The Duchess’s Story
“Let’s hear what the Duchess has to say.”
“Do you think the Duchess of Glintland is some wandering bard? That she’ll spill every last detail just because you go and pry?”
“Oh, come on. She has a child, doesn’t she?”
Chloe carefully caught Curtis by the wrist again. Over his sleeve.
As expected, Curtis’s gaze settled on her hand, but he didn’t particularly shake her off.
“Now, I know this may sound like absolute nonsense to Your Grace, but hear me out first.”
“It already does, but in my generosity, I’ll listen since you ask.”
“I got called a whore earlier, didn’t I? But if we’re being honest, it isn’t completely wrong, strictly speaking. When you think about it, I agreed to take money from Your Grace and…”
“So it is nonsense.”
Curtis’s face hardened terrifyingly as he made a motion as if to fling her hand away.
It wasn’t a particularly forceful movement, but Chloe clung to him desperately, afraid she might lose her grip on his hand.
Curtis’s cheek twitched.
Apparently, he found this deeply annoying to endure.
I need to talk fast.
“No! But even so, when you hear something like that, it feels unfair and infuriating. I’m human too. And we had our own circumstances, didn’t we?”
“…We?”
“Ah, my apologies. Us.”
Apparently, as a royal, he found it offensive that she had lumped herself in with him and lowered them both.
I really need to wrap this up fast.
Thinking that, Chloe continued.
“Look. Say Duchess of Glintland married Your Grace instead of me. Glintland gains Your Grace, fine. But what exactly does that woman gain?”
At that, Curtis lifted his chin arrogantly, wearing an expression that said, Do you truly not know?
“She would have gained me.”
Is he serious?
Her face crumpled on its own.
“As someone currently married to Your Grace, allow me to say this plainly: honestly, that’s less a benefit than a disaster.”
This time, Curtis’s face crumpled.
The man glared at her anew and snapped his hand away.
It was obvious Chloe’s single remark had offended him.
However, if Curtis had intended to vent his anger by shaking her off, unfortunately, he failed.
Because Chloe, who had been leaning toward him, startled and nearly toppled backward—and Curtis, with no reward whatsoever for having flung her off, was also the one who grabbed her tightly and pulled her back.
“Ah.”
Her head jerked with a thud.
When she came to her senses, Curtis had one arm braced around Chloe’s back.
Chloe’s eyes went round.
His face was right in front of her nose.
Curtis, too, seemed startled that he had caught her by reflex, and froze while holding her.
Chloe blinked a couple of times, then opened her mouth.
“…I suppose character really matters more than looks in a man.”
“All of a sudden?”
“To think a man can look like this and still be called a disaster by the woman he married.”
The moment the crease between his brows deepened, Chloe was shoved down into the interrogation room chair.
There was a clatter, but perhaps she ought to be grateful he hadn’t thrown her onto the floor.
Curtis smiled murderously, folded his arms, and looked down at her.
“So. Suppose marrying me is not a benefit.”
“It’s not ‘suppose,’ it really isn’t…”
“Enough.”
“Yes, sir. Anyway, what I mean is, if a woman has nothing to gain and already has a child, remarriage isn’t exactly a good option.”
Curtis tilted his head.
Chloe spoke quickly.
“People commonly think a woman with a child should remarry as quickly as possible, but from the woman’s perspective, it’s closer to a huge gamble.”
“Why? …No.”
Chloe’s eyes widened again.
She had been wondering how to explain that, for women, marriage was like a jack-in-the-box that held very few good things and a colorful variety of bad ones.
But surprisingly, Curtis seemed to grasp immediately what she had been about to say.
“Because she doesn’t know what kind of man he is. There are more than a few bastards who hit women while wearing perfectly decent faces. And if she loves her child, she would have even more to worry about.”
“Exactly.”
“It isn’t as though nothing comes to mind.”
The man stroked his chin with a thoughtful hum, then glanced at her.
“Are you, as a fellow woman, going so far as to consider Isabelle la Glintland’s position?”
“What you just said is extremely insulting in several different ways, but putting that aside. Have you considered that I might be such a decent human being that I possess the character to consider circumstances others cannot speak of?”
