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“It was beautiful, I enjoyed it. Two sentences would have been enough. And furthermore, you, who claim to have played the piano, should have asked what piece they wanted to hear—”
Agatha’s nagging continued endlessly, but it drifted away meaninglessly, leaving no trace on Rose.
Only Sophia’s perfect performance remained, replaying constantly in her mind like a terrible afterimage.
* * *
In the quiet study of the mansion after the guests had departed, Ray lit a cigarette out of habit.
As he took a deep drag, his body, which had been stiff with a hint of irritation, finally relaxed.
Amidst the hazy smoke, Ray quietly thought about the source of the problem: his wife.
The madwoman who had the audacity to mention being a pianist to the daughter of Duke Harland.
People said Rose didn't seem much like a Boltonian, but while her appearance and personality might not be, her way of thinking certainly was.
However, she could no longer afford to be a Boltonian.
The reason he had left his wife in the care of his mother and the housekeeper for nearly a month was partly because he was truly busy, but also because he wanted to remind his mother of her responsibility.
It was a way of making her realize the price of insisting on such a daughter-in-law.
Yet, it seemed even the proud matriarch of the Crawfords had failed to transform this woman into an Orturan.
Bleak.
A long trail of smoke, like a sigh, escaped Ray's lips.
The occasions where he had to bring his 'wife' along would only increase. He couldn't exactly tell her to live her entire life in silence.
She was already practically imprisoned within the Crawford estate. How much more could he caution her?
His mother had even stopped inviting people to the mansion entirely.
But hiding her so desperately only served as an admission of her inadequacy, which was an unsightly look; he couldn't keep her locked away at home forever.
Moreover, since her very existence was the problem, cautioning her wasn't the solution.
<A Shaking Crawford, A Shaking Conservative Party>
Ray's gaze landed on the headline of the Daily Oakley Review lying on the desk.
The abysmal title made him laugh involuntarily.
The article, which clearly bore the touch of Archibald Avery, was utterly pathetic.
He didn't know if Avery had published such a piece to attack him, but saying that the Conservative Party shook because Crawford shook sounded almost as if Ray Crawford were the center of the party.
It was a clumsy method to begin with, and yet he had failed even in his aim.
Avery's occasional stupidity never failed to strip away the faint shred of consideration Ray felt when wondering if he should treat the man as a serious opponent.
Ray knew people like Archibald Avery well, and because he knew them well, he loathed them deeply.
The kind of people who engage in low-level trickery because they don't know how to win.
Foolish humans who do not realize that knowing how to accept defeat when outclassed is what constitutes dignity.
Ray valued the method of victory as much as the victory itself.
That was why he utterly detested the method Avery had chosen to attack him.
“No, really... I find myself in quite a predicament. Still, I felt it wouldn't do for such news to reach other newspapers, so I've bought it out for now.”
He could vividly recall Avery's hypocritical face, pretending not to know while testing the waters in a game he had set up himself.
“But is it true? The previous Duke Crawford... Good heavens, it's almost too terrible to speak of.”
Avery had blackmailed him using his father's mental illness.
The fact that Ray's father, who had died as a war hero, had actually died suffering from a mental illness.
Through this vile threat of reporting it extensively in the newspapers, Avery had pushed the marriage proposal intended for himself onto Ray.
Avery was the Home Secretary and a famous politician of the Conservative Party, but he was a man of some age with a child.
Elliot Davis likely proposed the marriage thinking that those flaws were somewhat comparable to the fatal flaw of himself and his daughter being from Bolton.
Elliot probably didn't realize why Avery had put a better prey like Ray Crawford on the table instead of accepting the marriage, but regardless, that nouveau riche man did not let the luck that fell his way slip.
Avery had always feared that Ray would gain even greater wings through a marriage into a good family, so there could be no better check than this.
Ray had judged that it would have been better for his father's mental illness to be reported, and that opinion remained unchanged.
It might have become gossip for people to chatter about over drinks, but it would not have dealt any political blow to Ray.
