Chapter 12
12
Raven Gentleman
Turning the dial caused music to begin flowing.
The aria from the opera emanating from the phonograph on the mahogany cabinet instantly shattered the silence filling the annexe’s drawing room.
Mathias fiddled with the frequency a few times to switch it to a waltz, then leaned back against the sofa. The melody was bright and lively. His long fingers, lightly resting on the armrest, tapped slowly to the beat. The desk clock on the console table opposite pointed to five o’clock.
Mathias’s gaze lingered briefly on the shabby rose vase beside it before turning toward the window. As evening drew near, the wind had grown noticeably cooler. The breeze from the river rustled his robe before heading toward the forest.
Mathias stretched out his arm and opened the small silver box at the end of the drawing table. As he picked out one of the nearly full cigarettes and lit it, the waltz came to an end. Listening to the boisterous strings that followed, Mathias smoked languidly. The late summer afternoon was boring and quiet.
When that piece ended as well, Mathias picked up Leila’s glasses, which he had tossed carelessly beside the tray. Her eyesight must have been quite poor, for the world visible through the lenses was a blur.
So that’s why she always had that furrowed brow.
An image came to mind of the child who had glared at him with a face scrunched up in resentment—a shabby, unremarkable girl, yet one whose eyes sparkled with unusual brightness.
The child he had thought would only stay briefly had grown up within his world and become a woman.
The small face framed by slim gold-rimmed glasses overlapped with that unremarkable girl’s face. From that woman, who still had eyes sparkling with unusual brightness, emanated a fresh, sweet fragrance—the scent of the roses that filled Arbis’s summer garden.
Exhaling a long stream of cigarette smoke, Mathias loosely gripped the glasses and stepped out onto the balcony facing the river. As he tossed and caught them playfully over and over, the shadows grew longer.
“Leila.”
He whispered the name, hot like the midsummer blaze.
“Leila Llewellyn.”
The name, which tickled the tip of his tongue before spilling out, was a little irritating.
Returning to the drawing room, Mathias stowed the glasses—still being tossed and caught—in the console drawer. As he closed the drawer, the memory of those green eyes seen through the lenses vanished as well.
Mathias went to the bathroom for a long shower. He changed clothes and styled his hair. By the time he left the annexe to attend dinner, he had once again assumed the perfect visage of Duke Herhardt.
It was an utterly empty midsummer evening.
“Wasn’t it another crow that took it?”
Bill asked, half-joking. Leila, who had been sitting at the table with a serious expression, flinched and her shoulders trembled.
“Um… I hope not.”
“You never know. Those birds go crazy for anything shiny. Remember? Your hairpin.”
Bill burst into hearty laughter. Leila’s stiffened face softened into a smile at the memory his words evoked.
For Leila’s thirteenth birthday, Uncle Bill had bought her a shiny hairpin as a gift. He had carefully observed what girls her age wore in their hair and asked Aunt Mona to help him pick it out.
Leila had treasured the pin dearly. Had Uncle Bill not insisted she wear it or he’d throw it away, it might have stayed hidden in a drawer forever.
But the pin met a cruel fate on the very first day she wore it. While tending the vegetable garden, she had taken it out of her hair and set it on the fence, only for a crow to snatch it away. It was the incident that left bird-loving Leila with a slight grudge against crows.
“If you can’t find it, tell me, Leila.”
Bill put some emphasis in his voice, as if imploring her.
“We can just buy a new one, so no need for that long face. Got it?”
“Yes, Uncle.”
Leila nodded eagerly.
“I will.”
She was able to answer so readily because she was certain the glasses were right where she had left them at the pier.
But the next dawn, the moment day broke, despair awaited Leila at the riverbank. She searched high and low around the pier, the annexe, and the riverbank, but found no trace of the glasses anywhere.
Her apron was still there where she had left it, but the glasses alone had vanished. She wondered if the wind had carried them off, but that wouldn’t explain why the apron remained in place. She had definitely taken off the glasses first and set the apron on top. The glasses alone couldn’t have disappeared.
No matter how she thought about it, surely not.
Leila, who had been peeking around the front of the annexe, shook her head, dismissing the ridiculous notion. Why would the duke take something like that?
Leila turned away, her shoulders slumped. She should have come looking for the glasses sooner. Her fear of running into the duke had made her delay, and that was the problem.
“You really did it, didn’t you?”
Leila muttered, glaring at a crow perched on a tree branch. The crow tilted its head a few times as if pretending ignorance before flying off toward the distant forest.
Clenching her fists as if steeling her resolve, Leila started walking with even wider strides than before. For now, she would head home, eat breakfast, and think it over again with a clear head.
There were two prime suspects.
The crow, or the duke.
A snow-white pigeon alighted on the windowsill. Kyle, who had glanced over absentmindedly, smiled and opened the window.
