Chapter 36
“It’s fine. What does it matter?”
“But… later, if you become the mistress of the house, won’t I get driven out for disrespect? I’ve only just started to enjoy working here these days.”
“…No, that won’t happen.”
“It’s a little fascinating. This mansion is exactly the kind of place where, as long as you catch the master’s eye, it’d be easy to play the mistress. But you never show even a hint of that. If anything, you naturally find work to do every day, so even when everyone wonders how they ought to treat you, in the end they just think, ah, she’s the Rose we know.”
Rose lowered her gaze, trying to hide the complicated feelings she could not possibly put into words. No one in this mansion knew. They had no idea how unstable and dangerous her tomorrow was.
“Well, I suppose you can’t help it when the master only ever asks for you. Aside from you, it’s just Mrs. Serva—only the two of you he keeps by his side. He never even starts private conversations with us. Ah, I should go. I’ll get scolded for slacking off.”
Perhaps feeling self-conscious about continuing to chat idly amid the busy servants, Anna lifted herself from her seat.
Seeing Anna off with her eyes, Rose finished slicing the remaining lemons. As she deftly hid the bits of peel and tidied up her station, she felt a gaze fixed intently on her from somewhere.
It was that man.
The unfamiliar man who had come to supply new fruit.
The man took off his hat and greeted her. There was a strange refinement in the movement. Rose hesitated, then answered with a calm nod. Though he had done nothing in particular, she felt inexplicably sick to her stomach, and quickly set her surroundings in order before leaving.
❖ ❖ ❖
A reply arrived from Dr. Bremen. After reviewing the detailed account of the recovery period Rose had written and sent, Dr. Bremen agreed with Ezekiel’s opinion that it seemed all right to begin treatment, and sent word of the date he would visit.
The wait was brief. The days passed quickly. In the blink of an eye, that day arrived, stained with everyone’s separate expectations, worries, and unease.
Dr. Bremen appeared carrying his familiar house-call bag. Rose guided him to the drawing room.
“Miss, you may wait here.”
It was the first time. Every time Ezekiel had received treatment, she had never left his side, but now that the detoxification treatment was beginning in earnest, a third party had been pushed outside the line.
Even so, Rose quietly took her place beyond that line. She paced the corridor outside the drawing room, waiting for Dr. Bremen’s procedure to end.
In the end, the day had come without her knowing what she should do, or how. She had done nothing but worry endlessly, tremble with unspoken anxiety, and now, with nowhere for her heart to go, she could only wait for the conclusion another person would bring.
The dark corridor was not a place where it was easy to gauge the passage of time. Rose strained her ears toward every sound, trying her best to guess what was happening inside.
Anxiety ate away at her breath. Time flowed strangely. At last, when the sound of Dr. Bremen packing his bag came and his shadow flickered, Rose closed the distance at once.
“Did the treatment go well?”
“Well. Come closer and see for yourself.”
Dr. Bremen beckoned.
Rose turned her head to check on Ezekiel’s safety first. He was leaning comfortably against the back of the chair, his eyes closed.
She approached Ezekiel falteringly. At her distinctive footsteps, barely setting her heels down, Ezekiel slowly opened his eyes. The smooth line of his eyes awakened a sense of déjà vu from some other time.
“…Major.”
The moment Rose opened her mouth and called him, she immediately regretted what she had done.
Because a clear light had settled in the irises that had long since lost their focus.
His gaze no longer wandered vaguely through empty air. With a clear purpose, it looked straight at her. Only then did Rose realize just how much his lost sight had marred the man’s impression. With his brow faintly furrowed, he was fierce and beautiful.
Still at that slow pace, he closed and opened his eyes.
Once, twice, three times.
Each time his pupils and irises disappeared beyond his eyelids and reappeared, the certainty in his gaze grew sharper and clearer. They were eyes that remembered her. She knew it without having to ask.
“So you were here.”
A chillingly cold, low voice brushed against her ear.
“Do you know how long I searched for you?”
An ominous premonition scraped down her spine. Rose opened her mouth, trying to say something—anything. She was even prepared to fall to her knees and beg. And yet, for some reason, no voice came out at all.
“To think I didn’t know, even with you right in front of my eyes all this time. Well? Was deceiving me enjoyable?”
This was not the Ezekiel who had called her Rose as gently as if handling a flower. That man no longer existed.
