Chapter 15
“I’ve been thinking about it.”
Avery confidently took her place beside him as they walked.
“Would the culprit really stop at killing me? They were persistent enough to try twice.”
Karl was tall, and his strides were long. But she didn’t have to run to keep up. She glanced down with satisfaction.
Their steps were roughly in sync. Karl had slowed his pace to match hers.
“If someone held a grudge against you, it’s possible.”
“Against me? I can’t imagine anyone who would hold a grudge against me…”
Avery couldn’t answer with confidence. She had done quite a few questionable things in the past.
There was that time she followed around a young nobleman for a month. And the times she hid her identity as a count’s daughter, went into town, and stubbornly argued with merchants to lower the price of jewelry…
“Is there?” he asked.
“But that young lord started following my friend around and harassing her first! I only did the same to him. And that merchant really did quote an absurd price!”
Gasp. Avery quickly covered her mouth and stopped walking. Karl continued forward, giving her a knowing look.
“If you tell me the name of the young lord you followed and the jeweler who quoted the absurd price, I’ll look into it.”
By now, he could have told her to stop following him. Instead, Karl was actually listening to her.
But how did he know the merchant I argued with was a jeweler?
Avery hurried to walk beside him again.
“What if there really isn’t anyone who would hold a grudge against me?”
Karl glanced sideways at Avery, who was staring intently at him while walking. Once again, he gave her a patient reply.
“Then, as you said, the culprit may be planning another murder. They seemed to want to make their presence known, considering they left a mark.”
Right?
Avery looked at Karl with satisfaction as he gradually leaned toward her line of thinking. She planned to guide him by dropping small hints.
“So I thought about something else.”
“How about not thinking at all?”
“That’s impossible.”
Karl’s patience seemed to reach its limit first, and he subtly signaled for her to stop talking. She refused immediately.
He clearly looked annoyed. It even seemed like he slightly regretted accepting her.
No. I can’t back down.
But Avery couldn’t continue speaking. The butler, Wade, was waiting in the mansion’s central hall.
It didn’t matter for her, since she was a ghost. But to others, it would look like he was talking to himself.
“Ah, Your Grace.”
Wade greeted Karl with a troubled expression.
“What is it?”
“A guest has come to see you.”
There was no such thing as a guest arriving at the duke’s residence without Karl’s permission. Avery felt puzzled, but Karl looked openly irritated. It seemed he already knew who the uninvited guest was.
“Let her in.”
Wade seemed slightly relieved and immediately moved to carry out the order. Soon, the servants opened the doors, and the guest entered.
Avery stared blankly at the woman.
She had wavy ash-gray hair that shone softly. The white dress she wore fit her figure just enough and flared gently at the bottom, its frills neither excessive nor plain.
The necklace around her neck and the ornaments on her dress were not overly extravagant, yet her beauty elevated their value.
She looked exactly like the typical heroine of a novel—both in beauty and bearing.
Avery stood there in a daze before finally straightening herself. Even that was prompted by the subtle signal Karl gave her. Soon, she felt puzzled.
The woman was beautiful enough to be called the most beautiful in the Empire…
“Who is she?”
Avery didn’t recognize her.
She’s not our heroine.
She stared at the woman for quite a while, thinking hard, but couldn’t identify her. The woman smiled at Karl. She was truly beautiful.
“So you were here.”
“I was.”
“I was told you were away.”
The woman glanced at the butler, Wade. It wasn’t a reproachful look, but it could easily put Wade in an awkward position. Avery looked at Karl. As expected, he seemed unconcerned.
He ignores ghosts and people alike.
Should she be grateful for equal treatment, or tell him to fix that terrible attitude?
“I don’t recall hearing that you intended to visit.”
Karl also looked at Wade as if demanding an explanation. Wade carefully conveyed the facts without committing any rudeness.
“There was no prior appointment, but she came in person to arrange one.”
