B-ronken-R-ing 159...

***

"A message from Madam Escalante arrived early this morning, my lord," Raúl announced as he approached Cárcel, who had just jumped down from his steed and was handing Mario the reins.

Cárcel turned toward Raúl, a furrow forming on his brow. "That's sudden. Has anything untoward occurred in Mendoza?"

"No-"

"Is Inés unwell? Has she been caught up in some unforeseen plight?" Cárcel asked persistently.

"I cannot speak with certainty, but the messenger did not inform me of any ill tidings. Madam ordered that the message be sent yesterday afternoon, but Don Alfonso returned late in the evening due to some other matters and had it sent off late at night. He asked for your understanding," Raúl explained.

"He ought to ask Inés for her understanding."

"But since the messenger brought no other tidings "

"Inés does not write letters without cause."

Cárcel swiftly ascended the porch steps to the residence, his eyebrows creased with concern. His gait was quick and his stride so long that Raúl and the other servants nearly had to run to keep up as he reached for the front door, wrenching it open before they could open it for him.

Arondra, who had been standing in the hallway to greet her master, widened her eyes in astonishment. On any other day, Cárcel would have exchanged a few playful quips with the elderly housekeeper, but today he marched past without a word, hastening through the hallway toward the stairs leading to the second floor.

"What afflicts him?" asked Arondra in a shocked daze.

"Remember the letter from Mendoza this morning? That's the reason," Raúl replied, hurrying after his master.

Over a month had elapsed since Inés had gone to Mendoza. It seemed only natural for a wife to write her husband a letter without an occasion, inquiring after his welfare and describing how things were going there. Even as Raúl thought this, he couldn't picture Inés sending such a letter. The very notion that she was someone's wife still sometimes struck him as odd.

Arriving at the ajar door of the bedroom, Raúl found Cárcel already leaning against the wall by the sunlit window, breaking the seal of the envelope. The golden epaulets on his uniform gleamed in the sunlight that streamed in from behind him.

"One moment, my lord. The letter opener should be here somewhere..."

Unheeding Raúl's words, Cárcel continued to rip open the envelope, revealing the letter within. His face became as rigid as stone as he swiftly unfurled the letter and ran his eyes rapidly over it.

Perhaps something had indeed transpired in Mendoza, just as Cárcel had suspected. Suddenly gripped with fear, Raúl approached the table and asked, "My Lord? Has some misfortune befallen Madam?"

Cárcel remained silent, his eyes glued to the letter.

"My lord?"

Despite Raúl's repeated inquiry, Cárcel remained absorbed in the letter for a while. Raúl narrowed his eyes, trying to estimate the length of the letter by staring at its back. The sunlight filtering through the paper helped him ascertain how much ink was on the front of it. The letter was very short, even more so than a hastily scribbled note.

What could it possibly say to elicit such a reaction? Raúl began to fret a little as he watched his master's eyebrows furrow further and his eyes boring a hole through the letter. Not even on the night of the assassination attempt had Cárcel appeared so solemn.

"Ah... blast it," Cárcel muttered, his curse breaking the tense silence.

The fact that he was cursing did not bode well. Raúl walked past the table and approached his master cautiously, concern etched on his features. "Has there been some sort of incident? I assure you I've heard no such tidings-"

"This is indeed an incident, Balan," Cárcel cut in.

"Good heavens..." Arondra's typical exclamation echoed in Raúl's ears. "What kind of incident? Has she been injured?"

"This is a momentous incident."

Raúl came to a halt a few steps away from Cárcel and frowned in confusion. "But... why are you smiling?" 

Cárcel lifted his gaze from the letter, a broad grin replacing the gravity that had shrouded his features moments before. "She misses me. Inés Valeztena misses me."

"She's an Escalante, now," Raúl reminded him.

"Ah, yes. Inés Escalante misses me."

Raúl was dumbstruck. His tense shoulders sank, and an involuntary grimace tugged at his lips.

Ignoring his valet's expression, Cárcel looked back down at the letter with a rosy-cheeked grin. "Inés Escalante... a truly exquisite name. It suits her perfectly as though she was born with it."

