The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 38

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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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Episode 38
“The Chief will be here shortly.”
April offered her thanks as Paul stepped back.
“Thank you for dancing with me first.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Even if it was an order, it wasn’t easy to do.”
Paul replied with awkward politeness to April’s smile.
“It was my honor, truly.”
* * *
The Year-End Patronage Party at the Grand Duke’s Residence was an important event, attended mostly by influential families and their children in modest numbers. At such a gathering, a greeting from the host was essential to blend in naturally—all the more so for April, returning to High Society after seven years.
Pejin made his way to the table where Deus and his wife sat.
Seats had been reserved there for Pejin and his escort at a table made up of the people they trusted most.
Pejin had informed Heidi beforehand that April would be accompanying him, yet she now turned away as if learning of an uninvited guest’s arrival for the first time.
Pejin was fond of her, and so kept nothing to her detriment from his lips. Instead, he leaned down and spoke in her ear.
“You should greet her.”
“I’m sorry.”
As Heidi offered her apology, Miller called to Pejin in a lowered voice.
“Pejin, have you lost your mind?”
“We can’t know what Lunos is actually scheming if she stays cooped up in the Mansion. I need to bring her out where there are crowds—especially where there are people she dislikes.”
“Why does it have to be here?”
“Because the person she hates most is here.”
“That’s reckless. What if someone gets hurt?”
“Honestly, how is she going to hurt anyone? Besides, the police are watching her constantly. Stop worrying.”
At Pejin’s firm stance, Miller wrapped his throbbing temples with his hand and spoke.
“It’s not too late. What the police can’t do, the church can——”
Miller realized mid-sentence that his words had been a slip. As expected, Pejin turned to look at him. Miller hastily apologized.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disparage the police.”
“I know you’ve always looked down on them.”
Then Shaper Meyer, their cousin seated at the same table, spoke.
“You bring a woman who hired someone to kill Miller, and you throw a tantrum about it—what’s wrong with you?”
Shaper Meyer, whose mother was an imperial princess and whose father was the Chief of Police of the Grand Duchy, had grown up arrogant and heedless of consequence.
With brilliant blonde hair and riding breeches so tight they showed the definition of his thigh muscles, he had always been someone who grated on Pejin’s nerves.
“I just explained it. Why did I bring her. That head of yours still can’t understand a thing the first time, can it?”
“What, you bastard!”
Hot-blooded Shaper stood up noisily, his chair scraping loud.
Many were hoping for the party’s first fight, but between these two ancient rivals, violence could have ended the whole event.
Heidi rose to mediate, gently stroking his shoulder.
“All right, I’ll greet her.”
The moment she draped her arm around him, Pejin stopped and answered.
“Thank you.”
“In exchange, will you dance my first dance with me?”
At her request, Pejin simply looked at Heidi in silence.
“Hmm?”
When Heidi asked again, Pejin answered.
“Of course.”
Having secured his agreement, Heidi kissed her husband’s forehead and asked Pejin to escort her.
Miller took the kiss as a sign to wait patiently, slowly regained his composure, and resumed his conversation with acquaintances.
Heidi, however, could not.
Miller’s hatred of April was not absolute.
Though he saw her as an obstacle to love, his resentment of the Lunos Family as rivals ran deeper still.
But Heidi Deus hated only April Lunos with perfect clarity.
Moreover, she had never forgotten one fact.
Everything she had built so far stood on precarious sand.
On the fact that Heidi Basanta had stolen another woman’s betrothed.
She feared the moment when people would notice this had become a problem. For now, April played every villainous role, but one could never predict which way High Society’s thin ear might turn.
Many in High Society secretly longed for the fall of the woman who had risen highest among them. As they had savored April Lunos’s ruin, it was merely a matter of amusement.
As Heidi walked with Pejin’s escort, she murmured.
“She’s beautiful.”
The twenty-two-year-old April Lunos, approaching with her escort, had a shockingly beautiful face.
She had inherited it whole from the father for whom countless women in High Society had once fought. And she bore too the sharp, searing gaze of Lunos’s wife, the victor of that struggle.
Heidi Deus’s wound throbbed.
“A daughter of a family that dealt in piracy.”
“Taking what belongs to others must be their family tradition.”
“Like you did.”
The voice and gaze of that young, fourteen-year-old girl looking down at her echoed in her mind.
When Heidi stood before April with tangled feelings, she noticed April’s chest rising and falling rapidly.
‘Ah, she’s angry.’
Heidi smiled faintly.
Merely being in the same space as the Deus couple seemed to cause April Lunos pain like lightning striking through her body.
In the end, the victor of this war was herself. It was Heidi who had taken on the Deus name.
Instead of a greeting, she quietly drew April into an embrace and spoke softly.
“So now only a pirate family remains.”
“…….”
“How pitiful.”
She felt April’s rage in her arms—veins bulging as if they might burst, a heartbeat audible as if at her ear.
Though Heidi had tried to forget and never truly anticipated meeting her again, she found she could not stop smiling.
Only as she held April Lunos did Heidi recognize that she had been waiting for this moment.
She was curious what April would say. Slowly, she released her arms and met her eyes. The gaze had not cooled, and anticipation stirred in her.
April opened her mouth.
“I still exist, so the Lunos Family remains as it was.”
Can love run deeper than this feeling?
“So long as the Grand Duchess lives, Basanta will also remain unchanged.”
If, after thousands of years, a person forgot one of eternal love or eternal hatred, she thought that would, honestly, be love.
Heidi answered in a pleasant voice.
“Basanta? I am Deus now. I married Miller.”
Heidi reminded April of what she had taken from her. She even glanced at Pejin standing beside her and asked.
“Isn’t that right, Pejin?”
Pejin smiled.
“Yes. The Grand Duchess now belongs to House Deus.”
“Then.”
Heidi extended her hand.
“Will you dance with me as promised?”
Pejin understood that Heidi had invited him to dance for this very moment, yet without comment he took her hand and walked toward the center of the Ballroom where couples danced.
As Pejin danced with practiced ease, Heidi asked.
“Am I a disappointment to you?”
Pejin shook his head and answered.
“You did well.”
“Did well?”
“I saw firsthand how arrogantly April carried herself. And besides——”
“Besides?”
“It was exactly the sort of thing the Grand Duchess I know would do. And I loved that Heidi Basanta.”
At his calm reply, Heidi’s foot faltered, but Pejin, as if anticipating it, caught her waist with both hands and steadied her before she could fall.
He righted her, meeting her startled gaze, and spoke.
“So you may use me this time, but not after.”
Heidi hesitated, but soon smiled and nodded.
Up close, he had grown far more than she had realized.

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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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