Chapter 69
***
Miriam took a deep breath and quickly pushed the merry-go-round toy in front of Louise.
"Here, you don't have to watch me as often, I can do it all by myself, and you don't have to give me this."
"Miriam..................."
"Uh, another teacher besides you, I don't want to, I'm scared, uh, she might stick me with a needle when you're not around, ugh, the doctor said some of the scars I have now will never go away."
"No, Miriam. You know your former teacher, Ms. Zara, your brother found her and made her pay for it, and she's never working as a tutor again."
Louise tried to convince Miriam with the story of her former teacher, but it didn't work.
"Ha, but, uh, other teachers besides you don't even like my seashells, they keep telling me to clean them up, they hate everything I do.........!"
Miriam's voice was rising in pitch.
Louise smiled through her teeth and pushed the carousel back toward Miriam.
"Wow, the horses must be so sad. Miriam threw them away as soon as she got them.........."
"Well, not that..................."
"I named them and thought they'd get along, but it was the most expensive gift I've ever bought in my life................"
"But you didn't....................."
Miriam ended up crying instead of yelling and getting angry.
"I don't want it without you, I don't want it without you, I don't want the toy...............!"
"I’m here, Miriam. I'm not going anywhere, and even if the new teacher comes, you and I will still see each other often and read books and draw pictures."
"If you go, if you go anywhere else.................."
"I'm not going away forever. Look, Miriam was sad a few days ago, but I came back, and I didn't forget you, and I brought you a pretty present."
Miriam looked back at the carousel.
"Miriam, if the new teacher hurt you, if she makes you sad, you can tell the butler, if I'm not here."
"Martin...............?"
Miriam blinked her teary blue eyes.
"But he's busy, and I can't bother him with chores, and I have to tell Verena..................."
So, Miriam must have instinctively known who was on her side, because Verena interjected to make sure she didn't rely on Martin alone.
Louise made it clear again.
"I don't think it's just a chore, he was hired to serve in the first place, so you can tell Martin anything you want."
"Really..................? But he's a man, and I can't even let him know I'm hurt."
"You can tell him. As long as you don't show him, it's okay. ‘My leg hurts, Martin’. Just say so."
Miriam barely nodded.
Louise took out her handkerchief and wiped the girl's tears.
"If we get a new teacher, I'll meet her first. If she's really nice and I think she'll teach Miriam well, I'll introduce her to you, otherwise I'll send her right back."
"Really..................?"
"Mmm, really."
Louise held out her pinky finger, and Miriam quickly hooked it.
Then she frowned and muttered.
"I hate my brother. I only have my sister, and he's taking her away again."
In fact, if it weren't for him, Miriam and Louise would never have met.
Louise smiled bitterly as she remembered the newspaper advertisement he had made to call her out.
***
Finally, the first day of May arrived.
Martin, the butler, came to Louise’s room with a gentle smile.
"An invitation has come from the Imperial Castle, Madame. I gave it to master first, and he told me to deliver it to you."
It was obviously the invitation to the masquerade ball Caius had spoken of.
"Thank you, Martin."
Louise took the invitation with a slight bow. Caius hadn't even bothered to open it, and the envelope was sealed in red beeswax.
As Louise looked down at it with a complicated gaze, Martin interrupted with a pleased voice.
"Thanks to you, Madame, the day has come for Burg to reply to the invitation to the May banquet."
"Ah................"
Caius seemed surprisingly unaware of what he was supposed to do at the ball. It was better that fewer people knew the nature of the job, just in case something went wrong.
Then again, the previous Countess had died giving birth to Miriam, so it would have been difficult for Ferdinand to attend a masquerade ball alone.
He was secretly raising a prince, and it would have been better to have an excuse.
Louise smiled lightly.
"I've never touched an envelope with the imperial seal before, so it's a curiosity."
Martin responded to her honesty with a hearty laugh and left the room. Alone, Louise chose to snip the edge of the envelope with a paper knife instead of breaking the sealed wax.
Her heart pounded as she opened the invitation her young mother must have received every May. Far from joy or excitement, it was fear.
***
Ten days later, in the imperial Castle.
Emperor Karl scowled arrogantly at the unexpected arrival of Jesenice's Margrave.
"What, you've found the former Count of Nasau in Jesenice?"
The Margrave of Jesenice was the most trusted of the four Margraves. But somehow he couldn't look at the Emperor properly and kept bowing his head.
"To be more precise, there is a man who claimed to be the Count of Nasau. The Count of Nasau, whom Your Majesty ordered me to find the other day."
With a trembling hand, he pulled an envelope from his chest pocket and pushed it toward the Emperor.
"This is what I found among his belongings."
The emperor frowned and jerked his jaw, and the chamberlain quickly snatched the envelope and opened it. Inside was a signet ring bearing the coat of arms of the House of Nasau.
The emperor's face flushed red as he recognized the ring.
Recently, rumors had been rife in the capital that Prince Leopold was a bastard child, the product of the late Empress's affair.
When a loyal servant procured a book about him and brought it to him, Emperor Karl tore it up in a fit of rage and threw it into the fireplace, burning it to the last page.
The sight of the book was enough to send the vulnerable Leopold into a depression for a while and make him feel terribly pathetic.
But the book was not banned or exposed and the author was never found, thanks to the Abolition of Censorship Act, which he pushed through Parliament.
It was one of the light-hearted measures he had adopted to placate the aristocrats who were angry about their pensions being cut.
The excuse was to reinstate censorship, but the system was in bad shape less than a year after its implementation.
He never thought such a minor piece of legislation would cause so much trouble.
Anyway, it was a long time ago that the Emperor ordered the search for the former Count of Nasau.
He was nowhere to be found when the soldiers went searching, and now he suddenly showed up in this mess?
If he had been alive, he would have changed his name and surname and lived as if he were dead. How dare he reveal his identity by carrying the signet ring!
"And have you brought him to me?!"
The emperor asked again, and Margrave bowed his head so deeply that his forehead touched the floor.
"But, Your Majesty, as you know, I know Count Nasau’s face. As far as I'm concerned, this is not him."
"What, are you trying to joke with me, then, that there is an impersonator of him, for what is there to be gained by impersonating him, and you have called upon the emperor for the work of a mere impersonator?"
"I have no proof that he is not Count Nasau, since he has the ring. I recognize his face, but I am not acquainted with him..................."
The Count of Jesenice replied, frowning.
"Furthermore, he is said to have Galician citizenship and to be working as an administrator at an organization. The entire place has a license, and it's even suspected that he's not the real Count of Nasau..................."
"Do what?"
"I had no choice but to grant him entry, but to let him stay in Jesenice for three days, and since it took me two days to get to the capital, he's already.........."
"Where is the destination of that organization!"
"In Parma, Your Majesty."
"What, have you ever seen such a worthless man!"
The emperor was furious and immediately dispatched the imperial army to capture the imposter.
The impostor had former Count Nasau’s signet ring.
If Count Nasau had died, there was a chance that the imposter would have sold his story and written a book.
"The crime is impersonating an imperial noble! Capture him at all costs!"
***
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