She had staggered down a step and sat down, which was poor behavior on her part, and held her head wearily. Not the type to dwell on her troubles for long, she thought, I need to talk to Norman about this. Fiona stood then, filled with determination, and went searching for him.
She quickly found Norman by a flower bed in the garden with her younger sister, Cecilia.
“Norman, come here for a minute, would you?”
“Whoa, don’t scare me like that.”
“Just come on! Cecilia, I’m going to be borrowing him for a few minutes.”
“A-all right?”
She dragged Norman out of sight of her confused sister. The reason Norman didn’t try to shake Fiona’s grip on his hand, despite his protests, was because they were friends—not because he was in love with her. Fiona stopped near the elm tree at the edge of the garden, where Norman calmly asked, “Has something happened?”
“You won’t believe what I just heard!”
Norman was objectively an attractive man, even as he looked at her in puzzlement. He had slightly wavy golden hair and clear brown eyes. The colorful hues of his features gave the impression of a good-natured dog that would harm neither man nor beast.
Norman didn’t bother to brace himself as he waited for Fiona to explain. “They’re talking about marrying us,” she said bluntly. “Did you know about this?”
“Ah. So it’s happening, huh?”
Fiona was stunned at his nonchalant response. She grabbed his arms and started shaking him. “Wh-what do you mean? So you did know about it? This means we’re actually going to be married!”
“You mean to tell me that you didn’t know?” His response flustered Fiona. Norman’s smile was one of resignation as he peeled Fiona’s hands off his arms. “You never stopped to wonder why only I ever came over, or why I travel around your fief with your father?”
“Huh?” Fiona was stunned.
It was true that it was always Norman alone who came to their home to play; his older brothers seldom visited. Furthermore, Norman had started working as her father’s secretary recently, which meant that he regularly accompanied her father on inspections of their fief and in meetings with neighboring lords.
“Since it’s just me and my sister, I thought that you might inherit our property… But I never thought that might include marriage of all things!”
“I had assumed the same, but it seems we were both wrong.”
“Huh? Wait, but…”
Only men could inherit, and in families with only daughters, it was common to adopt a son into the house to be the heir. Marriage wasn’t a necessary part of the process. Until recently, Fiona’s father had never spoken a word to her about marriage, let alone wanting her to get engaged. This was why she assumed that he planned to adopt Norman without marrying them.
Fiona was in a panic over the situation, but neither Norman’s expression nor his tone was any different from usual. “I don’t mind marrying you,” he said. “There’s no reason to worry about us potentially getting married.”
“I don’t remember ever having once worried about you in my whole life.”
“That’s true, I feel like there never was a need for you to worry about me to begin with.”
His response was nonchalant, but she couldn’t laugh with him like normal. In fact, the way she pouted made him laugh all the more.
“It’ll be fine, right? I’m just going to start living here and things will be the same between us as they always have been.”
She had good reason to think so. She and Norman had grown up together, since before her earliest memories, and they were even distant relatives. That meant they were already family. Still, the thought of them formally becoming husband and wife was hard for Fiona to swallow.
After a short pause, she asked, “Do you have someone you’re in love with?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve never thought about it before. But I’m guessing you don’t.”
Fiona bit back her rebuttal and held her head in her hands. “Aaaagh! This is all happening because of the river.”
“Huh? No, it’s not. You were talking about how you plan to go abroad with Uncle Reggie next year, weren’t you? Your father is more worried about that than the whole business about the construction.”
“What?” Uncle Reginald was the man she worked for. He lived his life on the road, traveling between other countries and their home country. Fiona grew up listening to his tales of all the different countries of the world, so it was natural that she wanted to see them with her own eyes.
She had asked him about it, and he promised to take her when she became an adult. That was three years ago, and next year she would finally be old enough. Fiona was counting down the days in anticipation of it.
“They said that if you get married, then you’ll have to stay here.” Norman lowered his voice, sounding a bit hesitant. “You know they’re worried because of what happened to Auntie.”
“Oh, yes…”
Fiona’s mother had died the year after she gave birth to Cecilia. With her weak constitution, she was unable to fully recover from childbirth. Fiona was like her father not only in looks but in constitution: she was so healthy that she hardly ever caught a cold. It had never occurred to her that her own conduct might be cause for concern in light of her mother’s death. Nor had her uncle—her mother’s younger brother—ever said a word about it.
But it was clear her father felt differently.
“B-but Father said I could go.”
Norman smiled crookedly. “Well, I’m guessing he did so because you claimed it would be for the sake of the fief.”
Sightseeing and assisting her uncle weren’t the only reasons Fiona wanted to travel—she also wanted to do it for their fief. The Barony of Clayburn was good land, full of simple and beautiful landscapes and quiet people. However, they didn’t have any special resources, places, or products that could bring tourism. As a result, the family was barely making ends meet.
They needed funds to bring doctors to their clinics, teachers to their schools, and to plant new kinds of crops. The recent flood wasn’t the first natural disaster to befall them either. It had been recommended that they make some investments, but that required having capital on hand to begin with. Besides, with their lack of connections to high society, it would be difficult to know what to invest in. Fiona hoped, if possible, to find a sound and steady source of funds in her travels. With that reasoning, her father had agreed, despite the somewhat perplexed frown he wore.
“The truth is that he doesn’t want you to go,” Norman continued.
Revitalizing their fief was always a topic of discussion. If anything, her father should’ve welcomed her proposal. But, as Norman revealed to Fiona, her father couldn’t help but worry that something might happen to her, or that she might fall ill, while she was in a foreign land.