FOU – Chapter 3

Chapter 3

About a week later, Cedric visited the Langton Viscount’s estate.

“Excuse me, sir. Could you direct me to the Langton Viscount’s residence?”

“Down that way, sir.”

“Thank you.”

The Langton territory was located in a rather tranquil rural village. It was unclear how much of it remained under the Langton family’s domain. It was remote and sparsely populated, but the scenery wasn’t bad.

Cedric had sent word of his visit to the Viscount but hadn’t specified an exact date or time. He traveled alone, without attendants, and driving a plain carriage himself. He wanted to keep the visit informal, hoping it would come across as nothing more than a casual stop to deliver his grandfather’s regards while passing nearby.

He didn’t want to appear as a man readily prepared to propose to a woman he hadn’t even seen before. It was a transparent pretense, but it was better than no pretense at all.

But there was a problem. The Viscount’s estate wasn’t located in the village center, but tucked away in a more isolated area further away from the village.

It was difficult to find based on the address alone. He had already asked for directions once, yet another fork in the road soon appeared. The place was quite deserted.

Cedric paused, reins in hand, and waited for someone to pass by. After a few minutes, a figure emerged from the bushes… It was a boy. He had a hunting hat pulled low over his eyes and a sack slung across his back. Cedric gently steered the carriage alongside the child.

“Hey, kid.”

There was no response, so Cedric raised his voice slightly.

“Hey.”

Still no answer.

“Hey, you in the brown hat with your trousers rolled up.”

He added a specific description of the boy’s appearance. Only then did the child turn his head towards Cedric.

“Is this the way to the Viscount Langton’s estate?”

But the boy didn’t answer. He simply stared at Cedric, wide-eyed and unblinking, frozen like a startled deer.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” Cedric asked.

Putting aside the difference in their social standing, staring intently at someone was rude. But Cedric didn’t intend to throw his weight around with a kid. He wasn’t that petty. He simply wished the boy would stop glaring.

“I didn’t realize you were calling me when you said ‘kid’.”

Ah… With a sullen expression, Cedric finally understood the boy’s response that was delivered after a long silence.

The boy, who looked to be in his mid-teens, though his voice suggested he hadn’t yet gone through puberty, was probably one of those teenagers who liked to think they were practically grown. Being called a “kid” must’ve bruised his ego.

“My apologies,” Cedric said casually. “Now, may I ask you for directions to the Langton Viscount’s mansion?”

“May I ask the reason for your visit to the Viscount?”

Cedric frowned at the question that came instead of an answer.

It was a rather cheeky response. To ask the purpose of his visit before even answering his question.

“Do I need to tell you that?” Cedric asked sharply.

“No, not really. I was only wondering what business someone as shabby as you would have in such a noble place.”

The boy shrugged. Cedric could hardly believe his ears. “What did you just say?”

“Ah. My mistake. I meant to say… what business someone as noble as you would have in such a shabby place.”

The so-called apology was anything but. He just grinned, the corners of his mouth lifting into a half-smile. His brown eyes were utterly expressionless, but Cedric could almost hear the silent mocking:

‘What? You wanna argue over something this petty? Really?’

Cedric quietly narrowed his brow. What’s the deal with this kid? Before Cedric could come up with a reply, the boy spoke again, still wearing that sullen look.

“You’ve come to the wrong place, Your Excellency.”

“What?”

At his curt reply, the boy sighed. Cedric couldn’t be sure, but there seemed to be a touch of exasperation in that breath. Was he being too sensitive?

“You’ve taken the wrong road, Your Excellency. It’s not this way, Your Excellency. If you wish to see Viscount Langton, you should go that way, Your Excellency.”

Something about the way he said it didn’t feel right. Cedric raised an eyebrow.

The boy politely continued, “If you go that way, you’ll come to a zelkova tree forest. Just follow the path through the forest straight to the very end, Your Excellency.”

The seemingly polite way he kept adding “Your Excellency” felt strangely laced with displeasure. It was a title reserved for counts and above… but in the boy’s mouth, it felt like an insult. Like he was saying, ‘You must be terribly important to speak so casually to strangers.’

Or maybe he was reading too much into it. In any case, he had gotten directions.

Cedric gave the boy a small nod.

“Thank you.”

“Goodbye.” The boy replied as he nodded his head and turned sharply to walk away. His footsteps as he walked away were almost chilly. Cedric almost thought he heard a ghostly voice saying, ‘Let’s not meet again’ trailing behind him.

What on earth was that all about? Cedric narrowed his eyes as he watched the small figure disappear. His decent first impression of Langton had been slightly tarnished by this meeting. He shook his head and once again pulled on the horse’s reins.

********

But Langton Manor wasn’t where it was supposed to be.