Without straying far from the truth, Wade made it clear that today’s visit was not directly arranged with Karl, while also preserving the lady’s dignity despite her arriving without an appointment.
“Would you care for some tea before you leave?”
“Are you busy, Your Grace?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Then I shall postpone it to another time.”
Karl answered without hesitation, as though accustomed to refusing. The woman did not appear embarrassed by the rejection. It almost felt as though she had asked only out of courtesy.
What is this? What’s with this atmosphere? This doesn’t feel like the first time.
The woman was no ordinary person. It was clear from the way she dealt with Karl.
“We’ll have many chances to meet in the future.”
Will that really be possible?
Avery studied Karl’s expression. With her well-honed instincts for reading the room, she was certain he would make sure the woman would never set foot in the mansion again.
In any case, with that meaningful remark, the woman placed a hand over her chest, bowed her head politely, and left without hesitation. Even her farewell was a textbook example of noble etiquette. From beginning to end, she was the kind of woman one could hardly look away from.
“Your Grace, that young lady is… Huh?”
Karl, who should have answered Avery, was no longer beside her. He had already left the mansion before she could stop him.
“We barely even discussed the culprit…”
She stared at the door he had exited through. She considered following him, but soon changed her mind.
She was no longer the Avery Grang of the past, who grew impatient and pushed recklessly when he wouldn’t respond. Now, she could calmly wait for him.
Instead, she turned her attention to the mysterious woman.
“Who is she, really?”
Though her appearance had been brief, the woman left a strong impression. All Avery could tell was that she was a noble lady of quite high status.
The butler held a respected position even within the ducal household. If he could not dismiss an uninvited guest, then she had to be at least a high-ranking noble—and someone with a close connection to the duke.
“I feel like I’ve seen her somewhere…”
“She’s a descendant of Lander.”
Startled by the low voice at her ear, Avery covered her ears and stepped back.
When she quickly turned around, the scholar ghost stood there—this time wearing a proper pair of glasses instead of his usual cracked ones. He adjusted them and greeted her with a nod. Avery awkwardly returned the greeting.
“That woman is from the Lander family?”
Lander was a house she recognized. After transmigrating, she had familiarized herself with various noble families, including the Marquis Lander family among the high-ranking nobles.
Briana Lander. Right, I think that was her name.
“I know the Landers very well.”
“……”
“They’re quite famous.”
The ghost tapped the book he was holding with his finger and fell into deep thought. Watching him, Avery felt a bit of regret again.
If only his eyeballs didn’t look like they might fall out of those eyes, we could have had a once-in-a-century romance…
He appeared to be around the same age as Avery, but she could never treat him casually. Sometimes, when he spoke, he sounded like an ancient elder.
Was he around since the founding of the Empire?
“Shouldn’t you, who’s younger than someone like me who’s been dead for ages, know more about this?”
The ghost’s casual question struck right at the heart of Avery, who had just relaxed.
“I wasn’t very healthy, so I didn’t go out much…”
She tried to trail off, but the scholar ghost didn’t let it slide.
“You must have had your debutante. She’s around your age, and you don’t know the daughter of Marquis Lander?”
“I’m not very good at remembering faces. You seem to know more than I do.”
“There’s nothing I don’t know. But one must not be arrogant. Learning never ends. Surely you don’t take scholarship lightly? A noble should, by all means—”
The ghost, who had been pressing her like an interrogator, began lecturing her about the proper mindset of a noble toward scholarship. Avery finally managed to escape his pressure and let out a sigh.
Avery Grang had made her debut at sixteen—before she had transmigrated. Afterward, she had studied up on most noble families, but that didn’t mean she recognized their faces.
“Has Lady Lander been coming here often?”
“Quite frequently, lately.”
“Why?”
The scholar ghost, still half-lost in his own world, gave a rather simple answer.
“Why else? To marry Graham.”
Avery, however, was unable to accept that answer so simply.
