Chapter 62
62
Night at the Public Hall
“Did you see, Teacher Llewellyn? Duke Herhardt is here!”
Teacher Grever approached Leila with flushed cheeks and whispered excitedly. Leila, who had just stepped out into the lobby hall after checking on the children’s dress rehearsal for the play, looked at her in surprise.
“Not the ladies of the duke’s family, but the duke himself?”
“Yes! The duke himself. It seems he brought his grandmother. Oh! Look over there. Right there.”
When Leila turned her head to where Teacher Grever was pointing, she saw the duke surrounded by people. Of all moments, at that exact instant, the duke turned his gaze as well, and their eyes met inescapably. Her breath caught in her throat, and Leila hurriedly bowed her head as if to greet him. Fortunately, the duke soon left the spot.
“You must see the duke often since you live in Arbis, right, Teacher Llewellyn?”
Teacher Grever asked, gazing wistfully after him as he walked away. Leila felt a sudden pang of guilt and clasped her hands together.
“Well…… sometimes.”
“I’m so jealous, really. Even if it’s just from afar once in a while, how wonderful that would be.”
Ever since the autumn field trip to Arbis, Teacher Grever had developed an immense fondness for Duke Herhardt and kept showering him with praise. How splendid and elegant he was. How utterly aristocratic.
Teacher Grever soon returned to the auditorium to oversee the choir practice for her upper-grade students. As Leila passed through the hall to join the other teachers from the school, she spotted Duke Herhardt once more. He was conversing with a middle-aged gentleman, exuding an air of utmost dignity and composure.
Leila paused there for a moment and carefully gazed at Matthias.
From her childhood, the duke had been nothing but a frightening and uncomfortable figure to her. That was why the Herhardt duke, whom everyone praised so lavishly, felt so unfamiliar to her. She couldn’t agree with most of it, and even if she could, there was no reason she needed to know.
That thought hadn’t changed even now, but at least people’s reputations of him didn’t seem unfounded. In his rightful place, fulfilling his role to perfection, Matthias von Herhardt was undoubtedly such a man. That was why the side of him that only Leila Llewellyn knew felt all the more like a dream.
A beautiful and cruel nightmare, perhaps.
Leila slowly lifted her gaze from the long shadow cast on the marble floor toward him. She was struck anew by how tall he was. His slender, lithe frame gave a delicate impression, but up close, it exuded such robust strength that it carried a dizzying sense of intimidation.
And those blue eyes…… Wait, why couldn’t she see his eyes?
It was only when their eyes met that Leila realized something was off. He was looking right at her. He had clearly been showing only his profile. He should have been. Why?
Flustered, Leila met the duke’s gaze in a slight daze. His eyes were indifferent, yet his lips seemed slightly curved in a smile.
“What are you doing here, Teacher Llewellyn?”
Leila jumped at the principal’s voice from behind her and turned around.
“No need to be so startled. Come on, everyone, let’s go say hello.”
The principal led the teachers he’d brought toward where Duke Herhardt and Lady Norma stood. Leila unwittingly found herself swept into the group and standing before the duke.
As Matthias’s gaze swept over the teachers one by one, it predictably reached Leila at the very end. Just before she lowered her eyes, she caught a faint smile flickering in his briefly furrowed brows.
Why?
She was curious but couldn’t lift her head. Staring at the duke’s polished, gleaming shoe tips, she prayed only for the performance to start soon. Little did she know that would bring even greater embarrassment.
“You seem quite lively these days, Matthias.”
Lady Norma, who had been studying her grandson’s face intently from beside him, spoke with evident pleasure.
“Is something good going on?”
“No. Nothing in particular, Grandmother.”
She had asked with a glimmer of hopeful expectation, but Matthias merely replied calmly with his usual light smile. Yet there was undoubtedly a different atmosphere about him. Like…… a young man his age, perhaps.
It was a ridiculous thought, but it was true.
Lately, Matthias had the look of a youth in the full bloom of his vibrant, beautiful prime. Only upon facing him like this did she truly feel her grandson’s youth.
“In any case, seeing you like this warms my heart.”
Whatever the reason, it was such a pleasing sight that she decided not to pry.
“Events like this may seem trivial, Matthias, but public favor and respect begin in places like these.”
Katarina von Herhardt’s gaze, which had scanned the auditorium carefully, returned to her grandson’s face.
“I can’t tell you how admirable it is that you, the head of the family, pay mind even to such things. Your grandfather and father weren’t quite this attentive.”
She praised him with a sense of pride.
The Herhardt family’s masterpiece.
That was how people called Matthias. He would always laugh it off as excessive praise and demur, but inwardly, she agreed more than anyone. Having outlived her husband and son through these long years, wasn’t it all to witness the day the finest Herhardt would shine most brilliantly for the family? Lately, she often thought so.
