#27. Chloe of Solaine

“I really don’t know what you’re good at. Truly don’t know. Can’t ride horses and can’t handle carriages well either. Are you good at running? Should we go by foot?”

Chloe’s face flushed. A high maintenance attending servant who wasn’t good at anything.

Why did my heart flutter earlier? Right, that was just a reflexive response to a beautiful creation.

Chloe shook her head, trying to shake off the delusion.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. You’re… good.”

“……!”

Did I hear wrong?

Good at what?

He definitely said something was good.

The Duke happened to mumble that part too quietly for her to hear properly. Chloe tilted her head as she looked at the Duke.

“I don’t particularly like carriages as they feel stuffy. But I find this journey unusually comfortable with you here. So don’t talk about going back early. I’ll let you sit facing forward.”

“……”

Heat rose to Chloe’s face. Goosebumps covered her body. Though the weather was a bit chilly, these weren’t from the cold.

He finds it comfortable with me here?

Taking it literally, one could interpret it as being comfortable because an attending servant was present, but somehow it didn’t sound that way at all.

All she’d done in the carriage was get motion sickness while being jostled around. It didn’t make sense to say he was comfortable from receiving her service.

Leaving Chloe blinking as a storm brewed in her mind, the Duke headed toward the carriage.

“Ah, so are you really not hungry?”

But he stopped and turned to ask her.

“…No!”

Chloe, who had been dazed, finally came to her senses and answered.

Is food the issue right now? Your Grace, you’re really strange! Going to look for a woman you slept with, while saying in a somehow suggestive way that the journey is comfortable because of a male attending servant who doesn’t do anything!

Chloe had no idea how to interpret this situation.

Am I… likeable enough that just my presence makes him comfortable?

But I’m supposed to be a male attending servant? And a high maintenance one who can’t do anything at that?

Either she was an attending servant who provided comfort just by existing, or the Duke’s expectations for attending servants were very low. It had to be one of those two.

“Should I… sit on the opposite side?”

Sir Joyce asked the Duke in disbelief.

“Yes, Clyne gets severe motion sickness.”

The Duke spoke so nonchalantly that even Chloe thought it was brazen.

“I’m sorry.”

In the end, it was Chloe’s role to apologize.

“No! Haah…”

Sir Joyce could only let out a rough breath, unable to say anything to either Chloe or the Duke. Though he finally took his seat on the opposite side.

A burden. A nuisance.

Thinking that was probably her exact position, Chloe sat in Sir Joyce’s former seat with her head bowed low.

“I’m truly sorry, Sir Joyce, Your Grace.”

As she murmured another apology,

With a clatter, the carriage started moving again.

Sir Joyce turned his gaze toward the window, as if he couldn’t bear to look at Chloe sitting in his former seat.

Chloe thought it was equally uncomfortable despite sitting forward, and kept her hands properly clasped together on her knees. She also thought this was the most uncomfortable journey she’d ever experienced.

Thump.

However, it became even more uncomfortable before long.

Perhaps they were repaving the road, but suddenly the carriage’s vibrations increased and it made a sharp turn while shaking up and down.

The motion caused Chloe’s body to slide toward the Duke.

When she unclasped her hands to brace against the seat to avoid falling, her hand happened to land on the Duke’s hand.

Startled, Chloe quickly removed her hand from atop his.

“I’m sorry!”

“……”

The Duke said nothing and just stared down at his hand where Chloe’s had touched.

Sigh, why is he staring so intently like that. I’m not dirty! I didn’t throw up earlier!

Thump.

As if the situation wasn’t suffocating enough already, the carriage jolted again.

Afraid of touching the Duke’s hand again if she braced against the seat like before, Chloe kept her hands tightly clasped while trying to maintain her balance awkwardly, but her bottom ended up sliding completely toward the Duke.

This time, not just her hand but her whole side pressed firmly against the Duke’s solid arm.

Oh dear.

“I’m sorry.”

Chloe apologized again while slowly shifting her bottom to the left. She felt like she’d never had a day where she had to apologize this much.

The Duke slightly furrowed his brow and crossed his arms. It seemed like he was telling her not to touch his body.

Moreover, the Duke moved closer to the right wall of the carriage where he was sitting, opened the right window, and turned his body completely in that direction.

Of course. I was just deluding myself. What nonsense about being an attending servant who provides comfort just by being present. He’s even shrinking away like that, as if disgusted by touching me.

