Chapter 175. Scheming (6)
―Vroooooom!!!
With a thunderous roar of the exhaust.
"……"
The tail lights of a state-of-the-art vehicle receding into the darkness. Clarisse watched in silence until that red light shrank to a point and disappeared.
"……What shall we do, Miss?"
The flustered attendant asked cautiously. It was a scenario no one had anticipated in the slightest.
By all accounts on paper, she was a young lady of very small height and slight build. And yet she had cleanly spun the car around on this narrow road and made her escape.
"She drives remarkably well."
Clarisse shifted her gaze to the attendant spouting this vacant remark.
"I, I apologize."
The attendant shrank back, hunching his neck. Clarisse climbed back into the rear seat and smoothed her lips with her fingertips.
Whether to call it excessive caution. Or whether Y&P Trading Company had anticipated interference of this level and tipped Serena Renoir off in advance to avoid any contact whatsoever.
If it was the latter, the persuasion was going to be rather more troublesome.
Serena had turned the wheel without a moment's hesitation, as though to say she had no intention of talking with the likes of them. She must surely have assumed the one wishing to win her over was Clarisse.
"What shall we do?"
"Let's pay a visit to Y&P's lodgings."
"As openly as that, Miss?"
"It's merely a scouting offer."
"Yes, Miss."
But Clarisse was confident. The key to the vault of the North's foremost magnate family, the Rosemores, was in her hand.
Loyalty? Faith? Honour? Those were words that came from not having enough money.
***
After circling the industrial district several times, she returned to her lodgings.
"Phew…… my skin is crawling……"
Serena pressed her forehead against the steering wheel and let out a sigh of relief. She had checked the rear-view mirror five times throughout the drive, but no car had followed.
It meant she had definitely shaken them off.
"Th, they won't come after me anyway, will they?"
Serena stepped out of the car with great self-satisfaction.
There was of course the possibility it had simply been a well-meaning citizen asking for directions……
But the world had thrown too many hardships at Serena for her to look at it through such beautiful eyes. One of the three goals in Serena's life was, after all, to never be kidnapped by anyone.
"Hah…… the world really is a rough place, isn't it."
For now, she had to collect Brigitte and return to the factory. There was no telling whether that black car might set its sights on Brigitte as well.
―Fling!
Serena had been rushing over to wake Brigitte, who ought to be sleeping soundly.
"Oh?"
The moment she opened the door, Serena was taken aback.
For someone was sitting unexpectedly in the reception room, which ought to have been empty at this hour. A woman gracefully sipping from a teacup as though she were in her own drawing room.
Serena's Social Circles radar activated.
For starters…… she did not look like a kidnapper. Extraordinarily beautiful, and simultaneously appearing to be a noble of high standing.
At least five steps above Serena, no — seven steps.
And a face that seemed oddly familiar……
"……Huh?"
Serena rubbed her eyes and looked again. She could see Penelope in this unfamiliar woman.
"Could it be……"
"Your driving is quite rough, Viscountess Renoir."
"By any chance…… Rosemore?"
"Yes, Clarisse Rosemore."
Clarisse indicated the chair across from her with a glance. A look that said refusal would not be permitted.
"Shall we have a brief conversation?"
"Ah……"
Only then did the pieces fall into place.
That black sedan which had come tearing after her on the road just now.
The car she had broken into a cold sweat evading, convinced its owner was some villain out to kidnap her—— That owner was none other than the woman right before her eyes.
***
Serena knew about Clarisse.
No — it was more accurate to say she could not possibly not know.
Penelope Rosemore's elder sister. The de facto ruler of the Rosemore family, the North's supreme power. And the greatest enemy of Y&P Trading Company, the very organisation Serena currently belonged to.
She might know her even more intimately than that.
True to her Northern roots, Penelope could hold her liquor like a fish, and yet whenever the subject of her sister came up she would drink herself into a stupor on spirits.
The repertoire of that drunken rambling was always the same — a deep and bitter resentment directed at Clarisse, and a strange mixture of love and hate. And Serena had borne the brunt of most of those drunken tirades.
They had cursed her together plenty over drinks. Yet facing the real thing up close like this was a first.
***
Natural enough. If Serena had maintained the life of an ordinary Viscountess, she would have been a figure above the clouds, someone whose sleeve she would never have brushed against in her entire life.
To put it plainly, she was a personage who belonged to the heavens even within noble society.
"I, I, I have heard a great deal about you. Rosemore……"
"Young Lady is sufficient."
"Yes, Young Lady Rosemore."
Serena settled her backside into the chair across, feeling for the first time in a long while as though her stomach were being wrung.
"……"
"……"
A suffocating silence filled the reception room. Serena rolled her eyes back and forth in a cold sweat, and unable to bear the unbearable awkwardness, cautiously ventured to break the ice.
"You look quite a lot like Penelope……"
The air went cold in an instant.
"……Thank you."
Clarisse tilted her head ever so slowly.
Red warning lights flickered on in sharp-witted Serena's radar. There was barely any change in expression, but— That was unmistakably a tilt that meant, 'Is this girl taking me for a fool right now?'
"Hiii! I, I'm so sorry!"
Knowing full well the two sisters were on the worst possible terms, and yet bringing up the resemblance!
"……"
Watching Serena's startled reaction, Clarisse clicked her tongue inwardly. Her gaze swept Serena swiftly from crown to toe.
