@sylveran its sounds like he probably gave a vague order and is treating it like if she does bad things to achieve it, its not his fault since he never told her to do that to complete the order. Like she probably isnt innocent but this dude only has clean hands through sophistry
It's interesting that "sasuga protagonist" trope is not annoying when established properly.
Also lack of "everything you can do I can do better" aspect helps a lot.
@Syanalassa I had the same impression. He probably doesn't care how his orders are completed, he seems to be the lazy kind of person who is content in having a problem solved by any means necessary as long as he doesn't get to do anything with his own hands. So he is not really evil, rather his stupidity and lazyness can be a real problem for a person that has some power over a region.
On the same note I can't say whether Alice is the one behind everything or not. Her expressions really show that she is somewhat wicked, that smile last chapter doesn't really really decieve anyone, however it's not like she was actually thinking of anything inappropriate. She may even be emplyed by a third person, and was ordered to follow Goldart's owishes for some time for a different purpose. Either way we can only see whether the count is an idiot under her control or not once we have more information