Chapter 47 – Laurent

Sasha had thought Illemang Station was complicated, but it was still nothing compared to Laurent. After getting off the train and checking his pocket watch, Robert took Sasha straight outside. His automobile was waiting in front of the station.

“We meet again, Miss Sasha. How do you feel now that you know His Grace’s true identity? Were you upset to learn you’d been deceived?”

Mr. Raoul Dawson, the lawyer she had met before, joked as he kindly loaded the luggage.

“Not really. Actually, maybe it’s because it still doesn’t feel real yet. Is this His Grace’s automobile?”

With her hands now free, Sasha hovered around the automobile in curiosity as she asked. For Sasha, this was the first time in her life riding in an automobile. It was even her first time seeing one this close in person.

The automobile did not look that different from a covered four-wheeled carriage. Except that the front was somewhat larger, and there was no horse harnessed to it. Fascinated by the latest invention that moved without horses, Sasha carefully opened the door.

“That’s the front seat. Unless you’re the one driving, you should sit in the back.”

Robert warned Sasha, who was fearlessly about to climb into the driver’s seat. Mr. Dawson, who only belatedly noticed what she was doing, stopped loading the luggage and hurried over to open the rear door for her himself. The embarrassment she had to feel in that moment!

Blushing bright red, Sasha quickly climbed into the back seat. A cool burst of laughter rang out from outside the door. When Sasha leaned her head out, Mr. Robert was laughing astonishingly hard, while Mr. Dawson stared blankly as if such a sight from his employer was unfamiliar to him.

Soon, the car carrying the three of them set off smoothly, as if gliding. Raoul drove toward Sainte-Marie Street, where Hotel d’Ecran was located. On the way to the hotel, Robert watched Sasha sitting stiffly rigid. Perhaps because she was nervous, she could not even lean back against the seat, but even so, her pale green eyes, like midsummer, sparkled with curiosity. Sasha could not take her eyes off the scenery passing beyond the window for even a moment.

It wasn’t even her first time here, so what was so fascinating? Robert found that reaction of hers interesting. He even rested his chin on his hand and watched her openly, but Sasha did not notice at all.

“If you want to look outside, shall I open the window for you? The weather today is rather too nice to simply pass by.”

Raoul, who had been observing the mood in the back seat, made the suggestion with quick tact.

“Really, would that be alright?”

“Do as you like. Surely you don’t think I’d say anything over opening a window.”

Robert shrugged. Sasha lowered the window a little. A faint breeze drifted in through the narrow gap. The familiar sound of the engine. The vibration of the wheels transmitted through the smooth leather seat. The busy cityscape of Laurent passing by outside the automobile window, unbearably familiar to Robert. And amid it all, Sasha Vinoche, sitting quietly beside him.

Raoul had been right. The weather today was quite good. Leaning back against the automobile seat, the man slowly closed his eyes. Feeling a languid satisfaction in the fresh orange scent carried on the wind.

* * *

When Sasha arrived at the lobby of Hotel d’Ecran, the huge chandelier glittering as it reflected light in every direction made her shrink in on herself.

‘I don’t know how, when I was little, I could come to places like this and feel nothing at all.’

There was not a single person in the lobby dressed as shabbily as Sasha. Even the guards standing watch by the entrance were wearing sharply pressed uniforms with gold buttons. It truly felt as if she had stepped into another world. Whenever puzzled glances landed on her, Sasha grew embarrassed, like a child who had mistakenly wandered into a ballroom that no one could enter without an invitation.

‘Goodness. Leonarda. My goodness, that’s really the living Leonard Clemens!’

The man seated in the first-floor restaurant was a celebrity in Laurent. To think she would actually come face to face with the womanizer of the century she had only ever seen in newspapers. Seeing him in person, he was far, far more handsome than she had imagined. Had their eyes met? Just as she was unsure, the golden blond man winked his right eye.

‘Wow. Leonard winked at me.’

She was so stunned that it almost felt not like reality, but like a dream. This astonishing event, that Leonard Clemens had winked at her, absolutely had to be included in the letter she had promised to send Eloise.

Her nervousness overcome by excited curiosity, Sasha stealthily looked around. At the paintings on the walls, rendered more beautifully than the real sky, and the marble columns displaying elegant patterns. And the wandering end point of her gaze was always the same place.

The man who ruled this dazzling and extravagant kingdom was calmly speaking with the manager who had rushed out for him. He did not frown even once, yet the manager somehow seemed flustered.

