Please Repay Me with Marriage! - Chapter 9

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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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Your reward had better be marriage!
Chapter 9
“Fine. Since you’re insisting so much, I’ll let it slide, darling.”
“Dar…ling…”
Leonard nearly bit his tongue in half and quickly clamped his mouth shut.
In the meantime, Irene dabbed at the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes, then rose from her seat and glared sharply at the attendant.
“We’ll find out whether you were bribed to deliberately shame my fiancé or not. Damond!”
“Yes, my lady.”
The chief butler hurried over from nearby and bowed his head. Irene jerked her chin toward the attendant.
“Lock this one in a solitary cell. And make sure to watch him closely so he can’t slip away!”
“As you command.”
“M-my lady, it was truly a mistake. Please, forgive me just this once! My lady!”
But Irene showed him no mercy.
She helped Leonard to his feet, and with a troubled expression, dabbed at the wine that had soaked his formal coat.
Then, as though she had only just noticed the heavy atmosphere, she looked around the room with a startled face.
“What on earth is all this commotion? I’m so sorry, everyone. You must have been terribly startled. As an apology, I’ll give each of you a small gift. Damond!”
“Yes, my lady.”
Damond, who had handed the attendant over to the junior butlers, came rushing back to Irene’s side before he could even catch his breath.
“Open the cellar beneath the main house and bring up all the wine. Have them wrapped nicely, one bottle each, according to what the guests wish to have.”
“Which cellar number should I open, my lady?”
“My personal collection cellar, of course. I’m offering them this as an apology, so I can’t very well give them just any old thing, can I?”
Lord Blair’s personal collection cellar?
The crowd began to murmur in excited voices.
“Goodness, I wonder what sort of wines she has.”
“I’d bet there’s some Snowl Wine from Ilum, too.”
“I hear the cactus-flower liqueur from Parodia is famous, too!”
Utterly giddy, the guests fixed their eyes on the doors of the banquet hall, seemingly forgetting all about Leonard, who was drenched in wine.
Should he sneer at them as a pack of snobs? Or should he admire the Marquis of Blair, who had tossed a spark of greed into their midst with a single word: collection?
Meanwhile, Irene approached Viscount Kalio, who stood staring vacantly at the shattered glass, and said with a regretful expression:
“You brought such a precious wine, and now it’s come to this. What a shame. I’m so sorry, Uncle. But I do have a Ratbui 67-Year Vintage in my collection. Please enjoy it to your heart’s content in my place.”
“…What? What do you have?”
“I think there are three bottles… or was it four? Either way, please don’t worry and simply enjoy yourself.”
It was a smile so innocent that no one could have taken it for mockery.
Is there anyone else in this Empire who makes use of “a smiling face cannot be spat upon” as thoroughly as she does?
As Leonard marveled inwardly, Viscount Kalio’s face flushed crimson, and with his temper fully boiling over, he let out a shout before he could stop himself.
“Only a moment ago you claimed you’d never seen such a rare wine, and now you dare to mock this uncle!”
“Oh my, did I ever say I had never seen that wine before? …Ah, perhaps you misunderstood because of how you asked for the whole bottle?”
Tapping her index finger to her chin, Irene tilted her head with an innocent expression.
“But Uncle… People are such that the more they have, the more they covet, don’t you think?”
Just like you, Uncle.
The words that followed were never spoken aloud. Not even her lips moved to shape them.
And yet, strangely, Leonard could tell. He knew she had swallowed those words down inside.
“Well then, everyone, enjoy yourselves!”
“Oh my, Marquis, are you leaving already?”
“Yes, I’m afraid it will take my darling far too long to freshen up and change clothes. I’m telling you now so no one waits for us.”
“Didn’t you just say you call the knight who protected you ‘Sir’ out of respect?”
“Oh my, what a slip! This is just how I am. I’ve let slip the pet name I only use when we’re alone.”
Irene arched her eyes into a smile and looked at Leonard, as though to say this was all his fault.
Now he just wanted to go home. Leonard looked back at her and lifted the corners of his mouth weakly.

