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Ray Crawford, who returned after eleven o'clock that night as well, glanced briefly at Rose sitting on the sofa in his bedroom, but he said nothing.
The servant who followed Ray seemed quite flustered by Rose's presence, but he quickly regained his composure, greeted Rose, and helped Ray out of his overcoat.
Rose sat quietly on the sofa, watching as the servant removed his tie, took off his watch, and unbuttoned his vest.
A man who accepted all of this as a matter of course.
He had been returning at this hour for several days now, yet he didn't look tired at all.
His hair remained perfectly combed back, there wasn't a single wrinkle in his clothes, and there was no sign of fatigue on his face.
He was still composed enough to offer a formal smile whenever he encountered the employees.
Startled by the man removing his shirt without any regard for her presence, Rose lowered her head.
She wondered if it was alright to strip someone down like this with another person in the room, but she soon remembered once again that she and this man were husband and wife.
However, even if the servant didn't know they were a couple in name only, why was that man so nonchalant?
"I'll handle the rest. You may go, Martin."
Only after the servant disappeared, leaving a wish for a good night, did Rose lift her head.
Fortunately, Ray was wearing a dark green robe, but since his chest was exposed, Rose found herself momentarily flustered.
"I didn't know you possessed a sense of shame."
Ray sat on the opposite sofa while tying the belt of his robe.
His words sounded incredibly double-edged. Not only regarding the current situation, but as if he were accusing her of being someone who knew no shame.
The man, who spoke such words so casually, did not seem lacking in any way even while wearing only a robe.
Observing the man—who was quite large for a politician—Rose suddenly became curious.
Does a person who looks this solid have a weak point? Does a man like a steel fortress, who seems as if he would never crumble, have a spot that hurts when poked?
It seemed the newspaper's attacks had only dealt a blow to Rose.
"Do you have something to say to me?"
His tone as he poured whiskey into the glasses on the table between them was utterly refreshing. He acted as if their previous fight had never even happened.
"…Will the people of Dunsville really be excluded?"
Rose asked in an unintentional whisper.
"What should I do?"
The man, offering no answer, slowly savored the amber liquor.
"Should I apologize, or… perhaps provide an explanation?"
The more he remained silent, the more anxious Rose became.
Despite the perfect silence of the bedroom, not a single sound could be heard from the series of movements as he set the glass down on the coaster.
"I don't know. I believe I've only ever asked one thing of you."
Finally, the man spoke.
"To stay still."
She always thought it, but he was a man whose voice was unnecessarily too good. Even when saying things like that.
Rose thought that if she hadn't understood the Orturan language, those soft words might have sounded like praise or encouragement.
"Do you agree now? That this is your best course of action?"
Rose struggled to recall exactly what she had done. Had she acted out enough to be told to stay still?
Was it such a problematic action that she had sneered once for every fifty times the Orturans had sneered at her?
"Their antisocial nature and general lack of competence..."
The slight skepticism and sense of injustice vanished like bubbles as she recalled the blatantly biased newspaper articles.
Her cold and unpleasant husband was right. She shouldn't have done even that. She felt suffocated again.
The fact that she had to agree with those words...
"I am not unaware that the Orturans are acting irrationally toward Bolton. You must feel it is unfair."
Ray, speaking in an extremely businesslike tone, took another sip of whiskey.
The word 'unfair' was too simple, too convenient, and too small compared to the emotions Rose was currently feeling.
"But… does that change anything? Has feeling wronged ever changed a thing?"
Rose could now understand the world of the Crawfords, the world of Orturan. This was a world driven entirely by results.
If Rose couldn't do anything, if she couldn't change anything, then she shouldn't have done anything in the first place.
"As you can see, the change is in me, not you. Because I am the one solving the problem, not you."
"…I'm sorry."
Rose had to clear her throat as her voice failed her.
"For making things difficult for you."
"I wasn't looking for an apology. Such things aren't particularly helpful to me."