Cedric had followed the forest path to the very end, only to find himself in a more desolate stretch than before. An air of solitude, several times greater than that of the village center, enveloped him. It felt as though there wouldn’t be a single habitable house, let alone a manor.

Cedric pulled the reins, stopping the horse. Only the horse’s snorting echoed in the sparsely populated entrance of the forest.

Just as Cedric was thinking of turning the horse around again, a woman dressed in mourning clothes, hurrying along in the distance, caught his eye. He urged the horse forward, approaching her.

“Excuse me, madam.”

A middle-aged woman in black clothes quickly looked up at his call. Cedric offered a faint smile and spoke.

“Is this the way to the Langton Viscount manor?”

“Oh my. You’ve taken the wrong road.”

Of course, he had. Cedric bit his lower lip. He had a feeling from the start that he was on the wrong path. If not for the boy’s helpful directions, he would’ve turned back ages ago.

“If you go further this way, you’d only reach the cemetery.”

“The cemetery?”

“Yes. There’s only the graveyard behind there. The Langton Manor is on the opposite side.”

With those words, the woman pointed to the opposite end of the path Cedric had just come from.

“I see.”

Cedric offered the woman a kind smile… he knew to be polite to women his mother’s age… Cedric silently bit back a string of curses.

That damned brat.

Cedric would’ve wagered his entire fortune that the impudent little boy had done it purposely.

* * *

More than an hour later, Cedric finally arrived at the Langton Manor… thanks to the proper directions from the woman.

Langton’s country house was an old and stately mansion. When it was first built, it must have had a very refined air, but due to a lack of proper repairs for some time, there were noticeable dilapidated spots here and there on the exterior.

Cedric alighted from the carriage and entrusted the horse to a waiting footman. He specifically asked that the horse be given plenty of feed, as it had suffered unnecessarily, thanks to one insolent little rascal.

He entered the mansion through the door the footman opened, with his polished shoes clicking against the marble floor. Not long after stepping into the lobby, a man leaning on a cane appeared to greet him.

“Cedric Hayworth, of the House of Sutherwick.” Cedric removed his hat and bowed politely. Robert responded with a gentle smile.

“Welcome, Marquess of Northerland. I am Robert Langton.”

The Marquess of Northerland was another title by which Cedric was known.

Traditionally, the eldest son of a noble house inherited one of the highest-ranking subsidiary titles held by his father. The title had no real power but marked his position as heir.

Previously, it had been a title held by his father, Alexander, but it had passed to Cedric after his father’s death. Cedric shook his head slightly at the title he was now accustomed to.

“You don’t need to be so formal. Just call me Cedric.”

Then Robert nodded, as if he had been expecting it.

“As you wish, Cedric.”

Although Cedric outranked him, the honorifics and politeness in aristocratic society weren’t determined solely by rank.

Cedric, despite his ducal lineage, had yet to inherit his title formally. Robert, on the other hand, bore his own… he was already a noble in his own right. Furthermore, as the Viscount had a longer history than the dukedom, tradition demanded that respect be paid accordingly.

In recent times, there was a growing trend of prioritizing financial power over honor, with hierarchy often based on “how much money does each family have in their coffers?” But Cedric wasn’t among those who bowed to coin over custom.

“The last time I saw you was at a wedding at the Duke’s mansion,” Robert said. As they made their way toward the drawing room, Cedric followed his host’s lead.

“I have yet to marry,” Cedric replied, somewhat puzzled.

“I meant your uncle, Chase’s wedding.”

Ah. Chase… his youngest uncle. That wedding had taken place nearly twenty years ago.

“That young child has grown up so much already. I regret that my leg ailment prevents me from attending many social gatherings these days.”

They both knew that was not the truth.

It was due to financial difficulties. The Langton Viscount family had long since sold their family’s townhouse in the capital. There was no way they could regularly travel to the capital.

Making the journey to the capital, let alone partaking in the costly whirl of society, had become a near impossibility. It was not uncommon among the nobility for families of reduced means to scrimp and save enough for a single season, just enough to present a daughter to society in the hope of a fortunate match.

But of course, neither man betrayed that shared understanding. Instead, Cedric offered a graceful smile.

“It is my duty to call upon you. Rather, I fear that my sudden visit might be an imposition.”

“Nonsense,’’ Robert said, casually waving his hand. “How is your grandfather doing?”

“He is in excellent health. He asked me to convey his regards to you, Viscount.”

His health was too excellent, in fact, enough to dispatch his grandson to the countryside on a romantic errand to the child born of a first love from over half a century ago.

Cedric perched on the sofa in the drawing room, his mind briefly flitting to Graham, who would be eagerly awaiting his report.

“So, what brings you all the way here?” Robert asked as soon as the teacup saucer, brought by a maid, touched the table.

