Chapter 34

Harold Bertholdt's funeral was quiet.

Any funeral would be, of course, but two small children, one lawyer, and a handful of pallbearers made too sparse a scene for a funeral of the Bertholdt family, of all families.

And it was also the day Edgar Bertholdt remembered most vividly from his childhood.

The sky was dark, as if rain might come at any moment. Staring up at the overcast sky, Edgar had wished it would just rain and be done with it. But it didn't rain, and the day after the funeral, as if to spite them, the weather turned brilliantly clear.

Even that felt cruel. As though he were being punished.

But if anyone should be punished, it wasn't his uncle.

Grisha Lambert, who had inherited the title of Duke Lambert not long before, arrived at the Bertholdt domain exactly one week after the funeral.

The Duke of Lambert — introduced as a longtime friend of Sir Harold Bertholdt — visited the Bertholdt family crypt to pay his respects. Despite Mattheus's attempts to stop him, Edgar went with the Duke.

He couldn't take the man's claim of being his uncle's friend at face value, and he couldn't take Mattheus's word for it either. Part of it was that he wasn't willing to leave his uncle alone with a stranger.

"...How old are you now?"

The Duke, who had been standing in silence for a long time before Sir Bertholdt's headstone, spoke abruptly.

"Twelve?"

"..."

"Twelve, I think it was. What became of the title?"

"...I am the Count Bertholdt."

"I see."

The Duke's eyes narrowed. His deeply furrowed face rippled strangely in the shadows cast by the torches lighting the crypt.

Edgar couldn't get a clear look at him. Hair that must originally have been blond kept shifting color in the wavering flame. One moment it looked as red as a sunset, the next it glinted like gold, and then, another moment later, it darkened into a washed-out gray.

"You'll find out soon enough anyway, so I don't really need to be the one to tell you..."

Was the black coat the Duke's own attempt at proper etiquette?

Edgar looked at the man without any real feeling. Friend of his uncle's or not, he'd never once heard his uncle mention him.

"Harold asked me to look after his nephews if anything happened to him."

"...What did you say?"

"Mattheus will have the will, so you can check... Ah. You'll have to go up to the capital. It'll be at the main branch of the Central Bank."

The only reason Edgar didn't lunge at the Duke was that they were standing in front of his uncle. His uncle lay in the stone coffin and would never see daylight again, but even so, Edgar didn't want to be rude here of all places.

But his whole body was shaking.

"What are you talking about. Why would my uncle leave that to you..."

"I told you, I'm his friend."

The Duke answered in a light tone Edgar couldn't tell was mocking or something else.

"Eight years until you come of age, is it. I'm sure Harold didn't think he'd be imposing on me for this long either."

"I have no intention of imposing on you."

"And I had no intention of raising children, so it seems we're even."

The Duke's voice was thick with reluctance and irritation.

If he disliked it that much, couldn't he just refuse to take it on?

That was what Edgar thought, and it was what he said to the Duke's face.

At that, the Duke let out a laugh. The sharp sound of it spread through the crypt with a chill.

"Whoever tells you you take after that man has no eyes."

The Duke strode over to Edgar.

His shadow swelled and shifted on the wall. The Duke bent slightly at the waist to meet Edgar's eyes.

His green eyes glinted with a fire Edgar didn't recognize.

"Eight years. I'll endure it, so you endure it too."

Without waiting for Edgar's reply, the Duke turned on his heel and left the crypt. Edgar hurried after him a beat too late.

But in that brief interval, the Duke was already saying something to the servants standing watch at the crypt. One servant, visibly tense, took off at a run toward the manor.

It was a side of the staff Edgar had never seen when he was in the room.

"If there's anything important, pack it separately. Where's your twin?"

"Edwin is... Wait a moment. What are you talking about?"

"I mostly stay in the capital. I barely made time to come out this far."

The Duke spoke as he strode toward the old Bertholdt manor. He didn't so much as glance back at Edgar.

"You'll live at my estate in the capital. Don't wander off anywhere unnecessary."

"Wait, I have no intention of leaving the domain!"

"What you intend doesn't matter."

At the cold tone, Edgar clenched his teeth.

"I'm the Count Bertholdt! A count can't leave his own domain!"

"Do you think your father stayed in the capital because he was the count?"

At the mention of his father, dead four years, Edgar was momentarily struck dumb.

Only then did the Duke stop walking and look at him. There was a weariness in his face Edgar hadn't seen in the crypt.

The Duke pressed his eyes hard with his fingers.

"You're the count, and the other twin is your heir. I can't leave minors somewhere without a single adult they can trust."

"And you're someone we can trust?"

"I never told you to trust me."

The Duke lowered his hand. His deeply frowning eyes turned back on Edgar.

"As I said, I live in the capital. I can't come out to the Bertholdt domain often."

"That's your problem!"

"Then that's plenty."

After that the Duke didn't stop again. When they reached the old manor, he began giving orders to the servants there as though the place were his own.

Before Edgar could get a word in — or rather, whatever protests he tried to raise were simply overridden. The servants of the old manor moved in swift coordination under the Duke's direction as though Edgar and Edwin were ghosts.

Before the sun set that day, Edgar and Edwin were on a train to the capital with the Duke.

None of it felt real.

The Duke didn't say a word, and Edwin only shrugged once.

"You said Uncle asked him to."

"How can we believe that!"

