· · ·
· · ·
Duran’s brows furrowed sharply, then smoothed out again.
At first glance she seemed without flaw, so did she have a speech impediment, or was she excessively shy?
Yet her beautiful green eyes said otherwise.
They were quiet, still eyes that regarded him with quiet deliberation.
Duran was slightly taken aback by their color, an extraordinary depth that brought rolling waves to mind.
“I get along fine with him. Mostly.”
Anasta parted her lips after a long pause.
“Excuse me?”
“The Young Master is far gentler than you think. There is no need to worry.”
“Who? My brother?”
“Yes.”
Duran could not hide his surprise.
“That is unexpected indeed… It seems you have yet to truly know my brother, my lady.”
“Perhaps. Unfortunately, no situation has arisen that requires me to seek help, so I have nothing to consult you on.”
“Then how about this? You could listen to me instead.”
Duran made the offer with a slick, practiced ease. “As I mentioned before, this estate is terribly dull. I need someone to converse with, and you happen to be right here.”
“I must apologize, but that will not be possible, sir.”
“And the reason would be?”
Anasta lowered her gaze to the book.
Duran frowned slightly at the direct refusal.
“I do not enjoy listening to other people’s chatter. Nor do I care to talk much myself.”
Her voice was firm as a stone wall.
Tucking the book against her chest, Anasta picked up her cane.
“I would not want a rift to form between us simply because of my poor temperament.”
“You draw quite a line, my lady. Tell me honestly, do I make you uncomfortable?”
Duran’s voice turned harsh, irritated by a woman who threw up walls with such unyielding resolve.
“Yes.”
· · ·
“I apologize for my rudeness.”
It was striking how she could cut him down like a blade, only to offer an earnest, impeccably polite apology.
“That… rather hurts my feelings.”
“I am certain you have plenty of friends far better suited than I, sir.”
“And what if I say it is your company I want right now?”
“The world does not always bend to our wishes.”
“What?”
Duran let out a dry scoff.
Tilting her head without an ounce of remorse, she added, “I hope the rest of your affairs proceed far more smoothly.”
Leaning on her cane, she walked away at an unhurried pace.
Behind her in the greenhouse, a man was left sitting in dazed disbelief, looking like someone who had just encountered an entirely unknown creature.
Ryan watched the woman who had just returned from the greenhouse.
As always, Anasta’s face was calm and composed as she leaned on her cane, giving away no hint that anything had happened.
‘Nothing occurred?’
‘Right, it wasn’t anything significant. I merely walked into her room by mistake, caught sight of her, and our eyes met for a fleeting second.’
‘Just a trifling matter.’
Yet over that very trifling matter, Ryan had suffered a bewildering storm of physical and mental turmoil.
‘It isn’t because of Anasta. It’s this wretched illness.’
Having been confined to the corner of a room with scarcely any contact with others, his balance had merely tipped at the sight of an unfamiliar presence, leaving him flustered by the sudden shock.
‘Yes, it’s all because of this damn condition. Nothing else!’
Having rationalized his reaction, Ryan finally managed to quiet his agitated chest.
“Young Master, it is Paul.”
“Come in.”
Paul entered the room cautiously.
“What is it? It isn’t time for medicine yet.”
“We will begin preparing the room transfer starting tomorrow.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Ryan froze.
“The room on the first floor. It is already fully prepared, and everything will be finished swiftly once the luggage is moved.”
“By whose permission?”
Ryan’s voice turned sharp.
It was not that he particularly disliked the rooms on the first floor, but changing his quarters without consulting him meant nothing less than absolute disrespect.
“The lady’s belongings are also scheduled to be moved.”
“Anasta’s things as well? As far as I know, there are no adjoining rooms on the first floor.”
‘So that means I will be staying in a completely separate room from Anasta. That isn’t so bad…’
Just as Ryan began to reconsider, Paul continued, “You and the young lady will be sharing the same room. Given that you are engaged and will become husband and wife after six months if no complications arise, the Duchess deemed it best that you begin sharing quarters early.”
“Ha! What sickening nonsense!”
Having anticipated Ryan’s disgust, Paul answered calmly, “Because it is a shared suite, special care was given to the furnishings. It will be considerably more spacious. Of course, we have prepared a chessboard and laid out the books you favor…”
“Paul.”
Paul, who had been trying to finish his explanation, went rigid under Ryan’s quiet gaze.
It was a still, shadowy gray look.
