Episode 32
Helen tightened the front of her hooded coat, which hid her red hair, and stepped out beyond the main gate.
The back of her hand, holding closed the front of the buttonless coat, turned red. Lost in thought about why Edwin had come looking for her, she had completely forgotten to bring her gloves.
Though she had adapted to the temperature of the capital, located far to the south of Hexilov, it was the end of winter. The wind within the slightly subsiding cold was all the more biting.
Helen switched the hand holding her coat closed and turned toward where Edwin was. Edwin was waiting in a reverent posture. Though the one he was meant to protect was gone, he still seemed unable to discard the habits of those days.
Moreover, Edwin’s nose was redder than a ripe strawberry. Well, it had already been nearly thirty minutes since he had heard the news from the maid.
Hoping he wouldn’t catch a cold, she strode up to him. Edwin, who had been blankly staring at the street where people came and went, noticed Helen’s presence.
A bright cheerfulness blossomed on Edwin’s face, which had surely been expressionless until then.
“My Lady!”
At the sound of him calling out to her, Helen started and signaled him to be quiet with her index finger. She didn’t want strange rumors to suddenly circulate when gossip was already chaotic enough. For example, *Is the Platini young lady, who rejected the Emperor’s proposal, already in a relationship?* or some such.
Especially since it was in front of the mansion, there were many watching eyes. She had absolutely no desire to give the Count any cause to reproach her.
“What is it?”
*“I am the Count’s abandoned child, and you are the Empire’s honorable Knight Commander. Let us live like that.”*
She had drawn a line with harsh words, so she had thought he would understand well and that they would never meet again. On top of that, she had even mentioned the Emperor’s proposal. Of course, as of today, the truth about the proposal had been revealed.
Unlike Helen, whose head was throbbing with a headache, Edwin smiled brightly and eagerly pulled a letter from inside his coat.
“I came to deliver this to you.”
There was no need to ask what it was. The distinct imperial crest on the sealing wax sealing the envelope was visible.
Helen let out a deep sigh and tore open the envelope she had received. She took out the letter, folded precisely in half, from within, but she couldn’t bring herself to unfold and read it.
Given what had happened in the greenhouse garden yesterday, she couldn’t expect good words. She would count herself lucky if a hundred-year curse wasn’t written there.
Edwin found it odd that Helen was hesitating to unfold the letter folded in half.
“Are you not going to read a letter sent by His Majesty?”
“It’s because it’s a letter sent by *him* that I can’t read it.”
It wasn’t that she absolutely refused to read it. Who in the Empire could not read a letter personally written and sent by the Emperor? That was something even Carlisle could not do.
As Helen sighed twice in a row, a smile formed at the lips of the worried Edwin.
“Then will you read it a little later?”
“A little later?”
Helen tilted her head. How much was “a little”? No, no matter how little it was, what was she supposed to do to pass that time? In any case, her head would be full of nothing but the Emperor’s letter the entire time anyway.
Just as Helen was wondering whether to simply read the letter to put her mind at ease and then go straight to sleep, Edwin made an unexpected suggestion.
“How about spending that time with me?”
Edwin smiled ever so innocently, just like the boy he had been in those young days. Helen didn’t dislike that smile.
* Sibello
Edwin had an unexpected hobby. To think he liked to spend his time leisurely enjoying a warm cup of coffee. It didn’t match his appearance at all.
In truth, there was nowhere particularly to go in this weather. They needed to kill time and avoid the cold, so a quiet café was the optimal place. Located behind densely packed buildings, it was suitable for avoiding people’s eyes as well. Besides, the interior was spacious enough to have several small rooms, as if the café owner were quite wealthy.
Perhaps because of that, it was quite crowded with customers. Judging by the fact that most were using the rooms with curtains drawn, she surmised they were likely engaged in secret conversations. Indeed. Who would mainly use a place located behind buildings, neither in a residential area nor downtown?
Helen removed the hood that hid her red hair and soothed the chill on the back of her hand with the warmth of the coffee cup, surveying the inside of the café through the gap in the curtain covering the arched entrance.
“Is this Sir Vance’s regular haunt?”
At Helen’s teasing tone, Edwin suddenly flushed red and quickly shook his head.
“A regular haunt?! I’ve only seen it a few times while passing by.”
“Who’s saying anything? By the way, it’s crowded with couples despite the cold day.”
“It is precisely because the weather is cold that they have gathered in a warm café.”
“Hm, you know a lot about couples? Ah, don’t tell me you’re in a relationship?”