His manner of cutting off the words she had struggled to utter was as clean and cold as always.
"It's enough that you understand."
He didn't say anything more, but from the way he held the whiskey glass and stared intently at her, Rose knew it was a signal for her to leave.
Having lost all will to fight, Rose quietly rose from the sofa.
Just as she took a step, the man suddenly raised one hand slowly to stop her.
His calm, deep blue eyes gazed at Rose for a long time, as if contemplating something.
Standing there while receiving that gaze made her feel as if she were being punished. Here, she was nothing more than a sinner.
"There might be... one thing you can do."
The expressionless man, without a hint of a smile, muttered.
Rose knew that whatever it was, she had to accept it.
* * *
By now, the bill would have likely passed the vote in the assembly without incident.
Ray checked his wristwatch and smiled. It had been noisy for a few days, and he had been incredibly busy, but that was actually a positive signal.
If Avery's petty tricks had dealt a proper blow, the number of people seeking him out would have decreased. However, he was still damnably busy.
The progressive party, which had been favorable toward this bill, put pressure on Avery's aides instead of Ray, and in the meantime, Ray met with Ambassador Antaka.
The Ambassador, upon learning about the discrimination faced by the Antaka mixed-bloods in Dunsville, would have pressured the Prime Minister and Avery.
He also placed correction reports in other newspapers. Though he didn't know if people would believe them.
Furthermore, he didn't know what the Queen's ladies-in-waiting had said to her, but Queen Catherine had rarely hinted that the suspension of the bill bothered her; it seemed to be Agatha's influence.
From the start, Ray never thought the bill would be amended or rejected, and Avery felt the same.
At most, it was a desire to torment the woman who had embarrassed him and to leave a scratch on Ray's name, along with an intention to make people briefly forget the domestic economic situation he had turned into a mess, so it was obvious he would stop at this point.
"I'm truly grateful for the donation, Minister. Every time, like this..."
The director of the orphanage approached to express gratitude.
This place, which housed war orphans, had been able to care for the children thanks to Ray's steady donations starting five years ago.
"I didn't do it this time. Mr. Elliot Davis did."
"Would he have decided to donate without the Minister? From what I know, he isn't the type to spend money on such things."
"It wasn't me, but my wife who requested it. She learned about the war victims of Orturan through the articles and felt very heartbroken. She is a tender person."
"I see. I'll tell the reporters that."
The director, who had known him for a long time, smiled quickly and told him exactly what he wanted to hear.
Reporters who had already heard the news were diligently scanning the surroundings to capture a good photo.
Such a cliché show wasn't to Ray's taste, but if it was necessary, he wasn't opposed to it. The fact that it was cliché meant its effectiveness had been proven.
"By the way, Mrs. Crawford is as beautiful as the rumors say; I was truly surprised. She doesn't look like a Boltonian."
Nodding vaguely at the director's words, Ray watched Rose holding the hand of a child who looked about five years old. The child seemed to be begging her for something.
When he told her it would be good to do some performative volunteer work, she had agreed with a quite solemn expression. Then, she had asked if she had to go to Dunsville.
The woman still didn't understand.
What Rose needed to avoid most right now was any connection to Bolton.
What the Orturans wanted was to see her serving the most pitiful and lowly of Orturans with humility, not a tearful reunion with her fellow Boltonians.
The latter would make the Orturans look and feel like the perpetrators.
"Oh dear, I put that piano out because the sound was a complete mess," the director muttered in a troubled voice.
The place the child had dragged Rose to was a piano that looked old at a glance. To the child asking her to play, Rose showed a rare expression of distress.
The woman, who had simply smiled even when children coughed and sprayed saliva on her face, acted like a defeated soldier in front of the piano.
Come to think of it, for a woman who had made money with the piano, she had never once attempted to play it.
She had told Sophia Greenwood that she was merely at a level where she could read the sheet music.
Such a lie... if she had worked as an accompanist, that couldn't possibly be true.
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