No Exceptions
It was around the time the sun was leaning toward the western hills that Liam, having finished his duties at the capital, finally arrived at the estate in Hamilton. He had lingered longer than usual at the palace, meeting one person after another, and the fatigue simply would not leave him. A soak in hot water, a glass of wine, and then sleep until late the following afternoon — that was his plan.
Yet the moment he stepped through the gates, Liam knew that plan would not come easily. Something was wrong with the house. He could feel it at once — the butler who opened the door, and every servant he passed, all of them watching him warily out of the corners of their eyes.
"What is going on?"
When Liam asked with a hardened face, raincoat still on, the butler hesitated, unable to answer readily. At that moment, someone came walking out from within.
"You've returned at last, my lord."
"Sir Hoffman, is it? What brings the Full Moon Knight Order to my home?"
Liam's eyes wavered as he asked, for behind Hoffman he could see several more knights in the colors of the Full Moon. This was no mere courtesy call — that much was plain.
"Where are my wife and Derrick?"
That they knew he had arrived and still did not come out to meet him could only mean the trouble involved one of them. Or both.
"They are upstairs."
"Give me a moment, would you?"
After asking Hoffman's indulgence, Liam strode up the stairs.
"Father……."
Waiting for him at the top of the stairs was his youngest daughter, Lilith. She had been pacing the corridor uneasily, her face full of worry.
"Did your mother send you down to stop me?"
"…No, Father."
"Then why are you standing there like a sinner awaiting punishment? What have you done wrong?"
Though he had heard nothing yet, Liam already knew. His youngest daughter would have had nothing to do with this affair. She never did. It was always Derrick, the eldest, who caused the trouble, and it was always his wife — who defended that boy as her own son — that was the problem.
"It's just…… Mother hasn't been able to eat a thing for days. Her face has gone half its size. I'm afraid something terrible might happen to her if this goes on……"
"Don't worry yourself. A few days without food won't kill a person so easily."
"But Father——"
"Go on back to your room."
Liam had no desire to drain himself with idle conversation. Dealing with the two of them alone would be quite enough strain.
What now? What has that boy done this time? Barely suppressing the anger rising in his chest, he pushed into the room.
BANG!
The door burst open without a knock, then slammed shut behind him just as roughly. Even so, his wife, Lameris, lay on the bed without so much as a twitch. He had expected as much — it was hardly a scene he was seeing for the first time — and with an irritated motion Liam stripped off his raincoat and flung it to the floor. Then he went to the sofa and sat in silence for a long while.
Pitter-patter. Pitter-patter.
Beyond the window, that maddening rain was still falling. Having spent so long in the dry capital, he had even found it a little welcome at first. But now it only grated on his nerves. Somehow all of this felt like the fault of that cursed rain, and the fury would not settle.
"Come here."
How much time had passed? The sun had sunk completely, and a thick darkness had swallowed the room. Liam called to his wife in the gentlest tone he could manage.
Only then did Lameris, who had kept her eyes shut feigning sleep, quietly rise and approach her husband.
In the wavering candlelight, her gaunt face came into view. Apparently Lilith had been telling the truth — she really had gone days without eating.
"Now then. What is this about?"
She had gone from merely pretending to fast to actually doing it — which could only mean the matter was grave indeed. He needed to know, and quickly, what could possibly have brought the Full Moon Knight Order to his door.
"…You haven't heard yet?"
"The Full Moon knights are waiting downstairs. It seemed proper to hear it from my wife first, so I came up. What reason do they have to be in my house?"
"……"
"Is it Derrick?"
When Lameris flinched, unable to answer easily, Liam let out a long sigh.
"I knew it. What has he done this time?"
"It's nothing worth all this fuss! Any quiet household could have smoothed it over, but Bayul had to turn it into a whole spectacle!"
"…Bayul?"
"Yes! He's confined Derrick to his own room. And then he has the gall to say we should count ourselves lucky he didn't throw him in a cell! Do you have any idea how humiliated I was?"
"…You still haven't told me what wrong Derrick committed."
There would be time enough to judge after he had heard everything. Liam ordered his wife in a stern voice.
"He only… used… a little."
"Used what?"
"…The minerals! He took a little of them, and now they're screaming theft! Is that any way for a cousin to speak?"
"Minerals? Don't tell me… you mean to say Derrick smuggled out the minerals from the ice mine?"
At an answer he had never once imagined, Liam's eyes went round. He had assumed that whatever it was, with the Full Moon Knight Order involved, it couldn't be anything trivial — but this was truly beyond anything he had foreseen.
What kind of minerals are those, that a fool would dare lay hands on them without even knowing his place?
He was so dumbfounded that for a moment Liam could barely breathe.
"So that boy has finally gone mad!"
"How can you say that about your own son! You think Derrick wanted to do it?"
"What was that?"
"It's all your fault, favoring Bayul while treating your own flesh and blood like a stranger! Running after that precious elder brother of yours, doing his every errand — when have you ever spared a thought for this household?"
The same old song. Every time something like this happened, he heard it — the same unchanging refrain.
