Chapter 46
Is This a Dream?
The servants of the Black Manor were pacing the garden late into the night, worried about Yuan, who couldn't be found.
The guards, too, with tired faces, hurriedly changed shifts and went to their rooms.
Anxiety clouded the faces of the remaining servants.
Just as the fear that the mistress might have really run away was about to overwhelm them.
In the gap between the guards changing shifts, the heavy iron gate creaked open.
"Mistress! Mistress!!"
"Oh, Mistress!"
The owner of this Mansion, Claude Euphris, returned with his wife on his back.
Both looked like drowned rats, and several servants rushed to bring large towels.
Then, the other servants realized that Klaud had come outside with his bare face and froze, their eyes wide, forgetting that they had finally found Yuan.
"Mistress-!!"
As Hille, the attending physician, ran out with mismatched shoes, Klaud passed him and went straight up to the second-floor bedroom.
Henna, who had been carrying dry towels from the entrance with swollen eyes, quickly changed Yuan's clothes.
The examination was swift.
Hille told Henna to prepare various things for Yuan, who had lost consciousness.
He glanced at Klaud, who was standing with a perfectly fine face until late, then bowed his head deeply and retreated.
In the bedroom, where everyone had left.
Klaud stood beside the sleeping Yuan and looked down at her silently for a long time.
The next morning.
Yuan, who woke up with a start as if someone had pushed her off a cliff, frowned at the sunlight seeping into her eyes.
"Ugh-."
She was clearly trying to raise her hand to rub her eyes, but her body wouldn't budge.
Yuan soon bit her lip tightly at the onrushing pain and looked around, startled.
"Ah!"
Klaud was looking down at her with bloodshot eyes.
Only then did Yuan realize that she was lying in Klaud's bed, and Klaud was sitting hunched over beside her with his arms crossed, glaring at her.
"...Does it hurt?"
"?"
Yuan tried to calmly grasp the situation.
Yesterday, she had fainted after hearing that Louise had disappeared. And half out of her mind, she had followed the traces of the people who had taken Louise alone…….
'You didn't come.'
Whirr.
Her face became very hot.
Yuan barely moved her creaking hand and pulled the blanket up almost to her nose.
Klaud looked like someone who hadn't slept a wink.
Yesterday, he had taken away some of her pain just before she collapsed, so it wasn't that his body had changed and he couldn't sleep.
'Did he watch over me all night?'
Klaud quietly reached out to her, who was rolling her eyes while only showing her eyes.
She flinched without realizing it and closed her eyes tightly.
It was an awkward touch, but his cold fingertips briefly touched her round forehead and quickly fell away.
It was a subtle gesture, whether he was arranging her fallen hair or checking her temperature.
"M, my throat is dry."
Her parched voice reached Klaud. Klaud's eyebrows shot up at the same time.
Yuan waited anxiously for Klaud to silently offer her water.
She had said it because her body was too ticklish when his hand touched her forehead, but when she saw the water shimmering in front of her, her mind went blank.
……He's going to do this?
"My body doesn't move well-."
He helped her sit up against the head of the bed without a word.
It felt like his warmth was soaking into her whole body, even though only a little bit of her body was touching him.
The familiar scent of soap brushed past her nose and disappeared through the slightly open nightgown.
Yuan took the water glass that was offered again and lowered her gaze to her fingertips.
Her heart was beating too hard from the morning. She couldn't relax, afraid that he would hear the sound.
"...Does it hurt?"
"I think it hurts."
"What do you mean, you think it hurts?"
-Grumble.
Yuan hurriedly clutched her stomach at the sound flowing through the strange silence. The corners of Klaud's lips tilted crookedly.
"Isn't it that you're not hurting, but you're hungry?"
"……It's both."
"You're picky."
Did Claude Euphris just call me 'picky'?
Yuan was momentarily dumbfounded and opened her mouth, looking up at him.
But Klaud soon scooped her up and moved her to the patient diet -which was clearly Chef Ralph's fuss- that had been lavishly prepared.
"Why, why are you doing this!"
"I think I should be the one saying that. Just stay still. What are you doing?"
Klaud frowned and replied when Yuan was startled and struggled.
Yuan had a strong feeling that he was going to throw her and hugged Klaud's neck tightly. But Klaud only paused for a moment and didn't throw her.
"Is this a dream?"
"What is."
Yuan, who was sitting nicely in her seat, looked up at Klaud with a dazed face.
Klaud's tired face was slightly flushed.
As Yuan looked at him with curious eyes, his eyebrows rippled. He didn't seem to be in a very pleasant mood.
