Translator: Nox

45 - Chapter 45

‘Since when have I been calling him that?’

Eloise desperately tried to remember. She was sure she had been calling him Sergeant Thornton until she left the mansion yesterday…

“Ah.”

Soon, she found the moment in her memory when she had called him by his name.

<Ryan!>

That was definitely…

“I called him that in a hurry before I hit him with a rock…”

“Hit him with a rock? What do you mean?”

“Yes? The deserter was trying to kill Ryan, so I found the biggest rock nearby and used it to…”

“Oh, my God! So you actually picked up a rock and hit someone with it? Oh, my, how could you! More than that, how dangerous was it!”

“Madam!”

Mrs. Suberton held her forehead and staggered as if she were about to faint, and Emily hurriedly supported her. Eloise opened her mouth and asked Emily with lip movements.

Mother didn’t know?

Then Emily answered, moving her lips in the same way.

I just found out too?

‘Oh, dear.’

Eloise quickly got up from her seat. Then she said to her mother, who was struggling to get up.

“Come to think of it, the police officer said he wanted to hear the situation downstairs. I think I should go down now.”

“Wait, Eloise. Tell me more about what happened…”

“Emily, please take care of Mother. Okay?”

“Yes?”

Eloise pretended not to hear her mother and hurriedly got up from her seat.

Emily, who suddenly had to take care of Mrs. Suberton, looked at her with pleading eyes as if to say don’t go, but Eloise pretended not to see her and hurried out into the hallway.

“Eloise!”

Mrs. Suberton called her from the room, but she pretended not to hear that either and hurried down the stairs.

If she were caught by her mother now, she would have to tell her in great detail what had happened last night. And she would definitely faint several times in the process.

When Eloise came down to the first floor, Ryan, who happened to be out in the entrance hall, called her.

“Eloise? Is something the matter?”

He looked worried by her hurried appearance and walked towards her with a firm face.

His voice reminded Eloise of what her mother had said upstairs.

Her mother had said that she called him by his name comfortably.

She thought she was the only one doing that, but now she saw that he was calling her by her name as well. As if it were natural.

“No. I just came down to avoid my mother who was trying to catch me.”

Eloise briefly told him what had happened upstairs.

“Still, she must have been worried. You should have told her.”

“You don’t know because you weren’t there. If I start talking, she’ll really ask me about everything in great detail. She’ll faint about ten times before I even tell her half of what happened. Ah, if it’s okay, I can give you the opportunity to explain. Are you interested?”

At Eloise’s suggestion, he smiled and bowed slightly with a polite gesture.

“I respectfully decline.”

“…See?”

Why did he tell her to do it when he was going to decline anyway?

Eloise pouted with her arms crossed.

“Anyway, I might be able to take this opportunity to ask Father.”

“Ask for what?”

“A gun.”

“A gun?”

“Yes. I’ve always wanted one, but he wouldn’t let me. Come to think of it, I heard that more and more young ladies in the capital are carrying Self-defense pistol. Is that true? Have you ever seen one?”

She needed someone to ask anyway, and Ryan was the perfect person. He had been in the capital until recently, and as a soldier, he would know more about guns.

“I have seen them, but…”

Ryan desperately tried to recall the Self-defense pistol of the women he knew.

In fact, he didn’t pay much attention to such things.

The pistol was still not a very accurate weapon. Its killing power was also low.

Moreover, it was a weapon that often misfired when wet or on rainy days, so from a soldier’s point of view, it was not very useful.

“Have you ever used a Self-defense pistol?”

He wanted to say yes. For some reason, he didn’t like himself for saying he didn’t know in front of Eloise.

But he was an honest man.

“No, I haven’t.”

“I see.”

There was undisguised disappointment in her voice, as if she were sorry. Ryan regretted it. He had used a pistol before, so why hadn’t he told her about his experience using it?

Just as he was about to tell her about the Military pistol, Eloise asked another question.

“Do you happen to know the price?”

