Chapter 41
The area in front of the theater was moderately crowded. Given that it was a weekend morning, it was only natural.
Isaac Pincher stood beneath the clock tower with a sour expression amidst the throng.
Taller by a head than the average grown man, his towering build drew stolen glances from everyone who passed by.
It was a place he wouldn’t have set foot in under normal circumstances. A place teeming with nothing but civilians was among those he despised most. Yet Isaac had no choice but to stand there stiffly, his conspicuous frame looming in their midst.
Soon, a carriage stopped by the roadside not far away.
The deep brown carriage bore the seal and crest of the Count’s family. Isaac couldn’t have failed to recognize it even if he’d tried.
The coachman retrieved a small wooden step with neat, economical movements to attend his mistress. When he opened the carriage door and offered his hand, an old noblewoman with a familiar face alighted, taking the coachman’s hand.
As she stepped down from the carriage, she surveyed her surroundings with her characteristically chilly gaze and immediately located her grandson.
She glared at him so fiercely that Isaac had no choice but to trudge over. By the time he reached her, she had already descended.
“Captain Pincher?”
Sasha, who had been following the old woman out of the carriage, looked startled to see Isaac and greeted him.
Without meeting her eyes, he replied gruffly, “Yes.”
Then he extended his hand, escorting her as if urging her to step down.
Unless she were terribly naïve, she would have realized that the probability of the old woman’s grandson appearing here by pure chance was practically zero.
Moreover, Sasha knew Isaac fairly well. Even if not as well as his grandmother, she knew to some extent how much he detested crowded places.
“How nice to see you in a place like this. So…….”
“I called for him, Miss Grayson. He’s a pitiful fellow who would otherwise be cooped up in his room cleaning his guns, so I thought it would be nice to let him get some fresh air for the first time in a while.”
When Sasha trailed off ambiguously, Lady Caroline cut in at once. Isaac couldn’t contain the heat flooding his face. He wanted to leave the two ladies right then and there and go straight back.
I went and did something that doesn’t suit me just to appease her. I’m going back.
It was the moment he was about to call out to his grandmother with childish indignation, barely repressing his irritation.
As if she knew exactly what was on his mind, Sasha gently took his arm and spoke to Caroline.
“Fresh air, is it? Your concern for your grandson is most tender, Madam. But I also love the clean, clear air of Lancefield. That pond the Captain took me to some time ago was truly wonderful as well.”
The words I’m leaving, which he had been about to blurt out, slid right back into Isaac’s mouth.
At the sound of Sasha’s clear, ringing voice, Lady Caroline raised an eyebrow.
“Him? Ah, it seems you two are closer than I thought.”
Neither Sasha nor Isaac responded to the old woman’s intrigued murmuring.
She didn’t seem to have expected an answer anyway. She took a watch from her bosom, checked the time, and urged them to go inside quickly.
In a daze, Isaac walked behind them, as though acting as an escort to the two ladies.
Sasha walked alongside the old woman, smiling and chattering about something. Isaac couldn’t quite make out what they were saying.
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It was a tedious classical play. Isaac looked down at the stage with an unimpressed expression as actors in tacky, overly faithful period makeup performed.
He watched until the leading lady delivered her ardent performance in a capital dialect from decades past with chilling accuracy, then glanced sideways.
Beyond the white-haired old woman’s profile, he could see Sasha’s profile, absorbed in the play.
Once, twice. Using the tediousness of the play as an excuse, Isaac stole glances to the side in between watching.
Anyone could see that Lady Caroline had orchestrated this to summon him. Even though his grandmother was fully his elder, Sasha could have easily shown that she was offended or uncomfortable.
But she didn’t.
The more he saw of her, the stranger she seemed. It was as if she would remain composed no matter what happened. Isaac didn’t like that composure of hers.
He didn’t know why; he simply found that aspect of her rather disagreeable.
“……I’ll step away for a moment.”
“Where are you going?”
When the old woman moved to rise, Isaac—who had been secretly stealing glances at Sasha—asked a bit loudly, as if caught in the act.
The old woman looked as though she were speechless at his rudeness.