That's right.
It was so strange that he was being so nice that it was more comfortable to think that he was just annoyed at being forced to take care of her.
I guess Hille is busy making medicine somewhere.
Not to mention that the servants are busy every day.
After that, Klaud silently served her the meal.
Just like when Yuan took care of his meals.
Sitting next to her, he grumbled and wiped away anything she spilled, and if her hands trembled and she couldn't pick up the food well, he would pick it up himself and bring it to her mouth.
The shock was so great that Yuan, who was wondering if she was really dreaming, was stunned until the butler with a worried face came in to ask how she was doing and clear the dishes.
But the amazing thing was that it wasn't the end.
"Get up."
During a short break, Klaud's outfit had changed.
Klaud, dressed in a shiny black Uniform, awkwardly swept back his bangs and urged Yuan.
Yuan stared at him, unable to understand the situation.
A man who always wore only a gown was wearing an outfit for going out.
"Your sister. Let's go together to the place where she was newly buried."
"!"
"It's not far."
Following that, a black dress that seemed to have been prepared in a hurry was put on Yuan.
The Deposed Emperor and his wife rode in a carriage together for the first time.
As Klaud had said, the Lev Marquess family's Cemetery was located less than about 3 hours away from the Mansion.
The vigorously running carriage slowed down, and the voices of the guards and Mazarin who were guarding the place overlapped, and soon there was a knock from outside.
Until then, Yuan thought that Klaud would not get out of the carriage.
"What are you doing."
"……Are you getting off?"
"Stay here if you don't want to."
Yuan stared at Klaud without answering.
He tried to get up, then sat down again and stared at Yuan's face with an extremely indifferent expression, as if waiting for her answer.
Yuan had been in an even more dazed state than in the morning since he had come out of the bedroom so casually.
Yuan saw the mask that covered half of Klaud's face. Klaud came outside even though he didn't want to show his face.
To bring Yuan in person.
"Go and come back. As much as you want."
While Yuan was blankly in a state of not being able to grasp reality, Klaud leaned his back more comfortably against the wall of the carriage.
He crossed his long legs, crossed his arms as if he was going to take a nap, and leaned his head completely against the wall, raising his chin.
Then, with languid eyes, he alternately looked at the carriage door where the knock was heard once more and her eyes, and moved his chin.
Yuan's hand, which had been holding the carriage door handle, stopped. For some reason, she didn't want to go alone. Yuan hesitated for a moment and then spoke with determination.
"If I ask you to go with me…… would you go with me?"
"I don't know what tune to dance to."
Klaud, who answered cheerfully, put Yuan behind him and opened the door first.
As his large body left the carriage, Mazarin bowed his head with a flustered face and immediately reached out to Yuan.
Yuan, who got out of the carriage holding Mazarin's hand, was surprised to see the unexpected people waiting in front and hid slightly behind Klaud.
"Those people are……."
As if they had prepared in advance, there were about half a dozen clergymen waiting for the Deposed Emperor and his wife.
At first, she felt like her heart was dropping, thinking that they were people from the Imperial Family, but soon, when she saw the tall hats and the symbols of the temple hanging around their necks, Yuan breathed a sigh of relief.
"Did you commit a sin?"
Yuan whispered so quietly that only Klaud could hear, rolling her anxious eyes here and there.
"……Marquis Kompani said that my sister should be burned at the stake."
"Who decided that?"
"That's the law……."
"That bastard is a parachute. A ignorant guy who only knows how to talk."
I don't know if Marquis Compagni is really a parachute, but since Klaud said so, it seemed like he really was.
The priests who greeted the Deposed Emperor and his wife were very polite.
When they greeted them up close and looked at them, the priestly robes they were wearing were very old, and compared to the young priests of the small Chapel, they looked old.
The Deposed Emperor and his wife followed them, who had arrived earlier, into the depths of the Cemetery.
Familiar names and unfamiliar names passed by in turn in Yuan's wandering black eyes.
As befitting a family that had produced many historical figures since ancient times, there were quite a few tombstones engraved with names that had only been seen in history books in the Lev Marquess family's Cemetery.
They soon found a tombstone placed in a very deep spot.
Although nothing was written on it, Yuan instinctively believed that Louise would be buried under that tombstone. And as if to give certainty to that conviction, Klaud nodded very slightly.
Yuan pressed down on her distorting lips and looked around the well-kept surroundings.
Under the white tombstone buried in the ground, her sister is sleeping.
Not in the corner of the small Chapel Cemetery, but in a piece of this Cemetery where precious people are buried.
