Don't Keep a Dog in the Garden - Chapter 18

The banquet hall fell silent, as if someone had splashed it with cold water.

Even Cassia couldn’t speak. It was too absurd.

When she decided to attend today’s banquet, she’d made a few predictions about the Emperor’s reaction.

She expected the Emperor’s impatience to be at its peak after losing two sons and then losing the hunting dog he had used like his own hands and feet, but she never thought he would play something this obvious.

The one who broke the brief silence was Whisker’s light laughter.

Chuckling under his breath, Whisker stepped forward and thrust his neck toward Mikhail’s sword.

“You’re too much, Your Majesty. To accuse a subordinate who barely survived an assassination attempt of plotting treason.”

When Whisker put on an exaggerated show of hurt, Giiern raised his voice even more, spittle flying. “Assassination? If such a thing happened, you would have come to me as you should. Why did you go to the Grand Duchess instead of me? Your intent is clear. You must have discussed treason with the Grand Duchess!”

It was the kind of forced outrage that comes from someone whose own feet are burning.

No, in Giiern’s mind, it was the most reasonable conclusion.

A shallow guess that Whisker reached out to Cassia to take revenge on the one who tried to kill him.

It was a confession that the Emperor himself was the one who tried and failed to kill Whisker, and at the same time an admission of what he feared most.

Whisker answered the Emperor’s shameless twisting with romance, “In the moment death came rushing at me, I simply wanted to see the one I love one last time. Why do you call my pure devotion proof of treason?”

Because it was an unguarded sincerity, Whisker was bold.

Giiern was close to getting a headache from that sickening refrain of love.

“Then let the Grand Duchess speak! What was your intent in hiding Duke Mastiff until now!”

In the end, the sparks flew to Cassia.

He had brought up treason and made the matter bigger, so Cassia would back away.

That was what the Emperor thought.

Then he only had to deal with the insolent hunting dog.

If she clung to him, even better. He didn’t know why the two had joined hands, but if he could bring down the Grand Duchess Diorent in the process, nothing could be better.

As expected, Cassia lowered her golden eyes calmly and opened her mouth with words that sounded cautious.

“Intent? I don’t know what you mean, Your Majesty.”

Cassia answered without a hint of agitation, then turned to Whisker at her side.

When Giiern’s gaze fixed on her, Whisker gave off a dangerous air, unlike before.

Cassia noticed Whisker was toying with the hidden weapon at his cuff and reached out.

When she lightly caught the tips of his left fingers, he turned to look at her, and her pink lips formed a dazzling curve.

“I simply had no room to think of anything else while I stayed by the Duke’s side, who was injured and hovering between life and death. I had no other intention.”

At Cassia’s calm answer and the smile no one had ever seen from her before, everyone in the hall went slack-jawed and fell silent.

Even Whisker couldn’t say a word.

It was indirect, but any noble would recognize it as an expression of affection.

The lie that Cassia had taken in the abandoned Whisker and was plotting the Emperor’s assassination with him would be far easier to believe.

Caught off guard by Cassia’s counterattack, Giiern stammered, “Th-that sounds as if the Grand Duchess’s feelings toward the Duke have changed.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. Duke Mastiff and I have decided to marry,” Cassia answered again, just as calmly.

After Cassia and Whisker appeared side by side, everyone in the hall had been holding their breath and watching them, and now they cried out in stunned disbelief once more.

Even Whisker looked at Cassia with a flustered face, and at her unyielding gaze, he swallowed a dry gulp.

Meeting those red eyes, round like big candies, Cassia let out a quiet snort of laughter.

He really is a man you can’t predict.

She thought he would be so happy he might even dance if she declared marriage before the Emperor, but once again, what rose on his face was, at best, flustered, and to put it plainly, dumbfounded.

In the silent banquet hall where only Cassia was smiling, the first person to come to his senses was Jachim.

He stepped closer to his father, who stood there as if he’d seen something he shouldn’t have, and laughed out loud.

“See, Your Majesty. Didn’t I tell you it must be a misunderstanding? Hahaha.”

Giiern didn’t answer.

With a brazen face, Jachim kept laughing and gestured for the imperial guards to withdraw.