A dreadful murderous intent scraped against her skin. Rose stepped backward. But Ezekiel’s hands were faster.
“It makes me want to kill you right this instant. I should kill you, but how should I do it? I’ve imagined every method in my head hundreds of times.”
The man’s grip, swollen with rage, tightened around her throat without mercy. Her breath cut off with a choking shock, and her vision suddenly flickered.
Rose opened her eyes with a violent start that made the bed lurch. Cold sweat had soaked her back. She gasped for breath.
Where, exactly, had reality ended, and where had the dream begun?
Her heart thrashed like a fish pulled above the surface of the water. Rose pressed down on her aching chest. Dream and reality were mixed together, leaving her mind dizzy. It took her a little time to compose herself.
Ah, she remembered. The part where she had received Dr. Bremen’s reply saying he would visit soon—that had been reality. Even so, the solemn atmosphere of the corridor she had passed through while guiding Dr. Bremen, its dim colors, the temperature and humidity of the air, even the smell—everything had been vivid. She felt she could have fully believed it had truly happened just now.
“…Rose?”
She had been so startled, as if seized by a fit, that she had even woken Ezekiel, who had been sleeping beside her.
“What is it? Did you have a nightmare?”
Rose barely managed to move her stiff neck and looked at Ezekiel. The man’s eyes could not settle in one place and wandered subtly around where her face was likely to be.
His hands, however, were different. Those hands, each joint larger and the whole of them thicker than most men’s, easily found Rose, who had curled in on herself and was trembling. His hand touched her forearm, and the moment he adjusted his grip again, Rose, without realizing it, struck the back of his hand away. Smack—the sound of their collision was quite loud.
“Ah….”
It was not the result she had intended. Although Ezekiel had yet to show any particular reaction, Rose froze preemptively.
“It was a mistake. I was startled because you touched me so suddenly….”
She could not bring herself to say that she had dreamed of being strangled by those hands. Still less could she say that, because they had overlapped with the hands in her dream, she had instinctively been seized by the fear of death.
Even now, the afterimage of the dream would not disappear. Those hands that had tightened around her throat with all their strength had been no different from deadly weapons.
“Rose, when my sight returns, the first thing I will look at is your face.”
At the time she had heard those words, she had handled it calmly. She had been shaken inwardly, but she had not shown it enough for him to notice. Yet once night came, when reason grew blurred and emotion took command, the fear she had buried returned in the shape of a dream.
“Do you know how long I searched for you?”
It was chilling.
All the more because it sounded like something he might truly say.
Was this really just a simple dream? Could it perhaps have been a precognitive dream? If she had glimpsed some future day and returned from it….
Though she knew it was a wild fancy, the expression and tone Ezekiel had shown the moment he discovered her had been so vivid that she could not shake them off.
“Did a ghost appear in your dream? Your hands are completely like ice, Rose.”
Without the least hint of offense, Ezekiel found her hand and held it. This time, Rose quietly let him take it.
The man, who had likely never feared a nightmare in his life, was lacking in imagination. She was not some timid child who often saw things because of weak nerves, and yet he spoke of a ghost dream.
But she almost wished it had been a ghost dream instead. Then, even if it made her seem a little childish, she could have gone into his arms and told him she had been scared.
“…I dreamed that everything went back to where it belonged.”
“Everything?”
In the dream, he had regained his sight, and she had paid the price for her sins.
Yes, it had been a dream where everything returned to its proper place.
“Yes. You to your place, Major, and I to mine.”
“And where was my place?”
Ezekiel asked. Rose drew in a deep breath.
“Valdemaera.”
If his life were to be described in a single word, it would be Valdemaera. By losing Valdemaera, he had fallen all the way to this distant place.
“I wondered what sort of dream you’d had, but that was all?”
Ezekiel let out a hollow laugh.
“I went back to Valdemaera and abandoned you? In your dream?”
Rose hesitated to answer. Abandoned was an exceedingly mild expression. More precisely, he had killed her. Or tried to kill her. It was probably an ending the current him could not even imagine.
“…Yes.”
At any rate, she had to be as careful as possible with her words. It was best to leave herself room in the most conservative, safest way.
“I didn’t realize I was a man you trusted so little.”
Even as he let out a disbelieving laugh, he seemed somewhat angry.
Ezekiel added firmly.
“There is no way such a thing would happen. Unless you betray me first, I will never abandon you.”