13 - The Bride of the Great Lord is a Warrior from Hell
“Count Rokaz is said to be well-versed in imperial etiquette, so learn well from him. Your mother says the three of you are getting along very well these days. If you have any difficulties, tell your father anytime.”
“Yes, I will.”
“Learning well is good, but staying at home all the time isn’t good. How about going to nearby Ipsen to change your mood? It’s important to have some time alone sometimes, Alisha.”
Alisha almost made a sarcastic retort.
Oh, so you know my name?
Instead of uttering twisted words, she questioned the irritating words she had heard.
“Ipsen?”
At Alisha’s words, the Marquis smiled again.
It was a pleasant smile, as if Alisha understood his words well, as if they communicated well.
“In Ipsen, there is the McMahon family, who are friends with your father. The garden of the McMahon mansion is magnificent.”
“Doesn’t the McMahon family have a daughter?”
Ipsen, McMahon.
At the words that brushed past her ears, Alisha saw traces of the past.
The McMahon family has Albert McMahon.
He is the man who almost became Alisha’s second fiancé.
“Changing your mood doesn’t necessarily have to be through travel. It wouldn’t be bad to borrow Ludern at the request of the Imperial Family and have a light Tea Party. Is the Grand Duke doing a good job as a bridge between the Imperial Family?”
“The Grand Duke is kind.”
Alisha responded passively to the Marquis’s affable words.
“Alisha, you will have a lot to do when you become the Countess Echeveria. Just because you have a title doesn’t mean everything flows for free. You need many good friends to govern the territory.”
“Good friends.”
She couldn’t possibly not know who the good friends the Marquis was trying to introduce were.
“Of course, you are young right now, and Echeveria is far away, so you will have to appoint an agent. It’s a distant story for you, but time flows quickly. Even if the Grand Duke is good to you now, you can’t be sure how long that will last. You must pave your own way in advance.”
“……”
Alisha closed her mouth.
The Marquis, thinking her indifferent face was her usual passive attitude, spoke even more actively.
“You are my daughter. You have plenty of talent. You must make good connections before leaving for Tessen.”
Alisha let out a dry laugh that was barely a breath.
The Marquis’s face hardened instantly.
The affable and warm father who personally served tea to his daughter disappeared in an instant.
“Marquis Reine. Do you think I can still live in this land even after building immoral connections by flaunting the Imperial Family’s power, given that I am still unmarried?”
Alisha’s voice was calm as she spoke.
The shy and anxious face that was hesitant even with a brief glance was gone.
“Immoral? The Grand Duke and you are not formally engaged yet. You never know what might happen. Until the marriage vows are written, a noble’s marriage is uncertain.”
“Stop saying shameful things.”
The Marquis and Alisha glared at each other intensely.
“What is shameful? Is it shameful to make good friends to govern the territory well?”
The Marquis did not back down.
Alisha drank the moderately cooled tea in one gulp.
“Do you think you’ve become royalty just because you’re engaged to a member of the Imperial Family?”
“What did you just say…!”
Alisha put down the teacup as if throwing it and raised her voice.
“You’re flaunting your marriage to a member of the Imperial Family, and at the same time, you’re making good friends? Do you think I don’t know that the good friends Marquis Reine is talking about are the ones you’ve picked out as my marriage candidates?”
“How dare you……”
“Is it just me who knows that? Everyone in the world knows it. Do you think other people are living with ornaments on their heads?”
Alisha couldn’t help but frown.
“You’re young and don’t know about Grand Duke Tessen!”
The Marquis shouted with a cold face, as if revealing his true colors.
“It seems Marquis Reine knows a lot.”
Alisha’s face was also cold.
“It’s still uncertain whether he will formally marry you. The current Grand Duke Tessen goes to the battlefield more often than the previous Grand Dukes. Listen to what adults say. Would your father say something that would harm you?”
Alisha’s expression distorted as the Marquis continued to speak.
She thought she had thrown the past away in the past.
Alisha tried to think only about the future.
But for some reason, every time the Marquis spoke, she felt like the ghosts of the past were awakening.
The authority of the Head of the family.
The absolute position of the father within the family.
The helplessness of not even daring to resist the father who tried to move his children according to his will washed over her.
The oppressive orders that her father had given in the past, saying that it would not harm his children, poured down on her head.
“In the time I didn’t know, did Grand Duke Tessen die in the war or something?”
“What did you just say? If anyone hears……”
The Marquis looked at Alisha with a pale face.
“Weren’t you in the middle of telling me to seduce men with the position the Imperial Family gave me? Deceiving the Imperial Family is treason, and insulting or slandering the Imperial Family is also treason. Are you only afraid of being caught insulting the Imperial Family?”
The Marquis shouted with an unusually angry face.
“What do you know about war? Do you really not understand your father’s concern!”
