82 — Kitten Blue Eyes (4)

Roderick shook off his complicated feelings and answered.

“Yes. I’ll examine it carefully.”

Reichardt liked and respected his betrothed.

And just as much as that feeling, he also valued the power-logic of a royal seeking to keep nobles in check.

“Withdraw.”

At Reichardt’s order, Roderick saluted and withdrew.

As he left the grand duke’s room and walked the corridor toward his own quarters, someone called to him.

“Hey.”

Looking toward the voice, Roderick guessed why Reichardt had just sent him out.

“Oh. How is it, staying in Rain?”

“Fun. Compared to Tessen, this is a land of peace.”

Juan spoke with a laugh.

“Isn’t everywhere so, compared to Tessen.”

“Ahh. True. I came to deliver the lady’s message—well then.”

“Go on in.”

Roderick lifted a hand in greeting and watched Juan enter the grand duke’s room.

A royal had set a bodyguard beside his beloved fiancée and used him as a spy.

Life as a royal was harsh, too.

“Somehow, I doubt it will help.”

The words slipped from Roderick in an unmeant murmur.

---

The stroll led by the new Marquess of Rain, Felix Rain, and the Grand Duke of Tessen, Reichardt, ended neatly.

After the walk, Reichardt gathered the marquess and his retainers and conveyed the Emperor’s words.

“If the Marquess of Rain is to have newly become head of house and command the clan, there will be much to do. I believe your oath of fealty will continue from your predecessor. We—acknowledge Felix Henry Rain as the new Marquess of Rain. Within one year, the Marquess of Rain is to come to the imperial palace in the capital, Baden, and swear fealty to Us.”

The gifts brought by the Grand Duke of Tessen and the imperial delegation were exceedingly generous.

“I thank His Imperial Majesty for his grace. I, Felix Henry Rain, receive the imperial decree.”

Felix bowed toward Reichardt seated in the seat of honor.

“I thank His Imperial Majesty for his grace.”

“I thank His Imperial Majesty for his grace.”

The marquess’s retainers standing behind Felix lowered their bodies and raised their voices.

All of them were a little dazed.

The fief’s affairs were the fief’s affairs, yet most placed highest priority on the oath of fealty between Emperor and nobles.

Granting a grace period for the oath was shockingly magnanimous on the Emperor’s part.

It also meant the Emperor was that confident in the imperial authority.

“Marquess of Rain, I wish you well in leading Rain. When you come to swear fealty, which retainer do you intend to bring?”

Stepping down from the seat of honor, Reichardt offered his congratulations.

In passing, he added a seemingly casual question.

“I will go with Alicia Rain, Countess of Echeveria.”

“I shall look forward to an invitation to the Marquess of Rain’s banquet.”

“If Your Highness would deign to accept the invitation, it would be the marquessate’s great honor.”

Reichardt and Felix traded light words.

Passing Felix, Reichardt stepped outside with Roderick and knit his brows.

“As Your Highness said, the Marquess of Rain seems no ordinary man.”

Roderick spoke in a lowered voice.

Everyone had been startled by the sudden imperial decree.

At such a time, to brush past with a light question and give exactly the answer the questioner wished to hear—was no ordinary thing.

“Clear the people away, and ask Alicia to come.”

At Reichardt’s whisper, Roderick naturally shifted to a spot that concealed the grand duke’s face.

“Can you make it to your room?”

“Stand at my side.”

Reichardt’s face looked no different than when he had been seated at the head.

Standing close beside him, Roderick searched with his eyes for one of the grand duke’s knights.

One of the guards on watch met Roderick’s gaze.

“Go to Juan.”

At Roderick’s words, the knight moved at once.

No more words were needed.

If the runner went to Juan and said Roderick had sent him, Juan would take it from there.

---

Alicia was in the middle of apportioning perfume to be sent as samples.

The perfume from a luxurious bottle was being poured little by little into plain flasks.

And much of the perfume streamed down the tilted, ornate bottle and dribbled across the desk.

It seemed she was spilling more on the desk than she was decanting.

Daisy couldn’t bear to watch a perfume worth dozens of gold per drop running in rivulets.

She understood it was truly necessary, yet Alicia’s hurried motions somehow stifled her.

She wanted to say, Let me do it for you, but since it was important, it felt like Alicia would want to do it herself, and so she found it hard to speak up.

Alicia’s hands moved decisively.

“Uh……”

Perfume gushed out of the mouth of the rabbit bottle crowned with a black-pearl coronet.

About half of what had filled the bottle sloshed out onto the desk.

“M-my lady, shall I do it?”

Daisy hurried to Alicia’s side.

She could no longer stand back and watch.

She didn’t forget, either, to boldly wipe up a perfume dear enough to be called drop by drop.

Perfume once spilled could not be gathered back up; she had to let go of regret.

“Would you?”

Alicia quickly passed Daisy the perfume bottle and the empty flasks and stepped aside from the chair.

Daisy moved her hands with care, lest even a drop should spill.

At that moment, Alicia, who had stepped aside, looked over the scented items.

A fan steeped in fragrance, sachets and ornaments that smelled of scent, and candles.

They would be hard to cut for samples, so she would send them whole.

Alicia’s gaze stopped on the largest and most extravagant among the candles.

The imperial golden candle.

An engagement gift from the Marchioness of Belz.

After a long pause, Alicia drew a knife and chopped the golden candle cleanly in half.

