58.
Did I hear that right?
When I could only stare, speechless, Rogiche tilted his head.
As though he had no idea how his words might have sounded.
Meriana staggered, shaking off the servant’s hand.
“Let go of me, I said let go!”
“Oh dear… My poor little sister! Making such an ugly scene—how ashamed you’ll be once you sober up.”
Rogiche made a fuss as he took Meriana from the servant.
With Rogiche holding her by the shoulders, Meriana could no longer throw a tantrum as she had moments ago, and only huffed in anger.
“If you keep behaving like this, won’t your brother be upset?”
“……”
Rogiche patted and stroked the back of Meriana’s head.
“In any case, Baron, we should be going now.”
“……”
“And do think carefully about what I said.”
I was about to turn away, but in the end, unable to ignore what was bothering me, I stopped and asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I think you could become a good friend to my sister.”
I let out a sigh.
I still had to explain this with my own mouth?
“I understand what you’re misunderstanding, but Count Kanesion and I have nothing to do with each other anymore. There are no lingering feelings either.”
“Hmm. Perhaps, in the meantime, you’ve found someone else to set your heart on?”
“Stop probing.”
“……”
At my irritated reply, Rogiche smiled as if it had been painted on.
“Oh dear, you misunderstand. I truly, sincerely…”
“……”
Receiving my gaze, Rogiche shrugged, then showed me a smile so guileless it seemed almost innocent.
“I’ve had many opportunities in life to meet all sorts of people. So I know people of your sort quite well, Baron.”
“……”
“Lonely people who live with the vain hope that perhaps someone might fill the parts of them that are lacking…”
“……”
“So they attend parties alone where no one will welcome them…”
“……”
“I simply find it rather pitiful to watch. Sad, too.”
Rogiche gathered Meriana, who was leaning limply against him, into his arms, and finally turned away.
“Then, do take care until we meet again.”
Lastly, the servant gave me a slight bow and followed after Rogiche.
“It’s all right. This disgraceful display of yours today will certainly be kept secret by your brother, so you…”
Rogiche’s voice grew distant.
Like a harmonious family…
As I stared at their backs, a headache suddenly came on.
As if intoxication were rising in me.
And then…
* * *
“Baron.”
I could see the night sky.
I blinked, then staggered as I raised my upper body.
There was someone supporting me.
Sitting in an awkward posture, I looked around.
The window was wide open and the curtains were whipping about; I had been lying crumpled against the window frame.
A sultry wind brushed over my arm, which was dangerously draped over the railing.
‘This damned drinking habit of mine.’
It seemed that, while searching for somewhere high and cool, I had somehow made it all the way here and fallen asleep.
“Are you a little more awake now?”
And then I saw the duke.
My head seemed about to work, yet it wouldn’t.
I remained silent, rubbing between my brows at the headache asserting its presence.
All around was quiet.
And beneath the night’s moonlight, the bare-faced duke was sitting with one knee bent at my feet.
I stared blankly down at Duke Gladinair and muttered.
“Is this a dream?”
When I reached out, the duke obediently offered me his face and said,
“Does this seem like a dream?”
“……”
It was something I would never have done under ordinary circumstances.
But…
Before I knew it, I had pinched the duke’s cheek.
As if bewitched, I watched his thick, straight brows twitch slightly before returning to normal.
When I withdrew my hand, I saw that part of his cheek had turned faintly red, leaving a mark.
It was strange.
I stared at the mark as it gradually disappeared, then muttered.
“Those damned siblings.”
“……”
“Then that wasn’t a dream either?”
Well, there was no way it had been a dream.
I comfortably lowered my crouched legs into the room. The hem of the curtain tickled my exposed calf where the skirt of my dress had ridden up.
The window shook intermittently in the night wind, its hinges creaking.
While I recovered my sense of reality, the duke silently rose to his feet.
“You don’t remember?”
I nodded.
“In the corridor… I met Peregrine.”
Only after repeating that could I slowly understand.
Why I was here.
I had fled.
Just then, my eyes met the duke’s.
“More importantly… Your Grace, what brings you all the way here?”
“I was looking for you.”
Memories returned in fragments.
When I was left alone in the corridor, I happened to see a servant passing by with a tray, so I stopped him and took some alcohol.
Even after I hurriedly poured it down my throat, my thirst strangely would not go away.
That was painful.
……
After a slight hesitation, I asked.
“How did you know I was here?”
“I saw you from outside the building.”
“……”
“Someone was curled up asleep by the attic window on the top floor.”
I smiled awkwardly.
Then, bracing a hand on the windowsill, I lightly stepped down onto the floor.
Though the world spun before my eyes, standing upright was easy enough.
More than that, the texture of the carpet beneath my feet was unusually soft.
At that sense of strangeness, I lowered my eyes and saw one wriggling bare foot.
My other foot still had a shoe on it.
When I belatedly staggered, the duke immediately extended his arm for me to hold.
