Please Repay Me with Marriage! - Chapter 36

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Please repay me with marriage!
Chapter 36
Irene’s cheek gave a faint, involuntary twitch as she took the report.
“Is this true?”
“Has something gone wrong?”
Julie, who had come to the mansion in person under the pretext of being a jeweler’s daughter, blinked her large eyes.
“Lady Selen investigated it herself, so it can’t be wrong…”
“I’m not saying the content is wrong, so there’s no need to worry. I’m just a little surprised.”
‘No wonder the results came back so quickly.’
Irene had asked Selen, through Hawk, to look into two things.
First. What has Uncle Kalio, Viscount Kalio, been up to these days?
Second. The current state of House of Schultz.
Kalio had readily replied that he would attend the wedding, to which she had sent an invitation a few days earlier.
But a man who had tried so hard to shove his own person into the position of Marquis Consort was hardly the type to celebrate Irene’s sudden marriage, was he?
She had been sure he was plotting some other absurd backroom scheme…
“He’s negotiating a marriage with House of Schultz, of all things.”
Now that she thought about it, it was about this time of year.
Schultz had come to see Kalio on business and had proposed a marriage after catching sight of Fiona.
‘Right… That man had first taken a liking to Fiona.’
Both in the past and at present, Kalio had coveted the mining rights to the sapphire mine that Schultz owned. So he had tried his best to grant whatever Schultz wanted.
Yet, as if he had any paternal feeling at all, he had sent Irene to Schultz instead of Fiona.
Either way, Schultz, delighted to take a young and beautiful lady as his second wife, had given Kalio the mining rights to the sapphire mine along with an enormous sum as a dowry, and…
‘Let’s not think about what came after.’
Just recalling that filthy face made her blood boil. Irene repeated ‘Hold on, hold on’ silently to herself and kept reading the report.
“Hm? What’s this about him refusing the marriage and suddenly changing his mind recently?”
Had Schultz threatened him over the mining rights? As Irene wondered, Julie provided the answer.
“It’s money. Viscount Kalio suddenly needed a large sum.”
“Money? Did Uncle really have so little that he had to trade in marriages?”
Over the past three years, she had cleverly obstructed Kalio’s work and ruined nearly every business he had undertaken. Still, Kalio owned vast, fertile plains that yielded an enormous wheat harvest every year.
That was precisely how he had been able to plant his own people in the Blair Marquis Residence or bribe the presiding judges.
“That uncle had terrible luck, too. He killed Lord William’s pet dog.”
“A pet? You don’t mean that troublemaker Duke William is always dragging around everywhere?”
“Yes. For the record, it happened the day after the banquet was held at this mansion. The day after the Marquis announced his fiancée.”
“I see… It seems he picked the wrong person to vent his anger on.”
Perhaps the dog found his master’s excessive affection suffocating? Duke William’s pet was notorious for slipping past the eyes of the people watching it and escaping the mansion again and again.
Most likely it had bolted out of the mansion that day as well, and that was when it crossed paths with Viscount Kalio.
“What a pity for that dog. If it had stayed home quietly, it wouldn’t have been beaten to death by some random cane.”
“It died because of that dog’s own recklessness, and I think Duke William is partly to blame for never keeping it tied up.”
At Julie’s scathing remark, Irene gave a bitter smile and nodded.
“The dog ran in front of the carriage, and the one who died was the Late Countess Elpias, right?”
“Yes. …Oh!”
It seemed she had only now remembered what the dead woman was to Irene at present.
Irene shrugged her shoulders and told the flustered Julie, who had clapped a hand over her own mouth, not to worry about it.
“So how much did Duke William demand as compensation?”
“Twenty million Rarc.”
“Twenty million? That much?”
Kalio certainly did not have the ability to raise that kind of money in cash right away.
If it were autumn, just after the harvest had ended, it might have been different, but it was summer.
“Duke William is a bit ridiculous, too. Demanding twenty million Rarc for the life of one dog.”
If they had paid compensation like that when the Late Countess Elpias died, Leonard wouldn’t have had to suffer as he did.
“Well, he originally asked for ten million, but Viscount Kalio said something like, ‘It’s just one dog…’ and it ballooned into a surcharge for insolence, apparently.”
“That’s exactly the sort of thing Uncle would say.”
“Actually, Duke William seems to have hoped Viscount Kalio would refuse to pay, so that the whole thing would fall apart.”
Julie wiped the milk clinging thickly beneath her nose with the back of her hand and whispered in a small voice.
“He originally challenged him to a duel. He threw down a glove stained with his own blood.”
A duel initiated by throwing down a glove stained with one’s own blood is a duel to the death. It is a duel that never ends until one of the two is dead.
“A duel to the death? Duke William must be terribly angry.”
“That’s why he even considered selling off his own daughter. He probably doesn’t have a moment to spare to interfere with Lady Irene’s wedding.”
“I suppose that’s a relief.”