Though his young master was perpetually sensitive and short-tempered, whenever he became truly furious, an intimidating dignity radiated from him.
“I am not moving.”
“However, the Duchess’s orders—”
“I will not repeat myself.”
“This is entirely for the Young Master’s sake—”
“Get out of my sight. Remove yourself before me right now, or I cannot say what I might do.”
Paul fell silent before the menacing warning.
Ryan did not want the room on the first floor, but it was the Duchess’s command.
Having no wish to invite further trouble after his recent suicide attempt, she had forced upon him a first-floor room where jumping from the window would cause no harm; to that end, Paul and the knights moved covertly under the cover of night.
After the physician slipped a sedative into his medicine, they moved Ryan while he was sound asleep down to the first-floor room without his knowledge.
When Ryan opened his eyes the next day to an unfamiliar, uneasy sensation, he realized what had happened and muttered a low curse.
“Damn it.”
Ever since he was deemed beyond recovery, Ryan had been treated as little more than a doll.
When he once collapsed outside, he was forbidden from leaving and locked inside his room.
When he suffered indigestion while eating, his meals were cut down to the barest minimum.
When he smashed a glass tumbler to slash his wrist, every piece of glassware vanished from his room, and the servants and knights did not leave him alone for some time.
When he cut himself with a knife, he was forced for a while to eat using only a rubber spoon and fork.
And when he attempted to leap from the window, it was locked shut from the outside.
Every measure had been carried out in the name of Ryan’s welfare, yet it was all the Duchess’s doing.
She wanted to bind his movements entirely so he could commit no foolish act.
Naturally, Ryan had not kept silent; he had raged and protested against the Duchess, but how had it always ended?
A worsening illness, a shattered body, and sudden seizures.
Those were the obstacles standing in his way. Every single time, Ryan was left tasting his own bitter powerlessness.
· · ·
He surveyed the first-floor room where he had been brought against his will.
To be sure, it was larger and more comfortable than the third-floor room just as Paul had said, but that was all.
The three windows were bound with chains to keep them from opening, and anything that could pose the slightest danger had been stripped away.
There were barely ten books, and aside from a chessboard and a handful of mundane objects, the room was stiflingly barren.
Ah, there was one difference…
Anasta was seated right there across from him, wearing her usual serene expression as if nothing had happened.
“…Damn it all.”
Ryan clenched his fists tight.
The Duchess had locked away her nuisance and assigned him a fitting warden.
Ryan felt a suffocating tightness seize his chest.
“Why are you here?”
“The head maid and the head butler told me to move my room here.”
“And you simply came along?”
“…It was an order.”
Anasta was hardly pleased with the arrangement either.
She had been hauled away in the middle of the night by the maids; she had put up a modest resistance, but it naturally proved useless.
She had warned them the Young Master would not care for this, but the head maid had shifted the rooms as if it presented no issue at all.
Just as expected, Ryan’s face was etched with deep resentment.
“I am utterly sick of this. Of this life.”
Loose strands of Ryan’s hair fell forward, shielding his eyes.
“I don’t even have the strength to be angry anymore… I am exhausted by everything.”
· · ·
“How long am I supposed to go on living like this?”
“Young Master.”
“I only wish I could hurry up and die.”
Anasta flinched.
Just when she thought he had regained some composure over the past few days, those desperate words came spilling out of him.
At first, she had assumed his volatility stemmed purely from a fragile state of mind, but now she understood that was not so.
Circumstances were relentlessly shoving him toward the abyss.
Anasta recalled the humiliation and cruelty she had endured in the Count’s estate.
She, too, had been crushed under the weight of her circumstances, and because of that, she had contemplated death time and again.
‘Anasta, you are a radiant soul. So leave this house.’
‘Then, won’t things improve once our situation gets a little better?’
That was how it had been for Anasta. Natasha’s presence had made her life bearable.
‘If only those windows were gone…’
Hesitation could become poison at times.
Anasta looked toward the windows trapping both her and Ryan, then rose to her feet.
“As I said before, dying is a terrible waste.”
“My death is no waste—”
“No, it is a tremendous waste.”
Creeeak.
Leaning on her cane, Anasta stood before the window with a resolute expression.
Her movement was faster than Ryan’s question about what she meant to do.
Crash!
With the sharp roar of shattering glass, the large window gave way to empty air.
And as the icy winter wind swept inside, the fury and despair boiling in Ryan’s head began to gradually cool.
END
