6
Your Ryan
<Episode 6>
The door opened quietly in the dead of night. He immediately sensed the intruder, grabbed the dagger he kept by his bedside, and swiftly subdued them.
The intruder, revealed in the light, was a maid from the manor. She looked at Ryan and said boldly,
<What, you're not the Lieutenant Colonel. Let go of me. I came to the wrong room.>
Then, shamelessly, she claimed to have arranged a secret rendezvous with Lieutenant Colonel Ryan, who had returned to the manor today, and demanded he keep his mouth shut.
<But you, you're my type. How about tomorrow? I actually like all soldiers.>
The maid had the man she was looking for right in front of her, yet she didn't realize it at all. Ryan chuckled at her obtuseness.
It was fortunate that he had told the butler to say he was just a friend of the Lieutenant Colonel to avoid a flood of visitors. Otherwise, this strange maid wouldn't have given up so easily.
Ryan, after ordering the butler to dismiss the maid immediately, realized that even his own mansion in the capital was not a safe place and returned to the military headquarters, using the quarters there.
But even there, he couldn't find peace of mind.
Negotiations for the end of the war and discussions about the merits of the soldiers were beginning.
The process of preparing for the armistice negotiations was actually fine. The other side was a defeated enemy, and they were being very gentlemanly and cooperative in order to secure a more favorable negotiation.
What troubled Ryan were the Albion generals on his own side.
Before the medals were decided, a military awards committee was convened. There, Ryan had to listen to all sorts of things.
<We appreciate your service, but because you are not old enough, that medal is a bit…>
<Why did you retreat so quickly at the Ingon Battle? If you hadn't retreated then, we could have occupied it much sooner. Even ignoring the orders of the higher-ups…>
<I heard you were coercive towards the battalion commander in demanding independent operational rights. Do you have anything to say about this?>
Those who had been silent when the victories continued were now, with the war over, burning with zeal to tear down his achievements.
He was sick of their duplicity.
He had never set out to achieve great feats in the first place.
He only wanted to return alive with those around him.
He moved to survive, and in doing so, he saved everyone and defeated the enemy, and the world suddenly hailed him as a hero.
And now that a hero was no longer needed, they were trying to bring him down.
As his mind and body were becoming a wreck due to the constant summons from the awards committee, Stanford Baron, who had once been his superior, came to see him.
Stanford Baron, one of the few people Ryan genuinely respected, said to him with a serious face.
<You need a rest. Time away from these disgusting people, to spend in the embrace of clean, beautiful nature. Maybe then that dying complexion of yours will improve a little.>
Then he mentioned a place Ryan had never heard of, called Feltham.
<There's a small vacation home there called Blissbury. I don't get to go often, but it's one of my most cherished residences. If you were to go to such a rural place for convalescence, the awards committee wouldn't force a summons, would they? How about quietly resting for about half a year?>
It wasn't a bad suggestion. In such a place, there wouldn't be many people coming and going, so he wouldn't have to feel disgusted every moment looking at so many people, as he did in Newham.
Seeing Ryan's hesitant expression, Stanford Baron patted him on the shoulder and laughed.
<I guarantee it. You'll love that place. It's all beautiful things.>
…But he didn't.
Frankly, he didn't feel anything special about this place, having just arrived today.
The rural scenery he had seen all the way here was clean and quiet, unlike the village he had lived in as a child, but that was all.
A boring and quiet rural village, which might be even more difficult than being in the capital.
The wildflowers blooming in the fields and the clear, vigorously flowing river in spring might bring peace of mind, but they would soon become tiresome.
There was no way he could love such an unremarkable place.
Ryan couldn't help but smile wryly as he thought of Stanford Baron's face, who had confidently guaranteed he would like it.
In any case, his kindness was very much appreciated. So he would have to regain at least some stability here and return.
'I think he said the mansion's library was usable.'
He wasn't particularly fond of reading, but it seemed that reading was the only thing he could do here for half a year.
Superficially, he was the caretaker of the mansion, but since the real caretaker was someone else anyway, he could just stay quietly and leave.