"Indeed..."

"Though Valeztena suits her equally well."

"If she had been born an Escalante, you would not have been able to marry her," Raúl pointed out.

"She yearns for me..." Cárcel mumbled in a daze, his gaze tenderly fixed on the letter yet again. "You are so endearing that I would die for you, Inés."

"If I may remind you, my lord, there are still unidentified individuals after your life..."

Unperturbed by Raúl's blunt reminder, Cárcel appeared lost in his own reverie, murmuring, "She misses me... and asks me to make haste to see her in Mendoza. How adorable..."

Inés Escalante had most likely never been described as adorable by anyone, especially after her grandmother Velinda Valeztena passed away. While Raúl's comment had been quite impertinent, Cárcel's abstracted murmurs were equally unflattering, at least according to Inés's strict standards.

But who knows? Raúl still struggled to believe that Inés had been embracing her husband and kissing her husband back, even in the middle of the hallway. Such behavior might have been anticipated from Cárcel Escalante, given the salacious rumors that had circulated about him before their union. Not that those rumors had turned out to have any substance to them, but still. Raúl had even observed instances where Inés herself had initiated such displays of affection. Though initially shocked by the revelation of his stern mistress confessing to missing her husband, Raúl had grown accustomed to swiftly adapting to the evolving dynamics of their relationship.

He decided to simply accept how Inés would grab her husband by the collar for an impromptu kiss, and that they would most likely be having a child soon. This would prepare him to gaze upon his master and mistress without excessive astonishment when the day arrived for Inés to simply beam at her husband daring to call her adorable.

"She says Mendoza is boring without my presence," Cárcel continued, a hint of amusement in his voice.

"I see."

"She describes it as dull and dreary, her days exhausting and tedious, asserting the city holds little significance for her without my presence."

"Madam has always harbored such sentiments about Mendoza," Raúl put in unnecessarily.

Considering the scant words he had seen through the sunlit paper, there was scarcely room for such descriptions. The words on the paper seemed to be magically multiplying in Cárcel's eyes.

"Hence she wants my company." Cárcel's well-shaped ears reddened as he toyed with the corner of the letter. He acted as though he had uttered the most blush-inducing words imaginable.

No one in their right mind would look at his naive countenance and presume that he was the same man once rumored as a libertine, with countless women vying for his attention. Aside from his unearthly beauty, there existed no trace of the scandalous reputation that preceded him. Raúl realized once again how exaggerated all those rumors about Cárcel had been. Even he himself, who might have never had a proper relationship with a woman but had received numerous love letters from the maids at the Castle of Perez to the daughters of merchants and even wealthy noblewomen, was more adept at schooling his emotions than his master.

"She says she misses me," Cárcel said again.

"Yes, I heard, my lord."

Now, he was burying his face in the letter altogether. Raúl suppressed the urge to click his tongue, as he often did when he caught sight of his masters' affectionate displays. Instead, he squinted again at the faint impressions of ink on the back of the letter.

Just as he began to make out the words, Cárcel abruptly raised his head, startling Raúl and making him draw back.

"Blast it... this letter smells of Inés," Cárcel muttered, his dreamy smile giving way to a grimace as though he was enduring torment.

Raúl was speechless for a moment before he replied, "She must have applied scent to the letter, as etiquette demands." 

"It's not perfume. It's her natural scent."

Raúl realized he had inadvertently portrayed Inés as lacking in basic etiquette. Even her letter was so short that it could barely qualify as one. He pondered for a moment how he could pull Inés out of the small, figurative hole he had dug.

But Cárcel rendered it unnecessary by adding, "There's no need for such formalities between us."

"Yes... indeed," Raúl acquiesced.

"Should I send her a reply? I'm allowed to, aren't I?"

"Won't you be seeing her soon? Oh... right, you're visiting Bilbao during your vacation."

"Am I allowed to send her a letter, too, now that she has initiated correspondence?"

Cárcel already seemed too eager to be dissuaded. Raúl couldn't understand why he was even asking.

"You can send her a letter whenever you wish."

"I wouldn't want Inés to find it tiresome."