She felt foolish about having briefly hoped for something about the Duke’s feelings toward her before getting in the carriage. She wondered how she could feel disappointed when she didn’t even know exactly what feelings she had hoped for.

The indifferent carriage continued to shake afterward. The Duke watched out the window with almost no reaction to the shaking.

The Duke’s turned back looked so broad and solid. This wall toward her felt equally large and solid.

“Would you like to take a break and have a meal, Your Grace?”

“Let’s do that.”

The Duke answered Sir Joyce’s question without even turning his head.

Looking at the Duke’s wall-like back that adamantly rejected contact with her, Chloe wished this ordeal of a journey would end quickly.

Not knowing that the real ordeal of this journey hadn’t even begun yet.

* * *

When they finally arrived in Solaine, it was nearly four in the afternoon.

“That’s the house.”

Sir Joyce pointed to a shabby single-story house.

“Will she be home at this hour?”

The Duke asked without taking his eyes off the house.

“I heard she quit her live-in maid job two weeks ago due to poor health. They said she returned home. She has many siblings but they’ve all gone out to earn money, so now only the woman called Chloe is in that house with her parents.”

“Hmm. Let’s go see.”

The Duke stepped down from the carriage.

Chloe felt somewhat strange, perhaps because they were going to meet a woman with the same name as her. After the Duke, Sir Joyce got out of the carriage, and she followed behind them.

However, the person who came out when they knocked on the gate wasn’t Chloe but her mother. She said her daughter had started working at a flower shop recently.

“A flower shop? Where exactly is it? What’s the name?”

“It’s ‘Pretty Miss’s Flower Shop’ next to the post office in town.”

Pretty Miss’s Flower Shop.

What a name. Chloe almost snickered at the simple yet blatant shop name.

“I see. Thank you.”

The Duke turned around the moment he finished speaking.

“Goodbye…”

Though the woman’s voice could be heard from behind,

“Let’s go!”

It was drowned out by the Duke’s urgent voice.

Chloe tilted her head. The Duke’s actions seemed too urgent.

Come to think of it, the Duke’s expression had been particularly stiff since arriving at this house. Like someone who’s being chased, as if he needed to meet Chloe right this moment.

Will he be alright?

The Duke’s back as he climbed into the carriage looked somewhat worrying.

‘Pretty Miss’s Flower Shop’ was a flower shop with a small sign next to the post office.

“Chloe.”

The Duke muttered the woman’s name as he walked toward the flower shop.

‘Chloe.’

Chloe felt strange when the Duke called her name while looking at another woman. A woman came out front with a bucket and straightened up to look at the Duke.

“Ah!”

Chloe let out an involuntary exclamation.

Beautiful.

The woman’s face was breathtakingly beautiful — she was slightly thinner and shorter than Chloe. The shop name ‘Pretty Miss’s Flower Shop’ must have been named after this woman.

The flower shop miss’s face instantly turned red as she watched the Duke approaching her directly.

Chloe knew well what that expression meant. It was the face of a woman who had fallen for the Duke at first sight. All the women she’d seen when going into Roizen city with the Duke had worn that same expression.

“Chloe.”

The Duke called the name like he was talking to himself. Strangely, Chloe felt goosebumps and rubbed her arms.

Could that woman really be ‘Chloe’? Without realizing it, Chloe found herself staring at the woman’s lips.

The flower shop miss’s eyes widened.

“I’m Chloe, did you come looking for me? Do you know me? Who are you?”

She asked again while keeping her eyes fixed on the Duke’s face.

Looking at the very beautiful ‘Chloe’ who shared her name, Chloe’s mood began to sink for reasons she couldn’t understand. In contrast, the flower shop Chloe’s face was glowing as she looked at the Duke.

“I am Hughgray Wulfaz. Do you… know me?”

The flower shop miss Chloe’s eyes grew even wider at the Duke’s question.

“Wulfaz… Could you be that Duke Wulfaz of Roizen?”

The flower shop Chloe asked.

“So you do know me.”

At the Duke’s words, Chloe felt somewhat incredulous.

‘So you do know me,’ he says.

Hughgray Wulfaz. The head of House Wulfaz, the lord of Roizen. Who in the Elion Empire didn’t know his name?

Your Grace, it’s not what you think. She doesn’t know you from that night’s memories.