Chapter 166
* * *
However, she imdiately bit her lip, saying ‘No.’
“Attaching other feelings to that beautiful master-servant relationship is nothing short of an insult to both families!”
That was a very correct statent.
Between him and her, there was trust and a robust master-servant relationship that the two families had built over many years.
Having illusions about his special kindness or their particularly close relationship and harboring other feelings was clearly a mistake.
Moreover, that mistake was no different from betraying her adoptive parents.
She…couldn’t recklessly grow such feelings.
“…”
lody managed to tear her gaze away from him and pretended to look out the window.
It would be better to do that until they arrived at the mansion.
If he was out of sight, she could at least escape from these strange thoughts.
…That was a complete illusion.
Even if she didn’t keep him in her view, she couldn’t shake off from her consciousness the fact that they were together in such a confined space.
Moreover, strangely, in the quiet carriage interior, the sound of their clothes brushing against each other kept being heard.
At the faint sound of different fabric textures eting and flowing, lody unconsciously found herself listening attentively.
Soon, a tingling sensation crept up the back of her neck.
Why was this happening?
It was really just a sound that ant nothing.
Sothing very small and trivial that she wouldn’t have paid attention to normally…
In the end, unable to endure it any longer, lody abruptly turned her legs towards the corner of the carriage.
As he turned his head to look at her, lody quickly answered with a bright smile.
“I thought it might be cramped for you, Young Master.”
“Ah. I made you uncomfortable, sorry about that.”
Fortunately, he didn’t seem to have noticed things like the sound of their clothes brushing.
It was clear seeing how he casually apologized as if it was nothing.
lody shook her head while suppressing the sohow disappointed feeling.
“No, it’s because my carriage is so small to begin with.”
“I think it’s cute. Miss lody’s carriage, that is.”
Calling the carriage cute.
Thanks to those strange words, lody could think about the complint he gave last ti saying “You’re so adorable, what should I do?” from a new perspective.
In the sense that his impressions of the carriage and lody were exactly the sa.
‘Well, since the carriage is the feet and I’m the hands.’
Perhaps he had been treating them the sa way.
“…”
“I’m fine, so please sit comfortably, Miss lody.”
“I’m fine too. We don’t have much distance left to the mansion anyway.”
As she turned to look outside the window again while saying that, Claude hesitated for a mont before carefully asking a question.
“Miss lody, are you perhaps busy? Do you…not have ti?”
lody turned to him with slightly surprised eyes.
Until now, he had rarely politely asked lody for her ti. It was natural since she was a “Higgins.”
Even when he did say sothing about requesting her ti, it was just to confirm.
But now it seed quite different from that.
He looked anxious to the point of impatience. As if…he was worried she might refuse.
“I have ti. But…why?”
“I was wondering if you could spare so ti for
if it’s alright.”
“Um, Young Master. Did I perhaps…do sothing wrong?”
lody thought that unless that was the case, she couldn’t explain his attitude that was sohow different from usual.
“…Have I been that rude usually?”
At the question he asked as if sad, lody shook her head.
Actually, there were tis when she did think he was a bit rude… But she couldn’t honestly say that was the case.
Wouldn’t that be no different from directly handing him lody’s weakness?
She couldn’t give him an excuse to act an, saying “It’s okay to bully you, right? I’m a rude person anyway.”
“Even if you ask probing questions like that, I won’t fall for it. I’ll give the proper answer as a Higgins. As a Baldwin, you have the right to my ti.”
The clever answer she gave was worth full marks.
But it seed to be far from what Claude wanted. He shook his head for a mont and apologized in a small voice.
“I’m…sorry.”
“Why?”
At the question asked out of pure curiosity, Claude had no particular answer.
It felt sowhat strange to apologize for treating her as a Higgins when she was one.
“I think I should have…asked for your ti a bit earlier. I asked too suddenly.”
“If it’s about that, you don’t need to apologize anew.”
lody thought his attitude was strange today and added a bit more to her words.
“If you hadn’t co, I would still be worrying about how to get out of that music room even now.”
“Thank you for saying that.”
“Not at all. But where are you trying to go?”
lody looked out the carriage again. Before she knew it, they had moved a bit away from the road to the ducal residence.
“To Jeremiah’s land.”
“The Magic Tower?”
“No, we’re really going to that child’s land. We jointly lease a fertile piece of land on the outskirts.”
“Oh, um. Do you have so work for
to do there?”
At the question she asked just in case, he buried his face deeply in his hands for so reason.
