The Duke's Rejection
But, to her embarrassment….
“Over the past few years, I’ve collected quite a few related books. By any chance, do you know how to read? The ones written in Tilaminian.”
“I… I can read, yes.”
“Excellent.”
The man rubbed his fingernails together with an excited expression.
She’s far more knowledgeable than I expected. Honestly, I had a good feeling about her from the first moment I saw her. Those eyes that look so remarkably intelligent.
Tichite stood frozen with a dazed look on her face, while he had already raced far ahead in his own thoughts. It seemed he couldn’t even imagine her refusing his request.
“I’d really appreciate it if you could read those books for me. There’s an enormous amount of them, and they’re incredibly difficult, so finding a proper translator wasn’t easy. Even the translations that were done used completely different terminology. I couldn’t understand a single thing, and it was incredibly frustrating.”
“My lord, what I wanted to discuss with you was—”
“Ah, we’ll be departing in three days. Make sure to bring everything you’ll need by then. If there’s too much luggage, I’ll send someone to help. If anything comes up, contact Kanne. The inn where they’re staying is, from what I’ve heard, probably…”
“…The Captain’s Anchor.”
“That’s right. That was the name. You already knew?”
“Wonderful, wonderful.” The man kept repeating that everything was wonderful, letting out delighted laughter. It was clear Desidero had no intention of negotiating with her at all. In his mind, every issue except Tichite’s own opinion was proceeding without a hitch.
The woman felt her mind go blank. She stood there stupefied, like a calf dragged out to the livestock market. Just as livestock couldn’t choose their owners, it seemed she had no choice in the matter either.
No. This can’t happen. So suddenly? I don’t even know where Loudhill is.
Of course, getting involved in something with such uncertain prospects was a huge problem in itself, but here in this place she had friends, neighbors, and even a single family member—though he was a pathetic excuse for one.
She wasn’t perfectly satisfied with her life in Saltcoast, but she had adapted well enough to get by. Abandoning the social connections and assets she had painstakingly built up and moving her entire livelihood to a new place was not something she could easily consider. She had already experienced firsthand how difficult and burdensome it was to start a new life in a strange land with no relatives. She never wanted to feel that kind of hopelessness again.
Her anxious eyes wandered through the air before finally landing on Duke Paeroa.
The moment she thought their eyes had met, the duke shot up from his seat. It looked as if he had suddenly come to his senses—or perhaps a surge of anger had overtaken him. Whatever the reason, his movement was violently abrupt.
“Are your ears blocked? Or are you pretending not to know even though you do?”
The man roared. At first, Tichite thought he was yelling at her and froze like a statue. But then she saw him pointing his finger at Desidero and realized the words weren’t directed at her.
“She said she doesn’t know. She said she can’t do it, so why are you getting all excited by yourself?”
“Of course it will be difficult at first. But if we start slowly from now on—”
“Start what? You want me to entrust my body to some treatment that doesn’t even have a proper form, let alone a plan? Are you telling me to become a test subject?”
“Test subject? That’s not what I—”
The man cut Desidero off in the exact same way Desidero had ignored Tichite’s words earlier, completely shutting him down. The helmeted head slowly turned, and the duke’s gaze fell upon Tichite. Or rather, he stared at her through that pitch-black horizontal slit where nothing inside could be seen.
“And, that, that woman…”
Whenever his eyes met Tichite’s, he would tremble or stutter. Then suddenly, like kindling that had run out of oil and caught fire, he would burn bright red and raise his voice in a roar.
“How do I know what that woman might do to me?”
The man pointed at Tichite with a rigidly extended finger. The same hand that would curl up like a caterpillar in front of a chicken beak the moment it touched a woman seemed to gain courage the instant it was covered by a glove.
Tichite stared at the duke with wide, round eyes. Resentment swam in her dark pupils.
On the other hand, the man receiving that gaze felt his mind turn pale. Nyx lost his way in her inscrutable stare. Tilamin women had small faces with delicate, finely arranged features that made their expressions hard to read. The moment he had taken off his glove, she had frowned, and ever since he asked her to cure his illness, she had shown nothing but discomfort.
Disgust, contempt, aversion, avoidance. No matter how one interpreted it, her expression left nothing to be desired.
…Entrust my body to a woman?
When it came to the opposite sex, Nyx Farrow had accumulated nothing but anxious memories. Not once had a woman’s gaze toward him ever been positive.
“Why should I? Why would I have to do that?”
The man’s stomach began to churn, and he raised his voice in utter desperation.
“I have not the slightest desire to be treated by a woman’s hands. I don’t need it. I don’t need it, so send her away right now!”
He screamed wildly that he did not want her. His resistance was so much like a rebellious adolescent boy that even Desidero eventually raised the white flag. Shaking his head as if there was no point in trying to talk sense into him, Desidero left the room with Tichite, just as the duke had demanded.
Every other word out of his mouth is “woman, woman.”
‘So he’d rather die than entrust his body to a woman?’
Tichite, who had been successfully driven out, thought bitterly.
She was sickened by the narrow-minded thinking of noblemen. The disdain and belittlement one suffered because of origin or gender was always unfair and unpleasant, yet thanks to it she had safely escaped the awkward proposal she had never wanted. She felt strangely conflicted, unsure whether she should be glad or resentful.
“Even though His Grace speaks that way, his true feelings are different.”
Desidero let out a long sigh that sounded both exasperated and pitying.
“My offer remains unchanged. Leave the task of persuading the duke to me. Tichite, you should only concern yourself with how to cure the illness. The support and treatment will be more than generous.”
Desidero urged her repeatedly, but Tichite’s mind did not change. She left Saltcoast, leaving behind his request that she could neither accept with hope nor firmly reject.
Just as when she had arrived, Kanne accompanied her on the way back. The man followed her from a distance that could have been either surveillance or protection.
“From what you saw, does our duke’s condition seem hopeless?”
“…It wasn’t a problem I could do anything about.”
“A person who survived being doused in Sun God’s Oil. I’ve never even heard of such a case in my life.”
“That’s truly unfortunate.” The knight spoke in a tone that held not the slightest trace of regret. From his rude and unrestrained way of speaking, one could easily guess that his loyalty wasn’t particularly deep.
“There was a huge commotion at the end. What did the duke say? Did he get angry?”
The man also seemed to have a gossipy nature. He asked whatever he was curious about without hesitation. Tichite kept her mouth shut for a long while before replying sourly.
“He said he could never trust a woman enough to entrust his body to her. Since his thoughts and mine were exactly the same, there was no need to think about it any further.”
“Ahaha.”
The man laughed as if that made perfect sense.
“His Grace really, really hates women. Like, intensely.”
Hearing that, Tichite pouted her lower lip with a feeling of as expected. She had no interest in a patriarchal employer either.
“Still, if you change your mind, come find me anytime. You heard earlier, right? The Captain’s Anchor. I’ll be staying there for a while. Probably about a week.”
Kanne said, pointing at himself with his thumb. Tichite thought there was no chance of that happening, but she nodded half-heartedly anyway.
After sending the woman back with Kanne, Desidero returned with a stone weighing heavily in his chest. There, his younger brother once again encountered his older brother, who had shrunk to the size of a thumb fairy.
“That woman looked at the back of my hand in disgust.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“She looked at me like she wanted to throw up.”
“I said no.”
The duke was sitting with his face buried between his knees as if he wanted to disappear. He had thrown off the stuffy helmet and was clutching the messily unwound bandages.
Desidero was stunned at the sight. At the same time, he felt a pang of pity. The man’s paranoia seemed to be getting worse with each passing day.