Cedric pondered for a moment how to answer that question. Initially, he had planned to simply say he had come to convey his grandfather’s regards. However, judging by the Viscount’s expression, he seemed to have some inkling of the purpose of his visit already.

For all his pedantry and lack of business acumen and, Robert was definitely perceptive. He likely knew of the recent inquiries… subtle, but unmistakable… made by the old Duke into the affairs of the Langton household. Specifically, concerning a daughter. A daughter who had just reached the customary age for marriage.

“To put it bluntly,” Cedric changed his mind and decided to tell the truth. After all, it is better to face the music sooner rather than later. “I have come to see your daughter, Miss Hailey Langton.”

“Miss Hailey Langton?” the Viscount echoed, his brows lifting slightly into an expression Cedric couldn’t immediately interpret… He looked oddly amused, as if the answer had caught a corner of his expectations, but missed the mark entirely.

“Isn’t your child’s name Hailey?” Cedric asked, puzzled.

“That is correct.” Robert replied with a peculiar smile.

While Cedric briefly wondered about the meaning of that smile, Robert reached for the bell on the table and rang it.

“Yes, Master?”

“Bring Hailey here.”

“Yes, Master.”

The door clicked shut behind the retreating maid. Moments passed, and then came the sound of footsteps… they were deliberately firm, and heavy.

“What is it, Father?”

“You have a visitor, Hailey.”

“Ah, hello.”

The door opened fully, and in stepped Hailey Langton.

Indeed, the person had a face very similar to the portrait of Lyla Langton he had seen while passing through the lobby.

They had bright golden hair, eyes a striking shade of green, and radiantly white skin of porcelain clarity. It was a beautiful face by all standards, rare even in the capital.

“I indeed have a child named Hailey,” Robert said with a wry smile. “But Hailey is not a daughter, but a son.”

‘So I see,’ Cedric very nearly said that out loud… but swallowed the words and composed himself and displayed a polished smile instead.

Hailey Langton possessed a strikingly beautiful appearance aesthetically, but by no means did he look like a woman. He seemed at least six feet tall and had a low and deep voice. He was a very robust adult male… one could not even mistake him for a woman in disguise.

So much for grandfather’s certainty, Cedric recalled the wistful look in the old Duke’s eyes, and clenched his teeth inwardly. Half-truths, he mused, were often worse than outright lies.

“Have the two of you met before?” Robert asked.

“No, this is our first meeting. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Langton,” Cedric said to the bewildered Hailey. Then, he turned back to Robert with a smooth smile. “It seems my grandfather, being old, made a slight mistake.”

Cedric neatly retracted his earlier statement about his grandfather’s good health and blamed his age. It wasn’t entirely untrue.

A simple mistake. The name Hailey was indeed more commonly bestowed upon girls, and if the duke had last seen him as a child of six, the misunderstanding became quite plausible. In some regions, it was customary to dress the eldest son in girls’ clothing until the age of seven to ward off illness from taking the firstborn.

The Langtons, it seemed, upheld that custom. A pretty child, a feminine name, and youth’s finery… No wonder Grandfather recalled Hailey as a girl.

“You may go now, Hailey.”

“Yes, Father.”

Hailey left the drawing room, still unaware of why he had been summoned. When his footsteps finally receded, Cedric spoke sharply.

“You do have daughters, don’t you?”

“Indeed. Two of them.”

‘Excellent… perhaps this time, I even has a choice.’ Cedric thought, relaxing his shoulders.

“One is Dylan, twenty-three years old. She’s Hailey’s twin. The other is Emily. She’s seventeen this year. She’s the youngest daughter of our family, so there’s a bit of an age gap.”

Dylan… Cedric now understood for certain the origin of his grandfather’s mistake. Dylan was also a name more commonly used for boys. With two children of the same age, it was clear he had confused their genders. Thus, the “daughter of Lyla,” who was of marriageable age, was none other than Dylan Langton.

“I’m sure both of them are very beautiful, resembling you and the Viscountess. I would very much like to meet them.”

“Have you come, perhaps, to propose marriage?”

Hearing the direct question, Cedric immediately fell silent. He hadn’t expected the other party to hit the bullseye so squarely. With Robert being so straightforward, there was no need for him to stand on ceremony any longer.

“That was my intention.”

At his reply, Robert’s face was filled with contemplation. Silence hung in the drawing room for a while.

“Emily is still quite young and a bit delicate. Would that be alright? A decade’s difference between marriage partners is not unheard of, but…”

At this, Cedric raised a single brow. “Didn’t I hear you mention a daughter named Miss Dylan?”

Robert shifted uneasily. “Dylan… well, I’m not certain about Dylan. She is… peculiar.”

That was a harsh assessment for one’s own daughter. It was as if she was born in shame.

