Please Repay Me with Marriage! - Chapter 6

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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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Pay me back with marriage, please!
Chapter 6
“Shall I help you, my lord?”
He didn’t seem to notice the joy brimming in her voice.
“Help me with what…”
“There you are! Oh my!”
Just then, a woman who had appeared behind Leonard let out a loud cry, loud enough for everyone to hear. Then, without Leonard noticing, she winked at Irene.
So these were members of the Dalgeurimja guild, Irene realized at once.
She barely held herself back from blowing a kiss to the women who had brought Leonard to her, and hooked her arm through his.
“You’re late, ladies. I caught this one first.”
Though she spoke to the women, the words were really meant for Leonard.
You can’t run from me anymore.
Irene held Leonard’s arm tightly and led him toward the square. They wound through the familiar alleys for quite a while, yet the walk beside him felt dreadfully short.
‘I want to stay like this forever. But… confessing now would be pointless.’
Irene knew the reason the Leonard of the past had reached out to her was pity.
A noblewoman who had been abused by her husband again and again until she lost all will to live.
Unable to ignore a woman whose figure, ready to take her own life at any chance, overlapped with his dead younger sister, that man had been different. But the Leonard before her now probably held no feelings for her at all.
‘What should I do? What should I say to him?’
While she fretted frantically, Leonard, who now seemed relieved, let out a sigh and greeted her courteously.
“Thank you for your help, my lady. Thanks to you, I’ve managed to escape this predicament.”
The title “my lady” and his more polite tone told her he had recognized who she was.
Irene, who had been tense at the thought that her staged encounter had been discovered, relaxed upon realizing that the faint emotion in his eyes was nothing more than simple curiosity.
‘Even if he’s figured it out, I’m not letting him go easily.’
Irene smiled briefly and spoke to Leonard in a gentle voice.
“If you truly consider my help a favor, may I ask for a reward?”
“A reward, you say?”
“Yes, a reward.”
Irene realized she had chosen the right word.
Though he had come from the mercenary ranks, he was more of a knight than any knight. He valued gratitude far more than grudges.
Look at him now. It was only guiding him through the streets, yet here he stands in silence, when he could have simply pretended not to notice and gone on his way.
She released his arm, stood before him, spread the hem of her skirt wide with both hands, and bent her knees.
“You who won the Honor of Anuf. Before long, I’ll send someone to the lodging where you’re staying. Please don’t refuse my invitation.”
“…Do you know who I am?”
“Of course.”
My love, my light, my everything.
She had chewed over only the Leonard of her fading memories, again and again, and now that she faced the real him, her heart was unbearably giddy.
Irene pressed down the urge to laugh out loud and made a vow.
‘I promise. I will never leave you behind again.’
The promise you broke, this time I’ll make sure you keep it.

* * *
“Kiri! I finally met him!”
As she flung open the carriage door, Kiri, who had indeed been reading documents, nodded and said, “I see.”
Her reaction seemed rather flat at first glance, yet a faint smile had spread across her lips. It was a smile warm with unmistakable tenderness.
“I’ve just received the documents from Lady Selen. An order for formal attire has already been placed at a tailor specializing in gentlemen’s suits, measured for Count Elpias.”
“Really? Let me see too!”
Irene hurried into the carriage, untied her ribbon, tossed her bonnet aside carelessly, and shook her head several times as if to shake something loose.
Her eyes, skimming the papers she had been handed, couldn’t possibly keep still with such haste, not even noticing that strands of sweat-dampened hair were clinging to her cheeks.
Kiri closed the carriage door that hadn’t quite shut on its own, tapped the wall, and set the carriage in motion in her stead.
“Boyle Inn, number twelve, Ivy Street…”
Irene’s brow furrowed slightly as she turned the address over in her mind a few times.
“Ivy Street usually costs around 5,000 larc a night for lodging, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. It shouldn’t differ much from that.”
A standard room at the hotel on Velvet Street, where nobles typically stay, costs roughly 100,000 larc a day.
And the rate for the suite at the hotel she favors when staying in other cities starts at one million larc per night.
For a moment, the gap left Irene dizzy, but then she remembered that the daily lodging costs she had paid back when she was a mercenary had also hovered around 5,000 larc, and she nodded.
“Still, nobles usually stay on Velvet Street out of concern for their dignity…”
Then again, Leonard had never been the sort of man who cared about such things as dignity.
Besides, the reason he had come up to the capital in the first place was to raise money to pay off his debts.
Principal plus interest, a total of thirty million larc.
The enormous sum that bought a shop on a busy street in the capital had been gambling debt left by the previous Count Elpias, Leonard’s own father.
‘He worked as a mercenary under a false name and identity to pay it off. He couldn’t very well take jobs as a count…’
A newcomer starting over like that could hardly command high fees. He picked up only the dirtiest jobs no one else would take, and barely managed to keep up with the interest.
Then, once he had made a name for himself in the Weinberg Great Forest and his price had risen—
‘The creditor suddenly demanded repayment of the full principal, you said.’
Along with the outrageous demand that, if he couldn’t pay, he hand over his younger sister as a bride for the creditor’s son.
Given his circumstances, the sensible thing was to economize, even by a single coin. Yet…
‘I want to pile up the finest suite in the finest hotel with the finest service, all of it at once…!’
But for now, I have to hold back.
After all, they had only just met once.
‘Just you wait. No matter what happens, I’ll make you happy.’
Irene-a pushed aside the regret and frustration of being unable to do anything for him right away, and read and reread the documents concerning Leonard.
Among them was the news she had been waiting for: the item she had asked them to watch closely was going up for auction.
“So he’s already put that sword up for sale.”
Irene-a turned over the story Leonard had once told her, then sent Kiri on an errand.
“I’m going to attend this auction. Get me a catalogue. And also…”
Kiri looked a little startled at the extra task Irene-a added, but she nodded loyally a moment later.