I imagine Fiona must be feeling like a bolt had struck her from a clear blue sky right about now.
‘Fiona…’
In truth, Irene didn’t hold any particular grudge against her. More precisely, there had never been reason to.
Ever since their parents passed, she and Fiona had barely exchanged more than a few words face to face.
Even when she was being worked like a maid in the very house she’d grown up in, it was the same. If their eyes happened to meet from a distance, Fiona would turn away as though fleeing from her.
Back then, Irene had assumed it was because Uncle had forged the will and taken their parents’ estate.
It was only later that she understood the real reason Fiona had avoided her.
“Do you happen to know how Fiona is getting on these days?”
“She’s been locked in her bedroom. Probably so she won’t try to run off.”
“Oh? Uncle is being rather cruel, isn’t he?”
“If his daughter ran away, he’d be finished, so there’s that.”
“So even in a situation like that, she didn’t think to beg me for help, is that it?”
Rather than bend her head, he’d sooner sell off his own daughter. What a remarkable amount of pride.
“It’s actually a relief, really. If Lady Irene had refused, he would’ve spread that around too, painting you as the heartless niece who turned down her uncle’s plea for help. It’s a blessing he wasn’t desperate enough to go that far.”
“So refusing is a foregone conclusion, is it?”
Julie’s jaw dropped open.
“W-wait, you aren’t really going to help them, are you?”
“Of course not.”
Had I lost my mind, I’d never lift a finger for that man.
‘Though I do feel sorry for Fiona.’
Irene briefly recalled the abuse she’d suffered at Schultz Viscount’s hands, then burned every last sheet of paper she’d been holding.
Julie, licking chocolate off her fingers, peered up at her with a face that had turned somewhat dark.
“Is there anything else you want to know?”
“Nothing I need to know… But if Fiona wants to reach out to me behind her father’s back, help her out quietly. Make it look as though she has someone inside working with her.”
“You’re going to help her?”
“More accurately, it’s a transaction. She owes me something.”
‘Brace yourself, Rin. There’s someone who can prove that accident was your uncle’s doing.’
“Oh, that’s right, Lady Irene. The Master asked me to pass along one piece of news.”
“What news? Could it be a crackdown and detention?”
At Irene’s question, Julie’s eyes went wide.
Her expression seemed to ask how on earth she’d known, and Irene merely smiled, faint and knowing.
-Knock knock
At the sound of knocking, Julie gave a start, hurriedly wiped at the corners of her mouth, straightened her back, and folded her hands neatly on her lap.
Irene regarded the girl with fond amusement and, a smile still lingering on her lips, granted permission to enter.
The one who came in was Damond, who relayed news of Leonard to Irene.
“After greeting the guests at the villa, the Prospective Marquis Consort heard that Lady Zenis had gone out, and went straight to her.”
“Is that so? He must be exhausted after such a long journey…”
Yet unless he confirmed that Zenis was safe, he wouldn’t find any rest, not really.
As she nodded in agreement that it was only natural for him to seek out Zenis, Damond hesitated for a moment before finally asking.
“Aren’t you… feeling a little hurt?”
“Hm?”
“Ah, well, that is…”
Realizing he had overstepped, Damond cleared his throat briefly.
Only then did Irene grasp what he was driving at, and she let out a soft laugh, as though he were asking the strangest things.
“It’s been a long while since I’ve seen my family. Of course I’d want to know how she’s doing.”
“But surely the Marquis is family to her now, isn’t he?”
“To be precise, not quite yet.”
She knew full well that he thought of her far less than she thought of him.
Irene resolved not to let that fact sting.
Just being alive, being able to see his face again and speak with him while he still breathed, was more than she could have hoped for.
“Besides, now that my fiancé has arrived, we’ll need to prepare a dinner for tonight. Finally, I can introduce Eli and Charlotte to their future brother-in-law.”
At her cheerful tone, Damond let out a sigh.
“Yes… I’ll have the head chef see to it that everything is prepared without a hitch.”
Our Marquis is hardly the sort of man who would ever be looked down upon by anyone.
It seemed as though his master was clinging to the Prospective Marquis Consort, and Damond couldn’t quite hide his wounded pride.
‘Tonight’s dinner will be chosen to suit the Marquis’s tastes, from the appetizer right down to dessert.’
That was the only revenge he could manage.

* * *
“So how on earth did you end up engaged to the Blair Marquis?!”
‘Coming here was a mistake.’
When Zenis got worked up, her words grew clipped, and she didn’t stop there. If she got fed up enough, she looked ready to grab a man by the collar.
How did such a meek, shy girl turn into this little hellion?
It was entirely his fault. Because of him, she had ended up mixing with mercenaries.
If anything, I should be grateful she hasn’t started cursing like them.
“Are you deaf?”
“…If you leave her alone, she might actually do it.”
“What did you say?”
“Keep your voice down. There’s only… us here.”
The Capital’s Top Flower Shop, where you could find any flower listed in a botanical guide.
The shop belonged to the Blair Marquis, so Zenis was shown straight to the VIP room. No, to be precise, it was a VIP garden.
Partitioned by hedges into something like a maze garden, the VIP room held nothing but Zenis and Leonard, aside from dozens of potted plants large and small.
Zenis’s escort knights and Lady Sara were waiting somewhere beyond the hedges. Zenis had sent them away.
“The flowers are all pretty. But the scents are mixing together and it’s giving me a headache.”
“You really won’t tell me?”
“Why are there only white flowers here, though?”
No, the way they catch the light and seem to shimmer…
“Are they close to silver?”
At Leonard’s murmured words, Zenis’s cheeks flushed a soft peach. That blush, so full of fluttering feeling, brought a face to Leonard’s mind without his meaning to.
The face of a knight with silver hair, one he had memorized because it had appeared in his dreams far too often lately.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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