Below expectations.
The boldness with which she had sharply turned that wheel on the road was nowhere to be seen. Making a predictable verbal blunder and shrinking back in premature fright — what a sight.
It was rather how the Renoir family had always been, in the first place.
A viscountcy so obscure it barely registered on the intelligence network of the Rosemores, the North's supreme power. Had it not been for this affair, they were worthless bloodline she would never have had occasion to hear the name of in her lifetime.
The background investigation on Serena Renoir had concluded within exactly the range one might predict.
Possessed of outstanding talent, yet blocked by the wall of her station and forced to return from the capital to the North. The resulting inferiority complex and fierce desire for upward advancement. A mercenary nature weak to money and power.
Weak. Greedy.
In other words, a chess piece that would be very easy to handle.
She had wondered, just in case. It seemed the negotiation would not need to be drawn out at all.
"I trust you know why I came here, Viscountess Renoir."
"Pardon? Ah, I, that is……"
"Let me ask you directly."
Clarisse produced a chequebook and set it on the table. The dull thud of it made Serena's shoulders flinch.
"How much are you currently receiving from Y&P?"
"Well…… that, that falls under the confidentiality clause, so……"
To the scratching sound of a fountain pen. A single sheet of paper covered in zeros slid forward in front of Serena.
"……!"
Serena's eyes went wide.
"I, well…… money is of course important, but there is also the matter of contractual obligations……"
Without a word, Clarisse slid one more cheque for the same amount across the table.
"……"
Serena's eyes filled with desire. The sight of her swallowing a dry gulp was all too easy to read.
"The Rosemores do not treat talent poorly. And the Technical Nobles who cooperate with our family are in a different league from those with families aligned to Y&P Trading Company."
Not a single word of it was a lie.
"Come to us. I promise you every research environment you could want, along with wealth and honour."
Not a single word of it was a lie.
To Serena this offer was the opportunity of a lifetime, but to Clarisse it was a reward no greater than a speck of dust. The promised support was something she could provide in abundance and beyond, and she had every genuine intention of doing so.
There was no reason to discard talent once it had served its purpose, if the talent was real.
―Slide
Clarisse slid one final cheque for the same amount across the table.
Still hesitating, it seemed…… Clarisse spoke in a smooth, unhurried voice.
"You're taking quite a while to decide."
"……Well……"
Serena, who had been mumbling frustratingly, finally managed to open her mouth.
"It's just that what I'm earning now is…… more than this……"
"……?"
Clarisse's eyes narrowed.
"What did you just……"
"Well…… three sheets put together…… it's still less than what I'm getting now."
Serena scratched her cheek with her index finger, looking rather at a loss.
"With the incentive, and the royalties…… oh, and if I add in this month's settlement……"
Serena muttered as she folded down her fingers one by one. Clarisse stared blankly down at the three cheques laid before her.
It was an amount that would more than suffice to buy out a mid-sized trading company in the North outright. An amount that was, frankly, unrealistic to offer to a single technician.
And she was earning more than this? It made no rational sense.
There was only one conclusion.
"How amusing."
Clarisse gave a cold, derisive snort.
"It's too transparent a ploy for inflating your own worth, Viscountess Renoir."
"Pardon?"
A contemptuous voice. Yet Serena's expression was one of genuine grievance, her brows drooping pitifully.
Quite the actress.
"But it's true…… they really do pay more……"
"Ha."
Clarisse let out a short laugh of disbelief and folded her arms.
She had taken her for someone easy, and yet there was a surprisingly cunning side to her.
She was accurately calculating exactly what her own betrayal was worth. A scheme to sell herself at the highest point.
Weak as she was, mercenary as she was — the calculation came to her instinctively in that domain.
"Very well. I'll match that figure. So how much do you want?"
"That, as I mentioned, falls under confidentiality……"
"Haah……"
A different sort of frustration from the ironclad Acting Minister of Internal Affairs Lily. Clarisse felt she was losing the rhythm somewhat.
"You haven't made some kind of mistake, I hope? Viscountess Serena Renoir."
She needed to reclaim the upper hand here.
"This is both a proposal and a warning."
Clarisse's eyes narrowed to a cool, sharp line.
"There has not been a single businessperson in the North who refused the Rosemores' goodwill and came away unscathed."
An ally of the enemy is an enemy.
Would she cling to that rotten rope called Y&P and make an enemy of the Rosemores. Or wisely switch sides.
"Dealing with the Renoir family, unlike Y&P Trading Company, would be an exceedingly simple matter."
"……"
At Serena's long silence — just moments ago she had been running wild in every direction — Clarisse allowed herself a note of quiet satisfaction.
If she was going to fold at this level of threat, she should never have half-heartedly tried to bargain her price up in the first place.
Serena should now accept a single cheque's worth and betray Y&P. Refusing the offered wine only to be forced to drink the penalty cup.
"Then cease all work by tomorrow, disappear along with Renoir Workshop's employees, and make sure to damage the equipment you have already put together."
That settled matters. Certain of it, Clarisse rose leisurely with a victor's composure, and—
"……Don't wanna."
She turned back to Serena with startled eyes, doubting her own ears.
Gone entirely was that meek, lamb-like impression of a frightened girl on the verge of tears.
Her eyes had become very sharp, pointed triangles.