The Mansion Awaits Spring - 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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Chapter 9
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Even after that, April remained in the basement and refused to come out, and the Police eventually decided to withdraw from the Lunos Estate.
That night too, every gas lamp in the grand mansion blazed alight.
Now that even the stakes that had obscured the view to some degree had vanished, the light pouring from the grand mansion felt like an enormous forest fire burning in the pitch-black night.
That brilliance was more than enough to unsettle every citizen of the Grand Duchy in the vicinity of the estate.
The following day, newspapers reporting on the incident were delivered throughout Right Island.
[Police investigating Lunos Estate fall unconscious en masse….]
Some tabloids had even run false stories.
[One police officer missing during investigation.]
[The Lunos couple’s curse ‘executes’ unwanted visitors to the mansion.]
It was the sensational, deliberate falsehoods that sold far better than accurate reporting.
From eleven in the morning, the Grand Duke’s Residence bustled with guests hurrying down from their carriages clutching newspapers—all of them eager to chatter about the articles.
Heidi Dieuls, the Grand Duchess, who did not particularly enjoy gossip, felt a headache beginning to set in.
Her husband and the Grand Duke himself, Miller Dieuls, stood beside the bed where she sat, pacing about with his hands clasped behind his back in an undignified manner.
“What if she really is a witch?”
“Then she’d have killed me first.”
At Heidi’s rebuke, Miller sighed.
“That’s precisely what I’m afraid of.”
Miller reproached himself for settling the matter with House Arrest.
He should have killed April Lunos as well and erased the Lunos Family from the world entirely.
Yet she had survived, and at least for today, April had become a figure far more terrifying to the citizens of the Grand Duchy than the Grand Duke himself.
As Heidi moved toward the door to leave, Miller blocked it and spoke.
“Fejin will be here soon. Let’s hear what he has to say before you go.”
“I’ll leave first.”
“You should at least know what we’re going to say before you leave.”
“I don’t want to see Fejin.”
Heidi spoke with obvious discomfort.
Only then did Miller press his hand to his forehead.
When Fejin had arrived at the Grand Duke’s Residence for the first time in ages, he bore a peculiar demeanor. More than seven years had passed—how much of that old feeling could possibly linger?—yet the ancient sentiment clearly made the married couple uneasy.
Miller spoke.
“There’s no helping it then. You go on ahead. Out you go.”
“I’ll say I know nothing.”
“We still understand each other perfectly.”
He answered with a faint smile, pressed a kiss to Heidi’s brow, and opened the door for her.
Not long after Heidi departed, Fejin arrived in the receiving room adjoining the bedchamber.
He yawned and sat across from Miller, legs crossed.
“Every guest in the Grand Duke’s Residence seems desperate to pin me down with questions.”
“They must have plenty of curiosity. The welcome party’s been postponed thanks to your lack of cooperation.”
“What business would the Police have at a party?”
“Perhaps you could offer some amusing stories?”
“All the more reason I shouldn’t attend then.”
Fejin replied as unhelpfully as ever, reaching over to pull two sugar-dusted biscuits from the table onto his own plate.
He spread butter between them, the granules tumbling down.
Fejin took a large bite of the biscuit. He remained equally unhelpful when Miller pressed him for information about what had transpired at the Lunos Estate. In the end, Miller could glean little from his brother.
* * *
The Grand Duchy’s flora was not abundant. Being so cold a land, the season when flowers bloomed was extremely brief, and the rest lay buried under snow.
Perhaps because flowers were rare, the people of the Grand Duchy possessed a remarkable obsession with them.
Left Island, situated far south of Right Island, produced a variety of flowers, and ships laden with blooms made the daily crossing between both islands.
The flowers that arrived each day by ship allowed the noble houses—including the Grand Duke’s Residence—to experience even a fleeting taste of spring and summer.
Once the flowers in those mansions began to wilt, they were returned to the market, where commoners would purchase them to decorate their own homes. Such was the value of flowers as a precious commodity in the Grand Duchy.
The garden of the Grand Duke’s Residence too displayed flower baskets arranged with care.
There, as Heidi soothed the anxious citizens speaking of the witch, her thoughts turned to Fejin Dieuls—her husband’s brother and his only family.
Heidi was pleased to have Fejin return, yet she did not wish to face him.
Even Miller himself could not say for certain what Fejin wanted.
Miller’s heart too resembled his wife’s; though he was gladdened by his brother’s return, he maintained a certain wariness toward him as well. This caution arose from the fact that Fejin was no longer the young child who had left this island all those years ago.
Until he could discern what his brother truly sought, Miller could not welcome him back with his whole heart.
Until now, most of the senior police officials in the Grand Duchy had been military officers from the Empire.
Fejin was the first generation of Grand Duchy natives who had graduated from the Empire’s military academy and received appointment as an officer in the Imperial Police.
His ultimate goal, having secured such an opportunity, was likely to reach the highest position available to an officer in the Imperial Police.
If that were the case, it posed no great problem. Once the April matter was resolved, he would return to the Empire—and that, Miller believed, would be beneficial to the Grand Duchy as well.
The difficulty lay in what else Fejin might desire.
Love, for instance. Or the restructuring of the Grand Duchy’s police system. Even his homeland’s prosperity was something Miller found himself inclined to guard against.
“Captain Fejin was such a dear child.”
With her usual serene smile, Heidi turned toward the woman who had spoken Fejin’s name.
She was a woman of the Soe Family, and the great-aunt of Paul Soe of the Special Investigation Bureau.
Since Paul Soe was Fejin’s right hand, anything said at this table would inevitably reach Fejin’s ears.
The great-aunt of Paul Soe continued, looking at Heidi’s face.
“Isn’t that so, Your Highness? He was always so eager to capture your attention.”
“He was at an age when he needed maternal affection.”
Heidi cut in gently.
The Soe woman had implied romantic attachment; the Grand Duchess redefined it as maternal love.
Yet at that very moment, Fejin’s figure entering the Grand Duke’s Residence thwarted the Grand Duchess’s efforts.
Born as the second son of the ducal house and orphaned in childhood, he bore that characteristic expression of one displeased with all the world—a roguish countenance.
Only his uniform and bearing, forged by discipline through his years at the military academy, remained impeccably proper.
The confusion between the compensatory freedom granted by adults who pitied his early loss and the strict regulations of the academy, which permitted him no autonomy, had shaped Fejin Dieuls.
“Goodness, how beautiful he is….”
The elderly woman caught herself muttering and hastily covered her mouth with her hand.
Even from a distance, Fejin retained the doll-like beauty of his childhood.
His smooth, pale skin and long lashes played the greatest role in shaping his beautiful face.
He himself had long since recognized his exceptional appearance.
With such a face, born into the most powerful family in the Grand Duchy yet burdened with no duties, it seemed there was nothing in the world Fejin could not obtain—save, perhaps, his parents and his first love.

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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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