Mess 168
by Cristae168.
“Have you two been well? Sera, you still wear your hair short!”
“Did you cut it yourself?”
“It suits you so well!”
The three friends, all of the same age, burst into cheerful chatter and laughter at once.
“How disappointing.”
Someone standing behind them smiled demurely.
“So now you don’t even see your own mother, do you?”
Only then did Seraphie look up, searching for the Countess Dowager.
“…?”
Upon finding her, Seraphie had to widen her eyes yet again. It was the same for Lou, as well as Orchis and Karl, who were descending from the carriage behind them.
“M-mother?”
“You really are my mother, aren’t you?”
Seraphie stood frozen with shock. The elegant lady before her didn’t seem like her mother at all.
“Heavens, Countess Dowager!”
Lou was startled as well.
“You really are the Countess, right? For a second, I almost called you by your first name, thinking you were Sera’s younger sister!”
“Oh, my…”
The Countess Dowager flushed, at a loss. She looked so radiant that one might well forget her true age.
“Thank you… even if you’re just saying that.”
“Not at all, Countess.”
Even Karl couldn’t help but be impressed.
“You were always beautiful, but now you’re simply beyond words.”
“It’s good to see you again after so long.”
Orchis, in contrast, offered only the properly measured greeting.
“Mother.”
But the way she addressed her was more potent than any feigned familiarity.
“This is why love is such a terrifying thing,” Lou said, feigning a shudder.
“There are some things you only see if you live long enough,” said the dignified elderly lady at the Countess’s side, clicking her tongue.
“To think the Felikia family would produce such a fool.”
“Grandmother, that’s my suitor,” Seraphie replied.
“And that’s just what suits an impertinent grandchild who doesn’t even greet her grandmother.”
With a grumble, the Marquess Kia quietly opened her arms. Seraphie rushed forward and hugged her, wrapping her own arms around her grandmother’s back.
“Have you been well?”
“If you’d been any slower with your greeting, I mightn’t have made it.”
“Yes, I’ve been well too.”
“You’ve picked up some cunning of your own, I see.”
The Marquess snorted, but all the while, she gently patted Seraphie’s back.
After greeting her family after so long, Seraphie turned her gaze to the final, as yet unaddressed member of the welcoming party.
There were four people who had come out to greet them:
Her mother, her grandmother, Batisa…
“And…”
Hmm. Seraphie narrowed her eyes.
“…And who are you again?”
This was someone she felt she had seen somewhere before—exactly once—but whose face otherwise felt utterly unfamiliar.
“It’s an honor to see you again, Count Validus.”
A well-built young man bowed with impeccable posture, exuding a soldier’s discipline. Yet behind the formality in his tone, Seraphie detected tension and nervousness.
“I am Raven Dula of the Felikia Order of Knights.”
“He was one of the knights assigned to guard the Countess Dowager,” Orchis explained.
With that, Seraphie finally remembered who he was.
“He escorted the carriage back then!”
Of the four knights who had protected her mother’s carriage, this man, with his vivid navy hair, was among them.
His stern, martial look from then had softened, making it hard to believe he was the same person.
“I never properly thanked you that time—I was too distracted. Sir Dula, you’ve continued to help, not only my mother but even my grandmother.”
When she thanked him once again, Raven’s honest face reddened.
“I was only doing my duty as a knight. And I—well, to be honest, for you, Count—I truly—”
His words started to falter, dissolving into mumbling.
“Just a big oaf, that one.”
Marquess Kia thumped her cane on the ground.
“He was all bold and brash this morning, and now look at him—spineless.”
“M-mother…”
“Tsk, hush child, don’t interrupt.”
Seraphie began to feel a creeping anxiety.
‘…What exactly is this situation?’
It was natural for the Countess Dowager and Marquess Kia to be close—they were mother and daughter by law, and Seraphie’s absence had left them ample time to grow fond.
But what of the young knight caught awkwardly in the middle?
He seemed to cower before the Marquess, yet flashed a surprisingly gallant smile at the Countess Dowager.
The Countess, in turn, shyly cast her eyes down, radiant with happiness.
“My…”
Lou recognized that particular smile very well.
“She really is the same as ever.”
Sera used to smile just like that whenever she was alone with Sir Felikia.
“Gasp!”
Suddenly, Lou drew a sharp breath and turned to Batisa.
“Don’t tell me…!”
“Ah, well…”
Batisa averted her eyes, dodging the question.
“Sir Dula.”
Orchis called out in a rather unwelcome tone. At that chilling summons, the young knight straightened instantly.
“Explain yourself. Properly.”
The threat—speak, or that may be the last thing you ever say—remained unsaid.
“My apologies.”
Raven bowed deeply and raised his voice.
“I have developed personal feelings for the lady I am sworn to protect!”
Seraphie’s jaw dropped.