“Hello, Phoebe.”
Even when he extended his hand, the pigeon didn’t fly away. Kyle naturally untied the letter bound to its leg.
The rock dove Phoebe was Leila Llewellyn’s messenger. The girl, who had been obsessed with birds since childhood, read a book about carrier pigeons one day and declared her grand ambition to have one of her own.
“Sure, go for it.”
Kyle had chuckled and agreed at the time, never imagining that a legendary messenger pigeon from ancient tales would one day fly to his window. But the determined girl, Leila Llewellyn, had made it happen. No matter how many failures, she never gave up, and eventually succeeded in training the rock dove.
Phoebe’s first visit to Kyle’s window had been in the late spring two years ago. Doubting his eyes, he opened the window, and there she was—a glossy white-feathered pigeon with black eyes, staring right at him.
Hello, Mr. Etman.
That was the only short line in the letter Leila had sent that day. But Kyle read so much more into it. Leila, thrilled at achieving her goal. Leila, eyes sparkling with mischief. Leila. His precious friend Leila.
A messenger pigeon in this modern age.
He laughed at the eccentricity, but it made sense too. To Leila, Phoebe was like a telephone. In a cottage without one, a letter-carrying pigeon was actually quite efficient.
The message Phoebe brought today carried tragic news. Leila had lost her glasses. She wouldn’t be able to keep their promise to go to the library together today while searching for them. She was truly sorry.
While Kyle read the letter earnestly, Phoebe finished her duty and departed the windowsill. Kyle slipped the neatly folded note between the pages of a thick book open on his desk and hurried out of the room.
“Kyle Etman! Off to Leila’s again?”
Mrs. Etman scowled at her son bounding down the stairs, but Kyle defused it with his usual cheeky grin.
“You need to study, Kyle!”
“I’ll do it at Leila’s!”
Leaving only that cheerful reply, Kyle dashed out the front door.
His shiny silver bicycle glided out of the Etman house. As he entered Arbis territory, his heart grew more urgent, and he pedaled furiously. The library didn’t matter anyway. It was just an excuse to be with Leila, who wanted to go there. What worried him was Leila herself.
How hard she had worked for those glasses.
Thinking of the foolish Leila, who had made and sold jam on her own to save money so as not to burden Uncle Bill, made his chest ache.
“Oh, Kyle?”
The bicycle screeched to a halt, and Leila, who had been hanging laundry, turned with a startled face.
“Did you find your glasses?”
“No, not yet.”
Leila’s expression fell.
“I’ll buy you new ones!”
He blurted it out for that very reason. Seeing her so downhearted hurt him.
“…You, Kyle? Why?”
Leila gazed at him quietly before asking softly. Only then did Kyle realize his mistake. In his rush of emotion, he had forgotten what kind of girl Leila was.
“Thanks, but I can’t let you do that, Kyle.”
As if to spare him embarrassment, Leila smiled brightly.
“And besides, I really want to find my own glasses.”
Her smile was warm, but her eyes were resolute—the stubborn glint Kyle knew well, the one that refused to yield no matter what anyone said. Leila Llewellyn’s unyielding gaze.
“I’ll definitely find them.”
Leila scoured the forest for days. The doctor’s son was with her.
Amused by their futile efforts, Mathias pretended not to notice, at least for a while. Watching them poke around bird nests was entertaining enough.
Was he truly oblivious, or just pretending to be?
Mathias paused midway up the annexe’s stairs and gazed at the vast forest stretching along the riverbank. The antics of Leila Llewellyn and that boy were starting to wear thin, as was his own habit of carving out busy moments to come here day after day.
Mathias slowly swept back his wind-tousled hair and ascended the stairs. Hessen followed silently, opening the door before stepping back.
Mathias headed straight to the drawing room. Instead of sitting on the sofa as usual, he leaned against the window facing the forest.
“Marquis Lindman is set to arrive around noon today.”
“Riet? That’s earlier than scheduled.”
“Madam has instructed special care for the luncheon. If you have no prior engagements, she requests your presence as well, sir.”
“Yes, of course.”
The chiffon curtains, half-covering the window, billowed slowly with the wind’s direction. When they settled back, Mathias’s eyes narrowed as he looked down the path bathed in quiet sunlight. At the end, under a tree, stood Leila. She was spinning in circles, hands clasped together.
So she wasn’t a complete fool after all.
Letting out a silent chuckle, Mathias now focused fully on Hessen’s report. In the meantime, a middle-aged maid brought chilled lemon water. The clinking ice in the tall glass was refreshingly crisp and pleasant to hear.
Once they had finished their duties and withdrawn, Mathias savored the view beyond the window, glass in hand. Only after the butler and maid had completely disappeared did Leila finally approach the riverbank.
Soon after, the doorbell rang through the quiet annexe.
Mathias rose leisurely from his seat.