Unconsciously, I gripped his arm tightly. Something struck my wavering toes.
One shoe lay carelessly on the floor, rolling around with a bottle of liquor.
Farther away, I could also see my mask lying on the floor.
No wonder my face had felt cool.
I limped, intending to pick up my shoe first, but then—
The duke blocked my path and bent down.
“Put your hand on my shoulder.”
“Pardon?”
He did not say it twice. He tapped his left shoulder with the tips of his long fingers.
Awkwardly, I placed my hand on his shoulder.
‘What am I supposed to…’
Just then, his shoulder suddenly dipped.
Startled, I put my weight onto the hand resting on the duke’s shoulder and steadied myself.
When he straightened again, the only thing that had changed was the unfamiliar pair of shoes placed before my feet.
“These are…”
“It looks as though your foot is hurt. You may as well change out of those uncomfortable shoes now.”
In truth, the shoes that did not fit had been bothering me since before I even entered the party hall today.
It was only when I finally started dancing that I realized I’d gotten a wound from the throbbing pain at the back of my foot.
But it was awkward to try to find a suitable pair of shoes now, and a wound this small wasn’t anything I couldn’t endure…….
I thought no one would notice.
I shook my head as if trying to come to my senses.
“I’ll be going back soon anyway, so I can just call a carriage and ride back.”
“Did you not even consider walking from here to the carriage?”
“That much is…….”
“Do you want me to carry you on my back?”
I quickly took off the shoe on my right foot as well and tossed it onto the floor.
And so, half by my own will and half not, I became perfectly barefoot.
“There. Happy? Then it’s solved now, right?”
Smiling in satisfaction, I withdrew my hand from the duke’s shoulder and turned around.
Then I spotted a glass set at an angle beneath the windowsill.
About half the liquor was still left.
A faint, bewitching amber shimmered beyond the glass.
When I reached out and picked up the glass, the duke hurriedly caught hold of it.
“You’re going to drink more?”
“There’s some left. It’d be a waste.”
“…….”
I put strength into my hand to tug the glass away, but it didn’t budge.
“Do you still have business with me?”
The duke sighed.
I blinked.
“Oh…….”
“…….”
“That’s the first time I’ve seen you sigh.”
At my words, his lips twitched as if he somehow wanted to sigh once more.
“Do you have…… something else to say?”
I asked as I felt around for the windowsill and pushed myself up to sit on it.
In the process, my body nearly tipped toward the railing, but I managed to catch my balance without much trouble.
Before I knew it, the duke had come closer and silently taken the glass from my hand.
“That’s my glass……. Huh?”
Then he tilted the glass and drained the liquor himself.
It was as if I could feel his determination not to hand it over to me under any circumstances.
I watched with interest as his Adam’s apple bobbed while he swallowed the liquor.
He immediately furrowed his brow.
The shadows that already made his face look sharp deepened even further.
I looked at that face and smiled mischievously.
Because I felt like I somehow understood.
“Your Grace, you don’t really like alcohol, do you?”
“…….”
“Don’t tell me…… you’re weak to alcohol?”
“…….”
“Come to think of it, today’s the first time I’ve seen you drink, too.”
I brought over the bottle of liquor that had been set nearby and poured the rest into the glass.
“I can drink better than…….”
This time, I really was about to drink it, but he snatched the glass away in an instant and poured it into his own mouth again.
“How can you be the only one drinking, Your Grace?”
I protested, grumbling.
The duke went so far as to take the bottle from my hand and drank every last drop of the remaining liquor.
For a while, I stared blankly at his bobbing Adam’s apple.
Drops of liquor trickled down his chin.
“…….”
“…….”
Even under my somewhat resentful gaze, he did not yield and stubbornly maintained his stance.
But not long after…….
“Pfft.”
His face began turning bright red.
He was still standing firmly in place, but for some reason, the space between his brows twitched strangely…….
Then his shoulder slowly tilted diagonally.
Without stopping, more and more…… continuously…….
“Huh? Huh?”
Flustered, I grabbed his shoulder. A heavy weight settled into my arms.
Even in the midst of that, perhaps because he was trying to keep his balance on his own, his hand suddenly slipped in at my side.
His hand, which I felt through the slightest brush against my skin, was burning hot.
With a thud, the duke planted his hand on the windowsill.
But if this happened…….
I ended up being wedged in the middle.
“…….”
The duke, who had always maintained a certain distance from me, did not stop there. He slowly lowered his head, and then,
rested his forehead on my shoulder.
……Somehow, it felt as though a hot piece of luggage had been placed on my shoulder.
And then, in a pronunciation that made his drunkenness clearer than anyone else’s, he said this.
“I’m not drunk.”
“…….”
“I’m perfectly fine.”
“…….”
He should have done something about the rims of his ears, flushed red like his own hair, before trying to insist on that.
The corners of my mouth twitched as I laughed.