As she took in her grandson’s pleasing appearance once more, the auditorium lights dimmed. As the audience fell silent, the host appeared on stage.
Matthias maintained his upright posture out of ingrained habit and offered appropriate applause. But nothing on stage captured even a moment of his attention.
Leila was wearing that necklace.
He had wondered, but up close, it was unmistakably that emerald necklace. It felt like a mark of ownership, satisfying Matthias. A sign that she was his, whether she knew it or not—the fact remained unchanged.
The first time Matthias truly focused on the stage was around when the village school children’s play began. Recognizing the familiar faces, he watched closely and saw they were the children who had come to Arbis on the field trip with Leila that day.
Matthias shifted his gaze to the area below the darkened stage. As expected, Leila was there watching her students. The tense children kept glancing her way and fidgeting. The smallest, youngest girl—the one who had spilled ice cream on Leila’s clothes during the trip—already looked ready to burst into tears.
I wonder what expression Teacher Llewellyn is making.
Matthias leisurely observed her back, which seemed as tense as the children’s.
The play seemed to be about fairies living in the forest. Children with translucent wing-like attachments bustled across the stage, occasionally drawing warm laughter from the audience. But Matthias’s eyes held only the woman pacing anxiously below the stage. So when a child’s wail suddenly rang out, he was a bit more startled than the other spectators.
“Oh dear.”
Following his grandmother’s sigh, Matthias looked over and saw the little girl who had finally broken into tears.
“Teaaacher!”
Staring down at Leila below the stage, the child wailed loudly. As the girl proved unable to deliver her lines, the other children began to mill about in confusion.
I wonder if she can manage this?
Matthias’s eyes narrowed as he watched Leila. The principal rushed over and muttered something, making Leila startle and shake her head vigorously. But in the end, unable to refuse the order, she climbed onto the stage with hesitant steps. The audience’s attention now focused on the young teacher who had come up to soothe the crying child.
“That teacher—she’s the one. Bill Lemmer’s foster daughter.”
A smile rose to Katarina von Herhardt’s lips as she recognized Leila.
Leila crouched behind a fake flower bush prop on stage and coaxed the child gently. But even if the tears stopped, the girl didn’t seem able to refocus on the play. And if this dragged on much longer, the other confused children might start crying too.
The principal must have decided on an emergency measure, for he called Leila to the edge of the stage and handed her a sheaf of papers. Leila shook her head fiercely again, but she couldn’t sway him in the end.
Leila returned behind the flower bush, frantically flipping through the pages in her hand. After a few coughs to clear her throat, she began reciting the flower fairy’s lines in the child’s place.
“Wooow. Chil-dren. Looook. Such. Pre-tty. Flow-ers. Are. Bloom-ing. Heeere.”
Her trembling voice rang out clearly, silencing the murmuring audience. But it didn’t look like things were under control. If anything, everyone was too shocked to speak.
“No. No. If. You. Breaak. Them. Rough-ly. The. Flow-ers. Will. Get. Hurt. You. Knooow.”
For a while, Matthias couldn’t quite grasp what he was hearing. With an awkward, even disconcerting intonation, Leila stumbled through the lines. But with the play’s flow continuing somehow, the other children seemed to regain their composure bit by bit.
The flower fairy didn’t have many lines, but every time one appeared, the audience stirred. No matter how much he resolved not to laugh, holding back before that earnestly clumsy performance was pure torment.
In the end, scattered chuckles erupted and swept through the hall. Even Katarina von Herhardt, who had tried to maintain her dignity, finally burst into laughter.
Glancing at his laughing grandmother’s profile, Matthias shifted his gaze back to Leila struggling on stage. Stiffly hunched over, peering at the script, the teacher had the now tear-free child standing blankly beside her.
Matthias, his brows furrowed, leaned obliquely against the armrest and watched Leila.
As if wanting to praise her teacher for taking over her role, the child removed her flower crown and gently placed it on Leila’s head. Leila, focused solely on keeping up with the lines, didn’t notice.
“Soo. Clooool. Par-ty. Ha—ha—ha. I’m. Soo. Hap-py.”
In the scene where the flower fairy, invited to the fairies’ party, laughed, even Matthias finally let out a laugh. Leila’s cheeks were now as red as the roses in the crown the child had placed on her.
Matthias could vouch for it. Throughout the play, the audience had most eagerly awaited those few lines from the flower fairy. And the village school lower-grade children’s play would be the highlight of the evening, drawing the greatest response.
Having fulfilled her role, Leila scurried offstage toward the end of the play. The audience gave warm applause to the young teacher who had battled so hard.
With lingering amusement on his face, Matthias gladly added his own applause. For the pretty fairy with the dreadful acting who had, in truth, been the play’s star.