"How many times have I told you? Helping my brother is the work of House Randert, and so it is our household's business! And in any case, none of that has the slightest thing to do with Derrick embezzling minerals!"
"Why is it unrelated? If Derrick weren't such an affront to him, would that young whelp dare look down on me, his own aunt? Do you know how I was treated when I went to the capital?"
"You went to the capital?"
Only then did Lameris realize her mistake. This was not something she had meant to bring up. Her temper had gotten the better of her, and the words had tumbled out before she knew it.
Her husband's narrowing eyes frightened her a little, but it was too late to turn back now — she resolved to say everything she wanted to say.
"That's right! I went to demand answers! Was there some place I wasn't allowed to go?"
"In your brother's absence, you went to demand answers from a sixteen-year-old nephew? Are you quite in your right mind?"
"Hah! Sixteen, you say? Are you only now learning that so-called innocent nephew threatened to destroy Derrick's marriage altogether?"
"…Bayul threatened someone?"
"He said he'd report us to his own father. Said breaking off a marriage would be nothing — a single word from a man like that! You should have seen the way he looked me square in the eye when he defied me. He was not the child I once knew."
Lameris's face twisted into something venomous at the mere memory of that day.
"After whatever you did to that boy, how dare he treat us this way? It felt as though Derrick were reaching for his rightful place, so of course he moved to secure it first!"
"Wife. Mind your words."
"Who knows what ambitions lurk in that little wretch? He's the one who drove his own twin brother to his death! For all we know, that too was planned from the start!"
"Can you not keep that mouth shut! I am warning you — if you speak of it that way even one more time, I will strike you. And I will not simply let it pass then. You had best prepare yourself."
Liam glared at his wife with a ferocity she had never seen in him. He had never been an affectionate husband, but she had never been treated like this either, and Lameris was genuinely shaken.
"Remember this. From this day forward, you will not so much as breathe Bayil's name carelessly. My brother's condition and Bayul's have much improved, yes — but what happened remains a wound that will never be erased. Do you understand?"
"…In the end, it's your brother and your nephew you care for. Only ever them."
"Perhaps it is you who insists on seeing me that way — without knowing the slightest thing about what I've actually been doing for this family."
"…What is that supposed to mean?"
Lameris asked, but Liam did not answer. No one could ever be allowed to know. It was a burden he alone would have to carry to his grave.
"So. What is Derrick doing at this moment?"
The shape of the affair had become clear enough. Derrick had embezzled the minerals, and somehow Bayul had found out. Holding off punishment until his brother and Liam himself returned, he had chosen house arrest as the sentence. Twenty-three years old, and put in his place by a sixteen-year-old cousin. He was his son, but there was no denying how pathetically he had failed.
"What would he be doing? Reflecting in his room, I suppose."
"Reflecting? Ha. As if I don't know my own son?"
He would be nowhere near remorseful — he'd be sprawled somewhere, drowning himself in drink.
"But why aren't you asking about the stolen minerals? Aren't you even curious what he spent them on?"
Even she, who had been at the boy's side all this while, had no idea — and Lameris asked with genuine puzzlement.
"Do I truly need to ask to know that?"
"You know? How could you, when you only just learned he stole them at all——"
"Gambling debts."
"Wh-what? Gambling debts?"
"Not for the first time, either."
"Not the first time? Are you telling me Derrick has been gambling all along?"
"As if gambling were all he's done."
If he had never committed murder, it was only because the chance hadn't come — he had racked up nearly every other crime worth the name. And it had been Liam himself who quietly cleaned up after him, all these years, without his brother ever knowing.
"Until now I settled everything within my own means, keeping it from my brother. But this time, I don't think I can."
"Th-then…… what happens to our Derrick?"
Even his sister-in-law knew all too well how unbending Duke Randert could be. Once the Duke involved himself, there would be no leniency simply because Derrick was family. No man alive drew the line between public duty and private ties more firmly than Duke Randert. That was precisely why Lameris had gone all the way to the capital to raise such a storm.
"He'll go to prison."
"Wh-what did you say?"
"It's the best of the options."
Liam had already made up his mind. He could not bear to send his only son into penal labor. Prison, at least, was something that might be passed over quietly.
"Then what of the marriage with House Redwin! If they learn Derrick is going to prison, do you think they'll still give us their daughter?"
"You still haven't given that up?"
"What?"
"Derrick will never again find a match like that. Unless he performs some extraordinary service for the realm, who would hand a precious daughter over to such a worthless fool?"
"Derrick is precious to us! How can you talk about your own son as if he were a stranger?"
At moments like this, her husband might as well have been a stranger. No — worse than a stranger.
"If you want Lilith married properly into a respectable house, you would do well to keep quiet yourself. As for Derrick, I will handle it."
"How? Handle it how?"
"By begging."
"……!"
"I raised the boy wrong, so his father must beg — what else is there? And so, Wife, you will conduct yourself with restraint for the time being."
He could not begin to guess how much his brother might forgive, but for now, in this situation, that was the very best Liam could do.
Picking up the raincoat he had flung to the floor, he hurried down the stairs, to where the Full Moon Knight Order was waiting below.