"I'm all ears," said Kevin as he swirled thick, red wine in a bronze cup while seated behind his desk in the baron's study.
The woman across from him looked down at her cup of wine with a hint of a frown, her beautiful eyes shifting about from the wine to Kevin, and thereafter to Lexia who stood fidgeting behind him.
"This is a serious, confidential, private conversation—…"
"Lexia is my successor to power in the unfortunate events of my death preceding the presence of a male offspring, she will undergo rigorous training in the arts of the state, diplomacy, and combat under my supervision from today henceforth."
Kevin immediately interrupted the woman with a stern look, " If you have anything to say, Jean, you might as well say it."
Jean pursed her lips, chuckling gently as she traced a stray strand of hair behind her ear, "Looks like you're not that optimistic about the war to come, huh?"
Kevin knew she was redirecting the conversation to probe for information, but he couldn't be too cold or too hard on someone offering help, no matter how little or insubstantial it might be.
Smiling, he took a sip of his wine and said, "blood-red wine, when dense enough, has quite the flavor and fragrance—you can smell it a mile away. I pride myself to say my sense of smell had improved a lot by the grace of the gods; dense wine is brewing on the battlefield."
Lexia to the side didn't understand or follow up with the encrypted conversation between Jean and Kevin—she couldn't understand what has wine got to do with the war efforts, but she was anxious nonetheless about the talks of her becoming the future baroness.
She understood one thing though, the unfortunate events of Kevin's death—the statement was plain and simple, but it sent her body trembling from the soles of her feet to the edge of her cranium.
Her big brother stressed the importance of standing collected and silent behind him no matter what she heard or felt, it was a matter that decided their life or death in the future.
She didn't understand how standing there while faced with the potential consequences of losing her last kin in this world after her mother left and father passed away, followed by two of her siblings, would decide her life and death in the future.
She even felt like her big brother was exaggerating much, but she was truly too scared to gamble with it.
One might as well say she was on the border of developing a trauma. It was understandable, her young mind had yet to fully grasp what separation of life and death meant, she only believed that her family left somewhere far away like her mother and might come back one day.
They all said her big brother Kevin died too, but isn't he well and all right now? The contractions of what the adults said and what she experienced left her hanging on a tightrope; imbalanced.
Jean gave Lexia's pale face a deep look before shaking her head with a sigh; that girl isn't cut for it.
"Guess you're not planning to get married with a bit of your coal resources as a wedding gift… Hm, what if my family offered a piece of fertile land in the dowry?" Jean's slender figure danced about the rim of her wine cup, humming gently to herself.
"If you were to be the dowry, I might consider it," Kevin responded with a smile that seemed both taunting yet respectful at the same time.
Creak…
Metal twisted in her grip as red wine overflowed to drench her delicate hand while veins throbbed. For a moment, the deformed bronze cup seemed like an illusion of a human heart squeezed dry from blood—it took a moment for Jean to snap into awareness of what she'd done, her expression quite embarrassed.
Kevin quite thoughtfully passed the only white handkerchief in the office to his quivering little sister and said, "Lexia, hand this over to the young lady."
Lexia almost jumped from her shoes, reaching out with a trembling hand to grasp the handkerchief while stealing glances at the once beautiful cup of wine, the soaked hand of the woman who wrought misfortune upon it, and that beautiful face attached to this scene of unsophisticated mannerisms.
She gulped and moved despite her hesitation as she didn't feel like disobeying—the temporary fear was nothing if it meant her big brother wouldn't have to go away anymore, she convinced herself.
A trace of surprise was evident in Jean's eyes as she praised with a smile, "You're quite brave, little sister."
Lexia flinched and didn't respond, she quickly handed the handkerchief over and ran back to stand behind her big brother, it almost seemed like Jean's words went through one ear and out the other.
Kevin also nodded his head, smiling apologetically to Jean right after as he said, "You have your bottom line and I have mine—how about we switch topics to the main agenda now?"
Jean snorted.
How could a mere coal mine compare to her status? Even though her actions said this, she understood deep down that the potential value of that coal mine during these times of need far exceeded her status—what was she in the face of a potential connection to the family of a marquis?
But the value of a treasure was also dependent on its owner.
Without sufficient power, a treasure might as well be a death sentence. Hence, she was both right and wrong, no one can say for sure as the catalyst for these speculations was the personalities and temperaments of Marquis Armstrong and Marquis Luise.
Quite aggressively scrubbing off the wine traces from her fair hands, she said, "You obviously have the higher grounds for these negotiations; name your conditions for the coal mines and I'll think about it."
Kevin touched his chin, deep in thought.
Actually, the coal mines truly represented a burden and not a boon to the current him—what he needed was a stable economy and military, and the coal business would fluctuate greatly every year and will most likely plummet greatly after this winter.
He didn't feel like drawing his house into the political storm.
Even he could tell that the king could have dispatched one marquis yet he dispatched two, clearly to balance out one another in these times of growing ambitions.
The classic divide and conquer tactic.
Instead of being caught up between two tigers for holding a fat piece of meat, he might as well get rid of it prematurely.
Some people might think it would be wise to openly auction it off to the lords, but this will give the marquis an impression of Kevin actively shunning them off which is much worse than standing neutral.
Furthermore, not anyone has the qualifications to stand neutral during these times, especially when you're slightly capable.
Kevin sighed, feeling a headache as his brows two stars and locked together.
Jean didn't at all feel great or gloat at his expression as she would have liked it better if he were to feel relaxed. This expression showed that Kevin was deep in thought and fast to calculate gains and losses—this wasn't too good for her and the family behind her.