* * *
When Leonard, having washed, changed clothes, and even applied salve to the cut on his finger, stepped into the guest room assigned to him, a guest who had arrived earlier was already sitting boldly on the sofa.
“You’re a little late. Come sit down. You must be exhausted after today.”
Leonard took the seat across from her without a word, as she gestured for him to sit like the master of the house. He didn’t complain, because she truly was the master of this house.
“Do you still have business with me? I think I’ve done everything I was obliged to do.”
Perhaps from fatigue, his voice came out a little curt.
Still, Leonard reasoned, she ought to understand. It was she who had dragged him around without so much as explaining anything.
Fortunately, as though she knew that very well, Irene smiled at him with an apologetic look.
“I wanted to offer you my apologies along with my thanks. Today I truly am sorry, and I’m grateful as well.”
As if to convey her sincerity, Irene bowed her head deeply.
Having spent half his life as a mercenary, Leonard had never much cared for polite greetings that couldn’t buy him a loaf of bread.
Yet seeing a Marquis of Blair bow her head like this made him think it was enough.
And he couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for her, wondering how desperate she must have been to choose a partner with so many flaws as himself.
“There’s something I’d like to ask…”
“Two or three would be fine, too.”
Irene nodded eagerly, her eyes shining as though she were waiting for him to do exactly that.
With the motion, her long, loosely unbound hair swayed. Only then did Leonard realize that she, too, had washed and changed her clothes.
She had taken off the corset that had cinched her waist and the petticoat that had puffed out her skirts, and now the outline of her body showed clearly beneath the thin fabric of an Empire gown that was nearly a nightdress.
Just then, Irene leaned her upper body slightly toward where he sat. A faint trace of perfume, likely soaked into her skin, brushed past his nose.
The tips of his ears flushed hot. Leonard turned his gaze toward the window behind her and fixed all his attention on the end of a tree outside, struggling not to stammer.
“Was there something in the wine Viscount Kalio brought?”
“Ah, I see.”
As if she had known he would ask exactly that, Irene laughed silently.
“So that’s why you shielded me and took the wine on yourself?”
“Well…”
Leonard had no intention of boasting about having revealed that fact, so he gave a vague nod.
“To be precise, I noticed the servant’s movements.”
I couldn’t say how it looked to others, but the movement behind his back, which I sensed through Ki Sense alone, had something decidedly unnatural about it.
The man had walked steadily until he drew near, then all at once he lost his balance. Just before that, he had tilted the tray crowded with wine glasses toward Irene.
Yet Irene, who could have had no way of knowing what was happening behind her, had gone stiff all over. As if she already knew what was about to happen.
“Was this arranged in advance?”
“Yes. If my uncle handed me a glass, we had agreed I would deal with it in that way.”
At her readily given nod, Leonard furrowed his brow.
“Isn’t that rather a drastic method? You could have simply spilled a single glass and used changing your clothes as an excuse to leave the room.”
Even if this gathering had been filled with only the people the Marquis of Blair had hand-picked, if word got out that she, having just announced her marriage partner, had been soaked in wine, even by accident, she would become the laughingstock of the entire Social Circle.
That was precisely why Leonard had gone out of his way to shield her.
If someone had to bear the scandal, wouldn’t it be more efficient for him, already so flawed, to take the blow? It was far better than letting the heroine of the evening be left a complete mess.
“If it were only that much, the man would have waited until I came back after changing my clothes. I needed some excuse, like being so shocked by the wine spilling that I’d taken to my bed.”
As though she didn’t care in the least if her own reputation suffered for his sake, Irene smiled with a carefree expression.
Her face made Leonard uneasy, and he narrowed his eyes as he studied her.
Even as he gazed at her like that, Irene only smiled brightly, as if she simply enjoyed this moment.
“Since we’re on the subject, may I ask you something as well?”
“If it’s something I can answer.”
Leonard nodded readily, yet made it clear there were lines not to be crossed, and Irene’s voice dropped a little.
“That wound on your hand… You did it on purpose, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
It wasn’t even a serious injury, yet Leonard fidgeted with his fingers, which the physician had come all the way to bandage, and answered.
“I thought that in that situation, a wound of that sort might prove useful.”
“Of course, that wound did help set the mood, but don’t do that again.”
Irene said in a firm voice.
“I’m not so incapable a woman that I need to draw blood before I can take the lead in a situation like that.”
“Not incapable…”
Leonard let out a brief laugh, as though he had just watched a red panda put on a show of ferocity.
“Then why would someone so capable play along with Viscount Kalio’s scheming?”
Frankly speaking, the scheme was so crude that calling it a scheme was generous.
Slipping something into a drink in a place crowded with so many people? If she collapsed right then, the first person to be suspected would be none other than himself, wouldn’t it?
Above all, Irene had already known Viscount Kalio’s plan.
If I were in her place, I would have pretended to drink the wine he offered, collapsed, and accused him of poisoning my drink.
It couldn’t be that Irene had failed to think of that, yet Leonard couldn’t help wondering why she hadn’t done so.

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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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