So that's why he's refrained from writing to her all this time, and is overreacting to that brief note now...

"Why would she? Madam is very fond of you, my lord."

"I am aware that Inés has affection for me, but that's not to say she does not find me tiresome at times."

This was also true. It was something Cárcel often ignored, in fact. 

"Still, you are married, so there's no need to exercise such caution."

"I ought to exercise caution with Inés above all others."

Raúl did his very best not to roll his eyes. "Yes, but... judging by the fact that she wrote you a letter, I believe she might have been anticipating one from you."

She wouldn't have anything to ask about thanks to Raúl's detailed reports. But receiving a handwritten letter from her husband was another matter entirely. Just as Cárcel was so awed by this short message from his wife despite receiving reports from Alfonso through the naval headquarters regarding the situation in Mendoza, which Cárcel assumed Raúl knew nothing about.

"If I wrote to her, she would feel obligated to reply. I thought that she might find it bothersome to have to write to her damn husband while we are apart..."

"While Madam finds such obligatory customs tedious..."

"Indeed. Inés is not the type to concern herself with such trifles," said Cárcel, nodding.

"Did you not exchange letters regularly during your courtship?" Raúl asked.

"That's completely different."

Raúl could not for the life of him understand the distinction.

"Those were obligatory, but now they're not. We're not under the watchful eyes of our parents anymore."

"Still, I believe she would make an exception for her husband," Raúl persisted.

"Is that so?"

"And she wouldn't think of you as her da-she wouldn't think of you like that either," Raúl assured him.

"Undoubtedly. She is a woman of unparalleled refinement, after all," said Cárcel in agreement.

"Oh, yes, indeed."

"Fetch me a mount board in this size," Cárcel suddenly demanded.

"A... mount board, my lord?" Raúl couldn't believe his ears. Did his master really intend to frame the letter that was more akin to a hastily written note? "I could mount and frame it myself, unless it's for something large that requires a professional's touch."

"It does require a professional's touch. And you're not one."

"No, but I don't believe-"

Cárcel cut him off. "This is the first love letter I've ever received from Inés. It will become an important piece of Escalante history to be handed down from generation to generation, so it must be preserved properly."

Raúl didn't think he could be any more astonished at this point, but he was. Why did it have to be him dealing with this alone? If only Arondra had been here...

Then again, Arondra took things like family heirlooms extremely seriously, and she was even more devoted to Inés than the attendants of the Castle of Perez. She would have immediately rushed to pick out possible frame designs, so she would not have been helpful to Raúl in this moment. It was for this reason that he found himself longing for Alfonso's company. The butler would have at least exchanged befuddled glances with him.

Lost in his musings, Raúl was jolted back to the present as Cárcel held out the 'love letter' to him as though he was showing him an invaluable masterpiece. He even raised his eyebrows emphatically when Raúl raised his hand to accept the letter, refusing to hand it over.

"Careful. I'll hold it."

"Dear Cárcel Escalante. My days here are incredibly tedious and exhausting. I miss you. Could you not come to Mendoza for just a short while?" Raúl read aloud, his tone rising in disbelief.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

"Is this really it?" Raúl asked, blinking at his master.

"It is."

Raúl couldn't help but gape in surprise at the lack of effort Inés had put into the letter, though he had anticipated as much from how short it appeared to be. Then he found himself confounded by Cárcel's behavior, still holding the letter with great reverence. Though he did have to admit that, considering the sender's temperament, this was indeed a significant sign of improvement.

"If I ride out now, I should be able to get there late at night," Cárcel muttered.

"You're going?" Raúl asked, befuddled once again.

"Inés wants me to. Even for 'just a short while."

Raúl tilted his head to the side in confusion. Did he truly mean to go today? Since Cárcel hadn't mentioned any plans to visit Mendoza when discussing his journey to Bilbao, Raúl had assumed that any visits to Mendoza would be postponed.

"And if I return in the middle of the night, I shall be back in Calztela before the training session at dawn."

It became increasingly apparent that Cárcel intended to ride to Mendoza and return swiftly upon arrival. It sounded perilous and exceedingly rash.