Episode 189 Shadow Peace – Winter in Aquitaine (2)
“Your Excellency Count Pear, I will-”
“No, I will do it. …Still, it’s hard, so would you mind just helping me out a little?”
“Then.”
Even with the help of the butler, Christine had to struggle a lot to bring Louis into the room.
The servants who had been dozing off wondering if Louis would ever come back were very frightened.
“Your Excellency Count Heeouk!”
“I’m sorry!”
Christine burst out laughing as it was somehow funny to see them flustered and herself sweating profusely with no grace or anything, with her hair sticking to her forehead.
Then the butler looked down at Lewis, who had been laid down on the bed with the help of servants.
10 years ago, before that incident, I was completely a child when I was being treated quite warmly.
There was a time when I carried him on my back, but before I knew it, he was a head taller than her.
It was hard to drag Lewis, who started dozing off drunk as if he had called her so stupid, to his room by myself, let alone carrying him like in the past.
Christine looked at Lewis, who was sleeping oblivious to the world, for a moment and then turned her back.
“I will take you there.”
“No, it’s not at home anyway. “It’s already late at night, so go and rest, butler.”
“Hmm, then rest in peace, Your Excellency the Count.”
The old butler bowed his head and walked away with a look of relief on his face, and Christine glanced at the back of his head.
If she skips a meal because she’s busy, she quickly confesses to Pierre and although he doesn’t know who she serves, they soon get used to each other.
On the way back to the room.
Only the sound of her shoes echoed in the darkened hallway late at night.
The hallway she walks through is not like that of the Aquitaine mansion in the south.
Nevertheless, somehow, I feel a strange sense of déjà vu as I walk down the hallway of the mansion with all the lights turned off in the middle of the night.
However, what fills this dark space is not the silence and uneasiness that remain after her happy childhood was washed away with blood.
Christine slowly walked down the hallway and headed to her room.
I’ve been waiting for quite some time.
It may not be possible to wash away all the sins she has committed, but at least with the thought of giving the innocent child back the rights she should have had.
However, the child neither considered himself innocent nor did he consider it his right.
In the first place, he is no longer even a child she needs to take care of.
-So what are you going to do now?
-well. I was just trying to do what you wanted me to do.
-If you don’t want to inherit Aquitaine, I don’t want anything from you. You are free, Louis.
Lewis burst out laughing.
-Then, shall we go to the Magic Tower and study a little more first?
-huh? Didn’t you graduate?
-Well, I thought this would be helpful enough, but it wasn’t. The owner of the tower also said that it wasn’t enough, and that was true.
Lewis spoke with a manly expression even though he was slightly drunk.
-I…there is someone I want to look good at and stand on equal footing with, and that person is quite capable, so I think I should become just as great.
-…female?
-That’s right. What’s the problem? You act like you would give anything to the Marquis de Lafayette!
Christine burst out laughing.
But Christine couldn’t help but smile as she walked out of the room and toward her closet.
Christine opened her closet.
Several similar simple black dresses without any special decorations were worn as mourning clothes.
Christine slowly looked away from the clothes she had placed in the most comfortable position and looked at the rather decent dresses that other ladies might wear.
Then, she tried to imagine herself wearing that dress, but it didn’t work, so she gave up and smiled bitterly.
10 years.
For more than a third of her life, she has lived with a clear goal.
However, the feeling that comes after being denied by the younger brother is as great a sense of despair as it is a sense of liberation.
Christine slowly went out to the balcony.
The night breeze cooled her, so Christine closed her eyes and felt the breeze for a moment.
Winter passed and spring came, and even though there was a moderately warm breeze, the coolness was short-lived and my body, sweating from trying to carry Louis, soon began to feel chilly.
Christine suddenly thought that she wanted to see Pierre.
Then, I opened my eyes and made eye contact with the person standing in front of the mansion, so I blinked blankly.
A man looking up at her room on the second floor.
Christine narrowed her eyes.
“Pierre?”
Did you drink too much to deal with Lewis?
Even though I thought I wanted to see it, I see everything in vain.
“Christine.”
Christine shook her head, but heard an answer out of nothing, and muttered absentmindedly.
“Oh really Pierre?”
Then Pierre also slowly tilted his head and spoke doubtfully.
“…Are you really Christine? “Something is out of the ordinary.”
“Now wait a moment.”
Christine went into the room in a huff and was looking for clothes to put on, but when she turned around, she was startled.
“oh!”
Before I knew it, Pierre had leapt to the second floor and was standing on the balcony, pretending to knock.
“Excuse me, can I come in late at night?”
Christine wondered if she had ever been this embarrassed.
If your head is spinning, it’s definitely because you’re drunk.
So this is Lewis’s fault.
The child was drinking so refreshingly that she followed suit without realizing it and ended up drinking more than she normally would.