Fortunately, he knew that. He had heard weapon officials at the Army Headquarters say that Self-defense pistol with poor performance were several times more expensive.

When he told her the price he had heard, Eloise’s expression became more serious.

“It’s expensive.”

But when she thought about it, it wasn’t unaffordable. Eloise recalled the amount of money she had saved separately.

Could she give him that money and ask him to buy her a pistol?

“Are you thinking of buying one?”

“I’m thinking of giving the money I’ve saved to my father and asking him for it as a birthday present. I should send him a letter.”

At that moment, the police officer came out of the Reception room, saw Eloise, and asked if he could ask her about the situation as well.

Because of that, the conversation about the pistol was cut off there.

Watching Eloise’s back as she followed the police officer into the Reception room, he was lost in thought.

‘She’s asking for it as a birthday present.’

Then her birthday hasn’t passed yet this year.

Just then, Mr. Palmer was passing by in the lobby, so Ryan called him.

“Mr. Palmer, when is Eloise’s birthday?”

“Eloise? Let me see… Ah, it’s in October. I remember we had a small celebration in Blissbury last year. At that time, Mrs. Parker saw a newspaper article and tried to make a three-tiered cake that was used at a royal banquet…”

“Ah, thank you.”

He briefly greeted Mr. Palmer, who was about to reminisce about the past, and hurried into the Reception room.

As he did so, he thought.

‘If I order it now, I should be able to receive it well before October, right?’

The banquet preparations, which had been temporarily suspended due to the deserter incident, resumed the very next day.

<What banquet preparations! How can you work with such a scar left! You should be lying down until you recover!>

Mrs. Suberton was horrified and tried to stop Eloise. But Eloise looked at her scratched arm, pulled down the rolled-up sleeve, and covered the wound.

Then she said to Mrs. Suberton.

<Mother, do I look like I need to rest now?>

<…….>

Mrs. Suberton was blindly devoted to her daughter, but even to her, her daughter looked too fine.

Not at all like someone who had been attacked and injured while walking down the street in the middle of the night.

In the end, Eloise returned to Feltham with her mother and Emily, who had come in a hurry and had not brought anything with them.

It was only natural that Ryan accompanied them, as she did not feel safe even in broad daylight.

As soon as she arrived home, Eloise went up to her room and packed her bags.

Fortunately, Mrs. Suberton and Emily had already organized what they were going to take, so it didn’t take long.

“Please, Madam.”

Ryan loaded the Suberton family’s luggage onto the carriage with the coachman.

“Oh, thank you, Sergeant. By the way, could you load this too?”

Emily pointed confidently to a wooden box full of cooking utensils, and Ryan laughed, rolled up his sleeves, and picked it up.

“Oh, that’s so heavy that it’s hard to lift alone… It’s not hard?”

Emily’s eyes widened as Ryan easily lifted the box that she thought would be impossible to lift alone.

Mrs. Suberton watched the scene with satisfaction.

He quickly loaded the luggage bags in the house onto the carriage and saw Eloise coming down the stairs.

Seeing that she was also holding a large bag in her hand, he approached her as a matter of course and took her bag, and Eloise gladly handed him the bag.

“Is there anything else besides this?”

“No. I’ve been going back and forth recently, so I’ve brought most of what I need.”

“I understand. Then I’ll go to the carriage and wait.”

With that, he lightly lifted the bag that Eloise had been struggling to lift with both hands and headed for the carriage.

Meanwhile, Eloise checked the windows and doors of the house with Emily.

It will take two weeks until the end of the banquet. In the past, one of the three of them, herself, her father, and Emily, would stop by the house for a while, but this time, since her father was not there, there was no time for that.

When she locked the last window and closed the curtains and came outside.

“Eloise!”

Before she knew it, the village girls were gathered in front of her house.

They asked Eloise with shining eyes.

“Is it true that foreign spies invaded Blissbury and Sergeant Thornton led the people there with you and stopped them? They say the bodies were piled up like mountains?”

Eloise felt dazed.

Where and how did the rumor get so distorted?