The lazy morning sunlight matched the drowsiness in his voice. His hair was a mess, as though he had not even bothered to brush it, and Celia’s eyes widened at the sight.
“You came here looking like that?”
His clothes had been thrown on carelessly as well, the front of his shirt hanging loosely open.
Rubbing at his reddened eyes as if exhausted, he rolled one shoulder lazily.
“It’s not like I’m going out anywhere. What does it matter?”
“Evandor, are you out of your mind right now? This place is crawling with people from Windmere. Do you know how many are waiting to catch your flaws? How could you walk all the way here looking like this?”
Evandor toyed with his earlobe and sneered.
“Flaws? Who would dare? Those pathetic fools who spend their lives groveling beneath Windmere think they can criticize me, the future heir of Brickwell?”
The arrogance in his voice made Celia glare at her foolish younger brother.
At some point, he had already wandered closer. Folding his arms, he swept his blue eyes over her once before his gaze landed on the table.
The unfinished letters she had been writing lay exposed before him.
“Writing to Father? Give them to me when you’re done. I’ll deliver them on my way back.”
If he didn’t throw them away first, that would already be a miracle.
But saying that aloud felt like tempting fate, so Celia simply nodded vaguely.
Evandor slowly looked around her immaculate drawing room.
Then, with faint excitement in his voice, he remarked,
“You decorated it exactly like Brickwell.”
“Of course I did. I’m a person of Brickwell.”
“Being here with you like this in the morning, in a room that feels familiar… it almost feels like we’ve gone back to the old days.”
Celia’s gaze sharpened instantly.
Evandor chuckled and took a step back.
“Ah, I didn’t come here to fight first thing in the morning. I came because I had something to say.”
He rubbed his chin with his fingertips.
“Something to say?”
“Yeah. Something important.”
The playful smile he had been basking beneath the morning sun with slowly disappeared.
Planting a hand on the table where she sat, he leaned his upper body down toward her.
A shadow fell across her face. Celia opened her mouth, but Evandor gave her no chance to speak.
“Sister. What exactly are you hiding from me right now?”
Celia froze.
The hand moving her pen stopped. Evandor, who had been staring only at her face, lowered his eyes to her motionless hand.
“You’d better talk. I’m going to report everything that’s happened in Windmere to Father. Including today’s conversation. Are you sure you want Father finding out that you’re hiding some major secret about Lucius and refusing to tell him?”
Had Evandor noticed?
That something had happened to Lucius?
“…It’s not like there’s anything I can’t tell him.”
Though she carried the name of Windmere now, Celia had always belonged to Brickwell.
People said that once a woman married, she became part of her husband’s family. But the house where she had been born and raised was far away, still calling to her.
People always said blood could never lie, that one could never escape one’s roots. So how could signing a marriage contract suddenly change who she fundamentally was?
There was nothing she could not say.
To begin with, there was no loyalty between herself and Lucius worth protecting.
If anything, she would rather see him ruined. No matter how hard she searched her mind, she could not find a single reason to defend him at the expense of her own family.
At last, Celia spoke.
As the story unfolded, Evandor’s eyes slowly widened.
His gaze, calm as a windless sea moments before, now rippled unpleasantly with delight at the new information.
He abruptly rose to his feet.
“This is an opportunity, Sister.”
Striding toward her, he spread his arms brightly and placed both hands on her shoulders.
His voice rang with excitement.
Celia tried to shove his hands away, but Evandor only tightened his grip.
The hand she used to push at his wrist was caught instead.
Then shocking words fell from his lips.
“It’s Father’s order. Lucius has evidence that could destroy Brickwell. Find it and bring it back.”
Celia glared at him at the casual command.
The fierce eyes directed at him—eyes he had missed dearly—only deepened Evandor’s grin.
“You are, and always will be, Brickwell’s eldest daughter and its only lady. Shouldn’t you do what benefits Brickwell?”