Mr. Robert truly looked like the master of this kingdom. Unlike herself, awkward as though she were wearing someone else’s clothes, he looked natural, as though he had only now returned to where he belonged. Just as Sasha, disheartened by the distant sense of separation, curled her toes inward, the man who had finished speaking with the manager approached.

“Are you finished with your business? I don’t mind waiting a little longer.”

“It concerned your room. I had only told them to prepare a guest room for you, and apparently they thought you were a man, so they brought in the wrong necessities.”

Robert flicked his eyes toward the manager. The uneasy manager cautiously stepped in.

“Please do not worry too much. If you go out this evening, we will quickly replace everything with women’s items. For now, may I guide you to the room you will be using, Mademoiselle?”

The mustached manager, with a politeness so attentive it felt burdensome, volunteered to guide her personally instead of sending a bellboy. Robert, accustomed to this, nodded and then held out his arm toward the creakingly awkward Sasha, who was holding her luggage.

“That’s right. Let’s go up together first. We should put down your luggage.”

“Go up where?”

Seeing the woman standing bewildered in the lavish lobby he had built, Robert let out a laugh. Not even noticing that the flustered manager was staring at him oddly.

“Didn’t you just hear? To the room where you’ll be staying.”

Nodding foolishly, Sasha absentmindedly placed her hand on Robert’s arm and headed toward the elevator. The luggage she had been carrying was politely taken from her by the manager.

The elevator boy, a new hire not long employed, expressed his respect toward the owner of the hotel by asking in a stiff posture and excessively formal tone which floor they were going to. The elevator slowly ascended toward the very top floor of the hotel.

With a cheerful sound, the elevator came to a stop, and the instant she stepped out through the opened doors, Sasha could not hide the exclamation that escaped her.

The room they entered after passing down a corridor covered in a violet carpet was every bit as refined as the lobby. While Sasha, now free from other people’s eyes, looked around in much greater comfort, Robert finished giving instructions to the manager and sent him away.

“Are you staying at the hotel too?”

Sasha caught hold of Robert and asked in a small, anxious voice, like a whining puppy.

“No, I’m going to the apartment where I stay in Laurent.”

At that answer, seeing Sasha visibly relieved, he felt mischievous.

“My apartment is right in front of this hotel, so there’s no need to feel quite so reassured, Sasha. As long as you stay in my hotel, you’re bound to run into me anyway.”

Robert watched her face instantly turn anxious all over again. Watching a woman become flustered by his every word was quite enjoyable. Sasha, so shaken that her thoughts were almost visible on her face, avoided his eyes by pretending to inspect the room.

“Looking around the room is fine, but it would be better to have dinner before all the restaurants close.”

After checking the time once, Robert said it like advice. The hour was fast approaching when the decent restaurants on Sainte-Marie Street would stop taking their last orders.

* * *

By the time they arrived at the upscale restaurant on Sainte-Marie Street, the restaurant’s official cutoff time for accepting its last guests had already passed. Even so, fortunately, upon hearing that the late-arriving guest was none other than the Duke of Guienne, the restaurant manager willingly made an exception and prepared a table. That name could become a special exception on Sainte-Marie Street, and perhaps in this entire city.

‘But who is the woman who came with him? She’s not Madame Eleonore, is she?’

He desperately wanted to quietly ask about the identity of the bright beauty, but he needed to keep his mouth under control. Making a swift decision, the manager selected the most tight-lipped employee to attend them. In order not to offend the young duke, who did not care for gossip or idle chatter.

Meanwhile, after taking her seat, Sasha let her eyes dart around at the atmosphere of the dining room, which, just like the hotel lobby, was filled only with well-dressed guests. She was already intimidated enough, but she was even more flustered when the meal was served immediately instead of a menu. To think there was a restaurant that served food first without even asking what the guest wanted.

The dish she tried with a little distrust widened her eyes at once with its taste. The duck confit especially was, she was sorry to say, so tender that it made her question all the other confits she had eaten before. If the grandmothers had come together with her, they would have loved it.

Thinking of the grandmothers of Manolie, Sasha found herself wishing that one day she could bring both of them here. She did not know how much this dish cost, but it was surely expensive enough to make one’s eyes go wide.

“Mr. Robert, please don’t forget to bill me for the expenses I use while staying in Laurent. I’ll pay you.”

Sasha glanced repeatedly at the man dining across from her, then the instant their eyes met, she brought up the matter she had been thinking about all along.

Grandmother Rollo had said it. You’re an adult now too, and you need to know how to manage money yourself. Before leaving Manolie, Sasha had learned how to go to the bank, and how to withdraw living expenses from her savings account as well. Now Mr. Robert would become the first person Sasha ever paid with money she had withdrawn from the bank all by herself.