This ti too, he seed to be regretting sothing, but lody couldn’t discern his intention at all.
“Young Master?”
“I’ve truly committed many sins. Why do I keep…”
“Yes. But that’s not exactly new information.”
Completely discouraged by the calm answer he received, Claude was barely able to speak until they arrived near the destination.
* * *
Jeremiah and Claude were actually not that close.
Of course, compared to long ago, they had gotten quite close. At least they had reached a relationship where they exchanged greetings pleasantly when eting.
However, there was always a strange, unbridgeable gap between them.
While such a relationship continued, one spring day.
Very rarely, Claude received a request from Jeremiah.
“I need a guardian’s signature, big brother.”
Saying that, he abruptly handed over docunts about leasing land.
As the mage Baldwin, Jeremiah paid taxes and attended the imperial palace on behalf of the Tower Master, but his age still hadn’t reached adulthood.
Because of that, there were occasionally so restrictions in paperwork, and it seed there was such a problem again this ti.
“May I ask this of you?”
“Of course, it’s not even sothing to ponder.”
Without much contemplation, he finished signing at the bottom of the docunt Jeremiah presented.
“Thank you. But big brother, you shouldn’t sign without properly examining the contents.”
Perhaps out of worry, Jeremiah carefully offered advice, and Claude laughed out loud.
“Of course I don’t usually do this. I’m trusting you.”
At his words, Jeremiah frowned and turned his head for so reason.
Maybe he was feeling embarrassed.
“Got it, I’ll go properly check out the land and et the people involved too. That should do, right?”
“No! There’s no need!”
“No, for so reason I feel like doing that now. You’re not planning to prevent the guardian’s visit listed on the docunt, are you?”
“…I should have asked Father.”
“I’ll be better, Father would have definitely only signed after checking the land’s composition and owner’s history.”
Jeremiah nodded slightly. In fact, that was why he had decided to ask Claude.
“I understand. I have no choice.”
Jeremiah fiddled with his glasses and permitted his visit.
“I’ll bring Ronny too.”
“Ronny has already been there. He helped choose the land together.”
“As expected, you two get along well. Then I’ll have to go with Miss lody.”
“While I have no intention of stopping even Higgins’ visit, please make sure Loretta doesn’t co close by any ans.”
Jeremiah was quite fond of Loretta in his own way, but he extrely avoided bringing that child to his workplace.
Claude found that aspect of Jeremiah a bit intriguing.
Not even knowing Loretta was a Physis, he always prevented her from coming near places related to magic.
‘Could he have noticed sothing?’
It seed mages had much better minds and developed intuition compared to ordinary people.
Anyhow, following Jeremiah’s insistence, Loretta had been unaware of this land’s existence for the past year. She likely would continue to be so in the future too.
As they approached the destination, the carriage gradually began to slow down.
The land Jeremiah cultivated was surrounded by a white fence. Inside, different shaped green leaves filled each furrow.
“Could this be a place where Young Master Jeremiah researches plants?”
lody happened to know that herbology was one of the research fields of mages.
Most of the dicine used in the ducal household was made and sent by Jeremiah after all.
“It’s similar. Jeremiah is attempting to cultivate them to reduce the ti spent searching for dicinal herbs in nature.”
“Ah, that’s certainly a good thod.”
Rather than searching for plants whose location was unknown, growing them like this might be better.
“But there seems to be a difference in efficacy. It’s giving Jeremiah quite a hard ti. He said it will take several more years.”
Finally, the carriage stopped, and Claude pushed the door open.
Just then, a hot sumr breeze blew through the dicinal herbs and rushed inside. Carrying a fresh scent.
Claude got off first and extended his hand.
“Be careful getting off, the ground is soft. I should have brought comfortable
shoes.”
“I’m fine.”
lody got off the carriage and smiled confidently.
“I grew up close to the soil.”
However, there was one thing she had overlooked.
The fact that in the childhood days when lody was close to the soil, she didn’t wear
shoes with such thin heels like this.
“Ah!”
By the ti she realized her thinking was wrong, the thin heel had already sunk into the ground.
With a feeling like the bottom was collapsing, lody nearly fell backwards.
If Claude, who happened to be holding her hand, hadn’t quickly pulled her into an embrace, she would have landed on her bottom with an unsightly thud in front of the carriage.
‘Phew, that was close…’
But about 5 seconds later.
lody thought it might have been better to sit on the ground instead.
Because she had thoughtlessly grabbed onto him out of fear of falling over, sohow it ended up looking like lody was fervently clinging to him.
‘Ah.’
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