Chapter 51 – A Perfect Recovery

Deborah was the woman praised by the admiring epithet, ‘The Treasure of the Truffaut Royal House.’ And a treasure as precious as she was could only shine still more brightly in the hands of an owner who knew her value. Deborah wanted a man who could make her shine even more than she did now. Marriage was a transaction, and the two parties ought at least to be able to place into each other’s hands something better than what they had before. Otherwise, why bother.

In that sense, the Duke of Guienne was the only man in Laurent who matched Deborah’s level. As a member of a royal house that had fallen out of step with the times, he was the man who could give her the one thing she herself did not possess.

“When did you paint the fountain picture? I heard you are not from here. Then where are you from?”

“I painted the fountain not long ago when I traveled to Laurent. I’m from Manolie.”

“That is the first time I’ve heard of such a place name. What is Manolie famous for? Cheese? Or wine?”

Though she was not truly interested in the topic, Deborah asked the question while studying Sasha carefully. Her sharp instincts were shouting that there was something strange in the atmosphere between these two. The young painter was avoiding the Duke of Guienne’s eyes to an odd degree. The Duke himself, meanwhile, seemed to have no particular interest at all.

‘Ah.’

Deborah smiled brightly, like a rose blooming in the garden of the separate palace wing.

“Perhaps because there isn’t a cloud in the sky today, it feels warmer than I expected.”

No sooner had she shown the slightest sign of being tired from the heat than, naturally enough, the Duke offered Deborah his arm. When she looped her arm through his rather than merely laying a light hand on it, he paused for a moment but did not shake her off. As Deborah began walking arm in arm with him, Sasha’s face darkened behind them.

‘So that was it after all.’

She had seen countless women harbor one-sided feelings for the Duke of Guienne. Adding one more young country painter to the number neither improved nor worsened matters. It simply remained the same.

Indeed, had Sasha clumsily lied and claimed she did not admire Robert, or deliberately exaggerated as though she had no interest in him whatsoever, Deborah might have been suspicious. He was too striking a man for a young and innocent woman not to harbor feelings of that kind.

‘It is not only women who can serve as their husband’s trophy.’

Smiling in satisfaction, Deborah turned her steps toward the lake by the separate palace wing. Sasha Vinoche’s feelings were so clear they were almost transparent, and not threatening in the slightest. If anything, they were faintly laughable.

Sasha Vinoche, in short, was the least threatening sort of rival imaginable. A girl too incapable even of hiding her feelings, who, once cast into society, would before long be devoured as prey. So to Deborah, she was no more than a green child not worth guarding against.

Deborah studied Robert’s expression. There was nothing especially blameworthy in the Duke of Guienne’s manner. He was the same man she had always seen. Faultlessly courteous, flawlessly composed. And yet why did the sight of the Duke together with this young painter grate on her so strangely?

“It must have been difficult for you to come all the way to Laurent. From the village where you live, Miss Vinoche, how many days does it take to get here?”

“Unless the train is delayed, it takes about two days.”

“Two whole days?”

Narrowing the space between her brows, Deborah asked the small, young, pitiable country girl who trailed behind them. In truth, Sasha Vinoche herself was not especially important to her. What mattered was the Duke of Guienne. This was, in a way, a test for him as well.

“There is no direct train from Manolie to Laurent. You have to stop in another city midway and change trains, so it takes longer than you’d think.”

Poor thing, Sasha answered carefully, her face flushed with embarrassment. Though, naturally, she had reason to be embarrassed. No one here would be able to sympathize with her circumstances.

“I am surprised there are still places from which trains do not run to Laurent. Still, do not worry too much. Someday perhaps even Manolie will have a line to Laurent. Wouldn’t you agree?”

In a soft voice, Deborah sought Robert’s agreement.

“If that happens, it would indeed be welcome.”

The Duke, in a voice without much change of feeling, gave the answer required of him. Just as he always had, and as though proving he would continue to remain unshaken in the future as well.

“My, it seems Miss Vinoche is tired already.”

Unlike Robert, Sasha looked utterly unable to endure hearing them speak of their marriage. How pathetically transparent and helpless she was. Deborah reached her conclusion. There was no further need to concern herself with a woman caught in a hopeless one-sided love.

“Your Grace, would it be all right if I asked your driver waiting outside to take Miss Vinoche back first? As for you, I shall have a royal carriage lent to you separately for your return.”

“As you wish.”

At Deborah’s suggestion, Robert agreed as though it were nothing.

“You heard him, did you not? Miss Vinoche, you may return now. It seems we shall meet again next time at the Salon.”

Giving Sasha a graceful instruction, Deborah turned away with her arm still linked through Robert’s. Sasha stood there like a stake driven into the garden of the separate palace wing, staring blankly as the man and woman in riding clothes moved farther away.