"Forging a will is a lot of work. For someone like the Duke of Lambert, paying someone off would be faster than bothering with a fake will."

It wasn't that Edwin had won him over, and it wasn't that he believed a word the Duke said, but it was true that his uncle's will was in the capital.

After the funeral, Mattheus had gone ahead to the capital to bring back the necessary paperwork. So he wasn't going because of the Duke. He was just going somewhere he had to go anyway.

That was what Edgar told himself. Once he met with Mattheus, everything would be resolved. Including this absurd lie from the Duke of Lambert.

He could go back to the Bertholdt domain.

"Sir Bertholdt has entrusted guardianship to Duke Lambert..."

"That's a lie! There's no way Uncle would do that!"

"Young master Edgar."

"There isn't even a blood relation. How can the Duke of Lambert take guardianship? Mattheus — couldn't you take it? We're going to the academy in three years anyway, so it only has to last that long!"

"Young master..."

He didn't know what tricks the Duke had pulled.

But Mattheus, the one Edgar had pinned his hopes on, only looked cornered, and no matter how they dug through the papers, the answer came back that legally there was no problem at all.

And there was even his uncle's will.

Grisha will look after you both.

Read it however many times, the letter his uncle had written didn't change.

The news that Duke Lambert had become guardian to the young Bertholdt twins made a brief stir.

The tragedy of a family losing every adult in it in under a decade, leaving only small children behind, must have caught people's interest. The Duke skimmed the papers and clicked his tongue with a look of irritation.

That was the end of it.

Fortunately, the capital's fashions turned over quickly, and a young tragedy was forgotten just as fast. Not many people remembered the young Count Bertholdt and his twin heir living at the Duke Lambert estate.

True to the reluctance he'd made so plain, during their time there the Duke rarely showed his face.

If it was going to be like that, couldn't they have just stayed in the Bertholdt domain? The thought kept welling up in Edgar in bitter waves.

Finally, unable to hold it in any longer, he caught the Duke coming home late one night and made his case.

"No."

Handing his coat off to a servant, the Duke refused without a beat.

And when he tried to walk right past Edgar and head up to the second floor, Edgar caught hold of him. If he was going to give up over a single word, he wouldn't have brought it up to begin with.

The Duke looked at him for a moment, then waved a hand. The servants withdrew.

In the empty estate even light sounds carried easily. Just because he couldn't see anyone didn't mean no one was there. The servants would be watching from somewhere.

"I said eight years."

The Duke muttered it with a tired face.

"It's only been one."

"It's because a year has already passed that I'm bringing this up."

"Mattheus told me. He said you were planning to go to the academy."

"...What about it?"

"Endure it for two more years. I'll get you into the dormitory."

He'd mentioned the academy to Mattheus back when he first came up to the capital with the Duke. He hadn't seen Mattheus often since.

When had the Duke spoken with Mattheus? They'd have had to meet over his uncle's will, of course, but he hadn't expected the academy to have come up.

"The academy is a separate matter. It isn't important. I don't have to go."

"...Isn't it mandatory these days? The times have gotten soft."

"You'd rather not have hangers-on in the house anyway, wouldn't you?"

"Two extra houseguests isn't going to make a difference."

When Edgar showed no sign of backing down, the Duke finally turned his body fully to face him.

The furrowed brow was exactly the same as on the day they'd first met.

"Why do you want to go back to the domain so badly?"

"..."

"Say it honestly."

"...Because it's home."

"Really? For a reason that sentimental? You only actually lived at the domain the four years or so when you were down there with Harold. And you still call it home?"

The Duke snorted in disbelief.

"Cute. If that's the reason, then no."

"What on earth —!"

"Count Bertholdt."

The expression drained from the Duke's face. Being addressed by his title for the first time, Edgar flinched despite himself and took a step back.

"How, exactly, do you think your uncle died, Count?"

"..."

"He was murdered. You know that. That the killer was never caught."

Edgar clenched his fists.

"What reason is there for the person who killed Harold not to be after you and your twin?"

"..."

"We're looking for whoever killed Harold. Until I'm satisfied the domain is safe, you can't go down there."

"...But."

"This conversation is over."

Just as the Duke declared, the two of them never spoke on the subject again. Closer to the truth, they couldn't. After that, Edgar could count the number of times he actually saw the Duke on one hand.

But once. Just once, Edgar got a promise out of the Duke.

"When you catch the culprit, tell me."

"..."

"The person who killed my uncle."

"...I will."

But the Duke never caught the culprit before Edgar returned to the past. Edgar couldn't return to the domain until he came of age, was released from the Duke's guardianship, and became free of his oversight.

Whether the Duke really hadn't been able to find them, or hadn't looked, Edgar couldn't say.

Until he woke one night in a cold nursery fifteen years earlier, Edgar never trusted that man. And Duke Lambert had never told the young Count Bertholdt he could trust him, nor had he ever given him reason to.

The Duke Grisha Lambert Edgar knew didn't exist yet. If his uncle was alive, the odds were high he would never meet that Duke Lambert again.

That didn't mean he could trust the Grisha Lambert of the present.

Edgar hadn't known the Duke had rights to this house at all, and he hadn't known his uncle was close enough to him to be handed the place outright.

Now that he'd heard that man had come by quietly in the middle of the night, even more so.

Could Grisha Lambert be trusted?

If not, how was he supposed to warn his uncle?

Edgar's mouth had gone bone-dry.