“Then where do you think I am going right now?”
“……Ah. ……Yes.”
“Ah, yes?”
She meant the restroom.
And at her grandson’s attitude—asking loudly where she was going when it was obvious—Lady Caroline’s nerves began to fray.
When Isaac responded with a blunt, sullen expression, Lady Caroline fired back sharply.
Sasha, who had been cautiously looking back and forth between the two, cut in.
“If it is all right, Madam, shall I accompany you?”
“I’m not quite at that stage yet, so that won’t be necessary. I am grateful that you offered, however.”
The attitude was blatantly discriminatory, obvious to anyone. When Sasha, who had been listening discreetly to their exchange, interjected, the old woman smiled elegantly as if she had done no such thing and graciously refused.
Once the old woman rose from her seat, only Sasha and Isaac remained on the long VIP sofa. The space between them was exactly as wide as the seat she had occupied.
An awkward silence stretched on. Unable to bear it, Isaac stared fixedly at the stage, but soon opened his mouth and forced out, “My apologies,” to her.
“For what?”
Sasha asked him with an innocent face. She had turned her gaze from the stage to look at him. She had even turned her body to face him.
It was burdensome. Isaac whipped his head back to face forward and bit out his words.
“I’m referring to suddenly being made to accompany you. I hadn’t intended to come.”
“You’re too honest.”
When Isaac spoke as if confessing with a sigh, Sasha giggled in response. Even the sound of her laughter felt strangely ticklish to him.
Had they always been this close? Or was it because this place was inherently narrow? Her laughter seemed to tickle his ears to the point of scratching them. Without his realizing it, the tips of Isaac’s ears began to flush red.
It was inside a dark theater. Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—Sasha could not see him clearly.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“……That you’d met her.”
Isaac stared down at his own feet for no reason.
The acting of the two leads below on the stage, pouring out tears in passionate performance, no longer registered even in the corner of his vision.
“……I wasn’t trying to hide it. If I’ve offended you, I apologize.”
“It’s not really that. It’s just, you could have told me. We see each other at least once a week, and we exchange letters…….”
Isaac had been speaking almost petulantly without realizing it, then faltered.
He turned to look beside him, belatedly startled.
But Sasha wore her usual impassive expression, showing no particular reaction.
“I worried that your relationship with your grandmother might be strained…… Of course, that was merely my presumptuous assumption. But if she is someone who would issue such a forceful, indirect command to her grandson, I thought hearing of it might make the Captain somewhat uncomfortable.”
Isaac listened to Sasha’s smoothly flowing words with a blank face.
It was a valid reason. And it was a remark that held a rather touching quality, one that revealed her thoughtfulness.
At Sasha’s explanation—that she had deliberately not told him purely out of consideration—Isaac finally understood, yet he looked at her face as she apologized with a serene expression utterly devoid of any turmoil.
“……Yes.”
That woman has no interest in me.
Truly, not even this much.
“Understood.”
Ordinary courtesy and consideration were things that could be exchanged lightly and casually even between strangers, or those not particularly close. How was he to explain this vague discomfort he felt looking at her extremely formal attitude?
It was truly ironic. He had been the one intent on pushing her away to begin with, yet now that he felt her drawing a line, it was anything but pleasant.
Utterly oblivious to how dumbfounded Isaac was with himself, Sasha nonetheless carefully studied his profile from where she sat a full seat apart from him.
She glanced at his black hair, a bit shorter than when she’d last seen it, falling over his brow, and at his blue eyes, which looked only at the floor as if unwilling to meet her gaze.
“By the way, I was worried for nothing.”
“……What was?”
He raised his blue eyes sharply to look at Sasha. Sasha answered.
“You seem closer to each other than I thought.”
Sasha blurted it out, then quickly covered her slip as if she had misspoken.
“Of course, it’s only natural since you are family.”
“You saw earlier, didn’t you? We don’t get along very well. She liked my brother far better than me.”
“……I wonder. I don’t know how she treated your late brother, but from what I saw, it looked as though the Madam cherishes the Captain as well.”
Before he could reply, the old woman returned from her business and sat back down, bringing their conversation to an abrupt end.