“If you were that sort of human being, you wouldn’t have called me a disaster.”
The man opened the interrogation room door and tossed out the words.
“Let’s go hear the Duchess of Glintland’s story.”
He also shook out his hand as if he had touched something filthy.
Perhaps it was thanks to the man not looking back.
Only then did Chloe finally manage to gather up her pounding heart and rise.
Have I lost my mind?
I got a little fluttery looking at the face of a bastard I want to beat to death.
Is this that suspension bridge effect or whatever?
Thinking so, Chloe silently resented Queen Mildred, Curtis’s mother.
Your Highness. With all due respect, how could you make a mad bastard’s face look like that? Were you trying to ruin some poor girl’s life?
Of course, she chose to ignore the fact that she herself was standing in the place of that poor girl.
“Ah, wait for me!”
She ran out of the interrogation room.
Ordinarily, Chloe was also a subject of investigation, so if she left the interrogation room like this, the guards should have stopped her briefly.
But there was no one in front of the door.
Only then did Chloe realize the man had deliberately cleared the guards away on purpose.
“Slow as a slug.”
Was he merely ill-mannered and the situation happened to support him, or did he reshape every situation to his liking through an unprecedented degree of ill manners?
Chloe added one more question to her evaluation of her superior.
Unfortunately, it was not a question that would be answered anytime soon.
Obviously, the Duchess of Glintland did not spill every last detail the moment she met the two of them.
“Let me meet His Majesty the King of Ibanes. I will speak only before His Majesty.”
The Duchess, leaning back in a plush chair, repeated only that.
It was enough to make one snort.
Even if she was under suspicion of murder, it was the murder of a maid, and there was not yet any evidence that she had committed it.
Inevitably, she was confined in one of the Royal Castle’s guest rooms.
There was heavy security, but that was all.
“His Majesty is not that idle, Duchess.”
“I am not a criminal.”
Isabelle la Glintland’s previously benevolent impression was nowhere to be found; her eyes were sharp and venomous.
Even from the way she sat with her arms crossed, looking at them, it was naturally clear that she was by no means an easy opponent.
“I have already told you that you are suspected of murder.”
“Do you have proof that I killed that maid?”
To that retort, Curtis calmly replied, “Usually, the people who say that are the culprits.”
Isabelle tried to snap something back, but Curtis was not finished.
“And, Duchess, you are also facing an additional charge of insulting the royal family of Ibanes. It is lesser compared to murder, but this one is almost certain. Astonishingly, the Grand Duchess and I are also royalty. And insulting royalty is punishable by death.”
At those words, Isabelle bit her lip.
The Marquise of Flandre and Agathe Montpis had already stated that Isabelle had done all this under the King’s protection.
She had probably already guessed as much.
Some might call it terribly sloppy, but Curtis personally thought she had been rather meticulous.
After all, the Marquise of Flandre was someone who, under normal circumstances, would never have told them the truth.
“But all of it is only circumstantial evidence. You would not execute me on testimony alone, would you?”
“It is not impossible.”
Curtis deliberately made himself intimidating.
Even so, she did not break.
Isabelle curled her mouth into a sneer and pressed on.
“Yes. I suppose you could execute me on circumstantial evidence alone. And His Majesty the King of Ibanes would seize another fine opportunity.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Grand Duke’s esteemed elder brother would not immediately condemn a Grand Duke who punished a Duchess from Glintland based only on circumstantial evidence. But after some time passed, would he not be able to hold you responsible on the grounds that relations with Glintland had become difficult, and send you off to Glintland?”
That was a bit much.
Chloe, a proud soldier of Ibanes, eventually could not bear it and cut in from the side.
“I’ve been listening and listening, but that is a serious leap. You’re painting our king as far too much of a piece of trash. And that isn’t even realistically possible…”
“Your Highness the Grand Duchess. If I were to compare that king of yours to something, even a sewer would be too good for him.”
“No, what you just said is also an insult to the royal family…”
Isabelle smiled brightly.
“His Majesty the King of Ibanes has crawled into my bedroom drunk during private conversations with me, a diplomatic envoy, twice.”
“He’s midsummer food waste.”
Chloe’s face turned utterly serious.
Curtis clutched his forehead.