The lord was so surprised to have something put in his mouth that he chewed instinctively...and when he finally swallowed...
“Th-This is amazing!”
Everyone was once again completely dumbfounded.
“Wait, it is?!” The king was relieved that he’d (unintentionally) managed to avoid being the poison taster of the meat in his hands.
“I-It is... It’s a lot like chicken, but it’s melt-in-your-mouth tender, but with just enough chewiness to make it nice and juicy...and this seasoning is so impactful... I really think I could get addicted to it... I...”
“Hmm? Is something the matter, milord?”
Just as the lord was in the middle of answering the king, he turned to look at Emma and his face slackened with joy.
“Oh, not this again! How does this keep happening?!” George recognized the situation and groaned.
“Oh, dang it... I mean, that’s the kind of older dude whose one arm totally tells a tale! So that’s why she went out in such a tense situation! Because the lord’s an older guy!”
The lord of Skyte, who’d ruled for many long years, was a burly middle-aged man and absolutely Emma’s type. How could she strike again at a time like this?!
“Is something the matter? Everything’s really okay now. We’re safe here. I think you’ll feel much better once you have something to eat. Then we can show you the weapons we use in Pallas for hunting too! We brought a whole bunch today, and we’re both on the border, so I think it’d do us both some good!” Then Emma wiped the sweat from the rugged one-armed man’s brow with a handkerchief made of Emma silk.
The weaker older men, the feasting older men, the sleeping older men, the older men talking about work... It was all so wonderful for Emma.
“A-Are you...an angel? No! You must be...a real saint!”
It didn’t matter whether Emma’s smile had ulterior motives or not. The Fogey’s Fancy had struck again, capturing another poor soul in its clutches.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Are you sure it’s okay you didn’t go on the field trip?” Carlos asked Joshua when he’d returned from dealing with more complaints. There really was no end to people complaining to the company for not carrying any cotton, and most of the staff was looking exhausted. As Joshua was the one responsible for it, he had to take the full brunt of everyone’s wrath. Even though he’d been allowed to manage a store on his own, this was not the sort of thing a poor boy not even sixteen years of age would normally be able to handle. In fact, it would’ve been much healthier for him to be a bit selfish and say he wanted to spend some time with the girl he liked, like other boys his age. “Gosh, I bet you your beloved Lady Emma is cozying up real nice with Prince Edward right about now...” What are you gonna do about it? Carlos teased as Joshua began dealing with the accounting books at a speed no normal boy should be capable of.
Joshua didn’t even look up from the ledger, as the corners of his mouth turned upward. “Heh. The prince could never cozy up to Lady Emma.”
“You don’t need to pretend, Young Master. Everyone knows Prince Edward has a thing for Lady Emma. Even if they’re in separate tents, they’ll be together for several days and nights... Something could very easily—!” Just as he was about to say something could happen, Joshua turned his gaze upon Carlos. It was very rare for Joshua to look away from his books when he was calculating sales, so it was quite startling. “Er... Never mind. Nothing. I’m sure there’s good things in store for you too, so...” he added, feeling nervous that he’d taken his jokes too far and Joshua had actually gotten mad at him.
Joshua snorted. “Just think for a second and you’ll understand. Lord Leonard would never let anyone cozy up with Lady Emma.”
“What?”
“When I heard there would be a class field trip, I took a little preemptive measure. I was sure that the women at the tea parties Lady Melsa attended would talk about guardians being able to accompany the students on the trip.”
“What? But...that just means maids and guards would be coming along, right?” Carlos asked, to which Joshua shook his head.
“No. The Stewart family has always had a tragically pauper-like sense for these sorts of things. For them, they’d be more familiar with the term ‘guardian’ in reference to a parent. It’s clear that both Lady Melsa and Lord Leonard would love to attend this field trip if the opportunity were available. All I had to do was make sure the conversations at the tea parties went in that direction, and I could rest assured they would be going on the field trip alongside her.”
“Uh. That is really freaky, dude. But still, no matter how much he loves his daughter, even he can’t keep his eyes on her twenty-four seven, right? Prince Edward’s a pretty smart cookie. He’d be able to catch even the slightest opening.” While he’d initially planned on comforting Joshua for not being able to go on the field trip, now Carlos was starting to side with the prince. Maybe it was because Joshua was freaking him out.
