handsome!”
“Yes, My Lady.”
Handsome, standing nearby on the balcony, answered promptly. His reaction time had improved dramatically after witnessing her throw the viscount out.
“How is the mercenary recruitment proceeding?”
“Yes! I have already contacted the guild requesting approximately fifty men.”
Fifty men…
To supplement the workforce in the Black Forest and station guards in Morta, Enol, and near the castle, fifty would not be nearly enough.
“Increase it to two hundred.”
“Pardon? Yes!”
Handsome looked startled for a moment, but after reading the resolve on his lady’s face, he hurried outside at once.
He would need to move quickly if the carrier pigeon was to reach the guild today.
When Patrasche first heard that Chloe had distributed grain to the territory’s residents, he had not thought much of it.
The amount of grain in Grace’s storehouses could not be significant. He assumed she had simply thrown them enough scraps to silence the mouths of the starving, furious peasants.
After all, the discontent of lowly commoners could easily be quelled with a few lashes and a loaf of bread.
Yet he could not erase the image of Chloe’s confident declaration that she would not sell Morta Village.
Patrasche and Aileen left Grace Castle and headed straight for Morta Village. They intended to pour fuel on the residents’ anger and fan the flames.
However, even before they reached the village entrance, Viscount Patrasche sensed that his plan had already failed.
“What in the world happened here?”
Aileen was equally stunned.
In just a few short months, Morta Village had transformed beyond recognition.
The entire village was spotlessly clean. The houses that had been falling apart were now neatly repaired. Smiles never left the people’s faces.
Smoke billowed generously from every chimney, and the savory aroma of cooking food filled the air. It was clear there was plenty to eat.
Moreover, the clothes the children wore were far too colorful and fine to belong to poor commoners.
“Father, those look like they were made from Chloe’s dresses,” Aileen said, recognizing the garments with disbelief.
Patrasche narrowed his eyes and studied the children’s clothing carefully. Just as his daughter said, they had clearly been fashioned from Chloe’s old dresses.
Though ridiculously thin against the harsh winter wind, they were a vast improvement over the rags the children had worn before.
“Something is very wrong. Chloe would never do this. Where did she get the money? And she had her own clothes torn up to make garments for those filthy commoners?
Chloe would never do something like that. Someone must be manipulating her. Gasp! There must be another party targeting the Grace territory besides us. Those jewels were surely given to her by that person as well.”
Aileen rapidly voiced the suspicions flooding her mind.
Patrasche’s thoughts ran along much the same lines.
“We’ll need to plant more spies. We must discover who is backing Chloe.”
The agent he had embedded in Grace Castle long ago had failed to uncover any meaningful details. If that fool had done his job properly, today’s humiliation would never have occurred.
He was furious at his own complacency.
“It seems I have been far too indulgent with my dear niece.”
The carriage that had lingered near Morta Village finally departed long after night had fallen.
“My Lady! The group that went to purchase fabric has returned!”
The unpleasant aftertaste left by Viscount Patrasche’s visit vanished like melting snow at the welcome news.
Chloe sprang up from her unfinished dinner and dashed outside. The fork clattered to the floor, but she didn’t spare it a glance.
“My Lady! Please slow down! You’ll hurt yourself if you fall!”
Delma shouted as she chased after her, but she couldn’t keep up with the young lady sprinting at full speed.
“When did you become so fast on your feet!”
The lord who used to sleep all day instead of exercising had changed beyond recognition.
Though Delma was panting hard, her lips curved into a proud crescent-moon smile.
Ten carts passed through the gates of Grace Castle.
Each one was loaded with winter fabrics.
Chloe circled the carts, practically vibrating with joy. There was more than enough here to make warm winter clothes for all the children in the village.
“What about the tailors?”
Before she had even finished speaking, a group of people hurried forward and bowed deeply before her.
“These are the tailors who accompanied us.”
The one who answered was Den, the young man responsible for leading the group. Though young, he possessed exceptional responsibility, and she had heard that Scrooge had personally entrusted him with the task.
“Is this all of them?”
She had ordered at least twenty tailors. Since he had brought back less than half that number, Den’s head lowered on its own.
“We could only secure eight.”
“Why?”
Den fidgeted awkwardly at his lady’s question, unsure how to respond. He seemed to be debating whether it was safe to speak the truth.
Seeing his hesitation, Delma stepped closer to Chloe and answered in his place. The gentle-hearted Den would not have reacted this way unless the words were difficult to say before his lord.
“Perhaps they believed they wouldn’t receive proper payment if they came to Grace Castle? To most people, Grace is still nothing more than a territory on the brink of collapse.”
With Delma’s assistance, Den found his courage. His voice grew clearer as he continued.
“No matter how generously we offered compensation for their labor, they simply didn’t believe us. I am sorry, My Lady.”
Den bowed his head deeply. His already gentle face was now filled with guilt, and the sight made Chloe feel an unexpected pang of remorse.
The tailors appeared to be between fifteen and twenty years old at most.
Experienced tailors had likely refused to come, so Den had brought whatever young, inexperienced hands he could find in a hurry.
They should have looked happy to have found work. Instead, every face in the line was clouded with worry rather than joy.