As the waist of the large, beautiful candle was sliced, it made a crisp, cracking sound.

Daisy, pouring with utmost care, glanced over.

At what came into view, she froze like stone for an instant.

“…….”

Among the gifts Alicia had received upon becoming one of the imperial family, the Marchioness of Belz’s golden candle was the most precious.

Its symbolism could not be compared with the others.

Seeing the beautiful candle snapped cleanly in two, Daisy stopped dead.

Drip, drip, drip.

Water sounded from somewhere.

“Daisy, the perfume is spilling.”

Said Alicia lightly—the one who had just cut the golden candle in half.

“Gasp!”

Even the ever-understated Daisy let out a stricken sound at the ten or so drops that had spilled.

Alicia was about to speak words of comfort when—

“Lady Alicia.”

Juan’s voice came from beyond the door.

Haste tinged his voice.

“You finish up and run this over to Luo, Daisy.”

“Yes.”

Opening the door, Alicia spoke to Daisy.

Daisy swiftly tidied the scattered things.

“His Highness……”

Juan began to speak the moment the door opened.

There was a disturbed misalignment in the face forming the words.

As Daisy was Alicia’s old friend and family, so Juan was Reichardt’s close friend and comrade.

There was no need to ask why his expression was bad—she could tell.

Without hearing more, Alicia left the room.

“I’ll go. Juan, stay here and help Daisy.”

Alicia spoke briefly and dashed off.

Running out of the South Annex toward where Reichardt was, Alicia suddenly regretted something.

“My lady……”

Servants who recognized Alicia bowed, but she could not answer.

If she would not regret more, she wanted to shorten even a single moment.

Around Reichardt’s quarters lay a quiet emptiness.

Having run through the building she had looked over several times before, Alicia headed straight for Reichardt’s room.

Click—the sound of the door opening made the man on the sofa lift his face.

“You’ve come.”

Reichardt spoke with a calm face.

He was about to add, You were quick, when soft fingers curled against his cheek.

A shadow fell over the lips that had just parted to ask if she had run here.

Breathless from running, Alicia’s lips exhaled a quick breath as they touched Reichardt’s lips.

The soft lips that covered the lips about to whisper paused for a moment.

“……!”

Reichardt, too, stopped.

In that moment, he experienced what it meant when people said time seemed to slow, then stop.

The world was too quiet.

Since the age of fourteen, such a world had been rare and special to him.

The surroundings were silent, yet Reichardt’s head was noisy.

Not with the unpleasant noise he always heard.

From far, far away, he could hear the sound of a heart sprinting in after a run.

With the sound of his own heart pounding even harder, his head thrummed.

The sound was so loud he felt Alicia might hear his heartbeat.

In the hush, Alicia gently drew back.

“……I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to……”

Having stepped back a pace, Alicia wore a face that seemed not to quite know what she had just done.

“There’s no need to apologize.”

Reichardt spoke with an expression hard to read.

He was a little out of sorts.

His head was piercingly clear to a strange degree.

At the same time, his heart thudded so hard that the rush of blood made his head tingle with ache.

He rose without realizing it.

Alicia looked at the approaching Reichardt defenselessly.

That ever-astonishing face came close to Alicia’s own.

Then lips touched lips once more.

Like water welling up, a peculiar resonance spread through the violet eyes.

“I’ve said it many times, but—I like you.”

Reichardt stepped back a pace from Alicia and confessed.

“…….”

Alicia’s lips moved as if to open, then closed.

After saying he liked her, Reichardt did not tack on the whisper he always added—Please go out with me.

“I like you, Alicia.”

He did not want to say something ill-timed that would surely be rejected in this moment.

He wasn’t that much of a fool.

After a long silence, Alicia’s lips hesitantly opened.

“Me too…….”

Reichardt was inside a time that had stopped.

Or rather than stopped, the moment flowed so slowly that he could see everything.

The tiny motion of those quivering lips opening after hesitation pierced his gaze in every detail.

He could see clearly the faint tremor in the violet eyes lifted toward him.

The small shiver in the shoulders that vibrated softly with her exhale pained him.

The words in that warm voice felt like the whole world.

For a moment unmoving, Reichardt smiled as he listened to the pounding of his own heart and Alicia’s.

The sound thundered enough to make his head swim, and yet there was not a shred of pain.

Alicia had never seen Reichardt smile so brightly.

The man’s face, spreading a radiant smile, came toward the dazed Alicia.

“Say it again.”

A smiling face hovered right before Alicia’s nose.

“……I—I do, too…….”

Since returning from hell, Alicia had not been ashamed of stammering or getting flustered.

People could make mistakes; they could stumble over words.

When she hesitated whether to speak, she had become someone who could do it when needed.

She had learned to convey what she wanted to say clearly.

A confession—if you did not make it, the other could not know.

Perhaps Reichardt, if he wished, could hear every sound, so he might have guessed.

But hearing a confession from the person’s own lips was clearly different.

Alicia had meant to confess.

But she felt shy and overwhelmed, and her mouth would not open.

So she rode the wave of the other’s confession.

Even if it seemed cowardly, she wanted to convey her heart.

If she could confess again, she believed she could say it properly.

“I like you too, Alicia.”

Reichardt confessed again with a radiant smile.

He did not press or demand.

Running here, Alicia had regretted not confessing to Reichardt.

The future had changed, and anything could happen.

So she had planned to confess the instant she saw his face.