“I stand before Count Validus with a heavy sense of shame.”
He actually dropped to his knees before Seraphie.
She shook her head—not to say she objected, but because she could guess what he would say next, and wished he’d just keep quiet.
“I am in a sincere relationship with the Countess.”
And so, one should always beware a careless tongue, Seraphie thought ruefully, wanting nothing more than to slap her own lips for the banter in the carriage.
“I humbly ask your blessing for our courtship.”
Why did it have to be like this? Her wish for her mother’s happiness had been nothing but sincere—there wasn’t a shred of falsehood there.
But watching this knight kneeling before her, Seraphie felt the urge to seize a fistful of his hair.
Just as she flexed her fingers—
“But,”
Lou hesitantly raised her hand.
“Sir Knight—how old are you, exactly?”
At that question, Seraphie finally realized the strange sense of discomfort she’d felt. Yes—this knight was far too young to be her mother’s lover.
‘At most…’
He looked only a few years older than Seraphie herself.
A bad premonition flickered through her mind.
“…He’s my age,” Orchis said somberly.
Seraphie pounced on her stepfather and yanked his hair.
“Teacher! Teacher!”
“We missed you so much!”
“Waaah, waaaah….”
Bia’s younger siblings rushed to the Countess Dowager, showering her with uninhibited affection after so long apart.
“Just a short while apart, and you’ve all grown so splendid…!”
Each time she touched their faces with gentle hands, the children would giggle shyly, blushing.
The youngest, who had so proudly insisted on gifting the plush to Teacher, now broke into tears, clinging to her beloved teacher as if she would never let go.
Then, off to the side, a child standing apart caught their notice. With her dark blue hair, Carol hovered tentatively, stealing glances.
“…You must be that child,”
The Countess Dowager smiled softly.
She recognized her immediately. This was the child brought from the temple, the bastard led to Validus by rumor and design.
“Come here, darling.”
When she beckoned with open arms, Carol glanced back at her mother, who took her daughter’s hand and led her over.
“Ah, hello…”
“A pleasure to meet you. Was the journey here hard for you?”
The Countess welcomed both Carol and her mother warmly.
“I’ve heard the rough outlines of your situation. You’ve suffered so much.”
“No, not at all. My daughter and I have caused too much trouble, for the Countess, and for the Count…”
“Trouble?”
The Countess shook her head.
“Sera—Count Validus—didn’t bring you here with such thoughts. Neither did I.”
“Countess…”
Carol’s mother was deeply moved. She silently pledged herself to repay, in any way she could, a portion of the kindness bestowed by Validus.
“The sound of the children laughing is wonderful to hear.”
Marquess Kia smiled warmly.
By now, the children were running around the gardens, their innocent laughter prompting smiles from all the adults.
“All this commotion, it finally feels like a real home.”
Batisa tucked her short bob behind her ear with a smile.
“Are you saying you were bored when it was just us?”
“Oh Marquess, you do have a sharp tongue.”
“……”
Yet even as chatter continued, the Countess Dowager was restless.
Her gaze kept drifting over to the closed-up villa, where her daughter and that person were inside together, the air around it uneasy.
“Don’t fret too much,”
Marquess Kia sipped lukewarm peach tea and said,
“Mmm, this is good. Did Sera bring it?”
“It’s peach tea. The aroma is wonderful, isn’t it?”
“Mother, perhaps I should go and—”
“Firre.”
As she was named, the Countess Dowager tensed.
“…I just worry that Sera will be disappointed in me.”
“Your daughter isn’t so small-minded.”
To the Marquess, this matter truly seemed trivial.
“Lovers twenty years apart are a dime a dozen. Even the Imperial family has, for politics or whatever, married off girls too young to become Empress.”
“That’s… different, though.”
“Which is exactly my point.”
Theirs was a relationship of love, not arrangement; both were adults.
And so, in the Marquess’s logic, the age gap didn’t matter at all.
“Rather than worry about that, go watch the children playing.”
The sight of them frolicking like colts drove all worldly cares away; just being around them was a gift.
“……”
Yet the Countess Dowager’s gaze could not leave the villa.
“First, if I may.”
Before she began, Seraphie deliberately regulated her breath: in, out. The exhalation stirred her bangs.
“Thank you for becoming someone so precious to my mother.”
She spoke earnestly.
“It’s I who should apologize. I’m—no, I mean, I feel terribly unworthy of the Countess…”
Kneeling before her, Raven hastily corrected himself, nearly addressing her by the affectionate nickname he used in private.
“I also apologize for just now, when I tore at your hair. I momentarily thought you were a weasel after my family’s fortune.”
“What fortune?!”
Raven protested with near indignation, and then spoke with all sincerity.
“I love the Countess.”
Once again, Seraphie’s hands twitched with the urge to yank his hair.