However, his mother thought differently.
Agatha had vehemently opposed the disclosure of her husband's medical history, even going so far as to refuse food. To the point that she accepted a Boltonian daughter-in-law.
And this was the result.
“There is no wheat, no oats, and really no food at all in Bolton.”
A dry laugh escaped him as he remembered Rose's voice—how she had spat out a lie without blinking, boldly delivering a sneer disguised as a joke to none other than the daughter of Duke Harland.
In the deep silence, the cigarette grew shorter.
Finally stubbing out the cigarette in the ashtray, Ray slowly rose from the desk and left the study.
Even as he headed toward the bedroom, he had not yet decided exactly what to do or say to Rose.
He knew he had to take some kind of measure, but he had no inkling of what form that measure should take.
He felt he had never experienced this kind of feeling, even in the middle of a battlefield.
He was also curious.
What on earth was she thinking about, living with that vacant expression at all times?
Whether a woman who constantly surprised people and kept them awake with anxiety by saying strange things could sleep soundly herself.
By the time he entered the passage connecting his bedroom and Rose's, the anger and irritation regarding the situation had already subsided.
Only the fatigue brought by an unwelcome presence remained, like the ash accumulating in the tray.
It was the first time he had walked this passage since the wedding.
His slow, reluctant steps stopped just as he nearly reached the Duchess's bedroom.
The sound of singing was drifting in between his strides.
Ray leaned against the wall of the passage and stared quietly at the source of the sound.
At his wife, who had intruded into his perfect life as unpleasantly as that sound.
The woman, sprawled out on a long sofa rather than the bed, was humming a song in the Antaka language. Her pale golden hair was scattered wildly over the armrest of the sofa.
The lyrics were childish, like a nursery rhyme. As she quietly hummed a song where the word 'home' appeared far too often, her fingers tapped a rhythm on her thigh.
Her voice, which had sounded somewhat awkward when speaking Orturan, seemed to find its place—or rather, suited her perfectly—when speaking Antaka, or specifically, when singing.
Was her voice always like this? Suddenly, the woman felt like a stranger.
“Come see the roses that bloom in May.”
The lyrics, which should have sounded sweet, felt strangely, infinitely bitter. The already small woman looked as if she might vanish at any moment.
While wondering if this feeling was due to Rose's melancholic demeanor or her unfamiliar voice, Ray suddenly recalled the sight of her staring blankly at Sophia Greenwood playing the piano.
Even a soldier who had lost their country wouldn't have worn such a face.
Over a mere piano, such a face.
The woman would occasionally glance at the piano in the drawing room.
The piano her father used to play, and thus, the piano her mother hated so much.
Though she never played it despite staring at it, she would sometimes move her fingers in the air alone.
Tapping the table, tapping the coaster—in any case, the woman's fingers were rarely still.
That sight, that attitude, was exasperating.
Her sentimental side, immersing herself in meaningless things, only highlighted her flaws.
Such traits were bound to make a person weak.
As Ray thought endlessly about why he couldn't bring himself to like the woman who became his wife, he eventually wiped his face roughly.
He actually knew where all that unwelcome feeling and hesitation came from.
In the end, this marriage was as good as something that happened because of his dead father.
It felt like a cruel joke of life that the woman he ended up with reminded him of that father.
“Sometimes... I feel like your mother hates me.”
His father's words, spoken occasionally when he returned to his senses before dying, echoed faintly in his unpleasant memories. His father had been wearing a powerless smile.
The expression Ray had shown his father then was probably...
“Why do you think that matters? Do you really not resemble me in a single way?”
It must have been a look of patheticness. Judging by how his father had laughed awkwardly and said that.
Even after his father died that way, his thoughts did not change.
His mother might have thought of his father as pathetic, but she wouldn't have hated him, and even if she had, there were no problems in their married life.
That is what a marriage should be.
Considering the devotion his mother had shown during his father's final hours, when he raged without recognizing his wife and children, it was more than enough to be a paragon of marriage.
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