Chapter 7
Annette R. Bonnel soon decided to set aside her interest and return to her original goal.
Whether Lionel Yorkshire was a good person or a bad person was irrelevant.
After all, the Yorkshires themselves were not a family friendly to the Bonnell business, and Baron Cobain had ultimately fled and twisted himself into knots because he wanted to catch the eye of this family… Just as she was thinking this and casually snorting, another voice interjected.
“There you are. I was going to warn you that Viscount Emmet J. Milton was looking for you.”
This time, the voice was husky, with a subtle Eastern accent mixed in.
“Too late. He was standing right where you are a moment ago.”
“Shall I leave? I just stepped away for a moment.”
This time, Lionel Yorkshire came out onto the terrace with the second guest. Annette R. Bonnel, inevitably intrigued, looked down below the railing. She could see the crown of his pearl-white blonde hair, kissed by the summer night’s light. Even the crown of his head was handsome.
“How’s your leg?”
“Saying it’s fine would invalidate the existence of the Moro Company.”
“How could you have such a stupid accident? It’s unlike you.”
The man hidden inside the railing held out a hand with a cigar, offering it. Lionel Yorkshire declined.
“It will leave a smell. I need to go downstairs.”
“Weren’t you just going to show your face?”
“Mother always wants me to be a bit more accommodating.”
It seemed he didn’t want to attend the party today but had to. The man who seemed close to him offered again.
“Go ahead if you want. You can blame the smell on someone else. The Duchess is already in the Platypus Den with that arrogant woman from Delannoy.”
Lionel Yorkshire, who had been rubbing his forehead in hesitant thought for a brief moment, seemed to lose the temptation. Slowly tilting his head forward, he accepted the cigar from the man’s hand with his lips. His smooth profile, naturally revealed, was like a sculpture. As the glowing orange ember touched the tip of the cigar, a subtle light settled below his cheek and jawline.
“And to settle the Viscount Emmet J. Milton problem at the same time.”
Indeed, a face that compromised reality.
“He seemed heavily drunk earlier. You must have had a tough time.”
‘Well, yes…’
She didn’t know the specifics, but she could imagine some aspects. Were those who made unreasonable demands only people who came to her family?
Shameless people are often without logic, and sometimes without respect for hierarchy. If everyone in the world possessed logic and respect, she would not be joking about being kidnapped as a child, and their vaults would not need to be locked with six different locks and keys.
How much more so for a person of Yorkshire’s standing?
Considering the man’s temperament she had briefly observed, he probably couldn’t be harsh in rejecting requests for favors. Usually, people who are naturally gentle…
“The most fucked-up thing, you see, is enduring the stupidity of those who drink more than they can handle, come crawling and whining, and think they’re going to amount to something. If they were half-witted, they’d at least get halfway there just by realizing they were half-witted.”
…people?
“They say the poorer they are, the stupider they get, and the more desperate, the more foolish.”
“He threatened to denounce Valtier if I couldn’t find a way to avoid the audit. That’s beyond an intelligence problem.”
“Is it a tragedy or a comedy that he brought ‘that matter’ up to you, of all people?”
“The way he’s finding his grave is astonishingly original.”
Annette R. Bonnel slowly blinked her eyelids.
…That’s strange?
“I just managed to muzzle Arch, and now Viscount Emmet J. Milton is a headache.”
“Ah, you took care of him?”
“I finished him. You know. It’s hard to solve things gentlemanly. I sent him to his Maker quietly with ‘this thing,’ so he won’t cause any more trouble.”
“That’s the best news I’ve heard today.”
…What am I hearing right now? What is ‘this thing’?
“How about controlling Viscount Emmet J. Milton?”
“The audit starts next week, right?”
“I haven’t checked the Tax Department’s schedule, but probably. Tell me if there’s anything I can do to help.”
“He’s wavering, so we need to deal with it before he makes up his mind to file the complaint.”
“How?”
Lionel Yorkshire chuckled low in his throat, taking a deep drag from the cigar and exhaling the smoke.
“…What if he’s in a state where he can’t?”
“Sounds like you’re cooking up another wicked plan.”
Annette R. Bonnel, nearly coughing from the rising smoke, instinctively covered her mouth.
Was she watching a scene from a play like ‘The Conspiracy of the Lambs’?
She couldn’t reconcile ‘that Lionel Yorkshire‘ with the words coming from ‘this Lionel Yorkshire‘. It was a powerful disbelief. So powerful that she wondered, ‘Couldn’t it be another gentleman in Lenore with the same pearl-white blonde hair and the name Lionel?’
“I need to move within two days to deal with Viscount Emmet J. Milton before the news of the audit is delivered. I didn’t want to go this far, but he dug his own grave…”
She had endured and endured, but she was frustrated. Eventually, a cough escaped her—cough—and her world, as she craned her neck and looked down in uncontrollable suspicion, coincidentally intersected with the other person. Lionel Yorkshire, who had been leaning against the railing, tilted his head back. That’s just how the world is, isn’t it?
A wisp of smoke drifted from his picturesque lips holding the cigar. Puff, puff. No sound.
“…”
“…”
In any case, Annette R. Bonnel got the chance to end her confusion, that is, to clearly ascertain whether ‘this Lionel Yorkshire‘ and ‘that Lionel Yorkshire‘ were the same person.
The conclusion was that while a person with pearl-white blonde hair and the name Lionel might exist in Lenore, that face—did not. That face, which money couldn’t buy, could not exist in two people in this party hall.
The cigar caught between Lionel Yorkshire‘s fingers dropped with a thud.
“Why did you stop talking? Is there something above…”
The face of the mystery man was finally seen, fleetingly. He wasn’t someone she knew; she only had the brief impression that he was a young, brown-haired man. The brown-haired man who met her eyes made a small circle with his lips.
“…Well, I’ll be.”
It was a beautiful night.
A night where men who had murdered someone and were discussing the next were looking at her, where the wind sang, ‘What are you going to do?’ where the bright, scattered stars whispered, ‘You’re ruined,’ and the crickets buzzed, ‘Big trouble.’
After a long while, Lionel Yorkshire, as if finally regaining his composure, called out to her.
“…Miss, would you mind coming down for a little talk?”
It was a completely different smile, and a voice that had softened to a chilling degree.
This was the reason why she launched her second chase. The only difference was that in the second chase, she found herself in the exact same position as Baron Cobain.