Her steps felt heavy. Somehow she felt sorrowful, and yet she felt she ought not to. If Mr. Robert saw her, he would think it laughable. Had she not been the one, only this morning in the automobile, to boldly ask him to keep his distance? Where had that woman gone, the one who had sworn to fold away her feelings?

And yet, was this really a feeling that could simply be folded away? He was the first man she had ever liked in her life. The black hair of the man escorting another woman as he walked away, the color of it glittering in the sunlight, cruelly brought back the moment at the swimming pool of Hawthorn Mansion when he had pulled her into his arms and kissed her fiercely.

Her chest throbbed and her eyes stung. Sasha quietly bit her lip.

‘I’m not sad.’

She repeated it inside her mouth as though reciting a spell. As though doing that would truly make her not sad. Leaving them behind, Sasha walked away bravely. But when her resolve weakened just once and she looked back, she saw in the distance, upon the bridge by the lake, Mr. Robert lifting Princess Deborah at the waist as though embracing her and helping her across. Sasha held her breath and fled from the separate palace wing as though escaping.

* * *

Although he had said that staying at Hotel d’Ecran meant they were bound to run into one another, after that day Sasha did not see so much as a single hair of Robert’s anywhere in the hotel. And she realized that this was his answer to the request she had made in the automobile on the way to the palace that day.

‘It was me who asked him first to do this. This is only natural. What was strange was everything before.’

That day, the day when her first love and her first one-sided love in life had been sentenced to death both by her own choice and by circumstance, she cried for an entire day. And the next day, she emerged with eyes swollen shut and startled the elevator boy, but from the day after that, she dressed as usual and busily roamed around Laurent.

The more Sasha thought of that man, the more busily she wandered the city. She visited Laurent’s post office and sent a letter home saying she had arrived safely in Manolie, then went around sightseeing spots until her feet hurt. By the time evening came and she returned to her room, she would fall asleep at once. Eating well, sleeping well, and walking about well, her sorrow gradually faded too. Because this city was so fast and so complicated that merely standing still and looking at it was enough to make one dizzy.

Yet at the very moment she thought everything was all right, Sasha ran into Robert passing through the lobby of Hotel d’Ecran as if by a lie.

‘Why is he here?’

It was the moment all the time she had painstakingly spent trying to forget him collapsed like a sandcastle facing a wave. Empty as it was, the moment she saw him again, her heart began pounding wildly. Sasha instinctively hid behind a pillar. By the time her heart, flapping like a freshly caught fish, had just barely quieted, she cautiously peered out, but he had already gone.

After that, Sasha sometimes passed the man in the lobby, but he did no more than greet her with his eyes. He did not speak to her or invite her to breakfast as he had before.

* * *

Sasha gripped the strap of the bag slung over her shoulder and ran toward the cafe inside Etienne Forest. The bell in the clock tower had begun to ring, announcing the appointed time. She just barely managed to make it inside the cafe before the bell stopped. Inside the cafe, seated in a sunny spot, was Countess Dubois.

“Madame! Have I kept you waiting long?”

“The weather is lovely, so I came out early on purpose. Walking here has become one of my pleasures these days. So then, where did you go today?”

Countess Dubois pointed to the chair opposite her as if telling Sasha to sit. Catching her breath, Sasha sat down in that chair.

“I took the circular train and went to Grand Bleu.”

“Ah! So you finally went and saw that lake ruin famous for being the most boring place in the world.”

“It was much nicer than people say, though.”

Embarrassed by the Countess’s sharp response, Sasha sturdily defended herself.

“You are the first person I have ever seen come back from there and judge it so generously.”

Clicking her tongue, the Countess ordered an orange juice for Sasha from the waiter who had come over to take their order. In the meantime, Sasha hurriedly pulled a postcard from her bag. In truth, part of the reason she had been late was because she had been drawing this.

After they had happened to meet again at a cafe in Etienne Forest, Countess Dubois had taken a liking to Sasha’s stories of roaming all over Laurent. The Countess had asked Sasha if she might draw the scenery of the places she visited as postcards. She said she wanted to send them to her son’s family, who were stationed abroad at an embassy.

It was not a difficult request at all. Sasha gladly agreed, and now met Countess Dubois once a week at the appointed cafe in Etienne Forest.

“Grand Bleu is far more beautiful seen through your painting.”

Tucking the postcard away with satisfaction, the Countess made an unexpected suggestion.

“Sasha, if you have time this afternoon, would you like to go to a charity concert? Because of rumors that the pianist Leonard Clemens is coming, the price of invitation tickets has already risen more than twentyfold.”