The afternoon tea set that Louisa brought as a gift was immediately cleaned and placed on the reception room table by Daniel’s hands.

The fragrant aroma of coffee wafted through the reception room. The orange sunlight that could be seen at this late hour and the red glow from the fireplace added warmth to their faces.

Louisa took a sip of coffee from her cup and asked.

“You had something to talk about, didn’t you?”

Her elder brother had always arranged a meeting like this, saying let’s have a cup of tea, whenever he had something important to say. This time probably wouldn’t be much different.

Daniel silently took a sip of coffee in response to her question. After putting down his cup and pausing for a moment, he soon spoke in his usual tone as if it were nothing special.

“Here. This came to my address.”

Daniel handed over the invitation to the Duchess of Portland’s party.

Louisa put her cup down on the tray beside the stool. She took the small card her elder brother was handing her.

“There were only rumors about the Duke of Portland’s return, but it seems the date has finally been set. Your invitation arrived at the Allen mansion, and they forwarded it to me.”

The Duke of Portland’s return party.

Louisa opened the card with a troubled expression at the invitation that had arrived at this particular time.

A polite invitation written impeccably in the Duchess’s own hand. She murmured bitterly.

“This is the party I had asked to be invited to. The Duchess of Portland didn’t forget and sent it.”

Daniel frowned slightly. He hadn’t known those circumstances.

It wasn’t a particularly welcome conversation. If she had requested the invitation herself, knowing his sister’s personality, she would undoubtedly attend the party.

“Are you thinking of going? Though I understand the situation, personally I’d recommend not going.”

“…Did an invitation go to my husband, I mean, to Edward?”

“I’m not sure about that.”

Daniel belatedly regretted not asking about it more definitively.

If he had known whether Edward would be attending, it would have been much easier to decide, but when he had faced him, he wasn’t very rational due to the anger that welled up inside him.

Louisa stared down at the invitation in her hands.

She didn’t want to face her husband just yet. But it wasn’t an invitation she could simply ignore either.

“Elder brother.”

“Yes. Tell me, Louisa.”

She hesitated whether she should say these words.

If you could attend in my place, elder brother, wouldn’t that at least not be a breach of etiquette?

But those words wouldn’t leave her mouth. Pushing her responsibilities onto others for her own comfort was an irresponsible act she had never even imagined doing.

She felt self-loathing at the mere thought of having such an idea. It was devastating how she had become like this.

Her elder brother, not knowing what she was thinking, was just waiting kindly for her to speak.

Louisa’s heart ached with guilt.

This wouldn’t do. Running away once was enough. Couldn’t she just endure it for a short while?

“…I’ll be fine, so I’ll go. It wouldn’t be polite to refuse after bringing it up myself.”

“Louisa. If it’s hard, you can just say so. You need to be a little more mindful of yourself than others, you know.”

Louisa gave a bitter smile at her elder brother’s words.

“It’s alright. I can’t avoid it forever… and I really think I’ll be fine now.”

In truth, she wasn’t fine. Her heart still felt heavy thinking about Edward, and she didn’t know how to face him.

But she couldn’t push her burden onto someone else. So she had to go.

The coffee in Louisa’s cup beside her was growing cold. She clasped her hands tightly as she watched the flames flickering in the fireplace.

Daniel gently held his sister’s hands in his own. He looked at her intently and said,

“Then let’s go together. I should enjoy a party after a long time by your side.”

“No. You don’t need to go, and it wouldn’t look good in many ways if I attended with you instead of him.”

She shook her head and said with the brightest smile she could muster at the moment,

“I’ll go. Actually, it was a party I had been wanting to attend for a while.”

Mrs. Johnson, who had come in to help Edward prepare for work, heaved a deep sigh.

Edward was sitting on the sofa, staring blankly at the canvas depicting himself and Louisa.

The image of a woman with a few white flowers in her hair, smiling brightly in her husband’s arms.

Edward’s back looked quite small and pitiful as he gazed at it.

She called out to Edward.

“Master.”

Edward turned around at Mrs. Johnson’s call.

She belatedly discovered the bottles on the table that had been hidden from view by his back.

“Oh my. You’ve been drinking like this again.”

She hurried over and cleared away the bottles from the table.