* * *
And so, two weeks later, on the day of the banquet.
“Well? Has he arrived yet?”
“Please calm down, my lady. You’ve already asked twenty times…”
Emily, the maid in charge of Irene-a’s grooming, wore a faintly exasperated expression.
Yet Irene-a seemed entirely unaware of it, and only looked at her with genuine bewilderment.
“Why hasn’t he come when I’ve been asking for twenty minutes? You did send the carriage, didn’t you?”
“I think you’ve asked that same question twenty times too, but yes, I sent it. Dozens of carriages are pulling into the estate right now, so stop chewing your lips and wait calmly. You’ll ruin your makeup.”
At a small flick of Emily’s hand, a maid standing nearby hurried over with a tray.
Emily picked up a rouge pot from among the many cosmetics on the tray and pressed a paper dyed red onto Irene-a’s lips once more.
Thankfully, the effort paid off, and no twenty-first question burst from her mouth.
Instead, just as her restless glances at the door were growing unbearably noisy, a footman finally came running with the news they had been waiting for.
“Count Elpias has arrived!”
“Really?”
The paper she had reflexively let slip from her lips came fluttering down, and Emily deftly caught it.
Just as Emily, having barely prevented the disaster of red stains on the white dress, let out a sigh of relief, Irene-a, unaware of any of it, fussed and checked herself in the mirror.
“How do I look? Pretty? Do you think Sir Leonard will fall for me at first sight?”
“Of course. If he doesn’t fall for you at first sight, his eyes must be broken, so hurry and take him to a doctor.”
“You needn’t worry. That man has excellent eyesight.”
After one final adjustment of Irene-a’s slightly tense attire, Emily, with a single clap of her hands, directed the maids and lined them up along the wall of the reception room.
And then, at last.
“Count Elpias has arrived.”
The reception room doors opened, and the man Irene-a had waited for so long stepped confidently inside.
Her gaze, helplessly captured, followed every slight movement of Leonard’s without missing a single one.
‘Ahh…’
Ray, my love.
A rapturous sigh escaped Irene-a’s lips.
As a result, everyone in the reception room except her and the slightly tense Leonard noticed. It was not he who had fallen for the other at first sight, but she.
“Ahem.”
Had it not been for Emily’s throat-clearing, she would have kept sitting there with a vacant, dreamy face.
Thanks to it, Irene-a came to her senses and gave Emily a grateful nod. Emily returned it with a small smile.
“Thank you for accepting my invitation, Sir Leonard.”
Fortunately, her voice did not tremble as she spoke to Leonard, and it flowed out smooth and steady.
Holding the wide folds of her skirt, Irene-a bent her knees lightly in greeting and, straining to keep her composure, met Leonard’s eyes.
His golden hair, swept back without a single stray strand, was as dazzling as waves over a rich wheat field, and the broad brow beneath it accentuated his masculine presence.
Beneath his thick brows and abundant lashes, his scarlet eyes flickered as they blinked, vibrant with life like torches blazing.
Just as Kiri and the Hawk Siblings had so often said, Irene-a had no choice but to admit that there was something moth-like in her.
Otherwise, how could the urge to plunge into those burning eyes be racing about like a colt that had just broken loose?

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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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