In the meantime, would he be repairing the mansion or farming?
He casually draped the towel he had been using to dry his hair over the chair and looked again at the painting he had thrown on the table.
“…Eloise.”
The manager's daughter. He remembered her disheveled, light brown hair and the fierce green eyes that glared at him.
She was disheveled, but if she dressed properly, she would look like a lady.
'Come to think of it, I was introduced to her as Miss Eloise.'
In the Albion marriage market, women become anxious at the age of twenty.
She looked well over twenty, but the fact that she was still being called Miss Eloise meant that she, too, was one of the many women in the countryside who had missed her chance to marry.
'I must not get involved, even by mistake.'
If he were Ryan Wilgrave, he would have been disgraced and wouldn't have been approached so easily.
But here, he was Sergeant Ryan Thornton.
An unmarried soldier. And even he thought his body was healthy and his appearance wasn't bad.
He could well imagine how valuable he would be as a groom in this rural area.
Perhaps there would be someone who would try to marry him, even if it meant deliberately creating a scandal, as in the capital.
'She didn't exactly look like that kind of woman, though…'
He remembered the stubborn eyes and tightly closed lips that gradually hardened when he made those deliberately mischievous remarks.
She looked like she would slap him in the face at any moment, rather than cling to him.
Ryan chuckled softly and looked at the painting she had left behind.
It was still clumsy, but it wasn't bad. Then he saw the name Ryan Wilgrave written in the corner.
It was clear that she had added to his fake portrait. It wasn't even his real face anyway, so he could just laugh it off…
His gaze went to the bottom of the painting.
Yes, it was still too small, even after looking at it again. But for the sake of Ryan Wilgrave's honor, he couldn't show her his real one.
Feeling inexplicably wronged, he folded the paper and shoved it into the desk drawer.
In any case, for the sake of his quiet retreat, he had to make sure that this shameless woman never came to Blissbury again.
Abigail Ogilvy was the eldest daughter of the Ogilvy family and was always a calm and quiet woman.
She occasionally showed unexpectedly violent behavior, but it was only in front of a few close friends, so she was generally regarded as very docile.
Because she had suffered a major illness as a child, one of her legs was impaired, and her cousin, the Grand Duchess Clavis, who was saddened by this, had set up a trust for her to receive for the rest of her life.
One hundred pounds a year.
It was enough to live in the countryside with a maid.
Moreover, because she was still living with her family, she was able to save most of that money.
And in this Feltham, there were only two unmarried women who had secured financial freedom in this way.
One was Abigail, and the other was Eloise.
Abigail with the trust set up by the Grand Duchess, and Eloise with the savings that the Serverton couple, who had only her as a child, had set up separately for their daughter.
Because of these commonalities, the two had built a special friendship since childhood.
They could visit each other's houses at any time without making any specific appointments.
Today was no different.
"Eloise! I'm here!"
Abigail shouted at the entrance, leaning on her cane. Then Emily came out and greeted her lightly.
No matter how much Emily was in a hair-pulling relationship with the Ogilvy family's maid, she wasn't vulgar enough to greet a guest rudely.
"Miss hasn't come out of her room since yesterday."
"Why? Is she sick?"
Abigail, remembering that Eloise often suffered during this season, looked worried.
"I don't think so. She ate two plates of stew that I brought to her room without leaving a single bite. So I think she's heartbroken, but she's as tight-lipped as a clam, so there's no way for me to know."
Then Emily whispered to Abigail in a small voice.
"To be exact, she's been like this since she came back from Blissbury yesterday. So wouldn't you find out what happened to Miss?"
Abigail smiled wryly at the maid's words, who was dying to know why her mistress was lying down like that.
"Okay. The weather is so nice today, I'll have to drag her out for a walk somehow."
Leaning on her crutches, Abigail climbed the high stairs and knocked on Eloise's room, which had dried herbs hanging on it.
"Eloise."
…….
There was no answer.
After thinking about what to do for a moment, Abigail smiled and picked up her crutch. And then, without hesitation, she threw it to the floor.