Edward showed no particular reaction to her fuss. He slowly turned his head to look at the canvas again.

Mrs. Johnson sighed.

How long would this continue? Even for a mere servant like her, Edward’s complexion was worryingly poor.

Perhaps it was only natural. Spending every night drinking, with cigar stubs piling up day after day, it would be stranger if his condition were the same as usual.

In fact, at this point, it was admirable that he was still preparing for work without being hospitalized.

Mrs. Johnson looked at him with pitying eyes and asked,

“Will you be having breakfast today as well?”

Edward reluctantly got up from his seat.

“…I’ll be down soon, so have it ready.”

Her asking like that meant it was really time to start preparing now.

He originally didn’t eat breakfast, but after having breakfast with his wife, he had developed the habit of eating at least something light.

The effort he had made for his wife had become ingrained in such a short time, considering the time they had spent together wasn’t that long.

After Mrs. Johnson went downstairs, he washed up and came out, hastily putting on his clothes before going down.

He slowly chewed and swallowed the bacon sandwich prepared in the dining room on the first floor.

Unless he was going to deal with the divorce papers he couldn’t bring himself to touch, he had to live day by day like this, if only for his wife’s sake.

After finishing the last of the coffee in his cup, he got up from his seat.

No matter how difficult it was, he had to go out today and settle this matter.

Evan Winston was coming.

He left the mansion’s entrance with a fierce look in his eyes.

Guilford looked at Edward with anxious eyes. He said to Edward, who was sitting on the sofa with his chin resting on his hand,

“I know it’s hard, but you can’t waver today.”

“There’s nothing left to waver about.”

Edward said in a low, sinking voice.

He had already seen the worst situation.

Winston had been clinging to Louisa’s side, wagging his tail in all sorts of ways, and he, who had no right to interfere, had to pass by even though he saw them right before his eyes.

Although they were about to divorce soon, he and his wife were still legally married. Yet he had even made a declaration of war and then approached his wife openly. He couldn’t just let such behavior slide.

Of course, it was he who had neglected his wife and brought the situation to this point. It was nothing more than his own stubbornness that he couldn’t bear to see another man approach his wife, even though he was in this position. He knew best that it was selfish.

However, he really couldn’t just calmly let his wife go. If there was someone who could do that, well… they must surely love differently from him.

The sound of someone entering from outside was heard. Soon, an employee knocked on the door of the inner conference room to announce a visitor.

“Mr. Evan Winston has arrived.”

It was time to settle things with Evan Winston.

“You seem to have been busy lately.”

Edward said, crossing his legs as he sat in the seat of honor.

Evan received his words with a smile that showed no sign of agitation.

“Ah, thanks to you, I’ve had a few things to do.”

Edward knew what he meant by ‘things to do’. Edward tried hard to suppress the boiling feeling inside.

“Neither of us are people with time to spare. Let’s get down to business, shall we?”

He urged to get to the point. Guilford’s gaze fixed on him.

Originally, rushing something urgently wasn’t a good choice in negotiations.

However, if he kept looking at this face any longer, he felt like he might really throw a punch.

Evan, perhaps judging that he was being driven by impatience, smiled even more deeply and said,

“Then, without further ado, I’ll get straight to the point. Sign an exclusive supply contract with us. We’ll offer a price of 30 million eta.”

“Exclusive for just 30 million?”

Edward let out a laugh of genuine disbelief.

He had thought it wouldn’t be easy from the moment they leaked information to the press and came to pressure them.

However, he hadn’t expected them to try to cut off his nose right in front of his face like this.

Edward, after uttering a few exclamations of disbelief like “huh, really,” hardened his face and glared at Evan.

Despite this, Edward said to him, who was still smiling consistently,

“Talk sense, Lord Winston. The minimum amount we receive for a single contract is 50 million eta.”

“That’s not my concern. The usual case doesn’t necessarily apply now, does it?”

Evan showed an even deeper smile than before.

“The important thing is that right now, we’re the only shipping company in the country with the capacity to handle Allen Company.”

“At just 30 million, it seems to me that any company in the country would have more than enough capacity to handle it.”

“But they don’t have the guts to jump into this game.”

Evan showed a triumphant smile and brought his neatly spread palms together in front of his lips.