It was not uncommon for parents to discriminate against their children. Many families bore the silent burden of a ‘black sheep,’ yet few dared to air it out so openly. Cedric’s regard for Langton’s honor wavered.

Just then… Bang!

The drawing-room door burst open. A young woman stood framed under its arch.

“Dylan, what’s all this commotion?”

“Oh my, please excuse my rudeness,” she murmured, stepping in without so much as glancing at her father to apologize. The words were polite enough, yet lacked any genuine regret; she was no actress of civility. Cedric’s heart lurched in déjà vu, as if he had met her manner in someone else that very day.

“I hadn’t heard that we had a guest.”

Only when she lifted her chin and her gaze found Cedric’s did he realize whom he faced.

“Goodbye.” That scene flashed before his eyes.

That impudent little rascal. The boy who had rolled up his trousers and slung a sack over his back. That boy who hadn’t looked like a woman, let alone a noble, stood there in a simple dress with her hair rolled up.

“I’m sorry, truly.”

With those words, the boy… no, Dylan Langton… stared at Cedric with intensely wary eyes. Those brown eyes, sharp and unreadable, stared at him until Robert’s voice broke the tension.

“What is it, Dylan?”

Only then did Dylan gather the hem of her dress and offer a curtsy that barely managed to be graceful. Yet in that moment, she looked, in every outward respect, the image of a proper young lady.

“Forgive me,” she said, raising her head. “I caught a rabbit and was so pleased with myself that I ran straight to Father without realizing we had company.”

Her voice struck Cedric as oddly low and husky, uncharacteristic of her petite frame. Cedric, observing a rather innocent aspect to her words, offered a polite greeting as a guest.

“Rabbits are charming little creatures. I’m fond of them myself.”

At this, Dylan gave him a look reserved for madmen and fools.

“I caught it to eat.”

‘Of course.’ Cedric thought.

She then turned her gaze from Cedric, offering him a brief, unimpressed raising of her eyebrows, and looked at Robert.

“It got caught in the trap I set in the west woods. There were three of them, actually… nice and plump. It’s a shame about the scratches… they won’t do for fur.”

“Dylan! Now that we have a guest, we have something proper to serve him. That’s fortunate, isn’t it?”

It should have been obvious… even to a girl like her… that barging in and chatting about hunting spoils in front of a guest was uncivilized.

She ought to have apologized again and excused herself, but Dylan remained rooted where she was, speaking with a kind of deliberate nonchalance that bordered on provocation.

Only after her name was called did she fall silent. Cedric realized that her behavior wasn’t due to a lack of awareness or education, but it was rather deliberate.

Not only that. The fact that she had given him the wrong directions in the first place must have been intentional. Cedric leaned back on the sofa, cynically surmising Dylan’s intentions.

She wanted to get his attention. Everything, from the interruption to her earthy remarks, had been calculated.

For anyone else, it might have seemed laughably vain. But Cedric Hayworth was not just anyone. As heir to the Duke of Sutherwick, he had long grown accustomed to being the object of attention, solicited or not.

If he had collected all the handkerchiefs “accidentally” dropped at his feet by ladies, he could have quilted a carpet large enough to fill the ducal ballroom.

If he were to bottle the champagne spilled on his chest during “accidental” collisions, he might as well supply a fleet.

So, no… he didn’t think Dylan Langton disliked him. Quite the opposite.

And just like that, his liking for Dylan… if he had any before… plummeted to rock bottom. Unimaginative scheming was the height of boredom.

“What is it, Father?” Dylan asked.

Dylan Langton, whether or not she was aware of the chilling calculations running through Cedric’s mind, replied to Robert’s summons with a determined tone.

“I am speaking with the guest. Please leave.”

“Of course, Father.”

She turned to leave, but once she reached the threshold, she looked back once more with a dazzling smile that never reached her eyes.

“I’ll tell the kitchen to properly wring the rabbit’s neck and drain the blood well. Look forward to dinner.”

It was that unsettling smile he had seen earlier. Her lips curved into a smile, but her long, narrow eyes held no hint of amusement. It was an expression that made one wonder if it was the rabbit’s neck, or Cedric’s own, that she had just said she would wring and drain the blood from.

Does that woman not know any other way to smile?

If that was an attempt to win his favor, she had sorely misunderstood her target. Behind the fading footsteps, Cedric clicked his tongue without realizing it.

Lord Langton must have heard it, as he cleared his throat with a “ahem.”

“I cherish Dylan very much.” For the first time, Robert gave Cedric an embarrassed look.

“But that child has no desire whatsoever to live as a noblewoman.”

Not that she cannot become a noblewoman, but she has no desire to. It was a sufficiently good defense from a father.

“I understand,” Cedric replied with a hint of pity.