That’s why I become so distracted in front of him.
Christine could barely calm down as Pierre stood still, smiling slightly and still pretending to knock, waiting for her.
“Please come in.”
“Then thank you.”
Christine asked Pierre only after she had been brought into the room.
“What’s going on?”
I felt like it was somehow a mess.
Pierre seemed to be holding back laughter as if he was thinking the same thing, but he quickly calmed his expression and answered.
“I just want to see you. “Isn’t that enough?”
I just wanted to see it, so I stood in front of my fiancee’s mansion late at night and just stared at the room?
It’s a complete mess.
Even though it was a complete mess, Christine couldn’t stop laughing because she found Pierre’s face looking cute.
The fact that she looked out at the balcony, blankly thinking that she wanted to see him, was probably not a coincidence but an inevitability.
“…Well, a little. It’s a mess, right? Yes, it’s okay to laugh at it. “I must have messed up my head after being bothered by Dumont so much.”
Dumont.
Baron Dumont. Information naturally comes to mind that he is a loyalist of Toulouse and is dissatisfied with Pierre because he was only betrothed but did not marry him.
Christine burst out laughing even more because she seemed to know roughly what the situation was.
In fact, it was probably entirely his fault that Pierre got into trouble, but the fact that he somehow felt better and couldn’t stop laughing must have been due to his drunkenness.
Now Pierre’s expression became more subtle, and Christine smiled and apologized.
“I’m sorry, Pierre.”
“No, I am truly sorry. It’s only been a few days since the war ended and we returned to the capital. Ah, don’t misunderstand. I know it will take some time for you to come to a conclusion with Lewis. “I waited 10 years anyway, so nothing will happen if I wait a little longer.”
Christine smiled and looked at Pierre, who was trying hard to explain.
Return Aquitaine to Louis.
She ran all the way here just for that and had no future plans at all.
I thought that after handing over Aquitaine to Louis, it would take a long time for the child to adjust and take control of his vassals, and of course I would have to help him take control of Aquitaine.
However, it was denied outright, saying that it was all just useless consideration and useless guilt.
Lewis relieved Christine of the burden she had been carrying for a long time, but he also filled in its place a sense of deadness and emptiness.
In fact, I knew it well.
I think that Christine Daquiten was filled with only a sense of duty.
I just avoided the ending of dying while being betrayed by my family because it was unfair, and I had no desire to do anything after that.
She must repay Pierre for saving her and helping her.
The rights must be returned to the innocent Lewis.
Nowhere in her life’s journey was there anything that Christine Dakiten wanted to do or dream about.
But now.
Just by looking at Pierre in front of me, all those worries and emptiness completely disappear.
An engagement with a family that broke off the engagement. It was a 10-year engagement that made the marriage period long past.
-Are you planning on destroying Lafayette’s prestige? Or are you kidding me? Either way, I–you alone are worth more to me than the prestige of Lafayette or the influence of the upper reaches of Aquitaine.
A nobleman who participated in the revolution, prevented a coup, was called the defender of the revolution, and became the commander-in-chief of the revolutionary army.
A man who is called a rare hero who defeated the Great King of Krafte and even surpassed the Blue Knight.
He told me that he wanted her, not Christine of Aquitaine.
Even though he has waited for her until now, he is telling her that he can wait for her in the future as well.
So, if you’re with him.
Just as we have walked a long and difficult path together, there will be no wandering in the future.
I’m sure she too will be able to find a new goal in life.
so.
“Pierre.”
“Oh yeah. “Christine.”
Christine asked with an overwhelming feeling.
“Will you marry me?”
Pierre opened his mouth and made a funny face, as if he was gasping for something.
After a long moment of silence, Pierre raised his hand to his forehead with a quite dejected look on his face.
Although she thought that such an expression might be a bit excessive for the man who had received a marriage proposal, Christine did not feel any anxiety, so she just chuckled.
“You made the mistake of your life. Wouldn’t it be too much to suddenly do this as a surprise attack? “I don’t know about anything else, but I wanted to propose marriage…”
Christine smiled brightly.
“So I won against the best general in Francia?”
“Hahahaha… I see… I see. Excellent work, Admiral.”
Christine hugged Pierre and whispered to him, her eyes overflowing with joy, even though she was speaking nervously.
-You are mine forever.
“I am yours forever.”
Then, he lightly kissed the black rose brooch that Pierre wore on his chest without leaving him even for a moment.
“I am already yours.”
With tears flowing down her face, Christine leaned her head on Pierre’s shoulder and continued speaking.
“Will you be mine too, sir?”
Pierre responded by hugging her shoulder affectionately.
“Willingly, as I have already done from that day forward.”
Christine kissed Pierre lightly and laughed through tears.
“I’m sorry for making you wait so long.”
Farewell to the long, long winter of Aquitaine.
