A Fortnight for a Wedding
Odelli neither confirmed it nor denied it. She only stared up at him, her gaze searching, and Ludville found that more unpleasant than anything.
"So long as there's power to be had, you'd take a seat beside a madman who hunts down a different woman every day. What magnificent ambition."
He mocked her proposal to her face, the words low in his throat. What he flung out at the end of them was naked loathing, and rage, aimed straight at House Cardel.
"Just what I'd expect of that house."
For a moment Odelli regarded him in puzzlement. It had begun the instant he heard her family name. From then on his expression had hardened to ice, and disgust had seeped, unhidden, into every word he spoke. He did not even seem inclined to conceal it.
Could he actually remember something more?
If he had lost every memory bound up with her, then he ought not to know the true nature of House Cardel either. So where was this hostility coming from? She asked quietly.
"Do you dislike that I am a Cardel?"
Perhaps she had asked too bluntly.
"Ha."
He seemed, for a moment, at a loss for words. Then a hollow laugh broke from him, incredulous.
"And if I do?"
"May I ask the reason?"
He gave no answer. A faint crease twisted between Ludville's brows.
A reason for hating Cardel. Did a thing like that truly have to be spoken before it was understood?
The ducal house of Cardel. Noble blood, the descendants of heroes, the blessing of the empire. A Sanctuary no one could touch, carried unbroken across the centuries.
When had it begun? He could not recall the precise cause, or the moment. Only that, from some point onward, every word they spoke had started to sound like a lie. Like hypocrisy.
A hatred rooted deep. Merely looking at them twisted his gut with revulsion. They were filth that lived by stinking up the world—parasites that had no right to exist upon this land. He wanted the breath crushed out of every last one of them. He wanted them ground underfoot like refuse, the line ended so completely that nothing could ever come after.
The reason was, surely—
"Ugh."
A headache seemed to surge up in him. Ludville pressed hard at his temple, as if the mere fact of looking at her were enough to make his skull throb.
"Are you all right?"
Startled, Odelli drew closer, meaning to purify his pain as she had before.
"If it hurts, you needn't force yourself to remember."
He said nothing.
"Sometimes a person dislikes a thing for no reason at all. The heart is simply like that, isn't it?"
The calm tone. The worried eyes. Tenderness had slipped from her without her even noticing, and it struck a nerve in Ludville dead-on. Fury like a struck flame leapt in his violet eyes, and in the next instant he seized Odelli's chin roughly.
"The lady missing for three months appears out of nowhere in the northern lands, proposes to a man she's never met, and tells him he may insult her house all he likes..."
His grip tightened, and the words came out low and cracked, close to a growl.
"Enough of this hypocrite's game. Showing your true colors would be far more entertaining."
Shards of feeling he could not control flickered through those once-empty violet eyes. His lips parted.
"That way of speaking. That look on your face..."
He could not finish. It was as if he himself did not know what was meant to follow, and confusion clung to the silence.
Afraid he might catch even a thread of memory concerning her, Odelli spoke at once.
"You're right."
"Right...?"
"Yes. You've struck the heart of it, so I won't bother hiding anything."
"What are you—"
"I have ambition."
If she meant to remain at his side, what she needed was a reason he could accept. Tell him she wanted to protect him, and he would only call it hypocrisy.
"I want to use Your Grace the Archduke, and seize the power I desire."
She had no intention whatsoever of saying she had been exploited by her house all her life. He would only think she was toying with him—spinning some absurd lie to win his favor. And besides, the image of the Blue-Eyed Woman Ludville was pursuing rose before her: fragile, slender, burdened with an unhappy past, a being that looked as though she might shatter at a touch.
...It couldn't be otherwise. To Ludville, she was someone who died in the end no matter how many thousands of times it repeated. Now that his memories were gone, all that would remain of her was an impression of something precarious and pitiable.
Then I only have to show him the exact opposite. So that, looking at Odelli, he would never be reminded of the Blue-Eyed Woman. Outwardly she would hold him at a psychological distance with a calculating manner; inwardly, she meant to guide him onto the right path. Thoroughly. Without being caught. From closer than anyone else.
"I'd have to be an archduchess, at the very least, to truly obtain what I want. Wouldn't you agree?"
He was silent. It was not even a lie. What she truly wanted was Ludville's happiness, and his peace. Hiding that sincerity, Odelli spoke coldly.
"Which is why I called it a transaction. I mean to propose a Contract Marriage to Your Grace."
The moment she said it, an old memory brushed past. In her previous life, the proposal Ludville had offered the instant he laid eyes on her—strangely like the words leaving her now.
Was this how he felt, back then? Even as he kept his face blank and drew a hard line, calling it nothing but a contract, had he been burning underneath with the desperate wish to keep her alive somehow...?
"The term is five years. If, within that time, you decide I'm of no use, you may break the contract whenever you like."
Odelli did not look away. She met him head-on and went on.
"The internal troubles Your Grace is facing, the unwanted attention from outside, even your standing in noble society... There will be areas where I can help. Quite a few of them."
Ah—and of course. She added that, giving her own head a light tap.
"Even Your Grace's headaches."
Ludville listened for a long while as if he could scarcely believe his ears. Then, all at once, he burst out laughing. It was less pleasure than a laugh twisted through with interest, and Odelli could only stare at him, blank. She had never once seen Ludville laugh aloud. She had witnessed it many times at a remove, through memory, but faced with it in the flesh, the feeling was rather...
"...All right. Now this is starting to get interesting."
He lifted a hand and lightly took up a lock of her silver hair. Winding the length that fell to her waist around his finger, he turned it slowly and smiled at his leisure. Mockery, scrutiny, and an ominous anticipation seeped through the motion.
"I'll give you a fortnight."
She said nothing.
"If, within those fifteen days, you can catch my interest..."
His violet eyes curved thin. Even with his memories gone, a deep darkness and a madness still pooled in them, as if they held the weight of long years. He drew the end of the sentence out, then leaned in and whispered at her ear.
Ludville did not drive Odelli out. That was not quite the same as accepting her.
"For the fortnight, I will tell no one that the lady is here. House Cardel included."
He crooked the corner of his mouth, smiling as if to say that would be all the more interesting. Soon after, he declared the banquet at an end, and the gates of the Archducal Castle shut fast. No more blue-eyed women were admitted.
A fortnight. Only a brief reprieve, and yet—
...At least I've caught his interest. Haven't I?
Odelli was shown to the finest room in the castle: a bedchamber more lavish and extravagant than any noble's, one even an imperial princess might have envied. She knew at once that this was where the women who had caught Ludville's interest had stayed, for a time.
"For the present, my lady, you will be residing here."
Theodore, the steward. Having guided her this far, he bowed with perfect courtesy and added,
"Thereafter, His Grace will determine your arrangements. So he said."
He had softened it into arrangements, but the word he truly meant was disposal.
The same treatment as the others.
His manner, thoroughly businesslike, seemed utterly certain she would not be remaining here for long.