Chapter 109: Notorious liars.
In the grand drawing room, a lot of eyes were diverted at the question. Roland knew then that he was looking at a group of potential liars that were about to deceive him and he decided to strike first.
After slowly licking a spoon of honey, he looked at the duke and smirked. "Your grace, surely you are aware that I have looked into your family," he paused for dramatic effect and then added, "extensively."
"Oh, do tell." The duke picked up a cup of tea and brought it to his lips.
Roland smiled, "From the reports I received, your family does have a lot of chests, I don’t think I need to mention what is inside of those chests but I will go ahead and say gold nuggets...." he raised his eyebrows.
Duke Thorin put the cup down and chuckled, "Gold nuggets? Hahaha, your highness, you must be mistaken. We are humble farmers and businessmen, we have gold coins, legal gold coins acquired from various business transactions."
Lady Iryne fanned herself nervously, "Oh yes, your highness you must be mistaken. Why, the very thought of owning gold nuggets makes me want to swoon. Can you imagine that mother?"
Duchess Mila smiled stiffly, she was wondering if they had to move those chests that very night. They had about one hundred chests all stuffed to the brim with unprocessed gold. She noticed that Roland’s eyes had yet to move away from her so she responded to Iryne, "My oh my, we would be the wealthiest family in Eldoria. We would not even need to farm and yet every morning we rise with the cocks and head out to till the soil."
Roland became even more skeptical, what kind of nobles tilled the land personally? The Thorin’s were probably putting on a show to avoid suspicion.
Duke Thorin leaned forward in his chair with a grin, looking at Roland. "Your highness, we own some land which my father was awarded by the former king. On that land, there is a possibility that there are two gold mines but we cannot be certain if there is actual gold inside because we have never checked or even used that land."
"We don’t even know where it is." John blurted out.
"It is the first we are hearing of this." Sigrid added.