Episode 44
There was not even any particular emotion in his voice. It was the calmness of a man for whom being born a Valdemaera was so utterly natural that he had truly never considered any other possibility.
In an instant, all her courage faded away.
Was it all right to keep speaking?
After hesitating, Rose opened her mouth once more.
“Major, you’ve fought this war from a position that was harder, more dangerous, and more burdensome than anyone else’s. If you had simply been the son of an ordinary family, you wouldn’t have had to suffer like this. Have you never felt wronged by that, or regretted it?”
“Not at all.”
This time, too, he answered at once.
“If you’re born a Valdemaera, then you remain a Valdemaera until the day you die. I’m proud that I was born a Valdemaera and had the chance to make my name known.”
His response was so firm there was not even room for a needle to slip in.
He was a man for whom being born a Valdemaera was only natural, and who had no intention of escaping it.
“What His Excellency desires is this: you are no longer a Valdemaera. Never set foot in Cleris again, and live quietly in hiding somewhere beyond our eyes and ears……”
If he had revealed that, even for the briefest moment, he had imagined a life as an ordinary man, or if he had said he had even the slightest willingness to accept such a life, Rose had intended to carefully bring up the matter Merlot had brought with him.
That, as she had felt while taking this walk today, if one looked for them, there were many small happinesses in the world that could comfort one’s life; that in truth, it was fine not to live in wealth; that she would be his eyes, ears, and hands, and stay by his side for as long as he wished.
So…… if he was all right with it, if he had even the slightest inclination, what would he think of the two of them leaving this place together, burying the past, and living while pursuing small happinesses?
She had harbored such a selfish wish.
But the life he wanted was far too different from Rose’s wish.
His orbit was far larger and more distant than hers, so that they might share a moment, but they could not accompany each other through the whole of it.
In her mind, Rose followed the stars that must be drifting somewhere in the lightless night sky.
It was a night in which both she and the stars held many secrets.
Merlot’s suspicion still lingered at her ear, as he had, of all things, interrogated her with words that pointed precisely to Akenaus. Even shaking her head to cast it off was useless.
Even now, she was not certain whether her response had been the right one.
“I don’t understand. In any case, they tried to cast the Major out of the family as if he were worse than a stranger, and now they’re saying which woman remains by his side is Valdemaera’s concern?”
For a moment, Merlot’s suspicion had nearly weakened her heart. But Rose hastily held herself together.
She could not waver here yet. Was it not a suspicion he had thrust at her based on nothing but conjecture, without proof? She had to keep her wits about her.
Praying that her trembling would not show outwardly, Rose snapped at Merlot.
Half of it was courage, and half of it was sheer stubbornness.
“Isn’t the Valdemaera family the one that has no right to interfere with the Major? You couldn’t even reveal who you were or what errand you had come on, and were only spying in secret. At the very least, I think it’s clear which of the two of us can stand before the Major with a clear conscience. Whether you suspect me or not is none of my concern, either.”
“If my interference sounded rude, I apologize. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, miss.”
At her defiance, Merlot looked slightly flustered, then hurried to smooth things over. The errand runner, having completed his calculations in an instant, bowed his head and expressed his apology with courtesy.
“The truth is, I did hear a little about you as well, miss. In particular, the elderly head butler of this mansion seemed to like you very much. He said you were bound to Lord Ezekiel by an extraordinary connection.”
Rose was not surprised. This was an errand runner who had said he had begun gathering rumors about Ezekiel the moment he came down to Derosa in order to make thorough preparations. Likewise, he must have discreetly questioned the servants or gone around overhearing Rose’s story as well.
“No matter how I examined it, it was such a flawless heartwarming tale that I wondered if perhaps there was something to it. When you belong to a great house like Valdemaera and come into contact with all sorts of people, you develop an occupational disease, you see. Shall we call it the so-called disease of suspicion? You begin to think that every perfectly beautiful story that exists in this world might be scripted. Cleris is a place where so many scripts and lies run rampant, after all.”
The man explained himself with care. Rose simply stood there and watched Merlot.
“There will be many days ahead when we both need each other’s help, and I don’t want to spoil your mood over something like this. I made a mistake. And I hope we will get along from now on.”
Whether he had backed down because he needed her assistance regarding Ezekiel, or because he had truly set aside all his doubts, was uncertain. In any case, Merlot did not voice any further suspicion.
“By the way, the more I keep hearing it, the more it bothers me.”
While she had been lost in thought for a moment, Ezekiel muttered.
“Pardon?”
Had she unknowingly misspoken somewhere?
Rose urgently reviewed, one by one, the conversation she had had with Ezekiel.
“Rose, how long are you going to keep calling me Major?”
“……Pardon?”
“You know it, don’t you? My name.”
Ezekiel.
Rose repeated it in silence.
Ezekiel,
How could she call that name? It was a name in which a far too complicated story and countless emotions had become tangled together in utter disarray. She did not have the confidence to say, Ezekiel, without guilt. She felt as though she might cry just imagining it.
“Later…… later.”
“Why?”
“I’m an employee. Naturally, I should observe the courtesy appropriate to a contractual relationship.”
The only excuse she could offer was still the difference in their stations.
“Are you and I simply in an ordinary contractual relationship?”
“……For the time being, I was hired into this mansion, and I’m still working while receiving wages. If you treat only me as too much of an exception in a mansion where Mrs. Serva and the other colleagues are present, it will become difficult for us to work together.”
At her explanation, Ezekiel let out a sigh.
“It seems I’ll have to finish the treatment quickly. There are too many things that need to be set right.”
There was a mountain of problems that had become sluggishly tangled up, all because of one eye.
Ezekiel furrowed his brow. Rose rubbed the sharply narrowed area around his eyes with her fingers, easing it.
“If your eye is cured…….”
She could not promise anything yet, but if his blindness was cured, she would absolutely have to make sure she was not seen.
She would have to regard her time in this mansion as a dream.
But he seemed to have taken her murmur in a different sense. He interpreted it as a sort of stepping-stone to continue the subject, asking what he intended to set right once his eye was cured.
“I’ll take revenge. On Akenaus and that woman who made me like this. I intend to do my utmost to pay them back as much as I suffered.”
His vengefulness, suddenly bursting out, savagely bit into Rose.
Rose drew in a breath.
Ah, he was a man who lived with one beast driven mad by malice tucked inside his chest, and yet she had been bewitched by the warmth he had begun to show her and had carelessly forgotten.
It felt as though the entrance to her heart had been cut open. It ached with a chilling sting.
“Did I speak frighteningly? Rose, why are you trembling?”
Though it had only been a brief shudder in that instant, he perceived it keenly.
“It’s not as though I’m hurting you, so there’s no need to be afraid. You understand how I feel better than anyone. You’ve watched everything I’ve been through until now.”
“……Of course. I understand.”
She had seen him lose his trust in people. She had seen him fall to the loneliest place in the world. She had seen him live a life from which the light had vanished. She had seen him deprived of reason and freedom. She had seen him live day by day depending on opium and alcohol.
She had ruined him like that with these hands. There was no room for excuses.
Ezekiel’s anger and desire for revenge were justified. She understood. And someday, without fail, he would harm her.
Even so.
And despite that.
There was simply nothing she could do about this heart.