“Ah. That’s right. Lord Leonard’s a bit of a dolt. Lady Melsa seems to have her act together, but she can be a bit careless sometimes too.”
“Whoa, maybe watch your mouth a bit?” This was a ridiculously powerful family that had been supporting the Rothschild Company for some time now. That was really no way to talk about them.
“But I was sure to take care of that too...by adding her niece-brained uncle into the mix.”
“Huh? What? Oh! Lord Arven?! I was thinking his visit was super convenient, but... Wait, are you saying you plotted to have him here?!”
“Why are you making me sound like some kind of scheming scoundrel? I simply laid the groundwork with the Stewart Family Women’s Association.” Even if any of them threw a tantrum about Arven being the one to go, none of them were brave enough to go against their wives, and Lord Arven was wise enough not to let this chance go to waste.
“Their wives?! Young Master... You seriously went this far to get in the prince’s way?!”
“Don’t misunderstand me. It’s Lord Arven getting in the prince’s way. Not me. What better opportunity could there be for me to use the lord, whose wits are so famed they call him a national treasure? Heh heh... Heh heh heh... If the prince thinks he can cozy up to Lady Emma now that I’m not there, he certainly has another thing coming...”
“Dude, you are so freaky!”
Just then, the slum kid, Huey, aka the ninja Joshua had been hiring lately, appeared with a fwsh. “Master Joshua. If you had to go through all that underhanded work, wouldn’t it have been better to just participate in the field trip yourself? Harold’s always saying it’s better not to make things more complicated than they have to be. After all, it’s always the guys who are upfront and honest who get the girls in the end. The guys who sneak around are always made out to be villains,” Huey warned Joshua, his face less worried and more put off.
“How dare you! You can’t compare Lady Emma to those run-of-the-mill love interests! Lady Emma’s special!”
“Uh... Yeah, special’s one way to put it... Or unique...” Huey said, racking his brains for a nice way to put it.
“More importantly, has the ship arrived at the harbor yet?” The reason Joshua hadn’t gone on the field trip was because it overlapped with the return of the first trading vessel that had been sent to the Eastern Empire. He’d had Huey go to the Simmons region, where the largest port in the kingdom was.
“Yup, it made it here just fine. All of the cargo’s crated so you can’t tell what’s in it, and all the Imperials and ninjas on board were hidden, so I don’t think anyone would recognize that the Rothschild Company is trading with the Eastern Empire right now. There’s tons of your boats coming in and out of the harbor all the time, so I don’t think you really need to go through all that trouble to hide this...”
But they did need to trade with the Eastern Empire in utmost secrecy, because the main import was magic stones. There weren’t any mages in the kingdom at the moment, so even if they’d bought magic stones, they’d be nothing more than useless rocks. However, since the Stewart family was still giving their support to the Eastern Empire to help them rebuild, the Eastern Empire needed to repay them somehow. While the family themselves said they’d be okay with just rice, that wouldn’t slide. It was understandable why the Eastern Empire would have offered magic stones, as they were valued highly all across the world, meaning the stones were the easiest way to make their partnership mutually beneficial.
Unfortunately, the Western Empire made the very act of handling magic stones quite problematic. Their obsession with the stones had gotten worse and worse as the years went on, and they’d recently started “trading” with smaller countries for them (which amounted to practically pillaging them for resources). They’d use up every last stone available to them, so they absolutely could not let this shipment fall into the Western Empire’s hands.
The Stewart family didn’t have the smarts nor the will to deal with that kind of precarious, pain-in-the-butt situation, so they had Joshua deal with all the trading with the Eastern Empire. He and the Rothschild Company set the price, import volume, and who in the kingdom was allowed to know.
“Lady Emma entrusted me with this mission. I couldn’t possibly get sloppy with it.”
“Um... I’m pretty sure the Stewart family kinda...foisted it on the Rothschild Company...”
“Me too...”
Both Carlos and Huey could only sit there in bafflement.