“R-relationship?!”
Edwin hated how Helen teased him so nonchalantly. How could she tease someone so entertainingly? He couldn’t scold Helen, who was exactly the same young lady he remembered from those days.
Rather, it was a relief. The last time they had met at Violet’s memorial, she had drawn a line as if saying they shouldn’t meet again, yet now she was acting as if that line didn’t exist.
Edwin fanned himself vigorously to cool the blazing heat on his even redder face. When that didn’t seem enough to dispel the heat, he took off the outer coat that knights wore. Then his sturdy, broad shoulders were revealed to the world. Even though he had fastened the top button of his shirt meticulously, his rugged muscles clearly revealed themselves.
Unlike his appearance, which was no different from his childhood, those rugged muscles were fascinating to Helen. She had seen Edwin’s muscles, which had protected her all day during the time she was Violet, countless times, but it was her first time seeing them as Helen Platini.
They seemed like a clue that helped her understand, even if only a little, what kind of life Edwin Vance had lived.
Edwin didn’t see Helen’s gaze looking at his muscles with fascination and muttered under his breath.
How could she ask if he was in a relationship when she knew how he felt?
Edwin felt hurt that Helen seemed not to like him at all, yet he kept glancing at her sideways. Her luscious red hair was so beautiful.
Was it only the red hair? If one were to pick one of Helen Platini’s charms, it was undoubtedly her eyes. It would be no exaggeration to say he had fallen for her deep green eyes, which seemed to hold the blue of midsummer.
While Edwin was admiring her unchanged beauty with sidelong glances, Helen rested her chin on her palm and asked.
“Do you really like me?”
At the question that came suddenly without any hint, Edwin forgot to even breathe and gazed into the green eyes that had made him fall in love with her.
“I like you, My Lady, without wanting anything from you.”
He dared not hope for her heart. Since he had already received so much, since his life, which he had believed would be nothing but darkness, had been saved, he could not want more.
Yet if he dared to hope for something…
Edwin firmly closed his eyelids against the fear that surged in like a tidal wave. He wasn’t afraid even though thick darkness covered his sight. What was more frightening than the darkness was her voice.
“Why do you like me?”
“….”
“If it’s because you helped me join the Imperial Knights…”
“It is not because of that.”
Edwin’s pupils, emerging from the darkness, trembled finely. But even within the trembling eyes, only sincerity flowed deeply.
“You, My Lady, were the first person to extend a hand in goodwill to me, who had lost my family in the war and was left alone.”
The collateral branch’s rebellion that occurred during the previous Emperor’s reign had taken the lives of innocent people. In those days, orphans were common on the streets, and orphanages had closed their doors because they no longer had the capacity to accept them.
Edwin had also been one of those common orphans, having lost hope in life. If Helen had not passed by that road that day, Edwin might not be in this world by now.
“You saved me, My Lady, and only you were my hope. That measly position of Knight Commander—I would gladly lay it down if you told me to discard it.”
He had survived in the Imperial Knights and risen to the position of Knight Commander solely to meet again his only hope, My Lady. And in order to become someone worthy of My Lady.
“Because I love you.”
“….”
Love, hope, life.
They were things that didn’t suit Helen Platini. They were words that would only suit Violet, so Helen was reluctant to speak them.
“But you loved the Princess, didn’t you?”
Just as everyone loved Violet, you loved her too.
So she thought his feelings toward her were a delusion. Helen pushed down her choked heart and drank her coffee. The bitter taste of the coffee gradually grew sweet.
Edwin could not easily open his mouth. He kept his mouth firmly closed, as if Helen’s words had struck a nerve. Yet his eyes continued to tremble ever so slightly.
Helen decided not to be curious about what he was thinking. She was simply planning to empty her coffee cup, read the letter Lucas had sent, and return to the mansion.
The mansion would be noisy with party preparations, so she would quietly go up to her bedroom and finish the book she had stopped reading. If she read, she would get sleepy, and if she ended her day just like that, it would be perfect. No one in the mansion would bother to wake her up in time for the party.
Because today’s protagonist had to be Rosie Platini.
The coffee cup gradually revealed its bottom. The inside of the café was more crowded with people than when they had entered, and accordingly noisier. It felt like spring rather than winter.
Helen left the last sip and took out the letter folded in half from within the envelope. And precisely at that moment, Edwin spoke.
“Never, not even once, have I harbored the Princess in my heart.”
Love, hope, life.
For Edwin, none of them had ever been associated with Violet.