Translator: Nox

29 - Chapter 29

“Yes?”

Eloise didn’t understand him for a moment. Why was he suddenly offering to escort her every day when they had been talking about a deserter?

“Wait, just a moment. What are you talking about…?”

“The Summer Ball preparations aren’t finished yet, are they? There are still things I need your advice on.”

“That’s true, but that’s…”

“Exchanging letters isn’t bad, but as you saw today, things progress much faster when you come and explain in person. If we had handled today’s business by letter, it would have taken a month.”

“……”

He was right.

She wouldn’t have been able to mediate the merchants’ dispute right away, and she wouldn’t have been able to properly prepare the seating arrangements for the Banquet.

Eloise thought about the work she had returned with today, unfinished.

She had suggested doing the rest by letter, slowly, as if it were just a suggestion… but even she didn’t think it was possible.

‘I guess I have to go in person.’

Eloise recalled the preparations for last year’s ball. Her father, her mother, and even Emily had gone and stayed there for two weeks.

Even working there, they had been so busy, and no matter that the people working at Blissbury were the same, it wouldn’t be easy for Ryan, who didn’t know the situation there, to make decisions.

“And since Mr. Serverton is absent, isn’t Miss Eloise, as his proxy, now my co-manager?”

Co-manager.

Eloise’s heart fluttered at those words.

She cherished and loved Blissbury, which her father managed. But Eloise was always the manager’s daughter, not the manager herself.

Even if her father quit, Lord Stanford wouldn’t appoint her, who had been looking after it all this time, as the manager; he would send a new manager from out of town.

But now, because her father was absent, she could be called a manager as his proxy. Even a co-manager recognized by the new manager.

Even though it was temporary, it was the first time she had been called that, and the corners of her mouth lifted without her realizing it.

Ryan, seeing her expression, smiled.

“I think I have your agreement. Then…”

He dismounted and handed Emily the basket he had brought tied behind his horse.

“What is this?”

“Desserts made by Mrs. Parker. Take them and share them with your mistress and Mrs. Suberton.”

Emily’s eyes sparkled at the word “desserts.”

Emily’s basic skills were a bit better, but compared to the desserts of Mrs. Parker, who managed Blissbury’s abundant kitchen, she always made only rustic things.

The desserts that Mrs. Parker occasionally sent to Emily were a more luxurious and elegant world of longing.

“Thank you!”

Emily quickly took the basket as if someone would steal it from her, and hurried home. Then she turned her head.

“Miss, what are you doing! Come on!”

Judging by her energy, she would probably put one of the things in the basket straight into her mouth as soon as she got home.

“Go on ahead. Then…”

Ryan said with a smile.

“I’ll see you again tomorrow.”

Chapter 4: Gentlemen from the Capital

Phillip Osborne and Richard Cameron were quite famous figures in the Army Headquarters.

First of all, Phillip Osborne was the second son of the Osborne family, a prestigious family from the western region of Wales, and he had volunteered for the army as soon as he became an adult.

Dark brown hair and brown eyes. There was nothing particularly striking about him at first glance, but he was a handsome man with neat features.

His defining characteristic, at twenty-eight years old, was that he was very taciturn.

His father, worried about his son, had tried his best to have him stationed in the rear or at the Army Headquarters in the capital, but like his stoic appearance, his personality was even more stoic, so he headed to more dangerous places, contrary to his father’s wishes.

The place he ended up staying was the 57th Infantry Battalion. At first, he had silently helped Ryan Wilgrave, who was his colleague, until he rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, so when Ryan was promoted to lieutenant colonel, he was also promoted to lieutenant.

No one said that a lieutenant was nothing compared to a lieutenant colonel.

In the first place, it was absurd that Ryan had risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel at that age, and even Phillip being a lieutenant at his current age was a fast promotion that made the stuffy higher-ups frown slightly.

And Richard Cameron. Richard was even more famous than Ryan in other ways.

The third son of the Viscount Cameron family, which owned land north of Newham.

This alone made him a welcome presence anywhere in high society. He could enter any gathering without an invitation, and even if he suddenly showed up, no one was displeased; rather, they said that his presence made the occasion even brighter.

The reason he was welcomed was partly because his family was the wealthy and prestigious Viscount Cameron family, but more than that, it was because of his appearance.

So much so that his father, Viscount Cameron, had clicked his tongue, saying that his son looked like he would make women cry as soon as he was born.

As if those words were a prophecy, Richard Cameron grew up to be a dazzlingly handsome man that everyone blinked at for a moment.

So much so that when he was six years old, he was dressed in a girl’s skirt and sent to an event according to family tradition, and afterwards, everyone, boys and girls alike, followed him around.

People even called Richard Cameron “that pretty child.”

As he got older, he grew taller and his frame grew larger, giving him masculine lines, but his dazzling appearance didn’t go anywhere.

As a result, women always gathered around him even when he grew up.

Thanks to being the third son of a viscount and having good relationships with his brothers, he was promised a baronetcy. In addition, he even owned a townhouse of considerable size in the capital.

If you only looked at the conditions, he should have been one of the most sought-after bachelors in the capital, but mothers with daughters trembled at the mention of his name as if they had heard the name of a plague.

This was because he had very complicated romantic relationships with his looks and wealth.

He was rumored to be having affairs with four young ladies at once, and once, a fight even broke out in the middle of Newham Avenue, with young ladies from prestigious families grabbing each other’s bonnets and shaking them.

And such problems occurred at least once a month.

Eventually, those who could no longer stand it told Viscount Cameron. Please, manage your son’s lower body.

No matter how much he loved his son, there was no way that a viscount would remain silent after hearing such words.

“Richard! Get out of here and go to the army! Stay there and control your licentious lower body!”

That was how Richard Cameron joined the army.

Unlike Phillip, Viscount Cameron asked everyone in the military with whom he had connections to treat his son as an ordinary soldier.

Of course, some of them were fathers whose daughters had ended up as Richard’s one-season amusement, so Richard really only went around to the most dangerous places.

It was truly a miracle that he hadn’t died.

The 57th Infantry Battalion was where he stayed for a long time. He was also appointed as Ryan’s adjutant, and that was how he continued to stay there.

He became a second lieutenant along with Phillip when he was promoted to lieutenant.

“I should have been a captain… Did my father pull some strings?”

“No, I think your mouth didn’t please the higher-ups.”

Phillip retorted, but Richard didn’t listen and grumbled that he wanted to get leave quickly and go to the capital to play.

Although the two men had such different personalities, they were on good terms.

This was probably because they had a superior and friend in common, Ryan Wilgrave.

But Ryan had gone down to the countryside, citing recuperation as the reason, ahead of the Disciplinary Committee’s re-summoning.

He didn’t expect a letter from him.

Ryan was the type who neither waited for nor wrote letters.

But contrary to the two men’s expectations, a letter from Ryan arrived.

“He’s asking us to go to a tailor shop with his physical measurements that are still on file with the military and have new clothes prepared and sent to him?”

Phillip muttered, reading the letter as if he couldn’t believe it.

Richard’s eyes widened at those words as well.

Ryan, new clothes? And he’s directly asking for a proper suit?

He jumped up and snatched the letter from Phillip’s hand, examining it from every angle.

“It’s Ryan’s handwriting, but…”

Richard knew very well how much Ryan hated wearing suits. For Ryan to contact the capital and try to have a suit made for himself was unbelievable.

Richard looked at the letter several times as if he couldn’t believe it, then handed it back to Phillip and said.

“Ryan, don’t tell me he’s got a woman?”