Evandor had inherited a spoonful of their father’s temperament and a spoonful of their grandfather’s mannerisms. Mimicking their tone perfectly, he tried to loom over her.
“If you want me to move, then tell me first what kind of evidence Lucius has.”
“Hm.”
As though he had finally been waiting for the moment to reveal it, Evandor began pacing restlessly around the room. His shoes struck the floor with crisp tapping sounds.
The maids polished those floors every day. Watching him stomp around like that was enough to make her worry he might kick up dust.
After pondering for a long while, he finally began.
“The reason Father suddenly reconciled with Windmere in the first place… the reason he married you off to that bastard from a family obsessed with funding gentry and middle-class fools for profit… all of it was because of this.”
Celia’s eyes turned cold.
Now that she had opened the stage for him, Evandor lowered his voice.
“Eight years ago, Father got greedy for a while and invested in the western colonial defense contracts. You remember the rebellion they called the Black Dawn Incident, don’t you?”
Of course she remembered.
The entire capital had been thrown into chaos because of it.
Back then, an armed militia group had formed in the western colonies. Though they claimed to exist for colonial protection, they were in truth an organization seeking to divide the Empire and overthrow the government.
In other words, traitors.
Celia’s hands trembled violently.
Over the past several years, she had endured countless things beyond common sense and believed her heart had become hardened.
Yet now it pounded like the frantic heartbeat of a newborn bird.
“Father quickly pulled out the funds, destroyed all the ledgers and documents, and even silenced the servants involved.”
Tap. Tap.
Evandor drummed his fingers against the table in front of her as he continued coldly,
“But apparently not everything disappeared. Someone stole a single shipping contract bearing Father’s signature and seal. And… who do you think has it?”
Whether one was clever or not, there was only one possible answer.
“Don’t tell me… Lucius has it?”
“Exactly.”
He answered without a shred of hesitation.
“I don’t know why that bastard still hasn’t made it public. Thanks to that, we’ve managed to survive for now… but because of it, Father had to make that ridiculous reconciliation, and now he practically bows and scrapes in front of Windmere. You want to keep watching that?”
Everything Brickwell had built—its honor, its status—could collapse instantly.
Every terrible possibility imaginable already flashed through Celia’s mind.
“So while that bastard’s lost his memory, Father wants you to get close to him. Become close enough to enter his office, his bedroom, wherever you want. Eventually, you’ll get a chance to find the document.”
By now, Celia could taste blood in her mouth.
She had bitten the tender flesh inside her cheek so hard that it felt shredded.
“Lucius may have lost his memory, but you know what kind of person he is. He’s meticulous. There’s no way he’d let me into places that private.”
“They say he’s out of his mind now. Who knows? Maybe if you whine a little, he’ll let you in.”
The words were so absurd she almost doubted her ears.
Backed by their father’s authority, Evandor was treating her like a tool.
“Or try whispering sweet things to him in bed.”
At that moment, the strength drained from the hand she had clenched tightly.
She looked up at Evandor with an expression that suggested her hearing had failed her.
The instant crack in her composure drew him even closer.
“Sister, don’t tell me you’re seriously going to whine that you can’t manipulate one brain-damaged man?”
He laughed softly beside her ear, almost whispering.
“Then again, you were so terrified of your wedding night that you faked it the first time. Could you even pull something like that off?”
Evandor’s face twisted strangely.
His eyes were half-lidded with cold amusement, while the corners of his lips curled lazily upward. The warped smile looked subtly distorted, stabbing deeper into Celia’s already mounting discomfort.
Her gaze hardened in silence, unmoving as it pierced him.
“But what are you going to do, Sister? You got caught pretending you’d consummated the marriage, and then you had to redo the wedding night in front of the priests! So why act modest now?”
His rough hand grabbed her arm painfully and yanked her upward.
“Men are idiots. Smile sweetly at them and they’ll hand over everything they own. Whether you use your body or your head, do something useful for Brickwell, Sister.”
The cruel order was thrust directly before her eyes.