“His Majesty worried about the Duke’s long absence and misunderstood. When the one who used to stay at his side like a shadow shut himself up in the Grand Duchess’s residence and wouldn’t come out, wouldn’t foul rumors spread? The Duke will understand.”

Whisker didn’t answer either. No, he couldn’t.

Half out of his mind, he was only looking at Cassia.

Jachim thought it worked out fine. From the start, he thought it was unreasonable to pin treason on him over an absence of about a month.

He lightly jabbed Giiern in the side and pressed him for a reply.

“The one who should be receiving congratulations tonight isn’t me, but the Duke, Your Majesty. Hasn’t the Duke’s unrequited love been painfully devoted all this time?”

Only then did Giiern pull himself together and nod.

“Yes… That’s right.”

Once he responded, it really was.

He was briefly thrown off by the unexpected turn, but it couldn’t have gone better.

He wondered how he could possibly tie together Cassia, who recoiled from people, and Whisker, whom everyone recoiled from, and now they were saying, on their own, that they would marry.

The corners of Giiern’s mouth lifted higher and higher until he finally bared his teeth and began to laugh heartily.

“Exactly! This is surely a joyous occasion for the Empire!”

Drunk on his mood, Giiern thumped Whisker on the shoulder and rambled on.

“Congratulations, Bureau Chief. Wasn’t I worried the line of the Golden Dawn would end with the Grand Duke’s generation? Since your hearts align, hurry the ceremony.”

Emperor Giiern spoke with feigned solemnity, but a vulgar gleam shimmered in his eyes.

A husband and wife are one body. Live together, die together.

It was a greasy smile that made it feel as if you could hear his true thoughts.

Even so, wasn’t this the dog who had been with him for the last eight years, for better or worse?

As much as Whisker knew all the Emperor’s dirty secrets, the Emperor also knew exactly what sort of creature Whisker was.

Someone who can’t stand in the light.

All that remained was to wait for him to fall, along with the wife he claimed to love so dearly, and be buried in the darkness.

With a satisfied face, Giiern looked fondly at Jachim. Jachim, too, smiled back as if he’d read the Emperor’s thoughts.

The Emperor’s third son—whom rumors claimed Empress Consort Sharia had conceived through infidelity because he looked nothing like his father—and Giiern shared identical smiling faces, unmistakably father and son.

The Diorent faction nobles, who barely came to their senses at the ominous flow, began to plead.

“Y-Your Majesty. How can you say such a thing? A marriage between His Grace the Grand Duchess and Duke Mastiff? It’s impossible.”

Marquis Orlendo, Rinox’s father and the man most closely tied to House Diorent, stepped forward.

Giiern looked askance at the bowing Marquis Orlendo and asked, “Impossible? Is the reason the Marquis opposes it because of the Duke’s birth?”

“That as well, but….”

Whisker’s problem wasn’t only his birth, of course, but the Marquis trailed off, watching the Emperor’s expression.

Just as the Marquis looked around at the other nobles, hoping for supporting fire, the Emperor stamped his foot harshly.

As if that still did not ease his anger, he pointed at Marquis Orlendo and shouted, “When I pushed for Duke Mastiff to marry Princess Veronica, no one took issue with the Duke’s birth. Now it’s a problem? Are you saying being a grand duchess’s husband is a more noble seat than being the Emperor’s son-in-law?”

“N-no, Your Majesty. That’s not what I mean. I…”

“If that’s not what you mean, then shut your mouth! From now on, anyone who speaks against this marriage will be regarded as insulting the imperial family.”

Giiern, who until just a moment ago had been acting the part of a magnanimous emperor he did not resemble, now raged, forcing the issue.

No matter what anyone said, even if the parties themselves refused, his will to bring this marriage to fruition blazed.

Marquis Orlendo looked to Cassia, asking for help, but she turned and walked away, as if she’d finished what she came to do.

Whisker staggered as he chased after her, and in the banquet hall still sunk in stunned silence, Jachim’s clear voice rang out.

“On a night this fine, what are the musicians doing? Begin the performance!”

At the Crown Prince’s urging, lavish music began again, but no one felt like dancing.

Looking down on the nobles, busy exchanging looks as if to ask each other what would happen now, only the Emperor and his son looked pleased.