His face, shouting with veins popping out of his neck, was violently distorted.
Alisha did not feel even a little bit of the agonizing paternal love of a father worrying about his daughter in the face before her.
Only the annoyance surging in her heart grew larger.
“Marquis Reine. Since when have you been my father? If I hadn’t been your daughter, you would have buried me with my birth mother.”
Alisha spoke without hesitation to the angry face.
“How dare you……! Have you forgotten who I am!”
One of the few great nobles of the Empire.
The great family of the North.
The Marquis, who had been raised from childhood as the sole heir of the family, was as arrogant as royalty.
“I know. If nobles were allowed concubines like royalty, you would have thirteen wives and twenty-six concubines.”
At Alisha’s sarcasm, the Marquis’s shoulders twitched.
It was clear to see that his face was stiffening.
“You……”
Seeing the Marquis, who had always seemed so huge, falter, various emotions passed through her.
Alisha shook off the emotions floating on her face and returned to the composure she had when she entered the room.
But the unreserved words continued.
“Marquis Reine. Stop thinking about selling me to grow the family. And quit the absurd Salt Mountain development investment.”
The Marquis was just listening to Alisha’s words.
“……”
Surprise flashed in the Marquis’s eyes.
It was an unbelievable expression.
Alisha continued to speak to the bewildered face.
“Stop expressing your inferiority complex to your son for not being able to do what you can’t. No one looks down on Marquis Reine for not being able to ride a horse, shoot an arrow, or have mediocre swordsmanship. Also, stop urging him to do better just because he resembles you too much. Learn the tolerance of the Council of Elders, who embraced the countless mistakes you made when you were a Baronet. This is your daughter’s last piece of advice.”
Harry was particularly prominent within the family.
The Marquis unknowingly harassed his son, who flaunted what he did not have, to prevent him from standing out.
He favored his eldest son, Felix, who resembled him, and at the same time, pressured him to do better than he was now.
Absurdly, the Marquis designated Harry, not Felix, whom he had favored and trained as his successor.
It was out of the belief that the son who had what he did not have would grow the family anew.
The Marquis divided his two sons.
The family began to collapse from within due to the wrong successor designation.
Outwardly, he poured out his fortune to break off the wrong engagement.
Alisha paid her respects to her father and headed for the door.
“You! Can’t you stand there? Do you think you know everything? Grand Duke Tessen is……!”
The Marquis shouted as Alisha opened the door to leave.
“Grand Duke Tessen will become the best warrior, writing a record of undefeated for the next 10 years. Marquis Reine, please govern the Reine family well.”
“I haven’t finished speaking yet! I told you to wait!”
The Marquis shouted loud enough to hurt her ears, making it pointless that they had emptied the surroundings for a secret meeting.
“I designate Francis Apel as the agent of Countess Echeveria. I will choose Harry Molston Reine as the guardian of the Countess’s agent. I will choose Felix Henry Lane as the mediator between the County and me.”
“Alisha!”
“I believe my intentions have been fully conveyed.”
Alisha said her last words and left the room.
In the vision of turning around after closing the door, a frozen face was caught.
Harry, standing at the end of the hallway, was not smiling as usual.
It seemed that the sounds made inside had all leaked out into the hallway.
Alisha tried to pass Harry, who was stiff, not knowing what face to make, without saying a word.
“Alisha, are you okay?”
The second son of the Reine family resembled the Marchioness and his maternal relatives more than Marquis Reine.
So, he had been secretly pushed out within the family since he was young.
Harry always dispelled the awkwardness around him with a smiling face and banter, but he was not always happy.
It was the same now.
He must have been flustered, but he was trying to smile and asked Alisha if she was okay.
“I’m okay.”
Alisha gave her answer and walked down the long hallway and down the stairs.
She was a little ridiculous.
She thought she had poured out all the things she wanted to say to the Marquis, but that was not the case.
Even after going to hell and back, her father was like a huge wall to her.
“I’m sorry for coming without an appointment. It doesn’t seem like a good day today, so I’ll be going. Will you see me off?”
“Yes, let’s go.”
The butler, hearing the Grand Duke’s words, stepped back gently.
The Marquis would soon be informed of the Grand Duke’s visit, but there was nothing to worry about.
“There will be various problems in the territory.”
Reikart said to Alisha, who was walking ahead as they left the mansion’s entrance.
It was a sudden and unexpected remark.
“Yes?”
Alisha stopped walking and turned to look at the man.
“I mean that the Marquis’s advice is not always wrong. Good connections and an authoritative status are a great help when governing a territory. If you’re just making good friends, then gender shouldn’t matter to suit the character of royalty.”
Reikart said, standing side by side with Alisha.
Alisha belatedly understood what the other person was saying.
He was talking about the words that the Head of the family and Alisha had shared in private.
